A Cannabis DAPP Is Coming To EOS [PART 2 - Blockchain Principles]

Taking a look at the fundamentals.

To understand more about our company and the reasons we chose to issue our own token, one should understand a few basic principles.

What are Bitcoins, Alt Coins, and Useful Blockchain Applications?

Bitcoins

Most of you will most likely say Bitcoin is simply (Or rather not so simply, as the recent fork has shown) a decentralized ledger and the amount of Bitcoins one owns is equivalent to their stake in the network, and analogous to owning shares in a decentralized bank of sorts. Those that own the currency, BTC, have a say in the network and have direct ownership in the market capital.

Others may see it as a currency or asset class, but everyone can agree Bitcoin is at least a digital token that can transfer value provably, without having to trust an intermediary. This basic understanding of the technology behind Bitcoin has allowed it, and many other altcoins, to flourish.

Altcoins

Because Bitcoin is open source, it has been copied and replicated thousands of times under various names. These copy cats originally simply used the Bitcoin code and distribution to create their own network. The most famous of these is Litecoin. While most of these copy cat coins held no intrinsic value, some still managed to maintain a community and support.

The emergence of these communities, in our opinion, came from a few places early on...

1. Innovation - Devs wanting to experiment (And add new features) on a chain that wouldn't effect Bitcoin but would still have real world experimentation (and value).
2. Risk Mitigation - Investors and developers wanting to hedge in case their is a major failure with the Bitcoin blockchain (Though arguably this would crash most other coins).
3. Wealth Distribution - Scammers taking advantage of the altcoin scene.
4. FOMO - Investors not knowing the difference between 'intrinsic' value and 'superficial' value.

Now, we are not going to go into detail of each, as this could easily be a study on its own. But we see altcoins as any blockchain or token that does not solve a problem that another blockchain or token already solves.

Useful Blockchain Applications

A recent emergence is useful blockchain applications. These applications use the blockchain in meaningful ways to disrupt an industry and provide real benefits over centralized solutions. Lets face it. With the power and ease of Facebook, Amazon AWS, Dropbox and many of Google's applications it is difficult to compete, let alone disrupt these already existing models.

Useful blockchain applications such as Steem has allowed for a decentralized social network and Storj provides a decentralized cloud storage. As blockchain technology has developed, it has allowed these applications to take shape, utilizing the underlying technology.

Our Token

Before creating the Smoke.Network we had a clear goal in mind. To solve the problems content creators and companies in the cannabis niche face and build a network owned by everyone.

Before we even started, we had a clear question that each advisor we spoke to would often say "Is a blockchain necessary for your project?" So, we tried it out without one.

So early last year, we built a platform implemented as a NodeBB forum on a subdomain of [420smokers.us](http://420smokers.us], using a gamification system to reward users. Revenue was generated through an advertising partnership with Mantis Ad Network. While it worked pretty well and interested some of our 420 000 strong Facebook fans, it did not quite have the flavor of a decentralized network.

Users complained we where more like a central bank. Cashing out had to be done through purchasing something in our store and so anonymous users points expired. And it all felt a bit iffy.

After a few months, we shut the forum down, promising to come back decentralized forever!

Find out more at https://smoke.network