Written by: Luke, Mars Finance

In modern society, setting personal goals and commitments is crucial for many people, but often due to the lack of real external constraints and motivation, many goals are ultimately not achieved. Especially in the digital age, despite the countless task management tools and time planning applications, most of them lack effective accountability mechanisms, which makes it easy for many people to give up or procrastinate on their goals.

At the same time, since the birth of the crypto industry, various Rug incidents have emerged one after another - from the rights protection struggle of the DEXX platform to the misappropriation of funds for speculation in ZKasino. These cases show that although blockchain technology itself has the advantages of decentralization and transparency, the on-chain accountability mechanism is still difficult to implement effectively.

The Commit protocol was created to break this situation. It provides a new way to combine goal setting with blockchain technology and enhance the motivation for goal achievement through economic incentives and pledge mechanisms.

Even Ethereum’s founder Vitalik Buterin called it “so cool!” Today we will take a deep look at how the Commit protocol solves this problem.

What is the Commit Protocol?

The Commit protocol is an on-chain accountability mechanism that incentivizes participants to achieve personal goals or commitments by staking cryptocurrency as a margin. Participants need to stake a certain amount of cryptocurrency (such as WETH) before starting a task. If the task is completed, they can withdraw the stake and receive rewards; if the task is not completed, they lose the staked funds. This design not only increases the motivation to complete the goal, but also provides a fair mechanism to ensure that participants bear real responsibilities.

The core concept of the Commit protocol is to achieve accountability for goal setting through a staking mechanism, ensuring that participants face real financial consequences for whether or not the task is completed. Compared to traditional goal setting methods, the Commit protocol makes each participant's goal not just their own business, it is directly related to their financial interests, and increases external pressure to achieve the goal.

The reward distribution mechanism of the Commit protocol is very unique and transparent. After completing the commitment, in addition to getting back their own staked funds, participants will also share rewards based on the success and failure of other users. The stakes of failed users will be added to a "loser pool" and will eventually be distributed proportionally by the winners. This not only encourages people to complete their goals, but also increases the motivation of the entire community through collective efforts.

Commit protocol main functions

The Commit Protocol is more than just a simple goal-setting tool. It innovates in the following aspects to create a transparent, fair, and motivated goal-achieving system:

  1. Stake-based commitment: Participants are required to stake cryptocurrency before the goal is achieved, increasing the economic incentive and accountability of the task.

  2. Multi-party incentives: Participants, creators, and platforms can all receive corresponding rewards for successfully completing their commitments. Not only can successful participants get their stakes back, but they can also receive additional rewards from the "loser pool."

  3. Flexible integration: Any platform can integrate the Commit protocol and create a customized commitment project. Whether it is a personal goal or a large project, the Commit protocol can provide an adaptive solution.

  4. Transparent Verification: All pledges and reward allocations are open and transparent on the chain, ensuring that each commitment and reward allocation process can be tracked and verified, eliminating trust issues.

  5. Token agnostic: The Commit protocol supports any approved ERC20 token, making it widely applicable in different cryptocurrency environments.

  6. Multi-level challenges: The Commit protocol provides participants with a variety of challenge difficulties to ensure that everyone can choose a suitable goal based on their abilities. Specifically, users can choose different Commit challenges. For example, in the joint event between Commit and Cyber, users can participate in three levels of challenges, which are increasingly difficult and require users to complete more tasks within a specified time (minting more Cred NFTs in the Phi protocol). The higher the difficulty of the challenge, the larger the amount required to stake, but the corresponding returns and rewards will also be more generous. Minting 2, 4, or 8 Cred NFTs can share different prize pools.

Potential Application Scenarios

Personal goal achievement

Personal goal setting is one of the main application scenarios of the Commit protocol. Through the staking mechanism, users can provide additional motivation for their goal setting. For example, a developer who wants to learn and master a new programming language within a month can set a commitment for himself through the Commit protocol, stake a certain amount of cryptocurrency, and promise to complete the goal within the specified time. If successful, he can not only get back the stake, but also get a reward; if unsuccessful, he will lose part of the stake. This method effectively reduces procrastination and helps users focus more on goal achievement.

Preventing Rug Pull

In the blockchain industry, Rug Pull (malicious withdrawal by the project party) is a serious problem. The Commit Protocol ensures that the project party is financially responsible for its commitment by linking the fund pledge to the commitment target, thereby improving the project party's sense of responsibility and transparency. This mechanism can effectively reduce the possibility of malicious withdrawal and protect the interests of investors and participants.

This mechanism is similar to the "U-merchant" margin system in centralized exchanges (CEX). In this system, traders or market makers pay a margin to the platform to ensure that they fulfill their promises. If the regulations are violated, the margin will be confiscated. This similar mechanism can provide similar guarantees in a decentralized environment, enhancing the reliability of the entire blockchain ecosystem.

The application scenarios of the Commit protocol are not limited to personal goal setting and project supervision. It can be widely used in many fields such as corporate management, DeFi projects, charity activities, online learning, cross-platform social interaction, insurance, decentralized governance, etc. Through the pledge mechanism and economic incentives, the protocol can provide a truly effective accountability mechanism for different industries and communities to promote goal achievement, enhance responsibility, and enhance transparency. With the continuous development of blockchain technology, the potential of the Commit protocol will continue to be explored and bring innovative solutions to various industries.

Conclusion

The Commit Protocol is opening up a new blockchain application scenario - a goal-achieving system that can both motivate individuals and increase project transparency and accountability. We look forward to the inspiration it will bring to the entire industry.

Finally – commit to doing something!