Crypto launch, new apps and more!
It’s here...the beginning of a new era for Minds as we finally exit Beta and enter the blockchain.
With this release, we are now one of the only crypto-tokens with a functional, live product, and all of it was made possible because of you. There will be an adjustment period, but with all of your help, we can all become true pioneers of the open and decentralized Internet.
You can learn more about our motivation and what we have built in our Whitepaper or by checking out the new homepage.
Major recent upgrades
Mobile. Brand new native Android app, iOS pending Apple approval
Design. New logo, homepage, navigation, UX, theme and icons
Rewards. Earn crypto for your contributions to Minds
Wire. Monthly crowdfunding subscriptions, tips and rewards
Exclusive Content. Offer exclusive paywalled content for supporters and set reward tiers on your channel
Blogs. Modernized editing platform
Media. HD video hosting, GIF support, images, statuses
Groups. Live conversations, admin tools
Boost. Peer-to-peer advertising, blockchain publishing, get more views
Comments. Engage with other channels, attach multimedia
Notifications. New dropdown menu and push notifications
Emails. Personalize your communication with us in settings
Wallet. Manage your earnings and transactions
Search. Discover channels and content with new autocomplete
Discover. New “Top” feeds of the best daily content and channels
FAQ. Everything you need to know about Minds
Plus. Upgrade your channel and access premium features
Recent press
Bitcoin Magazine. Wefunder. Fox News. Coinsquare. SF Chronicle. Observer.
Blockchain and new rewards
Minds is currently running on Ethereum’s Rinkeby TestNet. For those of you who are new to crypto, Ethereum is a public blockchain that we have integrated with our platform in order to decentralize our payment (Wire) and advertising (Boost) systems. The goal is to provide more transparency, autonomy and control for all of you, our community.
The Testnet phase is necessary to ensure that there are no critical bugs or security vulnerabilities, and that the new reward system is fine tuned. We plan to move onto the Main Ethereum Network as soon as we feel confident that the system is ready and secure which should hopefully be very soon.
Setup for crypto may seem hard to grasp for a first time user, and the new language will test even an experience Internet user. Your input is requested to help us evolve. So, if you have questions or suggestions, please visit our support group. Our team is here to help.
Here are some of the major changes we have made with the latest update:
1. Your Points were converted into “OffChain” tokens
One of the biggest changes we have made is to convert your existing Points balances into what are now called “OffChain” tokens at a rate of 1 token per 1,000 Points. OffChain tokens are not stored on the blockchain, but on Minds servers instead. OffChain tokens work much like Points, carry no transaction fee and are ideal for internal site activity. So, if you had 50,000 points, you will now have 50 OffChain tokens, both worth 50,000 views.
OffChain tokens hold the same exact value and utility that your Points did. You earn them for your contributions to the network, and you can use them to Boost your content for more views (and a chance to earn even more rewards) or Wire to other channels whom you support. If it all still seems confusing, just use your OffChain tokens in the same exact way you used your Points.
2. Rewards will now be distributed once a day as a “Daily Reward Pool”
Moving forward, there will be a “Daily Reward Pool” of tokens that will be distributed each day to everyone who contributed by 2:00 am GMT. You will no longer receive rewards immediately for your activity like you did with the Points system.
Each day, we will give you a “Contribution Score” based on your activity relative to the entire community, and you will earn a percentage of the Daily Reward Pool based on your contributions. At the end of each day, we will deposit your tokens into your OffChain address as your Daily Reward.
Contributions include creating content that receives votes, comments and shares, gaining subscribers, adding code, checking in each hour, finding bugs and more. These contributions all have a weighted score, which you can see in your wallet. We are using the Testnet phase to really fine tune this system and determine the best method for measuring your contributions and distributing the right amount of daily tokens.
3. You need to provide a mobile number to earn token rewards
You may have noticed that we are now asking for a mobile number in order to participate in the rewards program. Please note that Minds does not store the phone numbers you provide. The numbers are hashed using SHA-256 and combined with a salt key. The salt ensures that the numbers can not be matched unless the correct salt is provided.
This step allows for unique count aggregations when querying contribution scores, to help us measure unique engagement and significantly reduce the amount of fraud and abuse of the system with fake accounts. With the new system, you can only earn credit from another user once per metric per day. This is critical to secure the system and counter gaming and abuse such as we observed with the Points system during the Minds Beta.
Additionally, our code is fully open source, so anyone can confirm exactly what we are doing with the data on https://minds.org. For those of you who do not have a mobile phone, we are currently looking into ways to utilize landlines or alternative methods.
As we move deeper into crypto and our rewards become more valuable, it becomes increasingly important that we take all necessary measures to heighten our security and eliminate fraudulent activity. We feel this step protects your privacy and is a necessary to achieve our goal of unique count aggregations and fair rewards for all.
4. Configuring your OnChain address
In your wallet, you will notice the option to configure an “OnChain” address. This is the way you can access your Minds tokens from outside of the Minds platform, but setup is only required if you wish to monetize your channel. As we continue to grow, it is important that our tokens are engineered to be usable across other platforms so that we can continue to work towards further decentralization. If you do not wish to monetize your channel, you do not need to configure your OnChain address and may just use your OffChain tokens the same way you used Points.
On mobile, your device itself can serve directly as your OnChain address. On web, you have the option of using MetaMask (a secure open source Ethereum wallet), your own existing Ethereum address, or creating a new one with Minds. Please reach out in our support group if you have any questions about the onboarding, or if you run into any issues along the way.
All OnChain transactions are published to the public Ethereum blockchain. This means that you must pay a small Ethereum ‘gas’ fee in order to process your transaction. For this reason, our system will deposit test Ethereum tokens into your account when you finish your configuration so that you can try out the OnChain features.
It is important to note that these tokens are running in a test environment, so they only have value on the Minds platform (1 token = 1,000 views). We will release more information in the future about what will happen to these test tokens when we move onto the Main Ethereum Network.
5. We are phasing out our integration with Stripe
One of the more difficult decisions we made was to begin to phase out our integration with Stripe. This means that users can no longer receive new USD payments on Minds. It is important to note, however, that all existing monthly recurring payments will continue to be processed.
The reason we made this change was because we want Minds token to be the fuel for the network. We are currently accepting USD payments for our services during this transition phase so that users will continue to have that option if they would like to Boost, but we plan on moving our business 100% to the token once we go live on the Main Ethereum Network.
Summary
We are extremely excited about this update and feel this new system brings us a lot closer towards our goals of more user control, transparency, decentralization and Internet freedom.
We will be answering all of your questions as best we can in the support group and email, and we encourage all of you to read our Whitepaper in full to better understand our motivation and the full details of our new system. We also have a brand new FAQ for you to help gather the information you need, and a Token 101 page to help you educate yourself on the changes we've made.
Your feedback and participation is essential for us to grow the network, so please be active, ask questions and submit ideas. Let's stay constructive and positive, and we will build something that represents us all.
The Minds Team