10 (+1) Ideas for a Better Crypto Future Proposed by Brian Armstrong

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong recently shared a 'Request for Builders' to participate in Coinbase Venture Summit in October. He also proposed 10 example ideas they see as "exciting and critical for the space to galvanize the next generation of crypto startups."

According to Armstrong, Coinbase has the resources to build a lot in crypto, but they don't have time to make everything and want to help enable the whole ecosystem. "We need more people to come join us," he added.

Some of the ideas are outlined below:

Flatcoin - an alternative to centralized stablecoins, censorship resistant like Bitcoin

Armstrong argues that current stablecoins are a good intermediary step, yet they suffer from the same inflationary issues and potential seizure as fiat.

To preserve the purchasing power of flatcoins, Armstrong suggests linking them to the consumer prices index. After launching Base this spring, Coinbase indicated that it is particularly interested in developing flatcoins:

"With the recent challenges in our global banking system, we believe these explorations are more important than ever," - the exchange wrote in a blog post.

On-chain reputation - a decentralized protocol that assigns a reputation score to each address based on the graph of on-chain data.

The score would allow users to check other parties' reliability and prevent fraud. We earlier wrote about a similar idea suggested by Vitalik Buterin: in the article about Decentralised society, he introduced an analog of 'digital karma' and suggested assigning Soulbound Tokens to users. According to his vision, every Soul would have its digital reputation and a history of its behavior recorded in the blockchain.

On-chain ads - advertising in Web3 via the CPA model.

Advertising has played a major role in web 2.0, including the progression from a CPM model (payment per thousand impressions) to CPC (payment only on click through). Armstrong muses whether Web3 could see a further transition to a CPA model, whereby advertisers only pay when someone buys or takes an action after viewing an advert.

On-chain capital formation - next iteration of ICOs in Web3.

ICOs raised a whole new set of problems around scams and unregistered securities, but they did mitigate some typical funding challenges - limited access to the capital and lack of transparency. Armstrong suggests creating a trusted platform to allow entrepreneurs access the world's capital and raise money onchain. The Onchain Reputation outlined above could feed into this.

🛠️

If you are a builder interested in developing these ideas (or have a better one of your own), you can apply to join the Builder Summit in October, hosted by Coinbase Ventures.

Other ideas include:

Job/task crypto marketplace like Upwork that would ease routing payments to individuals cross-border using crypto
Fully on-chain P2P exchange that wouldn't be connected to any centralized entity
Privacy solutions for Layer 2
On-chain games with NFT in-game items
Real-world asset tokenization (you can read more about this here)
Network state software tools to help manage these new blockchain-based entities.

💡

A network state is a highly aligned online community with a capacity for collective action that crowdfunds territory around the world and eventually gains diplomatic recognition from pre-existing states.

While we were Observing the responses to Armstong's call to action, he came up with another idea: LinkedIn on blockchain.

To sum up, Armstrong's proposals cover some decentralized alternatives to existing tools and products, along with some concepts that can only exist within a blockchain-enabled ecosystem. Do you think Coinbase's new blockchain will be able to accomplish all of this? Which one is the most viable and valuable, in your opinion?