TAC - The Advertising Currency
By: Bruce Bates
Abstract
An industry based cryptocurrency is a natural progression of cryptocurrency
that could help take money control out of the hands of elite bankers, out of
the hands of project leaders, out of the hands of owners, and out of the hands
of influencers as well as help solve long term volatility in currencies without
the need of “stable coins”. This requires changing the way cryptocurrency
value is currently calculated and moving away from supply and demand
economics into an asset class valuation. The industry of marketing and
advertising has been selected to begin testing the idea of industry based
currency. This industry was selected due to its overwhelming control by
mega-corporations as well as existing flaws within the marketplace that
industry based currency can solve.
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Introduction
The world of marketing and advertising has a couple of flaws; either the cost
to promote is too expensive or the time consumption needed for growth
deters an owner from focusing on business operations. Neither of these
options are ideal for small to midsize businesses lacking the time and/or
resources needed to flourish in such endeavors. The majority of the industry is
controlled by three corporate giants: Google, Facebook (Instagram) and
Amazon, which collectively hold 64.4% of the entire market causing a lack of
competitive availability while maintaining a financial stronghold over the
industry.
That may not sound bad with 35% not controlled by them but when you bring
in Microsoft, Apple and other megacorps, startup firms have no chance. On
top of that marketing has become a giant auction where those able to pay
the most win, thus excluding small and mid-sized businesses. As if that’s not
enough, consumers have become the product for marketing and advertising
agencies.
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It is no secret that advertisers target their ads at specific audiences based on
the audiences online behavior. They are able to target age, gender, search
history, interests, connections and even whether or not a person has recently
looked for similar items, memberships or similar types of data. The fact is, no
matter how private one makes themselves their behaviors are being tracked.
On top of this, companies like Google and Facebook have long since done
away with traditional “customer service” in favor of community support,
meaning that if a real problem is happening, there is no one to turn to.
People’s voices are not being heard, considered, or taken into account when it
comes to advertising, targeting, or even quality.
An industry based currency can level the playing field for small to mid-sized
business owners by creating a much cheaper alternative to current
advertising methods while also allowing businesses to profit and earn the
very currency that they will be spending.
It allows people to take back control over their information, not through
privacy but rather through inclusions while offering them rewards for being
the product.
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What is industry based currency
Currently there are two types of currency in the world - inflationary currency
and deflationary currency.
Inflationary currency tends to be government created currency or currencies
created with a high level of manipulation through an infinite money supply
with an unlimited cap mixed with interest rate manipulations.
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Deflationary currency on the other hand is usually limited in supply, valued
based on supply and demand, and relatively easily manipulated by large
holders called whales.
Neither inflationary or deflationary currency has proven to be an effective
transparent form of currency and each is riddled with manipulations the
average person has no control over while elites have a great deal of control in
both forms of currency.
Industry based currency is something entirely different. Industry based
currency has a limited supply like that of deflationary currency, but it also has
a value cap. This means Industry based currency is not manipulated by
interest rates, by unlimited supply, nor by direct manipulations on a buy and
sell market.
Instead industry based currency obtains its value from the assets that it
maintains and from its limited supply while having a cap that should not be
larger than the industry it was created for - in the case of TAC that would be
the industry of marketing and advertising.
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Industry Based Currency Valuation
Currently the value of a cryptocurrency comes from several different things .
1. Supply and Demand market
2. Scarcity
3. Claimed Fiat Backing
4. Utility
Scarcity creates a value in a supply and demand market for coins like bitcoin,
utility plus supply and demand market creates a value for coins like
ethereum, and claimed fiat backing gives values to tokens like Tether.
Industry based currency combines scarcity with utility and takes supply and
demand out of the equation. It does this by obtaining its value from the
assets created using the currency.
If one examines ethereum they will find it allows assets to be created on their
platform. Ethereum’s value however is still derived from speculations of its
value on the open market.
If one examines bitcoin, bitcoin has a limited supply of 21 million. This
generates a scarcity that makes people desire it, and the more scarce it
becomes the higher the value goes. This is because much like ethereum, its
value is still derived from speculations in an open market.
TAC will have a limited supply like bitcoin, but it has a finite value that is not
derived by speculations. Instead its value comes from a combination of all the
tokenized assets created on its platform. Further, it has a limited value height
because the value of an industry based currency should never be greater
than the value of the industry itself.
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The marketing and advertising industry was worth approximately 1.8 trillion
US Dollars in 2020. That means no matter what value could be given to TAC,
that value would never be worth more than 1.8 trillion dollars because it
would never be worth more than the entirety of the industry.
TAC is beginning with a pre-mine of 100,000 coins and a total supply of
100,000,000 coins. So if t represents the total TAC in current circulation, m
represents the total industry market cap, s represents the max supply and MC
represents the max market cap for current circulating supply a market cap
potential equation would look like:
MC = (m / s) * t
MC = ((1,800,000,000,000 / 100,000,000) * 100,000)
MC = 1,800,000,000
With a total potential market cap for circulating supply it has to be
considered the percentage of the market the currency would hold - in this
case roughly 1/400,000th of the market.
This means that there are roughly 400,000 marketing based services that
make up the marketing industry. This value will be known as c and SC is the
suggested market cap value giving a potential equation of:
SC = MC * c
SC = MC * (1 / 400,000)
SC = 1,800,000,000 * (1 / 400,000)
SC = 4500
This formula can now be used to determine the base value of TAC currency.
If BV represents the currency value, BV can be obtained by dividing the
circulating supply by the industry market cap:
BV = SC / t
BV = SC / 100,000
BV = 4500 / 100,000
BV = $0.045
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This means the initial value and base value of TAC at time of launch should be
roughly four and a half cents in US Dollars. This would be the absolute lowest
value the coins should ever be if absolutely no assets were ever to exist on the
chain.
Determining the base value is an approximate value because it is an estimate
that there are 400,000 marketing based services that make up the industry.
This creates a starting value but not an actual value.
Rather than constantly adjusting the percentage of the market, it is more
logical to value an industry based currency based on the value of its total
assets.
As more projects are built on the chain and more assets exist naturally the
base value is discarded and instead the value becomes the total of all asset
values. The total market cap of all assets combined should never be more
than the value of the industry as a whole.
Unlike inflationary currency whose value will always go down over a long
period of time and unlike deflationary currency whose value will always go up
over a long period of time, industry based currency will have times where it
goes up and times where it goes down. These are caused by changes in the
market, new project creation, changes in asset value on the chain, and total
distribution of the currency.
If tv represents a given token’s value and ts represents a token’s supply then it
is easy to obtain that token’s market cap. With each token’s market cap then
the currency’s actual value and actual market cap, represented as AV and AC,
can be acquired.
AV = ((tv * ts) + (tv * ts) + (tv * ts) + (tv * ts) ….) / t
AC = AV * t
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Industry Based Currency Features
An industry based currency is one that is specifically intended for
transactional use. Because of this the assets on an industry based blockchain
must maintain a relative high speed.
TAC was created with a 10-second block time that can maintain 100
transactions per block making it one of the fastest blockchains currently in
existence, enabling smart contracts and other asset based projects to run at a
faster, more optimal rate.
Utilizing an industry based currency allows an ease of use for both end users
as well as developers, simplifying the ability to create smart contracts and
assets without smart contracts.
Smart contracts are not decentralized. They are contracts that interact
between a wallet and user to ensure certain events take place. The mere
definition of decentralized equates no single point of failure. The wallet and
contract are both single points of failure. In short, there are times to utilize
smart contracts and other times where having access to a full blown
blockchain API is the solution.
TAC blockchain was created from a modified clone of wavesplatform and
their tools, allowing developers to create smart contracts in the RIDE smart
contract language defined by wavesplatform.
It also allows developers to create assets without a smart contract and create
applications in the programming languages they are most familiar with,
adding a level of security that does not exist with most chains.
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The protocol of TAC is Leased Proof of Stake. This means TAC is a Proof of
Stake protocol which requires having a minimum of 1000 TAC coins in order
to earn from staking. That reward is 0.5 TAC per block. The more TAC one has
in their staking wallet, the more likely they are to be the creator of a block.
The Leasing protocol of TAC allows users with less than 1000 TAC to take part
in the rewards by leasing their coins to staking nodes. When a user leases
coins those coins are frozen in the node. This means the node operator
cannot withdraw them. The user can unstake their own coins at any time.
The percentages that are owed to a user for leasing are based on the terms
setup by the node operator. TAC does not pay out leasing rewards directly.
The higher the balance of the node the greater the chance of generating the
next block. Because of this users should try to use smaller nodes to maintain
decentralization. In other words, unlike with other protocols, LPoS allows ALL
users to take part in the decentralization process, and if any node grows too
large users can then lease their coins to other nodes thus maintaining a
balance.
As an industry based currency blockchain it is also important to allow the
exchange of assets to take place with relative ease. It seems only logical that
an exchange exists solely for the main currency and assets of the blockchain.
As a clone of waves TAC has a built-in decentralized exchange that provides
exactly this feature. This means in the future an exchange will be released
allowing advertisers and marketers to exchange assets to obtain marketing
and advertising services in various places.
Although this feature is built into the chain it will not be set up on TAC until
enough tokenized assets have been created on the chain. If there is just a
small number of projects on the chain this aspect is not entirely important in
early stages.
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CDT - Content Discover Token
The first project that is being released on TAC blockchain is called Content
Discovery Token, or CDT.
Currently in the area of search engines and search engine marketing, search
results are in large part automated through algorithms that determine the
best sites to return to a user based on several factors.
These algorithms, while created by people, run independently without user
input. One of the single most important factors in ranking websites is
through the number of backlinks that website has. This is a huge flaw in the
current design process of search engines because it takes a large part of the
user’s voice out of the process.
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A search engine doesn’t know nor care if every user visiting the top page in a
result hates the website in question. All it knows is that the website has lots of
backlinks and relates to the category in question.
There are some attempts to take human reviews into account with search
results, but most of these attempts fail due to limits in the industry of reviews.
Review sites currently tend to be geared towards sales and the sales
experience, and more often than not it’s reviews of physical brick and mortar
businesses.
There are few places one can leave general reviews about something they
didn’t spend money on.
If a person downloads a piece of free software that didn’t work as intended
there is nowhere for them to complain. If a user has a terrible customer
service experience but never made a purchase, there are few places for them
to complain.
Even when there are places to leave reviews, unless those sites are recognised
as review sites by search engines they still just appear as backlinks and
actually help the website in question in their “organic marketing”.
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Content Discovery Plugin
TAC Content Discovery Network is set to fix that by creating a search engine
that is powered by human reviews and rating systems. The content discovery
project is powered by a combination of the Content Discovery Plugin mixed
with CDT as rewards.
The Content Discovery Plugin is a Chrome based web browser plugin that
allows users to review any web page on the internet.
Users can give star ratings of the web page, can give thumbs up or thumbs
down for the page, can select keywords for the web page, can leave a text
review, select the content type, select the main category of the web page,
and can select the language of the web page.
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When a user first installs the plugin they have options to add their wallet
address as well as select categories that interest them. These settings are
stored locally by the web browser.
By adding their wallet address a user earns CDT tokens for every web page
they end up reviewing.
The categories are used to allow them to discover content via a button called
“random page”.
The plugin selects pages at random that others have already added based on
the selected user categories. This allows users to find and review content that
is specifically geared towards their interests.
If no categories have been selected in the user options then the default is to
find random pages from all categories.
Users earn 0.5 CDT for every new web page they add. They can add a
maximum of 20 new web pages per day for a maximum amount of 10 CDT
per day.
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Adding a new web page is different than reviewing a page. It has less options
than a review. Specifically, the abilities to add a text review and to add a star
rating do not exist when first adding a web page.
These options are left out to make the process of adding new pages fast and
easy thus encouraging more usage.
When a web page is first added it goes into an “active page” queue for others
to find. It remains in this queue for 72 hours. After the 72 hour period a page
can only be found through the search engine.
However a page owner or promoter can buy “page boosts”. These page
boosts cost 5 CDT for an additional 48 hour boost.
When users use the “random page” feature of the plugin they get a more
robust review form, which includes the text review option as well as star
rating options.
Reviewing existing sites a user earns 0.01 CDT per review and can review a
maximum of 1000 pages a day. This is a maximum of 10 CDT per day.
This makes it so each user can earn a maximum of 20 CDT per day.
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Content Discovery Search
The entire purpose of the content discovery network is to build reviews to
create a human powered search engine.
Building a search engine powered by human reviews cannot be created until
after a substantial database of web pages and reviews exists.
Instead the content discovery network will begin by creating personalized
search engines for each user of the site.
This means every time a review is created by a user, that review goes into
their own personalized search engine with their own custom link.
These personalized search engines are where the Content Discovery project
will begin creating the algorithms for search rankings.
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Content Discovery Tracking
In order to gather reviews and ensure we prevent cheating as best as possible
users must create accounts with usernames, emails and passwords The only
other data collected by the Content Discovery Plugin is a user’s IP address
and the times they visit a website.
Instead of personal data the plugin uses public information obtained from
user’s IP addresses for the purpose of advertising services. A person’s IP is
already public information and actually gives a lot of information without
having to target or track users with cookies or through any other methods.
An ip address can return continent, country, language, population of an area,
the average income of an area, and countless other pieces of information not
typically readily available through existing advertising platforms.
Using such data allows for users to maintain privacy while still offering highly
unique information as well as targeted traffic to advertisers. This information
will only be available to advanced advertisers. Advanced advertisers are
advertisers who are paying for campaigns larger than $2500 US dollars.
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CDT and TAC Valuation
Although CDT is a premined token that will have a 100,000,000 token supply,
it is also to be fair-released. This means the only way to obtain the token will
be through doing reviews with the Content Discovery Platform or by
purchasing it on the open market from those who did earn it that way.
As such, the starting value is speculated at $0.001 per CDT. This is similar in
respect to the fact bitcoin started with no value and only after mining did a
value begin to take place.
The value of CDT may go up over time, but an initial value of $0.001 seems like
a fair estimated value.
This means the total market cap of CDT would be 100,000,000 x 0.001 and the
value of TAC would be the CDT market cap value divided by the circulating
supply of TAC.
Using the formulas already provided a TAC valuation can now be correctly
determined:
AV = (0.001 * 100,000,000) / 100,000
AC = 1 * 100,000
This makes the value of each TAC $1.00 at the time of TAC project launch.
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TAC Transaction Fees
Due to the fact that TAC is being created as an industry based currency, it has
to ensure the cost of a transaction is always lower than the value of a given
token on the platform.
Combine this with the fact that CDT is being fair-released and CDT payouts
may happen often and in real-time, the most logical way to handle
transaction fees is with a flat rate instead of based on a largest fees get
processed first method as it works with blockchains such as Bitcoin and
Ethereum.
At the current industry market cap the maximum any TAC could be worth is
$18,000. That would be the value of TAC if all 100 million TAC were in
circulation and the entire marketing and advertising industry was using TAC.
When taking into account the maximum value the coin could be at the
current moment and combined with the fact the CDT value is $0.001 we set
the value of transaction fees to a flat 0.0000001 TAC per transaction.
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TAC Project Timeline
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TAC Summary:
● Mining Type LPoS
● Supply 100,000,000 TAC
● Premine 100,000 TAC
● Required Staking for Rewards 1000 TAC
● Initial Value $1.00 USD
CDT Summary:
● Token Type Utility
● Release Fair-Release
● Supply 100,000,000 CDT
● Initial Value $0.001