Our Motivation

Let’s face it: Participation in decentralized networks is hard.

Over the last few years, we have seen a meteoric rise in the number of “utility tokens” launched on Ethereum, each proposing to serve a multitude of functions on their native networks. Tokens are a novel way of creating multi-sided markets by allowing contributors to actually benefit from network effects. This incentivizes a new economy of like-minded users that participate in networks to achieve common goals, no matter where they are located.

There are a number of participation-based tokens in the Ethereum ecosystem that currently demonstrate individual or a combination of usable functions. These include:

Governance: Tokens enable holders to vote on protocol and network-specific governance decisions Right to work: Tokens provide rights to contribute to the network (e.g. validate transactions on a network) Usage: Tokens enable users to participate in certain roles on the network, access resources on the network (e.g. liquidity), or serve as a means of exchange to network-specific products and/or services

In reality, however, the majority of these tokens and networks have failed to gain significant user adoption. We believe a number of factors have led to this:

Premature Launch

In most cases, tokens were launched and distributed before there was a functioning network to use them on, reinforcing the ‘HODL’ mentality, where token holders passively and speculatively wait for their tokens to accrue in value without actually using the tokens for their intended purpose.

Protocol & Incentive Design

In connection with the lack of an existing network, these networks often suffered from poor economic incentive design, resulting in the unbalanced and unfair distribution of network resources between participants, which prevents or disincentivizes a wider community from participating.

Participation Friction

The former phenomenons have been further compounded by the fact that most of these networks lack a user-friendly platform that facilitate and enable the use of tokens, which has resulted in poor engagement from users.

As a result of these issues, the lack of participation in an open, decentralized network prevent its native token from reaching its potential and the inherent degree of decentralization these networks strive to achieve.

Our Ecosystem Today

Over the last year, we’ve seen a notable decline in the number of token launches due to regulatory uncertainty, a tightening of global risk capital, and an increase in blockchain skepticism, all resulting in a wide-reaching bear market. However, during this trough of disillusionment, most of the industry has been hard at work building and deploying the underlying technical infrastructure of blockchain systems required to make long-term, wide-scale implementation of blockchain technology a reality. We believe the nature of this “bear market” has been essential for our community and will be one of its defining moments.

Over the past 18 months, progress in privacy, scaling and interoperability between networks has resulted in a significantly more mature and inclusive smart-contract platform ecosystem, as compared to the 2017 “ICO gold-rush.”

However, we still lack a key enabler for adoption and use of blockchains: an effective means to participate.

Introducing Activate by Codefi Networks

Over the last year we have used this insight to design and build Activate.

Our mission is to create a safe, sustainable and seamless user experience to enable interactions between decentralized networks and their respective token holders.

Who Can Use Activate?

In the Activate ecosystem there are two primary constituents:

Platform Participants — actual users and consumers of decentralized networks

— actual users and consumers of decentralized networks Launch Partners — networks using Activate to launch with active users and consumers

Platform Participants

Users who join the Activate platform will have the opportunity to purchase tokens and participate in these decentralized networks by using their tokens. These tokens will demonstrate inherent utility to the functionality of their network.

Upon successful purchase, users will be able to “put these tokens to work” on the Activate platform by connecting directly to our launch-partner’s live network. The Activate platform will come with built-in tools for token holders to use their tokens, allowing them to perform a range of actions:

Staking: stake your tokens to validate transactions on the network.

stake your tokens to validate transactions on the network. Delegating: delegate your tokens to a network validator to validate for you.

delegate your tokens to a network validator to validate for you. Voting: vote on protocol and network-specific governance proposals

Activate will provide these tools to users with a frictionless experience through carefully designed and intuitive interfaces that will allow users to utilize tokens in just a few clicks!

Launch Partners

Launch Partners are decentralized networks that are approaching launch on the Ethereum Mainnet. All Launch Partners are carefully vetted in accordance with the Brooklyn Project’s Consumer Token Framework to ensure design and philosophical alignment system.

Launch Partners must be building a network that successfully commands effective protocol and incentive design, ease of access to participants and mature technical infrastructure. These networks will have a native, usable token that participants will be able to use on the network to support or provide the networks intended purpose.

At ConsenSys, we strive to partner and work with communities, teams and projects that are collectively providing a useful and sustainable service to the Ethereum and wider blockchain ecosystems. We employ these same beliefs when selecting launch partners, ensuring that successfully chosen networks are supported and have the means to facilitate a truly decentralized network launch.