The Second Dawn of Manna: Part 1
As the launch of Manna 2.0 approaches, we wanted to present a brief summary of the challenges that have been faced over the last few years, in order to provide a better understanding of the changes that will be made in the upcoming second iteration of the Manna currency and Mannabase.com. In part 2 of this article, we will go into more precise details on the exact changes that will take place and a roadmap of how we’ll get there.
While the various challenges and problems may have differed, there is one overarching theme that seems to underlie almost all of them. Manna must be a community driven and community run project. Too much centralized control and ownership creates a large host of issues both from a technical and economic perspective. The best solution must create a simple, equitable, and collaborative framework in order for substantial growth and scaling. Ultimately, the mission of Manna is to provide meaningful and ongoing impact in as many people’s lives as possible and to do so in a democratic and inclusive way.
Technological Challenges
The blockchain tech that has powered Manna up until this point has had numerous issues that have made it difficult to build upon as well as sustain cost and maintenance. While there are undoubtedly reasons for certain projects and ecosystems to utilize a stand alone blockchain, it is not of much benefit to Manna at its current stage and with its overarching goals. Ideally, Manna should be blockchain agnostic with compatibility on as many different chains as possible.
Further, Manna was previously distributed exclusively through Mannabase.com. This is problematic for numerous reasons. First, it gives unnecessary liability and control of the distributed Manna to a single website and organization rather than giving that responsibility and ownership to the users.
Finally, unique identity has always been a significant and focal challenge in the realization of Manna. Mannabase.com previously utilized a variety of mechanisms to attempt to prove someone’s uniqueness. These ended up requiring a lot of resources and a lot of user’s personal information. H4H is expressly opposed to owning or interacting with any user data and thus this methodology was problematic both in cost and principle.
Economics and Governance Challenges
In order for Manna to gain a high degree of confidence amongst its users and the general population, it must have clear, concise, and consistent economics and governance. Overtime, it has become increasingly evident that unnecessary complexity is the single greatest challenge in achieving an economic model that can be understood and trusted on a large scale.
Another important aspect is for as much of the total Manna ever created to be done so through the general distributions. Since the inception of the original blockchain, a large amount of Manna has existed from the initial pre-mine. This was originally created as a short term solution for funding distributions as well as project development. Many early founders and team members within the Manna ecosystem received Manna in exchange for contributing to its development as a bounty for their volunteered time. This is problematic in that the Manna entered circulation through contributions for development and labor rather than a distributed and generalized methodology.
How the Manna Reboot Solves These Challenges
Manna 2.0 seeks to address the aforementioned issues through a number of substantive changes to both the technology and economics.
Once relaunched, all Manna will be automatically minted for the distributions rather than funded from a pre-mine. This will eliminate the organizational liability and the many problems of having a centralized authority controlling the money supply.
Additionally, Manna will only distribute to user owned wallets (non-custodial) and H4H will not participate in any custodial role of Manna for its users through Mannabase.com or otherwise.
Finally, BrightID will become the focal methodology for preventing users from creating duplicate accounts. This will allow Manna to prove uniqueness of the users without jeopardizing their personal data or creating a honeypot of centrally held sensitive information.
Regarding the challenges of governance and economics, Manna 2.0 will have much simpler and more straightforward economic policies that can be coded into the blockchain and not reliant on centralized authority. Through the relaunch, there will also be a dramatic reduction in early founders and contributors holdings in order that the long term economics align to the ultimate vision and mission of Manna to have the vast majority of all Manna ever to exist created through general distributions.
The relaunch represents an important shift in control of Manna from the H4H non-profit into the hands of the community. This is in order to truly create a democratic, distributed, and equitable form of money. Thanks to all of you in the Manna community for your continued support, contributions, and interest!
