Hi, we are Utrum! The little grass-roots project, born from a Slack channel, already listed on CoinMarketCap (and our ICO is still live), bringing TRUST to Crypto Investing!

I guess with a title like that I have a lot of explaining to do!

Many of you already know me well as "abarefootpoet" or "ethadvisor".

Steemit is where I began my journey in Cryptocurrency and Blockchain.  I truly love this community.

In May of this year (2018) I took a position as Marketing Lead at a very exciting project called Utrum.  

And now I want to introduce you all to this project.

So let me share a little about what we are doing at Utrum and how we are bringing trust to crypto-investing through decentralized, curated reviews...and rewarding our users for quality participation.

What  makes investing in cryptocurrency a fun, fulfilling and even thrilling  experience is having clear guidance and the knowledge to stay safe while  “playing”.The  hope of gains, the thrill of early adoption of an emerging technology,  the rush of the speculation and gamble, the “game” of playing the  opportunity are all enjoyed best in a trusted space.Being  “taken” by a scam or falling for incorrect, misleading, or simply bad  information or advice, on the other hand, turns the “dream” into a  nightmare.Newbies  to investing and professional investors alike have been taken by clever  schemes and scams which appeared to be completely legitimate. And  perhaps more commonly, well-meaning folks have fallen for  misinformation, which unbeknownst to them was only designed for  generating a profit by it’s author, with no concern as to its accuracy.Because  crypto-investing is both unregulated and an emerging, very technical  industry, this problem is not going away and there are communities  developing solutions.We at Utrum are one such community.Crypto-investing  already comes “pre-loaded” with many inherit risks. But these risks are  not nearly as petrifying as the risks associated with screwing up a  transaction, losing your wallet, sending your funds to the wrong wallet,  getting shilled information, or falling for a scam.All  of these are avoidable risks, with the right knowledge. It boils down  to accurate, and curated information to solve this problem…but to  achieve this there has to be trust mechanisms put in place.And luckily, blockchain is the ideal technology to accomplish trust and transparency in a “trustless” environment.

The Relationship Between Risk and Knowledge

Many  risks in crypto investing are ignorance related, such as handling a  wallet, understanding what tokens can be sent where and how, etc. These  risks are easily overcome with readily available, well curated and known  information and tutorials.Getting  provably accurate and quality information on a crypto-related  investment, project, team, token, asset or other however, is completely  different. Knowledge in avoiding being scammed is even trickier.And  with so many conflicting messages and an ever increasing chaos pitch in  the industry, it’s becoming more difficult to identify quality or  accuracy, or to differentiate a scam from winning a proposition.Not  to mention the nature of disorganization in any info out there now,  people joining Facebook groups, Slack, Telegram “signal”  channels…jumping around and trying desperately to piece together some  semblance of clarity.This  sort of chaos and confusion, along with the greed-driven review sites  getting paid to write biased reviews who could care less about accuracy,  legitimacy or quality…paired with the rampant scams…it’s a mess!When  founder Sridhar dreamed up Utrum he came from a security background  and, as a crypto investor himself, understanding both industries  intimately he was able to see immediately how blockchain solves the  problem when leveraged correctly.Utrum, like most projects, has created a whitepaper to  explain how we are solving these trust issues in crypto investing. But  white papers aren’t exactly easy to read or understand, so we decided to  explain Utrum in plain english.

Utrum’s LitePaper — Understanding Exactly HOW Utrum Works

In  a phrase, Utrum is a decentralized platform which provides a network of  content, feedback, metrics, analyses, and community between members.The decentralized platform has five primary mechanisms to it:

1. It implements rewards for user participation, similar to Steemit
2. It is a curated reviews platform, similar to Glassdoor
3. It has a marketplace, similar to Fiverr
4. It includes market predictions, similar to Trading View
5. It implements team and company database, similar to Crunchbase

All  of this targeted specifically to Crypto of course. As you can see,  Utrum is overall a Curated Reviews & Knowledge platform.As  such, crypto-investments are reviewed and rated, market predictions are  analyzed or accessed…dissimilar however to centralized platforms in  that Utrum combines rewards and curation in a way which promotes quality  and accuracy.To whittle it down, Utrum provides Ai-supported Rewarded Quality Curating by Members in a mechanism we call “Crowd Wisdom.”

How Does “Crowd Wisdom” Work?

Crowd Wisdom is essentially another term to describe curating.The  result of curating in a platform such as Utrum, where it’s all about  reviews and analyses of potential investment opportunities, is wisdom.  This philosophy of crowd wisdom subjects all information submitted to  the platform, such as a review of a crypto-investment, to a “trial by  jury” mechanism…the collective community voting on the content.This  voting process is “blind” and members have no social influence, voting  purely on conscience. To mitigate manipulation or outside influence,  Artificial Intelligence (Ai) is integrated in the voting process with  the support of community Trustees, who act as moderators in the  ecosystem.The  result is content which is curated by the community with results being  analyzed by the Ai to detect fraud as well as the Trustees to help  “teach” the learning machine.In  the example of a review being published, the review gains validity and  visibility based on the curated results by the community.In  this process members are rewarded in OOT tokens for their  participation, while gaining a reputation which will play to the quality  and validity of their work.

The Basic Process

To understand this better, let’s look at the flow of events.Utrum  as a platform is designed with several types of content, not just  reviews. Predictions, analyses, and even a marketplace are crucial  features of Utrum.What  Utrum is NOT is a content producer. It’s simply a platform for members  to use, publish various crypto-investment and related content, curate  the content, and interact with each other and projects, teams, etc in  the ecosystem.Utrum  Platform is designed to support any crypto-related product, service,  etc…for example ICOs, Products, Assets, Services, Currency/Coin,  Reviews, etc can be rated and voted upon (curated) in the Platform.Each  type of crypto-related matter has a categorical voting period  associated with it. Reviews have a 72 hour voting period, analyses have a  48 hour voting period, and predictions have a 24 hour voting period.

A Walk-through of Utrum Post-to-Publish

So  let’s walk through the process from start to finish with the example of  a Crypto-investment Review as the content being published and curated.1 — Member Publishes a Review
Here’s where it all begins, a member posts a review to the community and the content enters a 72 hour blindfold voting period.2 — Voting = Curating
Members  are able to vote on the review during this period without knowing what  others are voting. This encourages unbiased votes, improving the overall  quality of the curating process. Voting is time limited and results are  counted only after the process is completed.3 — Ai + Trustees
After  voting has ended, the Ai system analyzes the results, using complex  algorithms to identify fraud, manipulation, and other attempts at  skewing the results. Any fraudulent data is discarded and the results  are published. Trustees help in the process of the Ai learning various  behaviors and patterns, to better identify fraud vs legitimate results.4 — OOT Token Rewards Paid to Participants
15  days after results are published and content is curated, participants  are paid in OOT tokens as a reward for playing! The post author is paid  70% of total payout for the post while voters are paid 30%.The  end result is a published, curated review of a crypto-related  investment, product, service or asset. Quality is determined and  measured by the “crowd” and members coming for guidance and knowledge  are presented with unbiased data.

Trust in Crypto

One  of the key components in Utrum is the Trust Factor Algorithm. Cryptos,  ICOs, Reviews, Posts, etc are all given a Trust Factor Score. In  addition, reviewers, experts, analysts, etc are all given a Trust Factor  Score based on a calculation method which implements quantity and  quality of their content and participation.Trust  is core to Utrum, both in concept and in practice within the software  and algorithms driving the system. Because Utrum presents a rewards  incentive to users for participating, it’s crucial to also implement  trust mechanisms in tandem, which promote quality and accuracy.

Trust in Content

When  it comes to content, trust is established during the voting process in  which users are motivated to vote on conscience over influence. Voting  is performed in a time-limited, blind process, after which every vote is  counted and analyzed within the system.Voters  are also rated during this process. Votes and patterns of votes are  carefully analyzed, generating a Trust Factor Score for the content when  voting has finished.

Trust in Members

Whenever  a member creates a post, a review, prediction, or other type of  analysis, their contribution is evaluated through a rating process.  After the voting has completed for their content and the Trust Factor  Score assigned, the member also receives a Trust Factor Score.As  the member’s TFS improves they are able to become an Expert.  Ultimately, a member’s accuracy in evaluating reviews, content,  projects, etc all contribute to developing their Trust Factor Score and  for all intents and purposes, their reputation in the community.The  more accurate a member is…the higher quality content they  contribute…the more trust they develop in the community…the higher their  TFS and their “provable” trust within the system.In this way Utrum builds trust in crypto-related reviews, analytics, predictions, content and experts.

Trust through Governance

Utrum  also implements a governance model of 12 community-elected Trustees. As  the community grows an election will be held every 6 months for new  trustees to be added to the Platform.Trustees  act as moderators of sorts, providing oversight in strategic decisions,  voting processes, and ultimately assisting in the learning process of  the Ai.

Fun and SAFE!

Utrum  is a serious project, with serious algorithms, complex Ai, and a  serious passion for safety and security within Crypto-investing. And all  this “seriousness” is for the purpose of solving trust problems in  crypto, providing a safe platform for clear knowledge, where investors  and newbies can simply ENJOY investing!If you would like to learn more and participate in our project, we invite you to visit our official website at https://utrum.ioYou may also enjoy participating in our Telegram!

Utrum dICO Crowdsale is Live

As a final note, for those interested in supporting our project, our Public Crowdsale is live until June 20, 2018.Our  project is utilizing a transparent crowdfunding model, where  participants can invest in us in a wallet-to-wallet trade…meaning you  simply buy OOT tokens in a direct trade with us and can be a part of  supporting our project and helping us build this trusted ecosystem.To join our Crowdsale now, simply head over to https://utrum.io/tokensale and watch our super simple walk-through video on how to play.