by Anthony Back, Harsh Patel, Collin Thompson and Intrepid Ventures
Introduction
Metabase A blockchain platform to build, scale, and monetize next-generation businesses
v1.2 – March 2018
Table of contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 01 A note from our Managing Director - Collin Thompson. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 01 Blockchain Startups. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 02 Where we are. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 02 The rise of crypto. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 03 Crypto 2.0. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 04 Why we’re building Metabase. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 05 The challenges. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 05 Demographic shifts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 05 Financial inequality and access . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 06 Resource allocation and environmental ecosystems. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 06 Globalization and trade. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 07 Corporate consolidation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 07 Digital security, sovereignty, and privacy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 07 The way forward. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 07 For entrepreneurs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 08 For small business. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 08 For enterprise. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 08 For government. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 08 First principles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 09 Design scope. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 09 Design principles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 09 Building the future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Introduction Metabase is a scalable and modular blockchain platform for developing decentralized applications and next-generation businesses. Starting with a systems design perspective, and the premise that there are currently no comprehensive blockchain platforms for developing simple to complex applications on a robust digital infrastructure, Metabase is the first truly extensible blockchain system for running distributed applications across a variety of use cases. Metabase supports modular consensus protocols, a dynamic proposition for scaling public blockchain protocols, providing crypto economic equilibriums, as well as increasing usability, which allows the system to be tailored to a broad range of use cases and trust models. This introduction describes Metabase and the rationale driving our design decisions, our proposed model, its application, and our proposed innovations.
A note from our Managing Director Collin Thompson Blockchain technology, cryptocurrency, and decentralized systems have promised to unlock new sources of value and create a near frictionless global economy. However, there are problems with the accessibility of the technology and culture at a time of unprecedented interest. Over the course of the last five years, as one of the leaders at Intrepid Ventures, I have embarked on the process of moving from a crypto-lamen to arguably someone knowledgeable and well versed in the technology. This did not come without hard work, confusion, skepticism, and a lot of research. I was lucky enough to be able to speak to people like Vitalik, Gavin Wood, Joseph Lubin and Jutta Steiner early in my journey. They were all very open minded, encouraging and receptive to different perspectives on topics and contributions to the wider blockchain pantheon. I’m afraid that this is not the typical story. Many people are forced to wade through a deluge of (mis)information that sloshes through the blogosphere, making it difficult to understand and participate in the opportunities that cryptocurrency, blockchain, and decentralized applications are driving. Unfortunately, this keeps too many diverse, curious, and capable minds from making a meaningful contribution or finding acceptance in the crypto community, 01
industry, or the world at large.
Blockchain Startups As part of our learning, which is deeply embedded in our company, we have tried to make blockchain technology accessible to all. We introduced Blockchain Startups, a global cryptocurrency and blockchain startup community which is now about 7,000 people across 15 ecosystems around the world. We connect founders and developers through engaging live events and insightful online experiences, where our goal is to inspire people to master blockchain technology and help develop leaders in communities around the world. Instead of building a product and then trying to find “customers” or “users” for that product, we decided as outsiders that we would build a helpful, inclusive and diverse community that shared our interests and journey. Through the experience of building communities around the world, we gathered a lot of insight around what people transitioning from traditional industries and backgrounds wanted out of their lives, a community and blockchain technology. We listened and learned. Then started building a comprehensive blockchain and suite of tools designed to bring much-needed accessibility and inclusivity to the blockchain and cryptocurrency space. Our first step is to make it possible for any credible team to build, grow, and monetize blockchain applications with ease. We’re creating a new cryptocurrency and blockchain technology, called Metabase, for entrepreneurs and innovative companies to build next-generation businesses.
Where we are For the first time in history, peer-to-peer transactions and collaboration between members of complex, geographically dispersed networks are coming of age. Although in its infancy, a new world without economic gatekeepers, central authorities, and costly middlemen is emerging and bubbling under the surface.
Rising out of the ashes of the 2008 global financial crisis, pioneers of cryptocurrencies and decentralized systems have begun building global collaborative net02
works where value is transacted and automated. These pioneers have helped legitimize decentralized systems, cryptocurrency, and the collaborative community model by showcasing their potential to add dramatic value to self-organizing systems as well as potentially, the global economy. Along with this, they have also highlighted the inefficiencies and inequity inherent in the centralized economic architectures of today. We require a new paradigm in thinking that castes out the old command and control systems of industry and innovation that rose from the modern industrial age, to reform into a way forward with decentralized systems and cryptocurrencies that can power our systems more equitably.
The rise of crypto Emerging in 2009, the cryptocurrency Bitcoin and its core operating technology, a blockchain, has laid the foundation for a new era of digital peer-to-peer transactions. Bitcoin has gained legitimacy among millions of people around the world, and even some governments. Bitcoin is now accepted, managed, and sustained by a vast international community as a platform to exchange value. While Bitcoin offered one specific application of blockchain technology, a peer to peer electronic cash system that enables online payments (transfers of value), the advent of the Ethereum open software platform, served to realize the broader potential of blockchain technology beyond Bitcoin — the first generation of autonomous decentralized applications. Ethereum offered a platform with a native cryptocurrency called “Ether” for developers to build any decentralized application by moving past basic “contracts of difference” toward autonomous agent contracts. In doing so, it opened up a world of unimagined decentralized possibilities, where more complex constructs of value can be built, transferred, and managed with greater ease and transparency. We’ve seen developments beyond these two central archetypes, but the innovations have been piecemeal and singular in their approach, highlighting features that are appealing to blockchain insiders, but not providing a comprehensive solution to the prevailing problems that blockchains and cryptocurrencies face - especially relating to usability, applicability, and adoption. Despite the cultural, institutional resistance, and setbacks in the form of accessibility, hacks and scalability impacting the adoption of these and other blockchain and cryptocurrency applications, a clear and often overlooked success story is unfolding. 03
Collaborative communities of unprecedented scale are developing game-changing applications. Startups, industry, and governments are investing in and using blockchain technology to build and deploy decentralized applications across diverse use cases. A thriving global ecosystem of permissionless innovation and grassroots collaboration is emerging where individuals can create and fund decentralized applications without relying on traditional sources of investment. Together, Bitcoin and Ethereum have proven that blockchain technology, decentralized systems, and global collaborative communities can work. Both these seminal platforms stand as representations of a decentralized future filled with endless possibilities only held back by our imaginations, fears, and our ability to access resources of innovation that have never been utilized before. The human capital of diverse minds and skill sets.
Crypto 2.0 Vast improvements and innovations are needed to meet the promise of blockchain technology, which is fundamentally impacted by accessibility. To fully utilize the power of cryptocurrency, blockchain technology, and decentralized applications, we require comprehensive bottom-up solutions that match complicated societal and cultural systems. The enablement of collaborative technology driven communities at different scales interacting with modern forms of decentralized governance and other organizations in a nested system that accelerates personal sovereignty, financial inclusion, sustainable development, and a movement toward a more circular system of collaboration and consumption. Much like the early days of the Internet, blockchain technology, cryptocurrency, and decentralized systems today remain inaccessible to a broad and diverse group of users. While emerging blockchain technologies have revolutionized usability among an elite developer community, it has fallen short of making the development of cryptocurrency, blockchain technology, and decentralized applications easy and accessible to entrepreneurs and innovators, regardless of their technical acumen or literacy. The time has arrived to take decentralized applications, which have shown so much promise in Bitcoin and Ethereum, to the next level. We’re building the Metabase cryptocurrency and blockchain platform from the ground up to empower the world’s most underused resource — entrepreneurs. 04
A platform that enables a broad and diverse group of entrepreneurs and innovators to build blockchain powered decentralized applications and scale next-generation businesses that can impact global society.
Why we’re building Metabase We’re developing Metabase to solve some of the world’s biggest challenges by accessing the untapped ingenuity of innovators around the world. We’re making it much easier for the average technologist to leverage the power of blockchain technologies. Powerful technological, social, and economic shifts are impacting individuals, industry, nations and the global economy. Legacy financial institutions, governments, and other power centers which play ‘gatekeeper’ roles in the economy are exacerbating social challenges and innovation shortages, as their inherent makeup impedes entrepreneurship and innovation at scale. As a result, world-changing ideas are being left unrealized at a time when they are needed most. We believe that cryptocurrency and blockchain technology can be a foundation for innovation that if constructed to empower individuals from global diasporas, and at varying levels of capabilities, will be able to inspire invention to address some of the world’s most pressing issues.
The challenges Demographic shifts The world is getting older, especially in developed countries. The world’s aging population is placing a strain on government’s ability to provide basic services, especially in Healthcare. In the developing world, particularly Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, future demographic challenges center around high population growth coupled with a trickle down of innovations that are driving a rapidly growing middle-class. More resource-efficient services and new infrastructures that can provide high-quality services at a low cost are needed.
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Financial inequality and access Without access to formal financial services, approximately 2/3 of the world’s population will remain excluded from advancements that bring much needed social and economic stability. For hundreds of millions of low-income people, access to formal financial services will mean the continuation of real economic growth and formal inclusion into the global economy. A move toward a new era of openness, decentralization and global inclusion where the elimination of intermediaries and significant inefficiencies lead to the ready availability of financial products for individuals with varying needs is a necessity. The inability of governments to administer and keep official records of identity and property has continued the cycle of illegitimacy and poverty. It has also lead to stagnant wealth creation and large unregulated informal economies. Fragmented and siloed government record keeping systems that lack interoperability need to be replaced by a decentralized cryptocurrency; a transparent and incorruptible digital infrastructure that empowers financial inclusion and solidifies property rights to end wide scale informal economies and poverty. If accessible and comprehensively implemented, blockchain technology can be the enabler to reverse the cycle of stagnation that continues to exclude people from the benefits of global economic growth, making too many vulnerable to social upheaval and disaster.
Resource allocation and environmental ecosystems The dominant linear model of consumption which relies on large quantities of exhaustible resources has become unfit for the global realities we face. Consumption patterns are coming up against resource constraints. These challenges are compounded by rising demand from the world’s growing, increasingly affluent population, and the imbalance of distribution. The unsustainable overuse of resources and the ensuing destruction of the environment is leading to insecurity and leaving many parts of the world uninhabitable. Environmental destruction is also causing economic volatility in global markets. Powering long-term economic value creation requires the ability to harness under-utilized human capital and technology to create sustainability for our existing resources while creating new opportunities for our future.
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Globalization and trade We have arrived in a more interconnected, global, and complex world. Global trade flows have increased dramatically leaving governments and their citizens to tackle increasingly complex, multi-jurisdictional issues arising from a lack of transparency and interoperability. We need to move from linear to circular economies through secure and sovereign P2P cryptocurrency transactions of value. We must allow transparency and immutability that enable individuals and organizations to circulate and recapture value from their underused assets and facilitate the transition from finite resource usage to the sustainable.
Corporate consolidation Today most industries are oligopolistic. Corporate consolidation is having a negative impact on global innovation. Recent years have seen records set for corporate mergers and acquisitions. The trend toward heavily consolidated industries is resulting in less incentive to innovate as competition is on the decline. Increasing competition by enabling innovation from smaller challengers will not only create more consumer choice but also reallocate wealth to those who can harness technology and human ingenuity. It is imperative that the tools for innovation are evenly distributed and accessible if we are to make progress on our greatest challenges.
Digital security, sovereignty, and privacy For individuals, industry, and government, the world has entered a time of unprecedented risk and complexity. Data breaches have impacted companies and government agencies around the world. From Yahoo, Sony, and Target, to the NSA and US Department of Defense, sophisticated hackers are stealing highly sensitive data on an unprecedented scale. These breaches have caused significant losses in productivity, decreased consumer trust and immeasurable financial and political costs. There is a need for an advanced approach that provides a new level of data security and sovereignty.
The way forward To truly democratize global entrepreneurship and drive innovation we must provide founders, and small business owners access to tools which make the creation, development, and scaling of next-generation businesses feasible and impactful. At its core, Metabase is a cryptocurrency and blockchain platform that is ideal for 07
today’s entrepreneurs to create tomorrow’s businesses. Metabase empowers innovators around the world to advance positive change through technological means, by offering a platform for frictionless innovation, which makes the development of new businesses easy and accessible regardless of technical ability or prerequisite knowledge. Metabase is our aspiration to help entrepreneurs, small business, and enterprise build their business to be future-proof and sustainable using blockchain technology to make a positive impact and provide the requisite tools to power prosperity.
For entrepreneurs Metabase will provide an innovative cryptocurrency and blockchain toolset to build, collaborate, grow and monetize new businesses. From concept to development and monetization at rapid speed, founders can drive their creations forward and deliver new products and services quicker than ever before.
For small business Metabase delivers enterprise-grade solutions that enable scalability and robustness. The platform seeks to eliminate technological hurdles that impede transformation when responding to change and trying to maintain sustainability.
For enterprise We are witnessing the beginning of a global ecosystem of innovation and industrial collaboration. Collaborative industry consortiums are remodeling the competitive arena, developing game-changing applications. Enterprises that are progressive, and that can embrace change, will also be able to utilize Metabase to reinvent themselves and create sustainable futures.
For government A smart nation will be equipped with an anti-fragile digital infrastructure that facilitates innovation and powers the evolving services and outcomes their citizens demand. Metabase will be a comprehensive blockchain infrastructure that enables industrial, private/public collaboration, ensuring an economy works to the benefit of all stakeholders in a society.
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First principles As a company of people from diverse backgrounds, geographies, and cultures our perspectives on what a comprehensive blockchain solution should be are shaped by our unique experiences on what a good solution is — applied to a specific problem. Within this framework, we propose that Metabase should be a solution that makes it easier for entrepreneurs and innovators, regardless of their background, to be able to build next-generation blockchain powered businesses.
Design scope We started with the system dynamics of what we think would be a suitable toolset for cryptocurrency and blockchain platform innovation. We followed a 3-D approach to designing a system that, within a framework, serves the needs of entrepreneurs trying to solve some of the world’s toughest problems using the ideals and promise of blockchain and decentralized technologies. We began to imagine a cryptocurrency and blockchain platform that was able to manage the best aspects of value storage, velocity, and a medium of exchange when designing the framework for its economic policy. When designing a protocol that would facilitate better industrial and social constructs, we decided early on that our offer to the blockchain ecosystem would be based on advanced thinking in Human Systems as opposed to rigid technocracy. All of this while maintaining collaborative communities will require cryptographic mechanisms that maintain security and sovereignty in ways that reinvent our current systems and accentuate the benefits of blockchain technology.
Design principles There have been some excellent contributions to blockchain innovation in the last few years. We seek to follow in the tradition with our contribution, from our own perspective, that will provide an alternative to innovators in our growing space. We continued our design scope to encompass values in building our system that put broad accessibility and usability at the forefront to make cryptocurrency and blockchain technology more widely pervasive. Keeping in mind that our community is diverse in culture, heritage, and perspectives, but uniquely valuable all at the same time. We also believe that the protocol and underlying technology should be easy to understand. Too many people after years of reading, conferences, and courses still have mis09
construed notions of what a cryptocurrency or blockchain is, and what it is not. Most times, the industry moves so fast that many fundamental areas of understanding get skipped for the novelty of what the industry seems to promise. The notion that a blockchain or a cryptocurrency is a panacea for industries ad infinitum is a mythology, and we believe that like all other industries, design decisions and differentiation, will add to the diversity of the industry and help it grow. Holding the first two principles as axiomatic, we also believe that to achieve this the Metabase platform must be secure by design. This assurance must be built into the system so that it is innocuous without infringing on the first two principles. The current dominant design in the cryptocurrency and blockchain pantheon is still based on “Proof of Work� consensus. Although effective, it is not sustainable and inexpensive, which is a principle we believe must be embedded in our protocol design to reach the broadest adoption from a variety of different perspectives and blockchain innovators. It has also become apparent that one of the major areas overlooked in decentralized systems is new forms of transparent governance. We believe this area demands greater innovation. As a result, we have made this fundamental to our ambitions and within the traditions of innovation of the blockchain community. Blockchain protocols, cryptocurrency, and decentralized applications are transforming industry and our notions of governance. However, within this transition, we still need to adhere to rules and norms through real-world legal integration with the ambition that proper implementation and adoption will create accepted practices when interacting with decentralized and autonomous applications. We’re building our protocol to last and create value for years to come. Given the rapid advancements in cryptocurrency and blockchain technology, we foresee that platforms that are agnostic and interoperable will have the best chance of enduring and creating the most value for entrepreneurs, industry, and governments. Lastly, and aligned with our mission and community, we believe that a blockchain protocol should be modular and configurable. Providing flexibility for different microservices that can offer a range of benefits for use cases that we have not imagined yet.
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Building the future From the beginning of our small company, we have aligned ourselves to be a blockchain venture studio that designs and builds new businesses. An anti-disciplinary and globally distributed team of designers, engineers, and social scientists building the future of blockchain technology. Metabase is our first foray to create tools that empower entrepreneurs, challenger enterprises, and governments, to help them build blockchain organizations for scale, market leadership, and sustainability. As a contrarian and progressive culture of independent thinkers and systematic executors, we are driven to build cool things that matter. Metabase is still a project in its early stages of development. If you feel like Intrepid and the Metabase project is something that you would like to get involved with, we are looking for people who have a passion for blockchain technologies, and aspire to make an impact in their life and career.
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