Storm
Storm are another interesting crypto company that are planning to do an ICO for their Storm Token in the near future so it’s worth investigating how their token model works.
Storm Background
Storm plan to release a number of DApps:
Storm Play: Storm already have a product called BitMaker (1.2M+ downloads across 187 countries) which they are rebranding as Storm Play and integrating to the Storm products.
Storm Market: A decentralised micro-task marketplace.
Storm Shop: Opportunities where users can learn about or sample retail
goods and services (no real info on this yet).
How It Works
The service is relatively simple, and I see this is as a positive. The basics of the service are described below:
“Makers” and “Players” meet each other to buy and sell tasks.
“Storm Makers,” post tasks using the Storm Play app. To post a task you are required to pay using STORM tokens.
“Storm Players,” use the Storm Play app to perform tasks. Players receive reward units called Bolts in return.
Bolts may not be transferred off of Storm Market but are redeemable for STORM Tokens.
Players can also earn Bolts as part of the gamified reward system (see below). Players can be rewarded for:
- Creating tasks
- Completing tasks
- Managing other Storm Players that a person referred in to complete a task
successfully - Helping categorize a task or helping to rank a task
These Bolts can be used for boosts. Boosts give the Storm Player access to more micro-tasks for a certain period of time
Token Analysis
As I did the last time, working through the twenty questions proposed by William Mougayar in Tokenomics — A Business Guide to Token Usage, Utility and Value really helps to think about how the tokens are used:
I found it more difficult to answer some of these and I’m not 100% convinced with some of my answers. For now I think the tokens offer the following utility:
The Value Exchange
Players are rewarded Bolts for tasks such as categorising a task or helping to rank a task. These Bolts can be used for boosts. Boosts give the Storm Player access to more micro-tasks for a certain period of time which should lead to more tasks being completed. Think this is maybe clutching a little to meet Mougayars definition, there’s not a real transactional economy between buyers/sellers as there’s not much to spend Bolts on but I think this will develop.
The Toll
Makers are required to pay for posts in STORM tokens. Also Players have to pay Bolts to boost.
The Currency
Reduces traditional payment fees.
Conclusion:
Overall score is 9/20. I’m not surprised it’s a fairly low score as my gut feeling is that apart from reducing fees the token isn’t intrinsic to the business plan. Micro-tasks and tokens fit well but they don’t need each other. I do still like the though and maybe ‘only’ reducing fees is enough – especially with the current industry leaders charging up to 40% (see whitepaper).
Gamification:
Whilst not blockchain technology specific the gamification aspect is interesting and is a big strength for the Storm team so I thought I’d investigate it a bit further in this section.
The main goal of embedding a ‘gamification’ layer to the Storm Market platform is to make it effective in reaching objectives for boosting and delivering business results, like ROE (Return on Engagement). Storm Play can make monotonous work much more enjoyable through a gamified platform.
Unlike previously cited freelance platforms too, gamification is a very important aspect of Storm’s ecosystem. Makers post tasks on the market and Players execute those tasks in exchange of different kinds of rewards (including money) that make the whole thing a fun experience.
To gamify the progression of its users, Storm uses “Bolts” as units of a rewarding system. Users can earn Bolts by doing micro-tasks and by doing training tasks to improve their skills. As their experience increase, they are assigned more micro-tasks. But your experience level on the Storm market is not tied to your Bolts, they are an artifact of it. You can actually use them to get “boosts”: “Within Storm Market, Storm Players can use their balance of Bolts for boosts. Boosts give the Storm Player access to more micro-tasks for a certain period of time”