OpenLink (what Koinos could have been...)

We recently got a glimpse into an idea the Koinos Group explored before deciding to build Koinos. OpenLink was meant to be a social dApp, but they abandoned the idea when they couldn't find a general purpose blockchain that met their needs. The team had just left Steemit and had learned a lot about the right and wrong ways to build blockchains for social applications.

OpenLink was meant to have a very focused mission: helping people connect, communicate, and collaborate online without centralization. It seems almost too simple to succeed when you put it that way, but the team had already validated certain hypotheses about the intended model while working on Steem. There is demand for a good decentralized social network, but no one is building a good, simple solution. Everything is overcomplicated with unnecessary tokenomics and feature bloat.

Koinos was built to be the blockchain where OpenLink and any other highly focused, simple dApp can succeed.

We're currently building KAP to establish user identities on Koinos. You'll be able to get a username on the blockchain for 100% free when we launch. This isn't a social application in itself, but we expect social patterns to naturally arise. Other dApps like OpenLink, games, and collaboration tools can use KAP names for free in their experiences. That's one less thing to build yourself.

Almost every app needs social elements built into it. We're building KAP for individuals, yes, but also for other dApps that need user identities. The Koinos Group won't build OpenLink themselves, but that makes it a worthwhile opportunity for another business to be built on top of Koinos. There's a simple set of features there that will be needed by individuals and by other dApps built on Koinos.

​

-Luke

​

P.S. Always consider how your dApp can integrate with other dApps. Blockchain is an application melting pot.

P.P.S. Happy New Year!