"Decentralized Social Networks Are More Interested in How To Store Content Than Quality" Adam Todd

Question: Hi Adam, How’d you explain Blockster to your mom? How’d she react?

The key takeaway about Blockster is that it’s a social platform for cryptocurrency users, and for those interested in learning more about cryptocurrency and finding ways to earn cryptocurrency.

It’s powered by user-generated content and comes complete with a news feed so that users can stay up to date on all the latest action, a blog where they can consume and create content, a cryptocurrency price aggregator so they can track the top coins, and plenty of other features that can be found in other platforms, like group pages, conference calls, videos, etc.

The simple description is that it’s a hybrid between Facebook, Medium, and CoinMarketCap. When I told my Mom that, she understood it at once. It just makes sense right now with so many fragmented social media platforms to consolidate everything crypto under one roof.

Question: You’re a veteran of crowdfunding from the 2017 heydays via Digitex. How would you say the industry has changed as you gear up to begin another token sale?

It was a lot easier to raise money back then. When I started the Digitex token sale, I had no team and no experience and yet I still raised over $5 million dollars in 17 minutes. But when over 90% of the ICOs from that time failed it sobered everyone up and, nowadays, the average investor wants to see more than just a whitepaper and a website before throwing money in. 

Digitex was a rough ride but I never quit and the hard lessons I learned will directly benefit the Blockster project. And unlike Digitex, Blockster is starting out with a working platform and a full-strength team, and a CEO who has already made all the mistakes and learned things the hard way. That’s what today’s token investors want to see and that’s why the Blockster token sale will be a success.

Question: Blockster aims to be ‘the only social media platform dedicated to cryptocurrency users’. How would you compare Blockster to platforms such as Dragonchain, Hive, and Uptrennd?

The key selling point with us is content.

High-quality, curated content in combination with user-generated content. And it’s the quality of the content that is of most importance to us - not whether that content is stored on a blockchain or whether it comes from someone who was allowed to say whatever he or she likes without being censored.

Those other decentralized social networks are more interested in how the content is stored than in whether it’s actually good or not. Blockster is more like a content publication with a bunch of social features where the substance of the content is much more important than the manner in which it is stored.

Question: A common problem we see in the crypto-industry is the scourge of vested interests polluting the space with shilly stories that hoodwink readers. In that context, do you think Blockster would have an editorial policy OR would it prefer to be community-driven OR, is there a middle ground?

More of a middle-ground. The platform is designed to be driven by user-generated content, but initially, we’re partnering with some of the best industry writers to set the standard and to populate our blog, called Blockdesk, with the highest quality content.

We’re creating the graphics and visuals and we’re also editing all the content internally because we want to create a certain level of standard for the quality of content we produce. 

This is the same with influencers, eventually, influencers will flood this space, but in the beginning, we’re working closely with them to set the tone for the content they produce and, more so, the direction we would like to take Blockster in is more on the professional side.

We want the professionals who work behind the scenes of the top cryptocurrency businesses to be on Blockster. Of course, there will be users who will try to scam and shill as you have in any other platform, so we will be actively moderating. We have an experienced team managing this side of our business. 

Question: Coin-Listings and Business Pages are cool and allow crypto-companies to get a leg-up in their seemingly never-ending uphill battle. How does Blockster aim to help such companies while also ensuring that the scammy/shilly ones are weeded out? Will there be a team to review every coin listing across preset parameters?

Yes, we have a dedicated moderation team very experienced with such work. Blockwatch and data feeds are an interesting addition to Blockster. Given the recent price oracle attacks, how does Blockster protect the integrity of its data feed? 

Blockwatch pulls its data from the APIs of CoinMarketCap and CoinGecko. Also, our users are not doing transactions on our platform based on this data, it's merely a display of current market prices for the top 500 coins.

So it’s unlikely that attackers would want to mess with Blockwatch. But as an added layer of protection, we will soon be partnering with a well-known supplier of decentralized price feeds to act as a backup feed should anomalies be detected.

Question: Groups and Messaging truly help build communities. Glad to see Blockster offer that. However, given our politically charged atmosphere and the shitposting subculture, how would Blockster combat online harassment and takedown illegitimate content?

Blockster aims to become the place where professionals from the cryptocurrency industry come to learn, share, and network. Harassment and shitposting do not fit into that culture and our moderators will be working actively to maintain a culture that is conducive to our users’ goals.

We do not have clear policies yet on what action we will take in certain circumstances because we want to react to what is actually happening and make informed decisions at the time but know that we aim to create a certain type of professional culture and we will work tirelessly to achieve that.

Question: Advertising Blockchain projects has always been done by traversing the seedy underbelly due to the powers-that-be, like Google, controlling advertisements on their network. In that sense, what will Blockster do to ensure that the crypto-companies get the advertisements they’re looking for, at a price that does not break the bank?

I know from first-hand experience how difficult it is to buy quality traffic and advertise as a crypto company. It’s almost impossible to reach a quality audience because every major source of traffic treats us like a pariah.

Blockster will change that with our self-serve ads platform that allows any legitimate cryptocurrency project to advertise to our users. There’s massive pent-up demand from crypto companies for access to an audience like ours. 

Regarding pricing, advertisers will bid for the ad spots they want, meaning that market forces determine the cost per click or cost per impression. The important thing for us to get right is that we show relevant ads that our users will actually find interesting or informative and that aren’t seen as intrusive or annoying.

Users can easily sign up to and use our platform completely anonymously so our ads platform will not have the same level of targeting sophistication that the major social networks have. 

Question: What activities can I expect to do with a BXR token?

The primary utilities of the BXR token revolve around advertising. Crypto companies interested in reaching our crypto-focused audience need to buy BXR because it is the only accepted currency for buying ads. And users who are interested in receiving a 20% share of all our ad revenues will buy BXR to stake it into our ads revenue sharing program. 

In this way, these two large and distinct groups of users will constantly be competing against each other for an ever-diminishing supply of BXR (diminishing because 5% of all BXR spent on ads are burned every month).

You can also tip content creators using BXR, you can send it instantly and at no cost to other Blockster users and, in the future, you can participate in community governance decisions about the platform.

Question: Are there any plans to extend support to other Blockchains such as BSC, Polkadot, Solana, etc?

Yes.

Question: Where can interested individuals/companies sign up for the beta? When can we expect the launch?

You can read more about the Blockster platform at blockster.com/about-us and from there you can signup to join our waitlist. The waitlist just went viral and over 60,000 people have already joined :)

At the end of June we will be opening up the platform to the first 1000 users and then shortly after that, we’ll be opening it up to more and more users as we fix whatever small bugs and issues are discovered during this onboarding process.

But if you’re a crypto company or a content creator/author/influencer please contact us directly and we’ll let you in ahead of the crowds.