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Tokenizing
User
Participation
Table of contents
Executive summary����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 5
Customer engagement: a history�������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 7
The evolution of consumer engagement 7
Level 1 – Audience rating (how many people are tuned in?) 7
Level 2 – Social media “likes” (who likes me?) 8
Level 3 – Sentiment analysis (why do they love/hate me?) 9
why do they love / hate me? 9
Tokenizing user participation: the 4th level of engagement���������������������������������������� 11
Level 4 – Participation (Are you enough of a fan to publicly / emotionally / physically engage with
my brand?) 12
A standard way of measuring and driving participation 12
Participation as a digital asset 13
Market opportunity 13
Agoora protocol presentation������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 15
How it works? 15
Decentralized proofs & oracles 16
Oracles 17
Flexible and reliable set of proofs 17
Use Cases 23
Ethereum Smart Contract 27
Performance and scale considerations 27
Scaling up Ethereum 27
Alternative Platforms 28
Alternative platforms 29
Security and preventing bad actors 31
Agoora Labs��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 34
The power of Ethereum (ERC-20, 223, 721, 998, 1155) 34
The ERC-20 standard 34
The ERC-223 standard 34
The ERC-721 standard 34
The ERC-998 standard 34
The ERC-1155 standard 35
Technology watch 35
Bulletproof Smart Contract approach 35
The Agoora ecosystem����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 38
Exchanges 38
Agoora marketplace 38
Empowering stakeholders and rewarding participants 40
Vertical industries and applicability 40
A crypto democratization lever / enabler
(Bring on the Killer App of crypto) 41
From a Stealth cryptocurrency wallet to a mainstream one 41
Agoora Tokenomics��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 43
A growth pool to support the ecosystem 44
Community building 45
Research and Development 45
Marketing 46
Partnerships 46
- p. 3 Roadmap & key milestones ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������48 Team, Advisors and Partners ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������50 Key team members 50 Advisor 51 Partners 51 Disclaimer����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 55 Contact����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������56
Executive summary
Executive Summary - p. 5
Executive summary
Agoora is a blockchain-powered protocol token that generates decentralized proofs of
participation, place, presence, and person in order to reward engagement by custom-
ers, fans, and users. Agoora does so by providing incentives for participation, with the
economic benefits that result from it. With Agoora, we enable the tokenization of partici-
pation, something that is applicable in a plethora of everyday scenarios and cases and
provides value in a range of industries and business activities, such as entertainment,
gaming, consumer goods, financial services, travel, education, supply chain manage-
ment, and many others. Agoora will provide brand marketers with entirely new means of
interacting with customers, fans, and users, with authority backed by the Blockchain,
something that was not previously possible.
Harnessing the power of the Ethereum distributed computing platform, the Agoora
protocol unlocks and enables a 4th level of engagement, where a consumer uses a mo-
bile device to take physical action that publicly demonstrates his or her commitment
to a brand, message, or idea. With Agoora-powered applications, you are even creating
muscle memory through physical movement, so this commitment is actually physically
reinforced! (hence long-term engagement is being driven).
The Agoora protocol has been designed to fairly reward all participants in the ecosystem
(i.e. users, contributors), with the enforced trust of the blockchain technology, some-
thing that we believe will drive increased acceptance and use of Agoora. Additionally,
it has been designed to enable developers to build new applications that leverage our
protocol of proofs of participation, place, presence, and person.
According to a 2011 report by McKinsey, “US companies spend US$50 billion a year on
loyalty programs alone”. Since that time, companies have continued to increase the
proportion of their marketing budget spent on loyalty, making the worldwide opportunity
measurable in the hundreds of billions of dollars annually. However, as this white paper
will explain, the business opportunities with the Agoora token are much more than loyal-
ty marketing as such.
The components of the Agoora Protocol are designed to provide decentralized proofs of
participation, place, presence, and, in some cases, person, with an option to conserve
and protect an individual user’s privacy. In support of this effort, Agoora has developed
significant intellectual property and has applied to patent that technology accordingly.
Agoora will conduct a crowd sale in Q1 2019 offering AGOORA tokens to investors
during the launch of the platform. The AGOORA token generation event will be limited
at 1,500,000,000 AGOORA tokens that will be distributed during the sale.
US COMPANIES
SPEND
US$50 BILLION
A YEAR ON LOYALTY PROGRAMS
Customer engagement: a history
Customer engagement: a history - p. 7 Customer engagement: a history Customer engagement—and its measurement—has evolved significantly over the last 90 years, with most of that change occurring over the last 15 years. Mass media vehicles, such as radio and television, were initially measured on the basis of the audience rating, that is, a measure of the action of tuning in to or out of a radio or TV channel. Audience measures were calculated based on a theoretically representative sample of households that would maintain a journal of the radio or TV channels that they listened to, when, and for how long, and then data from the sample was used to extrapolate broader mar- ket share for stations and broadcast programs. (Newspapers had their circulation aud- ited by an industry organ. Readers were asked about their ability to recall being exposed to specific ads.) Advertisers were invited to sponsor broadcasts based on these calcula- tions of market reach, which left much to be desired in terms of an actionable measure of customer sentiment or intent. With the advent of the commercial Internet, there has been an evolution towards direct measures of customer interest, sentiment, and intent, each an aspect of engagement. Google introduced pay-per-click (PPC) advertising for its search engine, followed by the Google Display Network and display ad remarketing, which enabled advertisers to en- gage with consumers as they navigate the Internet as well as pay for advertising solely on the basis of interest and intent. With the arrival of social media and their advertis- ing-infused news feeds, and the ability to like or share (Facebook), tweet or retweet (Twitter), or heart (Instagram) an item, consumers are able to publicly demonstrate their interest in a brand or a message with a simple mouse click or finger press. The result is that advertisers have access to hard data and, thus, meaningful measures of engagement based on real-world interactions. In addition, each social media platform also offers users the ability to post text, images, or videos to the network; these are rich sources of information about sentiment towards brands, politics, news events, or other issues. The evolution of consumer engagement We recognize the evolution of consumer engagement across 3 distinct levels: Level 1 – Audience rating (how many people are tuned in?) The first level of consumer engagement is concerned with measuring the quantity of people being reached by mass media communications such as radio, TV, and news- papers, as a measure of the general population. It is essentially a passive measure. The ancestor of measuring customer engagement is radio and TV ratings from The Niel- sen Company (formerly AC Nielsen): detailed analyses of consumer viewing behaviour are coupled with demographic information to provide brand marketers with a list of channels and programs that they can use to reach their target audience, a subset of the
Customer engagement: a history - p. 8 general population. Audience rating measures answer questions such as: Which mem- bers of a household are watching which shows? And which programs do they all watch together? Which family characteristics, such as pet ownership, income, and education correlate with viewing choices? This depth of knowledge enables brand marketers, Niel- sen’s ultimate clients, to refine their campaigns based on demographics, time-of-day and week, and audience composition. However, today’s programming content is viewed on more than just television sets, with the TV often running in the background during other activities, making traditional ap- proaches to audience measurement difficult. (With over 70% of U.S. adults accessing a ‘second screen’ while watching TV, how much can you really infer from 15-minute blocks of TV ratings?) In fact, when they do watch TV, consumers are watching via the Internet and on mobile devices, in-home and out-of-home, live and time-shifted, free and paid, rebroadcast, and original programs. (Radio ratings are similarly affected by streaming and podcasts.) This makes it challenging to provide an accurate estimation of TV rat- ings, never mind how much viewers are engaged. Level 2 – Social media “likes” (who likes me?) In this second level of engagement, social media networks are used to increase the sense of community between fans/customers and a brand. Specific actions such as a like (Facebook, LinkedIn), a share (Facebook, LinkedIn), a tweet or retweet (Twitter), or a heart (Instagram) are taken to engage with a message post, image, or video. These engagements can be measured and tallied to provide brand marketers with a big picture view of customer engagement at a specific point in time, such as during an ad cam- paign, as well as the evolution of customer sentiment and intent over time. Compared to audience ratings, this is a much more active measure of engagement. These social media networks can act as a touch point for a business to communicate more easily with its customers in a less formal context and, ultimately, get a better idea of who these people are and what they really want. Before Facebook’s major changes to the algorithm a few years back, a ‘like’ was an indi- cation of how well a post performed with an audience. Posts with more ‘likes’ were sub- sequently exposed to larger audiences. The more ‘likes’ a post earned, the better for the post and the brand that created it. However, organic content is virtually absent from the Facebook News Feed today. Due to Facebook’s modified algorithm and ever-increasing volume of posts, brands that don’t pay for ads have an increasingly difficult time appearing in their customers’ Facebook feeds. Opportunities for organic engagement on Facebook have largely disappeared. Businesses looking to grow their community now have to “pay to play”, regardless of the number of ‘likes’ a post or a page earns. In today’s Facebook, having more ‘likes’ no long- er ensures better future engagement.
Customer engagement: a history - p. 9
Level 3 – Sentiment analysis (why do they love/hate me?)
In this third level of engagement, consumers take the time to publicly spell out and
express their views and emotions on a range of topics, brands, ideas, and/or political
positions, among others. (In the case of Twitter, they must do so using 280 characters
or less.) With the ability to easily share a picture or a video, consumers invest more of
their passion into submitting a piece of user-generated content than into liking a brand
page’s status update. Whereas social media platforms do a great job of measuring
actions such as clicks and providing meaningful statistics in the aggregate, they fail to
capture the full story because they lack the ability to understand context. Too often, they
tell us the ‘what’ but not the ‘why’ or the ‘how.’
This is where sentiment analysis, which leverages artificial intelligence techniques
such as natural language processing and computer vision, comes into play. Sentiment
analysis looks at the quantity and frequency with which words including phrases and
hashtags—and now emoji—are used in the context of a brand. It also looks at the facial
expressions of people appearing images as well as the presence of the branded product
itself. These are all scored and converted into meaningful metrics.
An active measure in its own right, sentiment analysis is essentially a metric that adds
context to other metrics. It’s especially important to get as much context as possible
around online mentions. Yes, it’s important to know how much people are talking about
your brand, but you also need to know how they are talking about you (i.e., in what way).
Is it glowing praise? Bashing rants? Utter indifference?
Other metrics may tell you what people are talking about, but sentiment shows you the
gist of what they’re saying, which is the value that marketers seek in understanding en-
gagement with their audience.
Is there a better way to
precisely measure brand
engagement?
Tokenizing user
participation:
the 4 level of
th
engagementTokenizing user participation: the 4th level of engagement - p. 11 Tokenizing user participation: the 4th level of engagement As products become more and more commoditized and companies try to outperform their competitors, a better and more intimate customer experience is becoming an increasingly important way of differentiating a brand in the marketplace. Customer en- gagement plays a key role in the overall customer experience. While there has yet to be a standard, accepted definition of customer engagement, noted consumer marketer Richard Sedley defines it as, “repeated interactions that strengthen the emotional, psychological or physical investment a customer has in a brand.” Customer engagement is essentially a measure of relationship strength. Fostering and measuring customer engagement is therefore a key objective, at the heart of every marketing initiative and management system. However, measuring a concept that is in people’s heads and hearts is extremely hard to do. Surveys can only provide information up until a certain point and they are subjective measures at best. When it comes to the actual moment of demonstrating loyalty to the brand, for example, a purchase, emotions take over and rationality goes out the window. Nowadays, thanks to the Internet and social media, companies and brands have the opportunity to connect with thousands or even millions of people in real time, enabling them to measure customer engagement in real-time. However, not all user interactions with brands take place on social media or the broader Internet. In fact, the vast majority of them take place in the physical world, where precise measurement and meaningful results continue to be a challenge. In addition, a significant portion of time is now spent in immersive online 3D worlds, the realm of video games (e.g., Fortnite), virtual reality, and other simulations. This brings us to the 4th level of engagement: participation. Figure 1: Historical evolution of customer / fan / user engagement measurement
Tokenizing user participation: the 4th level of engagement - p. 12 Level 4 – Participation (Are you enough of a fan to publicly / emotionally / physically engage with my brand?) The 4th level of engagement is about customer / fan / user participation or interaction with your brand in the real world as well as the virtual world. For example, during a live event or any place public where a customer / fan / user can put your brand and their passion for it in front of others. This engagement occurs through the deployment of a branded item or the performance of a physical / tangible / measurable activity in a pub- lic venue (physical or virtual)). Example activities include: • Wearing a branded piece of clothing / accessory • Cheering for the team • Raising a banner • Shaking a smartphone • Showing your “colors” • Singing along • Etc. The 4th level of engagement has four highly desirable characteristics over and above the aspects of the other levels of engagement that we have considered to date. They are: 1. Directly witnessed by others, which leads to influence and virality 2. Demonstrates and forms group / tribal belonging 3. Is physiologically self-reinforcing (i.e., drives muscle memory) 4. Is objectively measurable A standard way of measuring and driving participation With the ability to capture participation in real and virtual worlds, marketers could measure engagement to a degree never before achieved. With the ability to incentivize participation to achieve specific outcomes, they can drive engagement more effectively than any existing loyalty program could ever hope to do. As a result, they could target their brand investments more effectively than ever, ensuring that marketing spending occurs where it can provide the most bang for the buck. However, what has been lacking—until now—to make this vision a reality is a simple, standardized mechanism by which to both capture and stimulate participation in all real-world situations and vir- tual world activities. This mechanism is the blockchain. As an open, distributed, verifiable ledger that can re- cord activities in both the real and the virtual worlds, the blockchain provides the means by which participation can both be captured—and stimulated. While each instance of participation can be captured and recorded in the blockchain’s immutable ledger, the blockchain also offers the ability, through tokens, to incentivize active participation by customers / fans / users, specifically, through targeted forms of interaction with a brand in the real and/or virtual worlds.
Tokenizing user participation: the 4th level of engagement - p. 13 Participation as a digital asset In the 21st century Attention Economy, Participation is the next digital asset to be token- ized. Think of it as a “Basic Attention Token (BAT) for live events” and other interactive scenarios. Virtually any engagement-focused application can benefit from instantaneous access to a credible proof of customer / fan / user participation: the 4th level of engagement. Now there is a way to do just that, using a participation token and the decentralized secure ledger offered by the blockchain. Market opportunity With Agoora we seek to revolutionize the economics of customer engagement, and by extension, loyalty programs. Deloitte’s own research on customer loyalty rewards pro- grams pointed out that blockchain technology, as a ‘trustless’ distributed ledger, intro- duces a powerful, disruptive way to revitalize the existing framework of loyalty programs through its potential to streamline execution of rewards in an almost real-time, trans- parent, and cost-effective way. Establishing a kind of loyalty mechanism for users’ participation using Blockchain tech- nology allows for the instantaneous creation of reward tokens that can be redeemed or exchanged in a fast, secure, and transparent way across multiple platforms and ex- changes, and even between users and entertainers, all through a ‘trustless’ environment operating without intermediaries. In 2011, McKinsey reported that US companies spent a cumulative US$50 billion a year on loyalty programs; the outstanding balance of rewards is estimated at 10 times that amount. Over the following 7 years, companies have continued to increase their market- ing spending on loyalty programs, making the worldwide opportunity measurable in the hundreds of billions of dollars annually. In addition, according to the Boston Consulting Group, the average American household is registered in an average of 22 loyalty pro- grams, but actively participates in only half. In 2015, research firm Colloquy found that “active use of these programs has steadily declined since 2010 at a rate of 2 to 3 percent per year.” There is therefore an opportunity with Agoora to increase the effectiveness of engagement with the 50% of loyalty programs that aren’t being actively used as well as to reinvigorate the 50% of programs that are actively used. However, the business opportunities with the Agoora protocol token are much more than loyalty marketing as such.
Agoora protocol presentation
Agoora protocol presentation - p. 15 Agoora protocol presentation How it works? The various participants needed for a typical Agoora interaction all require a compliant mobile application installed on their smartphones. For example, in a live professional sporting event, the people lifting their devices in a sponsored show of support of their team would be rewarded with our participation token for doing so. The sponsor that wished to enable this interaction/participation unit/space would have purchased in ad- vance the tokens necessary for this transaction to occur, on our marketplace, and the venue itself would likely have gotten a slice of this transaction. In this scenario it is also possible for crowd-initiated interaction to occur, where event attendees can be the originators of a crowd interaction by using Agoora tokens that are already in their possession, having acquired them by being a witness, having received some from previous event-interaction participation, or having purchased them outright in the marketplace. Agoora tokens earned in one application may be used and/or re- deemed in other supporting applications. If you earned tokens during an event, you can use the tokens you earned in another event, supported by the ecosystem. The Agoora platform is directly applicable to other scenarios/use cases with the same tenets and the aforementioned proofs. Application vendors could create a corporate and shareholder governance application that uses Agoora for proof of presence and person, to prove that participants are who they say they are and that they have the right to vote. The vote itself is a form of participation, with all operations, including bylaws and board resolutions, recorded on the blockchain, to be executed by a smart contract for com- pany operations. Our platform provides APIs and services that enable various scenarios to be implemented by 3rd party applications and eventu- ally ÐApps using our embeddable SDKs and leveraging our guidance. Figure 2: Conceptual view of the Agoora platform
Agoora protocol presentation - p. 16 Figure 3: High level technical view Decentralized proofs & oracles The Agoora protocol is a set of subsystems, routines, and smart contracts cooperating to manufacture decentralized proofs of Participation, Place, Presence and Person on the blockchain, leveraging the power of Ethereum. The rise of smartphone technological capabilities (sensors such as fingerprint and facial scanners, cameras, GPS, etc.; processing power; connectivity including near-field com- munication (NFC) and networking; etc.) in conjunction with even more connected and resilient networks, offers a vast range of possibilities that the Agoora protocol will lever- age to produce decentralized proofs. At the international level, we are seeing a trend in the public space where cities are also competing in their digital transformation. Cities across the globe are deploying tech- nologies to make the urban environment of the future better, more intelligent, more immersive, more secure, more ecofriendly, more efficient, and more attractive. This massive technology deployment is not only happening with the largest cities but is true as well with medium and smaller sized cities. The digitalization journey is also impacting venues of all types. From connected airports and malls to stadiums and concert halls, venues are more and more equipped and eager to remain up to date with the latest technologies (e.g., access points, beacons, aug- mented reality (AR), apps and virtual assistants, etc.).
Agoora protocol presentation - p. 17
The Agoora protocol will leverage all available data sources, from smartphones and
wearables, smart cities, and smart venues, paired with the power of smart contracts to
produce the requested decentralized proofs.
Oracles
To improve the results of the decentralized proof determination, we are building part-
nerships with external data providers that provide the context required for meaningful
interactions. For example, the price of a stock, the score at a basketball game, or the
status of a payment. These third-party, trusted sources are commonly known as ‘oracles’
in blockchain parlance. Oracles provide the necessary input data for our smart contracts
to execute when the terms of the contract are met. When involved in the proving pro-
cess, oracles will become a distinct data feed in the proof-scoring mechanism. Oracles
will be rewarded for the effort or service provided.
Flexible and reliable set of proofs
The Agoora protocol is built to be flexible enough to handle a variety of complex scenar-
ios. The Agoora protocol proving-process follows a sequence that will ultimately lead to
establishing Proof-of-Participation:
1. Proof-of-Person uniquely identifies a user; it can be mandatory or optional de-
pending on the type of event, the expected engagement level, and/or the reward
value
2. Proof-of-Place determines whether the user is in a certain venue or not
3. Proof-of-Presence determines whether the user is effectively attending an event or
not (physical or virtual)
4. Proof-of-Participation determines whether the user has physically participated in
an event—interacting with or reacting to a specific interaction request during the
event.
Figure 4: Recorded proofs
The Agoora protocol is highly customizable enabling developers to build complex scen-
arios depending on a set of proofs. For instance, an anonymous scenario could require
determining the Place, Presence, and Participation, but not the Person. Another scenar-
io could see the determination of the Person, Place, Presence, and Participation with the
Proof-of-Person being mandatory for a specific reason.Agoora protocol presentation - p. 18
Moreover, the reward mechanism is highly customizable depending upon the event
objectives. This opens up a brand-new opportunity for participation / incentive
marketing.
Decentralized proof-of-participation
THE PROBLEM
One issue that is shared by marketing and sales teams is that it is extremely hard to en-
gage prospects, users, fans, or even clients, to naturally and genuinely participate in a
sponsored event. How can we define user participation? Agoora defines user participa-
tion as a physical motion and/or gesture that follows a trigger. As mentioned in the earli-
er sub-sections, the Proof-of-Place and Proof-of-Presence are not enough to determine
whether a user has participated or not.
We developed a revolutionary approach that fosters natural, ongoing user participation
in an event.
SOLUTION DESIGN
The Agoora decentralized Proof-of-Participation is a revolutionary patented1 approach
resulting from five years of research and development. With Agoora, user participation
can be accurately determined based on a motion and/or gesture of the user that has
been captured by nearby sensors. The sensors used can be those of the user’s smart-
phone, wearables (i.e., any IoT tracker such as Fitbit, Garmin, Apple Watch), on-site
sensors (including cameras, beacons, Li-Fi, …), or any other nearby devices. The partici-
pation is deduced after processing a combination of parameters, for instance, the time-
frame, the motion intensity, the motion trigger, etc.
POTENTIAL PARTNERSHIPS
Not applicable, since the Agoora Proof-of-Participation is a unique, patented technology
Figure 5: Proof-of-Participation mechanism
1
Patent: US9887791, Applications: US15/853,214, CAN2,924,837 https://patents.google.com/patent/US9887791B2/en?oq=US9887791Agoora protocol presentation - p. 19 Decentralized proof-of-person THE PROBLEM Agoora can determine the Proof-of-Person, which is different from Proof-of-Identifica- tion that can be understood as a user’s authentication. User authentication uses an ID and a secret password validated by a central authority to enable access to centralized systems and to be able to track activity of users on these same systems. The method has since moved from centralized authentication to federated authentication to reinforce overall security. However, some security drawbacks remain when, for instance, someone uses the ID/password to be authenticated as another user, with or with the authorization of that user. SOLUTION DESIGN The Agoora Proof-of-Person is decentralized and considers different sources that match the biometric characteristics of a person with their own private wallet(s). The Proof-of- Person has the advantage that this method of verification can’t be stolen. Even if a user device that contains the personal wallet’s private key is stolen, the user can regenerate the wallet anytime using the wallet’s seed backup. Current approaches to Proof-of-Person address the problem by using users’ biometrics coupled with artificial intelligence (e.g., fingerprints, facial recognition, or any other unique biometric data). The Agoora decentralized Proof-of-Person is the authentication of a person by multiple witnesses or oracles that will produce the evidence via a Proof-of-Work-like consensus. The authenticated person could be associated with n wallets and devices. The Agoora protocol would allow for the participation of anonymous participants (i.e., a non-authen- ticated and non-identified person). That being said, the Proof-of-Person could be set as optional for establishing a Proof-of-Participation (for anonymous use cases). In the case of non-anonymous participation, the Proof-of-Person is the basis for the Proof-of-Participation. We assume that if the person is authenticated as being present and is associated with a device, subsequent interactions will show the associated device attributed to the same person. Based on the definition and the requirements of the event, the event sponsor will define the level of accuracy or confidence needed to accept the evidence that will be reflected in the event’s smart contract. For instance, in the case of a national voting application, the Proof-of-Person certainty should be very high. However, for entertainment applica- tions, or any applications where users’ privacy could be a concern, the Proof-of-Person might be omitted. We consider using multiple factors to validate the person, starting from self-authentica- tion with a secret to a plurality of witnesses potentially capturing the face, voice, rate of heart beat, retina, fingerprint, etc., or calling upon numerous external oracles.
Agoora protocol presentation - p. 20 PARTNERSHIPS There are some recent initiatives that seek to address the basic scenario described in Proof-of-Person that can be integrated with the Agoora protocol. As an example, the Biometrids project (https://biometrids.io) is working to implement a decentralized and anonymous ID by facial recognition stored on the Blockchain. Other ambitious projects such as Civic (https://www.civic.com) and Uport (https://uport. me) are also attempting to solve the problem. Figure 6: Proof of person mechanism Decentralized proof-of-place THE PROBLEM Location-based mobile social network services are popular nowadays and their methods for obtaining end users’ location information are essentially based on people’s self-re- ported location claims, using mobile devices to check position (via GPS) and sending them back to the service providers. However, this mechanism has serious vulnerabilities that enable malicious users to access restricted resources or services by transmitting fake location information. Indeed, GPS can be spoofed, since it typically only works out- doors and usually reports information at fixed intervals (e.g., every 5 to 10 minutes). Both academic and industrial researchers have been aware of this problem since location-re- lated mobile social network services were first commercialized. Different Proof-of-Place or Proof-of-Location approaches have been proposed over the last few years, being either infrastructure-dependent (e.g., relying on installed Wi-Fi access points, Bluetooth beacons, etc.) or infrastructure-independent (i.e., ad hoc peer- to-peer (P2P) networks). However most of the currently proposed Proof-of-Place mech- anisms remain centralized (i.e., they rely on centralized servers for storing proofs or on centralized infrastructure (i.e. Bluetooth Beacons)).
Agoora protocol presentation - p. 21
To ensure that the Agoora decentralized Proof-of-Place works properly, it is necessary
that the geographic locations claimed by users are always truthful. For example, a com-
pany may allow customers in a specific area to get a discount coupon, and for that it will
require that users cannot indicate a false location to avoid granting coupons to those
who have no right to obtain them.
➤➤ In the Agoora context, a Proof-of-Place is a digital certificate (that can be
anonymous) that is stored on the blockchain, attesting to someone’s physical
presence at a certain geographic location and at a certain time.
SOLUTION DESIGN
When required, users’ smartphones will be able to act as witnesses for each other’s lo-
cations using short-range communication methods such as Bluetooth LE, Wi-Fi, NFC,
sound, ultrasound, or camera. Typically, participating smartphones that are connected
to the internet (via cellular or Wi-Fi) and are located in the same area will automatically
create a peer-to-peer network using short-range network interfaces such as the Blue-
tooth interface. Then the interconnected devices can interact and randomly elect a
node. The elected node will then gather network user evidence from the network wit-
nesses to issue the Proof-of-Place for each participating user. The proof determination
is performed without any user involvement or manual intervention. Users’ contributions
(nodes & witnesses) in verifying other’s place claims will be rewarded with Agoora tok-
ens.
Optimized Proof-of-Place
We also are working on a promising technology/mechanism that will enable developers
to accurately determine the relative position of users in attendance with one another in
a venue. This will offer a vast range of possibilities for new visual and/or audio effects,
resulting in even more impactful and immersive participation experiences.
POTENTIAL PARTNERSHIPS
To provide the best quality of service in delivering the decentralized Proof-of-Place, we
plan to establish partnerships with other service providers. With a plurality of incoming
data sources, we will be able to enhance our service offering (i.e., accuracy, response
time, etc.).
The following projects (not a complete list) could be integrated to provide ad hoc Proof-
of-Place oracles:
• FOAM (https://www.foam.space);
• Platin (https://platin.io);
• Unico (https://www.unico.global);
• XYO Network (https://www.xyo.network).Agoora protocol presentation - p. 22
Figure 7: Proof-of-Place mechanism
Decentralized Proof-of-Presence
THE PROBLEM
Some services require a Proof-of-Presence of their users. The user’s presence is when
you can ensure—with a very high level of confidence and trust—that a user attended a
specific event. It can be a prerequisite for a provider to deliver the service, product, or
reward.
The notion of user attendance should be clarified to avoid further confusion.
➤➤ In determining user’s Proof-of-Presence, the Agoora protocol will clearly
establish that a user attended the specified event, knowing that the event can
be either broadcast live on a TV screen or on the radio, or even re-broadcast at a
later time.
A Proof-of-Presence based on GPS data has a few drawbacks, as mentioned earlier in
the Proof-of-Place section, and it also has limitations such as, for instance, determining
whether a user attended an event remotely.
The Agoora Proof-of-Presence has a broad range of applications such as validating the
presence of personnel or staff at a townhall, or students attending a lecture, etc. The
potential value of knowing whether employees, participants, or basic users attended an
exhibition can be economically crucial and potentially enable new business models.Agoora protocol presentation - p. 23
SOLUTION DESIGN
➤➤ The Agoora decentralized Proof-of-Presence determines whether a user
attended an event or not (either by being physically present at the event, or by
attending remotely it in real time or in play back mode).
The Proof-of-Presence will rely on the user’s smartphone’s ability to use onboard sensors
to capture nearby data and then will use the Agoora protocol to determine the presence
of the requesting user.
Potential partnerships:
• Sikorka (http://sikorka.io);
• Mytag (https://home.mytag.io/proof-of-presence/).
Figure 8: Proof-of-Presence mechanism
Use CasesUse case #1:
A soccer club is playing in a stadium
THE MATCH IS BROADCAST ON BOTH The Agoora protocol will be able to accurately
TV AND RADIO. A FAMOUS BRAND determine, for each user, whether:
OF BEER IS SPONSORING THE EVENT
• He / she was in the stadium, in a
AND WANTS TO REWARD EACH
broadcasting venue, or any combination
FAN THAT WILL PERFORM “CROWD
of them (Proof-of-Place)
WAVES” DURING THE VIDEO AND
RADIO BRAND ADVERTISEMENT. • He / she was effectively watching or
THE BEER BRAND BROADCASTS listening to the match, even after the
ADVERTISEMENTS ON DIFFERENT fact (Proof-of-Presence)
CHANNELS SUCH AS RADIO AND • He / she participated in the “crowd
TV; THE ADVERTISEMENT IS PLAYED waves” (Proof-of-Participation)
RANDOMLY IN THE STADIUM.
The Agoora smart contract will then process
The participation can be anonymous. How- the captured proofs and will mint/assign a
ever, for those who also opt in to include defined reward amount expressed in Agoora
their Proof-of-Person, they will receive a tokens (or any other ERC-20, ERC-223,
unique digital collectible card (ERC-721) — ERC-721, ERC-998, ERC-1155 compliant
like the famous Panini cards that sport fans tokens) to be allocated to the users as a
used to collect and trade. function of their level of engagement.
In this case we can have 4 distinct types of The beer brand fans that participated in
participating users: some of the social engagement tasks will be
automatically credited with promised tokens
1. Users physically in the stadium as a reward. The smart contract will be able
2. Users who are in a broadcast venue to allocate different reward amounts to
(i.e., a bar, community area, etc.) individual users depending upon the
collected proofs, and the degree of each
3. Users who are neither in the stadium
user’s participation.
nor in a broadcast venue (e.g., could be
at home, on public transport, etc.)
4. Users who watched a re-run of the
match at a later time
We estimate that the Agoora platform will have to
support and process roughly 100 million proofs per week
for this use case, reflecting the participation in major
sporting events.
Note: this also applies to concerts, conferences, or any public or private exhibitions. We also anticipate traction for spontaneous events with the
increasing use of social live event streaming (e.g., Facebook live, Snapchat stories).Use case #2:
Corporate shareholders assembly
A LISTED COMPANY HAS ITS voting application can be used to follow the
ANNUAL PLENARY SHAREHOLDERS agenda and will provide a platform for par-
ASSEMBLY AT THE COMPANY’S HEAD ticipating in the voting and will immutably
OFFICE AND WANTS A MAXIMUM OF register the votes.
SHAREHOLDERS TO VOTE ON THE
The Agoora protocol, combined with a Smart
COMPANY’S SENIOR MANAGEMENT
Contract, will be able to accurately deter-
PROPOSALS. TO ENABLE THE MAX-
mine for each voter whether:
IMUM NUMBER OF SHAREHOLD-
ERS TO VOTE, THE SHAREHOLDER’S • He / she was eligible to participate in the
PHYSICAL PRESENCE IS NOT MAN- vote (Proof-of-Person)
DATORY, HOWEVER THE PROOF-OF-
• He / she was attending the assembly
PERSON AND PROOF-OF-PLACE ARE
in-person or not (Proof-of-Place)
REQUIRED TO PARTICIPATE IN THE
VOTING. • He / she was effectively watching or
listening to the assembly (Proof-of-
For the shareholders that cannot be at the Presence)
meeting in-person, the assembly is broad-
• He / she participated in the votes when
cast on the company’s website. For all
requested (Proof-of-Participation)
meeting participants, the company’s
regular mobile application or the Agoora
The Agoora protocol will tally all the votes and, once
the electoral officer closes the ballot, the results can
be presented instantly. The voting process can be
audited as well as all of the proofs can be reviewed
on the blockchain.Use case #3:
Enable engagement leveraging
Geo-fencing & Geo-targeting techniques.
AN ANONYMOUS USER IS EATING Geo-targeting refers to displaying ads to
HIS LUNCH IN A SHOPPING MALL’S people who meet specific ‘targeting’ criteria
FOOD COURT. WHILE EATING, HE IS in addition to being in a geo-fenced area.
WATCHING YOUTUBE VIDEOS. YOU- The key difference with geo-fencing is that
TUBE WILL DISPLAY RELEVANT ADS geo-targeting considers much more data
BASED ON THE USER’S LOCATION (e.g., demographics, interests, behaviors,
AND OTHER CRITERIA. etc.) to be able to display the most relevant
ads.
Geo-fencing refers to the drawing of a vir-
tual fence around a physical location. When In the near future we could see geo-
some people are in a geo-fenced area, ads targeted prospects (Proof-of-Place and
related to the area will be displayed on Proof-of-Presence) that would receive extra
users’ devices. discounts or a customized brand journey
for those who came and interacted with
an on-site animation or sale (Proof-of-
Participation).
We believe that the Agoora protocol will be a
marketing game changer allowing new scenarios that
enable marketers to not only attract valuable prospects
to visit areas but also introducing / providing a genuine
engagement aspect with the Proof-of-Participation.Agoora protocol presentation - p. 27 Ethereum Smart Contract To build a truly decentralized proofs platform, we selected the most accepted and used smart contract Blockchain platform, the Ethereum network. Ethereum is still in active development, with new features (e.g., scalability, privacy, interoperability, etc.) being added to it all the time. The ERC-20 standard for fungible tokens was released on Ethereum and is now a wide- ly-supported standard, with the benefit that it will enable market participants to easily acquire or exchange the Agoora tokens needed to manufacture proofs. Since the logic defined in a smart contract is immutable after its deployment on the Ethereum network, smart contracts will be extensively reviewed by independent auditors to ensure that they can securely maintain a consistent set of rules and data and enable market participants to trust the fairness of the platform and the protocol. Performance and scale considerations Even as Blockchain’s reach continues to expand, the technology remains held back by limitations that are largely the result of its creation. Despite its immense potential for decentralization and disintermediation of many services and systems, Blockchain solutions remain largely theoretical due to both technical and cost-related restrictions. The problem for most cryptocurrency and Blockchain-based applications is that decen- tralized networks, while reducing the hardware costs for companies developing them, increase the cost of maintenance. Furthermore, scaling is significantly harder due to the intense resource requirements (i.e., CPU, disk space) of hosting an ever-expanding distributed ledger on every node. With hundreds and even thousands of events per day, each involving potentially thou- sands of participants, a simple calculation shows that our Agoora Participation Eco- system of Applications will be required to clear millions of proofs per day. Because of a hard-coded limit on computations per block, the Ethereum blockchain currently sup- ports roughly 7-15 transactions per second which translates into a maximum of a million transactions a day to serve the needs of the overall Ethereum community. Scaling up Ethereum The core limitation is that public blockchains like Ethereum require every transaction to be processed by every single node in the network. Every operation that takes place on the Ethereum blockchain — a payment, the birth of a CryptoKitty, the deployment of a new ERC-20 contract — must be performed by every single node in the network in par- allel. This is by design; it’s part of what makes public blockchains authoritative. Nodes don’t have to rely on someone else to tell them what the current state of the blockchain is — they figure it out for themselves.
Agoora protocol presentation - p. 28 Ethereum was introduced to much fanfare, as it set the stage for the development of distributed applications (ĐApps) and offered, in theory, a more stable version of Bitcoin’s restrictive blockchain and consensus methods. However, the Ethereum chain has also run into scalability issues (which came to the surface thanks to the “CryptoKitties” fias- co), a challenge that even Vitalik Buterin, the founder of Ethereum, has admitted exists. One of the solutions he has come up with, however, could be a game-changer for the Ethereum blockchain’s overall scalability. “Plasma” is a technology that allows users to create “child” blockchains that branch off from the main Ethereum chain. This removes much of the stress that currently congests the rate of transactions on Ethereum. The biggest problem for scaling is that, as the demand for transactions increases, when more users join the chain, the costs (i.e., re- source and financial) of maintaining the chain also grow exponentially. By allowing users to create micro-chains that host specific transactions, Plasma can remove a large source of strain on the network while concurrently making it easier to scale Ethereum for greater real-world applications. Plasma is being designed to stack on top of Ethereum and to work alongside other new technologies (such as “sharding”) that also work to improve scaling. Scalability of distributed networks such as Bitcoin and Ethereum are well behind where they need to be, even for simple applications like payment networks. But since the promises of Blockchain technology go way beyond just payments, everything from de- centralized social networks to video games are being developed to run on Blockchain infrastructure.
Agoora protocol presentation - p. 29
Alternative platforms
While we believe that the Ethereum platform is most suitable for the development and
deployment of the Agoora platform, we continue to monitor developments in the block-
chain space, particularly with regard to processing volumes and speed. We have identi-
fied a number of organizations that are working to improve existing blockchains, while
others are looking to leapfrog blockchain technology altogether. These organizations
include:
EOS BLOCKCHAIN (https://eos.io)
EOS has already been hailed for its scalable ecosystem for ĐApps
development, its creative design, and its disconnect from the ma-
jor Bitcoin and Ethereum chains. Instead of building a blockchain on
which applications can be launched and hosted, the EOS.io team built
something more akin to an operating system that lets users piece
together their own ĐApps and blockchains using a system-wide uni-
versal template. The beauty of it is that the technology that underpins
it is built specifically to deal with the biggest issues limiting scalability:
transaction speeds and the number of transactions that the system can
process.
ZILLIQA BLOCKCHAIN (https://www.zilliqa.com/)
One of the more exciting developments in today’s Blockchain field is
the introduction of “sharding” as a possible solution to the scaling hur-
dle. “Sharding” involves breaking down large sets of data into smaller
“shards” that can be processed independently and then regrouped to
form the original set when needed. Initially conceived for the Ethereum
blockchain, the model is still at least a few years away from full imple-
mentation. However, Zilliqa has taken the lead on that front and has
already released a version of its infrastructure that has shown tremen-
dous potential for scalability and ĐApps development.
QUARKCHAIN BLOCKCHAIN (https://quarkchain.io)
Transactions Per Second (TPS) has become an important metric in the
Blockchain scalability conversation, and few companies have stepped
up to make as bold a claim as QuarkChain. The company estimates
that once fully operational, its proprietary network should be able to
scale up to a whopping 1 million transactions per second, a capability
that is several orders of magnitude higher than Bitcoin and Ethereum,
and even above the Visa payment network’s capacity of approximately
65,000 TPS.Agoora protocol presentation - p. 30 NEO BLOCKCHAIN (https://neo.org/) NEO is a non-profit community-driven blockchain project. It utilizes blockchain technology and digital identity to digitize assets and auto- mate the management of digital assets using smart contracts. Using a distributed network, it aims to create a “Smart Economy”. NEO was founded in 2014 and was open sourced on GitHub in June 2015. NEO has stated that community development is its top priority. NEO has a huge developer community around the world, such as CoZ, NEL, and NeoResearch, who continuously contribute to NEO’s development. Mil- lions of community members are active on Reddit, Discord, Github, and Twitter. MAGNACHAIN (https://magnachain.co) MagnaChain aims to provide revolutionary solutions for these problems by allowing developers to create games for the blockchain even if they are not fluent in Blockchain-specific coding languages. MagnaChain will facilitate this by providing numerous Software Development Kits (SDKs) to translate games from popular coding languages such as Lua so that they can run on the blockchain. This means developers will be able to release full games with ease and even bring their existing games to the MagnaChain platform. Similar to highly regarded public blockchains like Ethereum, Mag- naChain is supposed to allow for virtually limitless applications and tokenized ecosystems to be built on its platform. These ecosystems could include existing games that have been re-configured to run on the blockchain, new games built exclusively to run on MagnaChain, third- party exchanges for digital assets, and third-party marketplaces. LOOM NETWORK (https://loomx.io) Loom Network is a Layer 2 scaling solution for Ethereum that is live in production. It is a network of Delegated Proof of Stake (DPoS) side- chains, which allow for highly-scalable games and user-facing Đapps while still being backed by the security of Ethereum. Dubbed “EOS on Ethereum”, Loom’s DPoS sidechains provide the same high scalability and throughput promised by alternative platforms like EOS, while still being fully Ethereum-compatible and secure.
Agoora protocol presentation - p. 31
Security and preventing bad actors
The security and reliability of the Agoora protocol is fundamental and it is critical for us
to make sure that the ecosystem remains fair and immune from cheating actors or mis-
behaving users. The protocol will embed security routines that have two main features:
to protect the network from bad actors and to ensure that the service remains available
and reliable.
➤➤ The security and fairness of the Agoora ecosystem is an important element for
us as trust is tied to our protocol. We also believe that maintaining a high level of
trust within our ecosystem will have a direct impact on the short-term and long-
term economics of our value proposition.
Protocol security is a great concern for Agoora and we will make sure to remain at the
forefront of cyber and non-security practices. As such, we have identified the following
security cases (among many others):
CHEATING GEOGRAPHIC LOCATION (OWN AND ANOTHER PEER’S PLACE)
A peer could declare an untruthful geographic location to obtain a false Proof-of-Place.
Our network topology prevents this kind of situation, since each peer that receives a
Proof-of-Place request or response verifies that the specified geographic location is not
farther than the maximum distance covered by the short-range communication tech-
nology. Moreover, if a peer keeps trying to cheat the network, the network will protect
itself by banning the peer attempting to disrupt the service.
REPLAYING ERRONEOUS PROOFS-OF-PLACE (‘POISON THE WELL ATTACKS’)
This type of attack occurs when a malfunctioning or malicious party creates and injects
corrupted data into the network, which decreases the overall accuracy of the processing
or proofs generated by the system.
An outdated Proof-of-Place could be re-broadcast over the network by malicious peers,
with the purpose of minting the Proof-of-Place of other peers. Since every peer of the
network checks that the Proof-of-Place is coherent in the layer 2 blockchain before re-
laying it, this attack won’t work. Moreover, every minted Proof-of-Place contains a refer-
ence to a block of the blockchain. In the case where the referenced block is older than
the latest blocks of the blockchain, the block will be immediately discarded/rejected.Agoora protocol presentation - p. 32 COLLUDING WITH OTHER PEERS A case to consider is when two or more malicious peers collude together to generate false proofs (also known as a Sybil attack). For instance, a malicious peer, with the help of another malicious peer, tries to prove itself in a geographic location that is not its real one. The two peers agree to declare a wrong Proof-of-Place attesting that their geo- graphic locations are different from the real ones. Then, they broadcast the untruthful Proofs-of-Place over the network. In most cases, colluding peers can be detected by honest nearby peers and the consen- sus mechanism. Once detected, their contribution will be disregarded, and they could be banned. DETERMINING REAL IDENTITIES OF PEERS An attacker could attempt to determine by deduction the real identity of network peers through full observation of Proof-of-Place in the blockchain. Similar to Bitcoin, users can have multiple wallets and they are free to use any of their compatible wallets when participating. As demonstrated in Zhu and Cao’s paper (“Toward Privacy Preserving and Collusion Resistance in a Location Proof Updating System”), if a peer can have and use multiple wallets (i.e., different unique identifiers), it becomes extremely difficult to determine the underlying user’s identity. Also, the Agoora blockchain will never store users’ identity data. DENIAL OF SERVICE (DOS) AND DISTRIBUTED DENIAL OF SERVICE (DDOS) ATTACKS Both Denial of Service (DoS) and Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks occur when malicious or dysfunctional actors submerge the network with huge volumes of network requests, usually causing a local, regional, or even a system-wide outage. Due to the distributed nature of the Agoora protocol and the design of the infrastructure, the network will remain functional despite an attempted Denial of Service Attack. As DoS or DDoS attacks require significant computing power and physical access to disturb an ongoing event, targeting even a small portion of the Agoora protocol is expensive and economically illogical and discouraging. SECURITY AND PLATFORM ROBUSTNESS With almost a new breach or exploit disclosed every day, hacking technics and cyber- attacks are common topics these days. The MtGox hack was the very first and biggest heist the crypto world had to deal with; the impact was deep, with effects beyond the crypto community. At Agoora we believe that cyber pressure will increase steadily in the coming years and the threat might effectively terminate those players that are un- prepared. To sharpen our countermeasure techniques, we will remain mobilized and will use the latest innovations (e.g., machine learning and AI) in combination with leg- acy hacking approaches (i.e., honeypot, IDS) resulting in a solid and adaptive security framework.
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