Citizen Science Blockchain
Darwin Ledger
8th August 2018
Contents
Lord Peter Mellor
From the Founder
3 Founder Message 4 Intro 5 Purpose of the White Paper 6 Darwin Ledger 10 The User Adopter Model 12 CryptoSpecies 14 Future Uses 19 Visualising Data 21 How to Invest 25 The Token 27 Commercial Model
have spent my entire life photographing and researching specimens in nature, originally as a kid, trying to replicate the Swan River in my home aquarium, then during my BSc undergraduate and postgraduate studies and later as Scientist trying to manage and mitigate the effects of resource mega projects in Western Australia, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Timor Leste, Singapore and some of the most remote parts of Africa. People are naturally conservationist and take an active interest in nature from an early age. The popularity of Steve Irwin and David Attenborough illustrated our ongoing interest in human interaction with life on Earth. However, it has been difficult, if not near-impossible for the general public to contribute meaningfully to science. To date mobile technology has allowed anyone to snap a great photo of an interesting bird or species of fish, but that is where it used to end. Thankfully, recent advances in blockchain's distributed ledger technology will allow everyone to contribute. Our tools have been designed to allow anyone to contribute to science whether as a formally trained scientist like me or a nature lover like my mother. Now, you can instantly upload your sighting; have artificial intelligence confirm the species, location, date and time; then preserve the record in the blockchain, an open source IMMUTABLE database - all while earning tokens for your efforts.
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I
Taxonomy, the field of identifying species, has been sniffily dismissed as mere stamp collecting, but this attitude belies an ignorance of what it means to correctly identify species and the importance of taxonomy for out relationship with the natural world. These are the fundamental units of biology, much as elements are for chemistry. Imagine the complexity of trying to work out chemical reactions and likely patterns and processes without recognising that some substances were composed of a single element, and others were mixtures or compounds. If we cannot identify and separate out species, the rest of biology is rather left floundering. This might still seem like something only of interest and relevance to academics, but the implications are much more broad. A farmer needs to know which weed it is that has invaded his plot and what pesticide to use, or which flies might blight his livestock. If you are ever bitten by a snake or spider you should hope the species can be correctly identified or the anti-venom administered may be incorrect. A new plant extract may yield revolutionary new antibiotic, but are we sampling one species or two that look alike? A new mosquito is spreading, but is it a malaria carrying species or not? Thank-fully a merger of blockchain and artificial intelligence technology provides the solution. This revolutionary technology provides an historical fabric underneath man's relationship with nature; recording everything that happens, recognising relevant data then stitching that data into encrypted blocks that can never be modified, scattered across a worldwide network of distributed computers or "nodes." Simply take a photo of a mystery critter using your cellphone and our crypto-critter app will tell you what it is linking your cellphone to the Darwin Ledger blockchain will allow you to populate the citizen science blockchain and even earn bounties in the form of Darwin tokens for doing so. This document provides a written outline of how we envision the Darwin Ledger ecosystem to grow, technical aspects of our blockchain and a basic overview of our road map. The original funding for this project raised through an exchange of seeded Darwin Ledger tokens for alternative cryptocurrencies is dedicated to further development of the Darwin Ledger Core and build use cases to surround it. A general overview of the initial commitment is provided for distribution to participants of the Darwin Token Exchange Campaign (Darwin-TEC).
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Introduction
Internet of Things linking to the blockchain
T
Enabling citizen science
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"The advances in revolutionary blockchain technology have made this project possible!"
he legendary naturalist John Muir once wrote: “Whenever I met a new plant, I would sit down beside it for a minute or a day, to make its acquaintance, hear what it had to tell.” The first step to making an acquaintance is to get a name—and naming nature is not easy. The Darwin Ledger team will develop tools to: 1) capture critters using an app –saving the photo, location date and time into the metadata. 2) Validate the authenticity, the species and metadata. 3) Place the raw data into the blockchain and database. 4) Develop tools for the searching of the data to help advance biology. 5) Flag species that need to be checked by delegated Proof of stake holders, which may represent a new species or a range extension. 6) Earn bounties for rare and endangered species where scientists agree a new sighting adds value to science. 7) Connect with others The most powerful wellspring of fun in the project's design is how it cultivates social engagement. There are several astute design choices that make for increased collaborative fun and interaction. For one thing, everyone who shows up to collect a creature at a location can catch a copy of that creature if they want. So players have motivation to communicate with one another and share locations of creatures, engaging in deeply collaborative rather than competitive play. Not all gamers like fierce competition, so the collaborative aspects of the "game" broaden its appeal. For those who do love competition, the Darwin Ledger bounty structure allows for friendly rivalry and challenge. The consensus process afforded by a Delegated Proof of Stake blockchain makes it easy to set up a team encouraging collaboration. Blockchain technology is rapidly evolving. Ethereum first brought us smartcontracts, Ark brought us smartbridges then Cryptokitties brought us the first killer decentralised application in the form of a virtual pet marketplace. Darwinledger will combine all 3 bringing us the crypto species mobile app bridged to the worlds first citizen science database. An immutable record of unique time and location stamped specimen data is invaluable. Range extensions, new species and outcomes of scientific information will be conserved with the following peer-reviewed consensus driven bounty structure designed to encourage continued database entry and evolution of the Darwin Ledger. Current Bounty structure is proposed as follows: Scientist/ every day user top 100 most wanted Bounty hunter leader board (Darwin awards) educational e.g. school field days Vermin control x /area = bounty Geospatial mapping Litter: recycling validated volume of rubbish collected = bounty As with all crypto mining, rewards and difficulty will vary, but the overaching objective is to make the bounties/mining tangible for user adoption and the growth of the blockchain. Blockchain Partners Darwinledger will be deployed on the Ethereum blockchain and ecosystem. different to other ERC-20 ICOs, Darwin Ledger will utilise ERC-777 protocol which includes a user data field, in which the metadata for any photo will be included. The importance of an immutable ledger means that more data sent through blockchain supports a stronger, more trustworthy, and more robust ecosystem. The user data field is the first step in that direction, allowing information outside of simple transaction data to be sent and received. Additionally collectable critters which are up for preservation will be tied to an ERC-721 token - which is a differnet token for each critter (generating overall value in DARWINs
"Crypto for species: bounties for finding real animals"
Dr Pete Finnegan
http://www.chasingcoral.com/
Chasing Coral - the traditional methods of species identification
Subsea images will also work with the Darwin Ledger
Traditional technology wouldn't work with the Artificial Intelligence of the Darwin Ledger
Plants will also be included into the Darwin Ledger.
What does blockchain mean for naturalism and other research fields? Think of each coin as a block capable of storing data. A block can be subdivided countless times to create subsections, so it may serve as a directory for a museum or university. Record of your “block” is public, but its contents are encrypted. The data is stored across the network and it is immutable except for additions by the owner. Darwin Ledger: Technical Details Proof of Photography (PoP) using nodes is a method for securing a cryptocurrency network, processing transactions and achieving a distributed consensus regarding the ownership of images/funds without the need for a central authority. It is a variant of the Proof of Stake system, which itself was developed in order to reduce the cost and inefficient electricity usage associated with Proof of Work systems such as the one used by Bitcoin. The DPOS method, developed by Daniel Larimer and implemented for the first time by the Bitshares blockchain, diverge from the POS system. The difference between a POS system and a DPOS system is that POS involves the participation of the entire network to validate a transaction whereas DPOS involves only a limit number of delegates. These delegates perform the function of validating transactions, maintaining the blockchain and take the transaction fees as profit. Within this transaction validation system, each delegate receives a reward in DARWIN token, in the form of transaction fee, for uploading a photo to the database, which is needed to maintain the network. Nodes run as part system will ensure a consensus is achieved and ensures the reliability and efficiency of the network within a representative democratic logic system. The Darwin Ledger network is composed of the ethereum blockchain (Ethereum’s upcoming Casper implementation). You can hold ERC-20 tokens and use 0x protocol to exchange them to ETH in real time and stake them that way. As soon as you want to stop staking you can take them out and you will have your DARWIN back with all of the original tokens that were there initially. Since {Sets} automatically rebalance themselves, ETH earned as a reward from staking would go into the {Set} and be returned as the tokens you had initially in the same ratio as before. edible time limit per block. By design, blockchains are inherently resistant to modification of the data. Once recorded, the data in any given block cannot be altered retroactively without the alteration of all subsequent blocks and a collusion of the network majority. Darwin Ledger’s blockchain guarantees high security and remain public, accessible and completely transparent to everyone. The Darwin Ledger network uses 10 seed nodes installed on dedicated servers to support the network and keep it running without any slowdown even in the remote possibility that all other nodes should go down simultaneously (ex. DDOS attack). After the mainnet launch, the seed node number will be progressively increased. The main seed node runs into a dedicated high performance server managed by an important European farm.
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Chasing Coral - is a recent documentary bringing the devastating effects of climate change to the general public. Watch this video extract to see how traditionally Marine Scientists learned taxonomy. Darwin Ledger provides a mechanism for scientists to quickly identify species and to work on their scientific hypothesis rather than wasting time identifying species and documenting sightings.
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"Whilst the Australian Museum confirmed this was the first species photographed alive – Scientists at BHP debated the find as it affected a planned expansion"
"By 2020, approximately 25 Billion devices will be permanently connected through the internet, all of which will generate location data"
User Adopter Model
Gartner
Citizen Science blockchain - what does it mean? Nintendo brought you Pokemon, Darwin Ledger brings you the real life version with real rewards, all in the name of science. Document a rare species or new resource and receive bonus Darwin Tokens. Users can earn Darwin Tokens for taking wildlife or plant photos. The use of the Cyrptocritters Smartphone App (or the Darwinloedger.com website if using a standard camera) verifies your photo data and automatically uploads it to the database. Once the data is captured and uploaded to the database (ᴆ earned for a standard accepted image), then powerful front end tools run by CARTODB will interrogate the database for further scientific analysis. The platform will be the largest primary data source of biological specimens globally. Users can interpolate range extensions, or population declines over years (or increases). Rare or new species will be found with larger bounties and we will work with Governments to set appropriate bounties and species that needed their range reconfirmed, like the Borneo Rhino which was only recently re-found in Kalimantan. Scientists like our founder, can use the platform to document and archive surveys, we assume that biologists in the field document species correctly when they do their surveys but often species identification is only presumed to be correct. Darwin Ledger will provide the proof and participants will get rewarded for using the technology. It is not about visionary ideas, but about a technological process of which we are already a part. this process is constantly evolving and is trying to give answers today to questions that will be asked tomorrow, while respecting a balance of interests. This is just the beginning of the story! Now it is up to you to decide whether to enter as an actor, to write the sequel, or to remain a spectator watching others write the future.
Nintendo brought us Pokemon - Darwin Ledger brought us the real thing!
https://australianmuseum.net.au/image/monte-bello- seahorse-hippocampus-montebelloensis
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What is CryptoSpecies
CryptoCritters
CryptoSpecies is a game centered around rare, collectible, and the oh-so-adorable creatures we call CryptoSpecies! They will represent the digital twin of crytically endangered species. Each animal is one-of-a-kind and 100% owned by you; it cannot be replicated, taken away, or destroyed. CryptoSpecies is one of the world’s first games to be built on blockchain technology. Bitcoin and ether are cryptocurrencies but CryptoSpecies are cryptocollectibles. You can buy, sell, or trade your CryptoSpecies like it was a traditional collectible, secure in the knowledge that blockchain will track ownership securely. It’s important to note that there’s no “rare scale” established by the game that assigns rarity values to these genetic sequences. That means the community is independently deciding which species are rare by paying a premium for their digital twin. For example, a Night Parrot (critically endangered in Western Australia) may sell more than a common seagull. All funds raised collecting the digital twin of a species will be donated to bounties to help protect refuge habitats and to appropriate agencies set up to protect the real life twin of CryptoSpecies.
A critically endangered Night Parrot CryptoSpecies
A sample collected on site by a citizen geologist and that geology captured in the blockchain with a pin drop for later analysis. Couple this technology with handheld XRF analysers delivers elemental analysis and quantification for a wide variety of materials in positive material identification (PMI) and geochemistry. Elemental analysis and quantification are achieved in just 1-2 seconds. Alongside an internal library of over 700 alloys for comparison, alloy recycling, PMI and precious metal identification can be performed quickly and confidently and catalogued in the blockchain with our neat front end visualisation tools.
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Future use - Mining Exploration
In line with our passion for documenting the environment, the Darwin Ledger Core will also be adopted to help third world countries collect rubbish. Rubbish collected and recycled will be validated using the artificial intelligence of the Darwin Ledger Core and collectors will earn tokens for their efforts. Bounties can be set by Governments, Philanthropists and others to help clean up some of our most distressed areas. Just another ruse of the technology Darwin Ledger is creating and a bolt on we will deliver on.
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Future use - Garbage Collection
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A Government could use the technology to place a bounty on a declared pest. Our technology would validate the capture and hence release the bounty. Citizens could be mobilised on a rapid scale to capture Crown of Thorn Starfish for example; a recreational dive becomes a humanitarian mission, capturing critters that are causing irrefutable damage to World Heritage Area: the Great Barrier Reef. Citizens will combine a hobby and a passion for protecting the environment, far surpassing any traditional control measure, all by using the Darwin Ledger and associated tokens, mobile application and bounty system.
DARWIN Ledger is an open source project designed to help scientists explore and protect biodiversity. In an open source environment like ours, scientific experts and enthusiastic citizens can provide the critical boost to scientific information nature needs for long term success. You can't save an endangered species if you don't know it exists at a specific location. We want to give every scientist, tourist, or explorer who sees a rare or endangered species an opportunity to be rewarded for their valuable input to the database of our ecosystems. We know we can’t do this without you! Annually, we have allocated 200,000 DARWIN from our bounty fund to cover unique finds as updated on our website, using inputs from Government. These funds "crypto for critters" will be awarded to any contributors who photograph the desired species.
Like a Real World Pokemon Go!
Vermin Control
Audits in Refugee Camps
Cultural heritage sites are photographed in some of the most remote parts of the world but time is against us and many are disappearing. Whether it be an aboriginal shell midden or painting, these objects represent important artifacts that can be documented and accessed through the DARWIN ledger. Currently, data is archived in libraries and services such as the Archeology Data Service (ADS). blockchain could offer an immutable archival record. Different types of data could be collected and preserved by tourists, explorers, native title holders using the Darwin Ledger platform and blockchain a distributed public network to sustain and host heritage and cultural content.
In a political climate where refugees are often used as pawns in a global geopolitical game, Darwin Ledger can humanise those who suffer and be used as a tool to quickly identify and resettle legitimate refugees. As part of the registration process refugees could be screened on a private wallet part of the blockchain. This way details could remain private but an organisation such as United Nations could adopt the technology to make operations more efficient for the benefit of humanity. There is still an enormous amount of uncertainty and instability for refugees if and once they sort out their legal status in order for them to settle into their new lives. Darwin Ledger is just one of many stepping stones that could help them on their path towards a free life.
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Cultural Heritage
CARTO is a web-based drag and drop analysis tool for scientists and nature lovers to discover and predict key insights from location data. Unleash the power of location intelligence with self-service, actionable applications you can share. CARTO is an open, powerful, and intuitive platform for discovering and predicting the key insights underlying the location data in our world. Empowering DARWIN Ledger to analyse more data, strategic biodiversity or species, and everyday decisions with management or environmental approvals, our partnership with CARTO Engine will mean users currently collecting this data will want to use the platform. Curious naturists will love the platform and Governments will have a database of their species presence and abundance. It was built to make it easier for people to tell their stories by providing them with flexible and intuitive ways to create maps and design geospatial applications. CARTODB will be installed on our nodes server and so the collected primary data can be interrogated in a number of ways within the world wide web. After it is uploaded in the Darwin Ledger, you can visualize it in a dataset or on a map, search it using SQL, and apply map styles using CartoCSS. You can even access it using the CARTO APIs, or export it to a file. Some features include: EASILY CONNECT YOUR DATA - CARTO Builder allows you to effortlessly add your data with a simple drag-and-drop interface. Your data-driven visualizations scale to your needs, no matter the source or size. FAST DRAG-AND-DROP ANALYTICS - CARTO Builder's easy-to-use drag-and-drop functionality helps you predict key insights from location data, drastically reducing time to success. AUTOMATICALLY PINPOINT KEY INSIGHTS - Auto-Styling analyzes mapped data to discover trends and relationships. It automatically applies the best visual layers to highlight the resulting patterns, eliminating manual guesswork. CUSTOM DATA STYLING & ANALYSIS - Take creativity and data integration further with Turbo-Carto styling and our powerful SQL capabilities. The new open source CartoCSS pre-processor, Turbo-Carto, enables the asynchronous evaluation of styling functions. CARTO's SQL custom analysis functionality allows for tailored reports and unique queries. SHARE INSIGHTS THAT MATTER - Your organization can deploy an advanced, controlled CARTO Builder environment to build powerful location-based applications for the web or for privately sharing with CARTO Viewers. Viewers can extract insights from dashboards without editing the original data or visualization. In other words, with CARTODB and Darwin Ledger you can make awesome maps and build powerful geospatial applications!
CARTO are trusted by the world’s most important organisations to create unique tools and applications with a lasting benefit to society and the environment
Biodiversity mapping
CATO data layers
CARTO is the location intelligence platform for turning, species, date and location data into Science and Naturism outcomes
Species mapping
Visualising Data
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How to invest ICO details
Come with us on a journey as we bring the Pokemon GO phenomenon to the real world.
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he Darwin Ledger’s pre-sale will begin on in February 2018. In order to have funds to develop this incredible project we decided to launch an ICO that will start on 8th August 2018 and will end on 31 December 2018. ICO details: Start: August 8, 2018 Hard cap: 50,000 ETH Soft cap: 20,000 ETH Rate: 1 ETH = 1200 DARWIN tokens Token supply (max): 100,000,000 DARWIN 60% ICO contributors; 15% Team; 5% Advisors, Early Supporters and Bounty; 20% Reserve Fund The ICO’s goal will be to raise funds that will allow developers to make various implementations and improvements of the Darwin Ledger project. All ICO’s details can be found on https://darwinledger.io. During the ICO, investors will be able to participate using BTC and ETH. MainNET launch will be on 1st February 2019. The distribution of DARWIN coins will be as follows. A total of 100,000,000 DARWIN coins will be distributed via the ICO, Reward system, Every day 4,320 blocks are forged by the Darwinian Ecosystem, Each block contains 4 DARWIN Coins Inflation is set at 6.31% The reward of 4 DARWIN will be maintained for the foreseeable future. which will go to photographers using the platform. Investors will be able to stake their investment on the Ethereum blockchain - read more HERE. The technical description of DARWIN Blockchain is as follows PoP Proof of Photography. Reward for miners (citizens uploading photos to database) and stakers (but on the Ethereum blockchain). 100,000,000 DARWINs - Seeded Genesis Block.
-Quote Author
2020 & BEYOND Geographical expansion and growing the ecosystem
Q1 2020 Launch
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Q3 2019 Development of the DARWIN Platform
And Beyond? Great user experiences for stories that matter. An abundance of data will emerge. We have partnered with CARTODB: a band of engineers, designers, strategists and scientists dedicated to making the data matter. The tool will allows users to download occurrences data for the selected criteria in a processable and reusable format. This data can be used in further analysis such as niche modelling. The intrinsic logic of blockchain with the open time stamps, can guarantee independence from any third part provider, as well as a higher level of security. Our naturalism Blockchain aims to give new life to the sector proposing a valid tool that would allow a natural evolution in qualitative terms.
"Our technology wont be restricted to flora or fauna and the bolt ons for other industries is huge"
Q2 2017 DARWIN LEDGER concept created
Q4 2019 Development of the DARWIN App and interfaces
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Q4 2017 DARWIN LEDGER supported by CARTODB and ARK
Q4 2019 Development of the Artificial intelligence
Peter Mellor
Q1 2019 DARWIN LEDGER to conduct an ICO
The integration of numerous blockchains
Traditional - HTTP or Hypertext transfer protocol worked well for a long time. for biological specimeses, but each user or regulator had their own! Over the past 20 years, however lots of support has been built on top of the foundational structure of the web. Well, as more companies are getting hacked and the centralization experiment is turning into severe downtime or censorship, we need to have alternative options for the web. Darwin Ledger is built on the Ethereum Ecosystem. The DARWIN Blockchain Ecosystem uses the first Proof-of-Photography (PoP) token, incorporating aspects of PoS and PoW. With the recent launch of notable dApps such as CryptoKitties, ERC-721 tokens have received attention as companies begin to explore the value of non-fungible digital assets. Though ERC-20s and ERC-721s have received the most attention among Ethereum developers, there are a host of different ERC standards being debated and developed. The ERC-20 Token Standard ERC stands for Ethereum Request for Comments — it is simply nomenclature to describe a certain set of protocols designed to be implemented on the Ethereum blockchain. The ERC-20 protocol was the original token protocol launched for the Ethereum blockchain. It serves as a blueprint that developers can use to create tokens for their company or for their ICO. The tokens built off the ERC-20 standard all adhere to the same underlying protocols and functionality, a quality that has promoted widespread adoption. Introducing the ERC-777 Token Standard being used for Darwin Ledger Proposed on GitHub in November of 2017, the ERC-777 protocol aims to maintain the strengths of the ERC-20 protocol while fixing some of the shortcomings and adding additional functionalities. Some of the primary benefits of the protocol are below: Friction: The ERC-777 token protocol reduces the friction and number of transactions currently required to enact a smart contract under the ERC-20 protocol. ERC-20s require a double call function (i.e. a second verifying transaction) to be sent in order to enact the contract. The ERC-777 standard includes a function defining whether or not a token has been received (the “token received” function), allowing the contract to be triggered immediately. From a user-facing perspective, this lowers the amount of time and thought required to transact on the Ethereum blockchain. Security: From a security standpoint as well, ERC-777 has an edge over ERC-20. An address could reject any incoming tokens from an address that has been blacklisted — i.e. flagged for any reason, namely being associated with hackers, illicit activity, or non-compatibility. As blockchain dApps become more ingrained in everyday transactions, the ability of a vendor to be more confident in where payment is coming from is an essential development in on-chain KYC/AML (Know Your Customer / Anti-Money Laundering). For a technology literally built off the theory of a trustless ecosystem, any implementation allowing people to feel more confident in sending money/assets via the blockchain will likely hold tremendous positive consequences. Information: The ERC-777 protocol includes a user data field, in which the sender can include any relevant information to the recipient. This would also support Darwin Ledger meta data. The importance of an immutable ledger means that more data sent through blockchain supports a stronger, more trustworthy, and more robust ecosystem. The user data field is the first step in that direction, allowing information outside of simple transaction data to be sent and received. Backwards Compatibility: This is a crucial element of ERC-777 tokens. The new protocol is compatible with older wallets that do not have the “tokens received” function (discussed above in “Friction”) — i.e. ERC-20 tokens. This means that the widespread implementation of the ERC-777 protocol would not create a “divide” in the ecosystem between tokens without the “received” function (ERC-20s, ERC-721s, etc.) and those with. Rather, backwards compatibility supports an Ethereum ecosystem in which many protocols can exist simultaneously. Protocols can be developed to endow tokens and addresses with qualities specific to Darwin Ledger.
The Token
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The basic premise will be the software and databases will be free to use and interrogate for personal use - similar to Google. A Pro version will be available should commercial organizations want to interrogate the primary data or display high quality maps for their own secondary interpretation. Similarly organizations wanting to run their own like Pokemon GO bounties will need a Pro version. CryptoSpecies will be a system for users to own the virtual equivalent of a species and bid against other users. However all profits from this endeavor will be directed back to species protection. A Summary of the proposed thinking is detailed below. Pro version features will be payable in the Darin Ledger Token, which would be obtainable of adopted exchanges.
Like Google it will be free for personal use, focusing on the user experience
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Commercial Model
-Peter Mellor, Founder
Features
Personal Version
Pro Version
Print Images
✔
Regionate large datasets
Batch datasets
Export data
Map Maker Tool
Find the critter (set bounty)
Find the critter participate
Crypto Species
"Like Google it will be free for personal use, focusing on the user experience"
To learn more about DARWIN Ledger and the projects, check out the website, blog, twitter, and slack chat.
PO Box 370, Como, 6952
Text
www.darwinledger.io
+65 3158 3640
