Koii Network

What is Koii ?

The Koii Protocol tracks attention on the open internet to equitably reward valuable content, and the

network of Koii Nodes provide faster, cheaper, and more rewarding ways to build cross-compatible,

chain-agnostic decentralized apps.

Koii is a user-owned network that allows anyone around the world to contribute what are they are able, and earn on that investment.

What’s wrong with the web?

Traditional Web 2.0 platforms monetize by exploiting their users. Centralized social media apps

aggregate photos, music, videos, and writing without paying the creators a single cent. Websites sell

user data, post unskippable ads, and hide their best content behind paywalls. At best, a fraction of the

value creators generate on the web ends up in their own accounts. At worst, users perform free labor

while getting invisibly data mined.

Current blockchain-based “Web 3.0” solutions provide appealing alternatives by offering increased

permanence, performance, and transparency in application development. However, as of this writing,

these alternatives remain more theoretical proofs of concept rather than profitably mainstream.

Unfortunately, most decentralized apps (“dApps”) suffer from sky-high transaction costs, expensive

infrastructure, and issues with scalability. Their “profitability” is driven by bullish token speculation,

not economic fundamentals. Ultimately, they have failed to help the large majority of internet users

graduate from being exploited in Web 2.0 into flourishing in Web 3.0.

Koii-X and Web 3.0

Koii breakthrough innovation is a scalable consensus protocol that tracks attention on the

decentralized internet to reward reliable or creative stakeholders. This serves as the foundation layer of

the Koii dApp developer framework, which provides the security, transparency, and incentivized

performance benefits of blockchain-based technologies with just a few lines of code.

How it works

Koii’s protocol is rooted in two critical components: robust incentives and a scalable consensus.

Earning KOII

Anyone can use the Network to earn KOII by deploying tasks, running a node, or producing and

registering content on the Network. As communities build their own incentive models on top of the

Network, they will automatically be cross-compatible, making it finally possible for individuals to

capture all the downstream value they create online, without being caged to a host platform.

Scalable Consensus

The Koii protocol is tailor-made for dApps that do not require fast transaction times, providing a

superior solution to the expensive infrastructure of Ethereum and similar networks. Traditional

blockchains deploy resource-expensive Proof of Work protocols, accruing high energy usage and

expensive fees. In contrast, Koii Nodes use energy efficiently by using Proof of Real Traffic (PoRT) to

prevent spam, and a stake-based state transition model for more “gradual” consensus.

Building Communities

DApps deployed on Koii earn a percentage of the newly minted KOII every day based on the dApps’

user engagement. Users can earn KOII by providing, creating, and registering content that garners

attention. Network participants run “Nodes” on their computers, powering the Network, eliminating

hosting costs and powering stable and elastic network scalability (see “How it works” for more details

on Bundler Nodes). Nodes are rewarded in KOII tokens based on Tasks defined by dApp creators.

Koii-X

The Koii framework (“Koii-X'') makes it possible to launch decentralized applications quickly,

along with built-in incentive mechanisms. Arweave’s unique storage network makes it possible

to build highly scalable layer-two applications using Koii Nodes for services and security.

Using Koii’s command-line interface, developers will soon be able to quickly create dApps that scale

appropriately to their needs. Koii provides this scalability by building flexible side chains (“bundles”)

on top of the Arweave permaweb. This infrastructure enables feeless interaction for Nodes and

increases interoperability. The first application of this new ‘gradual’ consensus process allows Koii to

track and verify traffic (“attention”) across content gateways, which links token distribution to traffic

volume, creating direct incentives for content creation.

Finally, the Koii Network is engineered to scale independently of transaction speed. Since transaction

speed is not the basis for a sustainable and easily scalable network, Koii sidesteps these issues and creates

a consensus mechanism to accommodate the data structures and volume needed to reach critical

network mass.

Running a node

Koii Nodes stake their tokens in order to participate in consensus activities (e.g. voting, slashing, and

bundling) and to generate and store information to fulfill Koii Tasks. Node operators are compensated

for reliably completing Koii Tasks.

Koii Tasks

Every Koii dApp will use the Koii Software Development Kit (“SDK”) to access the network of Koii

devices to run their backend. Work that the Network runs for dApps are divided into “Koii Tasks”.

Tasks are customizable and use the Koii smart contract as the base.

Customization allows Task creators to specify conditions for Node participants, which allows creators

to qualify contributors to suit their needs. Some Koii Tasks will be running on virtually all Koii dApps,

like reputation assessments and attention proof verification. Others are tailored to the needs of the

dApp, such as StoreCat’s web scraping, and oracle services.

Tokenomics of Koii

Koii’s incentive mechanism rewards content creators and publishers relative to the amount of traffic

logged by the gateways detailed in the Proofs of Real Traffic diagram. 1,000 KOII are minted daily and

awarded proportionally to owners based on the number of views relative to the ecosystem.

Koii Token Distribution

The Koii Network provides a new monetization model for decentralized applications. To participate,

creators and dApp developers register their content to begin tracking the attention they create. Koii

Nodes track gateway traffic for the registered content over a 24 hour period, preventing manipulation

by verifying each Bundler’s record against the others. Once consensus is reached, 1,000 KOII are

distributed in proportion to the verified attention scores. Node operators receive KOII for helping to

keep the system running.

Staking and Rewards

The goal of the Network’s incentive model is to reward reliable participants. To ensure reliability,

voting power is scaled to the time and amount staked. Whenever a Node is discovered breaking the

rules, other Nodes vote to slash its stake, and receive a share of the slashed amount to incentivize their

effort. Rewards are distributed proportionately to each Node’s voting power, which encourages

participants to stake as much as possible.

Initially, the Koii Foundation will provide grants of up to 1,000,000 KOII each year to new projects as

task credits. These grants will accelerate adoption and ensure Node operators receive reasonable

compensation during the growth phase.

Bridging Blockchains

While Koii uses the Arweave as the main immutable data store, other blockchain networks are easily

integrated to expand the possible applications and services. As an example, Arweave-based NFTs can be

displayed and traded simply on other decentralized exchanges, and all Koii content is generated

according to the same standard. As Koii expands, we will explore incorporating additional

decentralized storage networks, as well as consensus networks like Avalanche, and Hyperledger private

blockchains.

Community Development

We are prioritizing ease of adoption by flattening the barrier-to-entry for people to make dApps with

Koii. That means extremely simple syntax for the dApp command-line build and SDK plug-in,

multiple templates for different kinds of dApps, and refined tutorials to help anyone with a great idea.

Early Prototypes and Future Growth

In order to bootstrap the Network, the Koii team has developed several early proofs-of-concept, which

will be provided as open-source tools and eventually as examples of the Koii-X Framework

Ecosystem Growth

The Koii Network is designed to grow well beyond its initial scope. Technology architecture

compliments social incentives to make it possible to govern not only the Koii Network, but also to

build governance structures for the communities that are built on top of it.

Governance

The Koii Network is governed by token holders through a decentralized smart contract system. The

longer a token holder stakes, the larger their voting power, ensuring incentives remain aligned for the

long term. As projects are built using Koii, they can also employ the same structure to build flexible,

cost effective voting systems.

During the initial launch of the Network, the Koii Foundation will provide guidance and lead

technology development as necessary, paving the way for decentralized community governance.

Education

The Koii Protocol was founded by core team members from WeTeachBlockchain.org, Ivan On Tech,

AltHash Education, and Arweave, and is working with developer communities around the world to

develop strong onboarding tools to make it easy to use this new web infrastructure.

Thanks to Our Partners

Arweave, and specifically Sam Williams, has been an incredible partner to help us launch Koii. Their

permanent storage system helped us iterate the Koii idea to what it has become and their gateways

power the Koii attention tracking model.

Without the Outlier Ventures Base Camp program, none of this would have been possible. They

invested in our seed round to help us off the ground and their tutelage and experience have been and

continue to be pivotal in our growth.

Fenbushi Capital led our first seed round, and is leveraging their network of investors for our second

and third funding rounds. They have provided invaluable guidance (and great memes) on developing

the right product for the right people.