A decentralized protocol that helps build and break habits with the help of communities and incentives.

Story and Inspiration

We were a group of friends. Some of us wanted to make some habits (read more e.g. book, crypto, etc.) and break some habits (e.g. Smokeless). As we try to navigate our way through life, it becomes difficult to provide headspace to important but not urgent aspects of our life. There would be days that are stressful and these are some of the weakest moments for our logical mind. These are the times when the habits we want to build fail and we may not try to pick them up again. We once had a Jam session where we discussed how we as a community can improve ourselves together. What were some ways I can keep working on my habits while keeping my focus on work and life as it is? After a long discussion, we realized the following are important (at least, for us):

  1. Having a group (friends, spouse, parents, etc.) who could check on you to ensure you give time to the habits you want to pickup
  2. Picking up a habit can be challenging. If we add something at stake here, it can make it even more rewarding and increase your will to prioritize your habits.
  3. The mechanism shouldn’t be punishing you. It must be designed in a way that only encourages you to reach your goal even if it's slower than what you expected. At no point, the logic should not benefit some members of the group based on some members’ not achieving their goals.

An Experiment

One of us decided to experiment with the logic on themselves. They wanted to cut the number of cigarettes they smoke in a week to 5. (5 can still be high according to some, but at the pace he was smoking, it's less 😀)

Experiment scope:

The participant shall deposit $200 with the group and the group shall return the money after 2 weeks if the participant was successful in meeting their goal. The goal here is to smoke ≤ 5 cigarettes a week. If the participant fails to meet their goal, their money is locked and can only be released if they continue to improve on their goal in the coming weeks.

Our leanings:

  1. There were 3-to 4 weak moments when the participant wanted to say - “Fuck it, I am going to smoke”. These were situations like when we were partying or I was under work stress. But, we as a group were strong enough to clearly tell in such moments, a big “NO”. We acted as the participant’s validator and we helped him reach his goal.
  2. The Happiness the participant had after successfully keeping up to the limit at the end of the week was really good.
  3. Obviously, the willingness to not cheat by the participant is also important. He could always smoke in hiding without us seeing. According to the participant, they had the following in mind to keep them going with their goal:
    1. This is a goal I chose for myself
    2. I don’t want to lie to myself and my friends. I did not want the feeling of guilt bothering me once I break my rule
    3. $200 is really important to me

Why build it on the blockchain?

We could have just continued doing our experiment within ourselves and would not need any Smart-contract/DAO. So, why build one?

  1. Community is really important: It's not just smoking, there are so many habits that people want to build and break. (e.g. Giving consistent time to their side projects, reading books, quitting additions, getting fit, etc.). Building it on the blockchain can bring together people from across the globe, that collectively encourages the entire community to go forward.
  2. Bring together people of common goals and interests, forming cults. People could earn some NFTs for reaching their goals and people with common NFTs can be given special access to topic-specific discord groups to meet like-minded people and network easily. In the future with meta-verses, people owning specific NFTs can instantly be allowed to join virtual meetups (The possibility of this very exciting to me)
  3. Improve finances: A lot of people don’t actively save money. This is especially true in a creator centric situation, where you want to focus on improving your skills but not focus on making investments and managing them. This protocol can help such people do both. Automatically stake the money you want to bet on yourself, ensuring its generating yield for you and not just sitting ideal in your friend's bank account.