Yup Launches Its Social Consensus and Token to Create an Opinion-Based Internet Economy

Yup has announced the launch of version one of its social consensus protocol and the release of the YUP token. The project’s goal is to leverage smart contracts to facilitate the emergence of an opinion-based economy on the internet by rewarding users engaging in content curation, amplifying their influence, and ranking all the world’s online content according to their aggregated opinions.

The Social Consensus Protocol

Originally conceived by a team of Columbia University students and celebrated through an elaborate social campaign around the Columbia Campus, Yup has evolved to tackle the lack of trust surrounding web content. Currently, most content creators and curators on the web don’t receive any financial rewards for their contributions, instead generating value for others without getting anything tangible in return. Even those content creators and curators that do find ways to monetize their work have to rely on advertisements or brand promotion to earn money. The launch of the Yup platform is designed to address these weaknesses.  

The Yup protocol has two main elements: the content curation functionality and the liquidity provision. The former will rely on smart contracts that will run simultaneously on top of the Ethereum and EOS blockchains. Content curation via Yup will be powered by EOS, while the liquidity provision will take place on Ethereum.

More specifically, the rationale for this approach is to leverage the financial powerhouse of Ethereum’s defi, and its fiat on-ramps, while also taking advantage of EOS’s higher scalability. YUP tokens initially need to be earned by staking the YUP/ETH Uniswap pool tokens. After having been received on Ethereum, they will be transferable for use in EOS-based smart contracts by means of a dedicated Ethereum-EOS cross-chain bridge.

Yup Extension to Put the Protocol to Work

Already at launch, Yup has a functioning product that will work on top of its protocol. The Yup extension available for the Google Chrome browser enables users to earn token rewards by upvoting or downvoting content on any website. On platforms such as Google Maps, Twitter, and Reddit it will be possible to vote directly from their interface using the overlay button functionality. 

If other users share the curator’s view of a piece of content, they will earn YUP tokens. The more tokens they earn, the higher weight their votes will have in the future, allowing them to increase their social influence. The outcomes of users’ continuing votes on various pieces of content will lead to being ranked according to a color coding scheme. The ratings 1-2 (red and orange) are considered as negative and 3-5 (yellow, yellowish green and green) as positive. 

The YUP Token to Replace YUPX

Before the full launch of the Yup protocol, the YUP extension had already been made available to some early adopters in order to thoroughly stress-test the protocol. It relied on the previously issued YUPX token for paying out rewards and weighing votes.

With the complete rollout of the platform, YUPX tokens will be replaced one-to-one with the newly created YUP. Current YUPX token holders do not need to do anything, as they will receive the same amount of YUP tokens as the YUP they held at the time of the YUP token launch.