Two weeks ago, the FOAM Map was deployed on Ethereum MainNet.

Since then, the FOAM community has already added over 2900 points of interest.

As part of our proof of use model, this was done by a total of 329 users, accounting to a bit over 1/3 of our total token holders.

The FOAM Map has points of interest in all three states — pending, challenged & verified.

Local community work has led to several cities with many interesting spaces mapped out, including Paris, New York, Seoul, Tokyo, Berlin, London and more.

Thank you to the community for making mainnet launch such a success. While there are some small issues that we are solving the coming weeks, users are continuously adding and verifying points of interest on the Ethereum MainNet — without third party intermediaries. We believe that is a huge achievement.

Note: It is currently only possible for token holders that participated in the token sale to add and edit the map. After the initial use period, and as tokens are unlocked, the public will be able to contribute as well.

Users are adding points to the map

UI for adding a new point of interest via the FOAM Map

It has been amazing to see cartographers embrace the protocol and start populating it with buildings, landmarks and other places they care about. We encourage everyone reading to join a local community and start mapping points of interest in their vicinity. Below you can see a video of Lief Eric Malone, one of our most dedicated community members, that has made it a personal mission to personally visit each place he puts in the FOAM Map, and documenting it.

What is a faulty point?

All six versions of the Eiffel Tower, five of which currently undergoing challenge/voting. See on FOAM Map.

As expected, we’ve already seen a number of point of interests being challenged, from everything between duplicates to faulty information and misplaced points. While the challenges are successful, we are aware that the process needs some more work. Especially the UI representation and user flow will be improved and worked on in the coming releases.

To echo interesting points around challenges from from Lief Eric Malone’s post ‘Early Observations with the FOAM Token’:

· POIs with sloppy description grammar and misplaced locations are being challenged, though not at a high enough rate to discourage. · Many POIs are duplicates, and are being challenged · POIs with large amounts staked are scrutinized and more likely to be challenged

The challenging process is one most complex parts of the FOAM Map, and will be iterated on, taking user feedback into consideration. For example, local communities are already discussing challenges of individual points of interest in the local community telegram chats (found at bottom of this post), and we will expand the social layer needed for community coordination around challenges through a dedicated discussion platform.

Verified points make the Map

New York City on the FOAM Map, consisting of verified points with occasional challenges.

When a pending points of interest has gone through the pending period (currently set to 3 days) without being challenged, the point becomes verified. This also happens when the community votes in favour of the accuracy of a point during a challenge. Existing verified points of interest range from blockchain co-working spaces in Berlin and Tokyo, to the ʻIolani Palace in Honolulu, and hawker stalls in Singapore. As more and more points of interest are added to the map and verified, they can be used by a variety of different applications, always with a guarantee of having gone through a verification process to combat faulty information or vandalism.

So far the distribution of tags among points of interests is: Art: 33%, Food: 22%, Work: 12%, Blockchain: 11%, Retail: 9%, Health: 6%, Attraction: 6%, Nightlife: 1%.

Next steps for the FOAM Map

‘My Assets’ card for tracking points and votes with notifications

UI improvements for challenging process

Full search of Map

Signaling for dynamic proof of location

Governance module for TCR parameters

Join a local community

🇦🇺 Australia, 🇧🇪 Belgium, 🇺🇸 California, 🇨🇦 Canada (Toronto Area), 🇨🇾 Cyprus, 🇫🇷France, 🇩🇪 Germany, 🇮🇳 India, 🇮🇹 Italy, 🇯🇵 Japan, 🇲🇾 Malaysia, 🇺🇸 Midwest, 🇺🇸 Mountain West, 🇳🇱 The Netherlands, 🇳🇿 New Zealand, 🇳🇴 Norway, 🇺🇸 Pacific NW, 🇵🇭 Philippines, 🇵🇱 Poland, 🇵🇹 Portugal, 🇷🇺 Russia, 🇸🇬Singapore, 🇺🇸 Southern US, 🇪🇸 Spain, 🇨🇭 Switzerland, 🇬🇧 United Kingdom