Before tokenomics can be designed, a specific use case needs to be defined.
What do we want to achieve?
- Incentivize health data sharing and usage
- User/Community engagement and retention
- Sustain long-term interest in the product
- Provide a sustainable business model to prevent price dumping
- Reward early participants and contribution
- Funding for the project
- Showcase the tech stack and utility of the underlying CureDAO framework
To address all the points listed above, the key is: Interest
Now, how can we spark and keep interest alive? The answer is: Gamification
The following thoughts are meant to provide tokenomics and a use case for CureDAO.
It might not be the best use case for the underlaying and utilized tech stack of CureDAO. Hence, the interest and gamification are user-centric and will likely not provide the interest and framework needed for VCs to be interested in investing (delay for revenue, unique business model proposition)
The CureDAO framework and technology would enable many different use cases, but coming from an end-user perspective, data aggregation, sharing, and monetarization are the clear aspects they are interested in.
The tokenomics and gamification therefore always need to address the following questions:
- Why should users share their data?
- What´s the benefit of sharing (sensible) health data?
- Why should they use the product/CureDAO?
- What keeps users interested? (short-term, long-term)?
There are several options and levels of gamification that can be applied to answer the questions above.
- NFTs:
- Undoubtful, NFTs are incredibly interesting from a gamification aspect. Although the recent hype might have slowed down a bit, NFTs still are now relatively mainstream and can easily be gamified.
- One of the most important aspects of NFTs on gamification is visibility. Visibility addresses the aspect of ownership (you can see your NFT in your wallet, transfer it, and create a physical copy by printing it out). But visibility addresses not only the aspect of ownership but rather the aspects of exclusivity and collectivity too. But are incredibly strong from an end-user experience and gamification point of view. As collectivity and exclusivity are very important and closely related to scarcity, those metrics will be discussed in the next section.
- In many projects, holding a certain number of coins or tokens will grant you exclusive benefits. This effect further addresses the aspects of collectivity and provides specific targets (levels) to aim for. NFTs can simply these aspects by holding just a single NFT granting you certain benefits
- The perks of holding an NFT vary between projects, but the following point should be suitable for CureDAO:
- Merchandise (Hoodies, T-shirts, Sticker; Ledger wallets are rather basic)
- More (CureDAO) specific would be something like access to certain tests (e.g. Opencures, Supplements, educational material, courses (longevity; ageless partners), genetic testing (collaboration based), wearables (oura ring or Fitbit, etc.))
- Specific app icons (design feature)
- Priority access to new features (beta-testing)
- Priority access to clinical studies:
- As clinical studies of some kind will have a limited number of participants, due to the limited number of new products being tested, a certain percentage could be reserved for NFT holders. For example, 30 % could be reserved and places could be distributed by a lottery system.
- NFT holders channel in Discord to have a direct connection to the team and priority customer service (if needed)
- As leveling has a very strong gamification effect, there should be certain levels to achieve. in combination with NFTs, the following points could be implemented:
- By implementing upgrade functionality for the NFTs, people would have an incentive to not only hold the NFT but rather keep buying CureDAO tokens. There could be certain requirements to level up:
- Holding an NFT
- Holding a certain amount of CureDAO tokens
- Having participated in certain events (data shared xx times; participation in xx clinical trials
- Leveling up an NFT would grant different benefits:
- Visual effects for the NFT
- Depending on what kind of NFT is chosen (e.g., Avatar, generative art), this would further provide significant gamification aspects. If for example, the NFT is an avatar (e.g. like Mebots), leveling up would provide a huge incentive to see the “final Form” and follow the development of the NFT owned (pokemon; Tamagotchi effect)
- Leveling up the NFT should provide monetary incentives too. If staking is implemented (or payment based on NFT holding without staking), a token multiplier should be implemented. this could look like this for example:
- NFT level 0: 1,0; No multiplier
- NFT level 1: 1,1x; 10% more tokens
- NFT level 2: 1,2x; 20% more tokens
- …..
- Depending on the overall mechanism and the maximum level, the multiplier percentage could decrease per level:
- NFT level 2: 1,19x; 19%
- NFT level 3: 1,28x; 28%
- To increase the interest in leveling up the NFT, certain levels should grand additional benefits for holders. About the perks of holding an NFT, some of them could be linked to certain NFT levels. For example, you would have a higher chance to be selected for a limited trial or beta testing. Furthermore, some “simple” analysis could be offered for lover levels, whereas some more expensive genetic testing would be offered only after reaching high levels. This would work with general merchandise too.
- One other major advantage of leveling up the NFTs will the requirement of a certain amount of CureDAO governance tokens is the introduced token burn. To sustain a long-term interest in the project (which for many people will be highly connected to the token price), give an additional value proposition to the token, and help to sustain a higher token price/prevent token price to decrease too much gradually over time, a token burn or deflationary model is the best way to do so. The token burn connected to the NFT upgrading will likely not lead to significant tokens being burned (depends on the overall levels, the amount of NFTs, etc.) but it will add to the overall process of buying back and token burn mechanism.
- One of the major advantages of an early CureDAO NFT sale would be the possibility to receive early funding, without having to distribute tokens or depending on the overall structure, sell shares to VCs. Depending on the calculated funding needed, we could sell a very limited number of NFTs. The total number should depend on different factors:
- The current state of the overall market
- Overall follower count (will not make much sense trying to sell 1000 NFTs if that is bigger than the overall community)
- Psychological factors (e.g., 0.25 ETH seems low compared to 10.000 ONE)
- The required funding (e.g. 250K)
- An NFT sale will have the advantage to reward very early contributors (whitelist or gift) and provide the opportunity to engage will partners/influencers (e.g. hand over certain NFT for core members at other biomedical DAOs).
- As initial funding through NFTs will likely precede functionality and core features of the NFT, the following points should be kept in mind:
- Clear communication with the community about given NFT functionality at every stage of the roadmap (to prevent loss of reputation and credibility)
- Setting milestones with specific rewards for early backers/NFT holders
- Use non-token and core functionality benefits to keep backers happy (e.g. the perks listed above; Online events, tests from partners, a channel for verified NFT holders, early access for testing, etc.)
- After the first NFT sale (generation 0), all other NFT sales (if there are any) should be a new generation with distinct features to provide exclusivity and scarcity (explained next)
- Scarcity
- As already mentioned previously, the aspects of scarcity, exclusivity, and collectability are very important in terms of gamification. CureDAO could address those points by keeping different things in mind:
- To allow early fundraising through NFTs and granting those backers special perks, by still allowing further fundraising and a more inclusive overall community, NFTs should be sold or distributed in different generations (with limited quantity and availability from a time perspective). Working with generations would make it more interesting for collectors and would give earlier NFTs value. This would be one of the selling points for early backers and would help to give out certain rights to different generations very easily. This gamification aspect is currently found in games featuring game/battle passes or seasons and is used to provide long-term interest in the project and constant revenue.
- People love to show off and feel “better” than others. Although this personality trait might be questionable, it is a strong aspect of why gamification is working. This aspect can be addressed in different ways:
- Display early backers on a special part of the webpage
- Shoutouts to certain members by highlighting their achievements (interviews for example could be used for content and why they want to share data etc. too)
- Special contests with NFT leaderboards
- Access to exclusive studies like those discussed previously
- Other projects create (artificial) scarcity by limiting the accessibility to the product (e.g. invitation codes). In the case of CureDAO, where the overall purpose is to be inclusive and motivate as many people as possible to contribute, I would **not **use this mechanism.
- Visible results:
- Visible results are another important aspect of gamification. It is not only used in the gaming sector but rather is an important aspect of human psychology and is therefore crucial to be addressed. This aspect is closely intervened with previous aspects (e.g. leveling, showing off). In games, the aspect of visible results is addressed in different ways, including evolving (e.g. Pokemon), special gear (e.g. WoW), or ranking systems (e.g. CS GO, CoD). If we look at the current health or well-being sector, one of the prominent examples of visible results is the activity application from Apple. Not only do you see how many calories were burned or how many steps you have taken, you rather see closing rings that have a very motivating aspect. The ability to receive badges and “win” monthly competitions, further addresses gamification and creates visible results. CureDAO could address this aspect by implementing some of the following points:
- Upgraded NFTs, levels, badges, leaderboards, and merchandise
- By design, CureDAO will address this aspect by aggregating data and making it easier to see progress or changes. Therefore the (high-quality) visualization of user data needs to have a very high priority in the overall product design.
- If possible, people should be able to see, how often their data has been used and in which trial. (in case there is an option for using my data for every trial; rather than giving access to it on a trial per trial basis). One of the strongest effects here would be to see how many people the research has benefitted (subject to later implementation, if ever). This could be linked to special badges or specific perks after reaching a certain threshold.