What’s Trending in The Network State

When Jur announced the first Startup Society Founders Awards in March, the team was hoping for 20 to 30 proposals. For this first cohort, the team accepted 53 Startup Society proposals covering a wide variety of use cases including societies focused on providing education, affordable housing, longevity, alternative finance, and frameworks for cooperating to develop new knowledge. A committee of five Jur pioneer citizens elected by their peers ranked all 53 proposals to create a shortlist of ten for consideration by a panel of prestigious judges: Tim Draper of Draper Capital, Trent McConaghy of Ocean Protocol, and Ed Hesse of Energy Web.  The judges have made their selections. Jur is pleased to congratulate all ten shortlisted proposals for making it to the final round. The judges have selected five proposals: VitaDAO, Continuum, Umma Finance, Wezesha, and Fair Squares.  The founders of these five innovative Startup Societies will each receive $2,000 USD and 1,000 $JUR along with ongoing support from the Jur team. Jur’s Head of Product Development will work closely with the founders to discover the tools they need and establish priorities.  Now let’s take a closer look at the five winners. In our next post, we’ll dig into the five runners-up and share more details about what makes their projects uniquely positioned for Web3.  VitaDAO VitaDAO is an active community that has united to pursue longevity science to improve people’s lives. VitaDAO uses DAO voting mechanisms to fund and advance research into healthy life extension and biotechnology. Rather than focus efforts on treating ill health, VitaDAO seeks to address the root causes of age-related disease, and not a moment too soon. The current situation, with an increasing ratio of older people to younger people in many countries and age-related diseases accounting for 80% of medical costs, is unsustainable. VitaDAO is not just about extending life - it is about extending healthy productive life so that people can enjoy contributing to society in their old age rather than becoming a burden. VitaDAO started in 2021 and it has been moving fast; the DAO’s 9,000 community members have collectively funded 17 projects, dedicating around 4 million USD to longevity-enhancing research and resulting spinoffs. They have raised 5.1 million USD from their community and another 4.1 million from Pfizer, Balaji, and others. Their first spinoff is Matrix Bio based on the research of Vera Gorbunova on nake mole rats, which don’t seem to get cancer.  VitaDAO has shown a capacity for collective action as a Startup Society and is experimenting with in-person, research-friendly territories, potentially evolving into a Network State. Because as one of the Stewards observes, “Having a better jurisdiction is a matter of life or death for people.” VitaDAO has already helped organise a pop-up city experiment -  Zuzalu, initiated by Vitalik Buterin in Montenegro, from March 25 to May 25, 2023, and has been in discussions with various governments on establishing special jurisdictions for medical innovation. Continuum Continuum is designed to connect people who are eager to learn job skills with course providers that will pay them to learn and “level up” their skills. How does that work? Companies with new tech products need users who understand their products, so they are willing to offer tokens and NFTs as rewards. The platform supports gamified learning with social features and short 5 to 10-minute lessons to make it easy and fun. And it seems like they are succeeding, with 32,000 users who have taken a total of 346,000 mini-courses already! Venture Capitalists, including Balaji!, have taken note, investing $1.5 M USD so far and the team aims to close a $5 M USD + seed round by the end of October.  Umma Finance The Founders of Umma are working to create an interest-free Network State and they have a pretty good idea about where to find a lot of citizens; 1.4 Billion Muslims don’t use banks because they charge interest, a practice that Islam prohibits. In the normal lending model, the agreement between the lender and borrower is designed to insulate the lender from risk. In the Islamic finance model, risks are shared. Some banks are trying to follow the rules of Islam as best they can, but Umma founders point out that fractional reserve banking is an inherent inescapable part of the fiat money system and hence any kind of fiat loan is ultimately incompatible with Islam. Consequently, Umma will build a system based on sound money, for instance, Bitcoin. Umma plans to move forward in three phases, beginning with the creation of a value-aligned digital community, in other words, a Startup Society. They will provide an interest-free stablecoin and an interest-free lending protocol and eventually an interest-free Bitcoin-based charter city. The stablecoin will be over-collateralised with real-world assets and crypto assets and will offer Sharia-compliant profit sharing. The lending protocol will offer Sharia-compliant yields of 10-20% with short-term maturity. The founders have already recruited over 25,000 investors and 30,000 borrowers who have exchanged over $10 M USD to their previous Islamic banking startup, Iman.  Wezesha Wezesha enables tech progress and Web3 adoption in the ascending world, areas that have a lot of potential for economic development. Wezesha does this by providing vocational education to students and young entrepreneurs in areas in Africa and other places where opportunities are generally scarce.  Wezesha was inspired by the founders’ success with one of the first rural startup hubs in the world in 2015. Now Wezesha is working to develop a user-friendly web-based and mobile application with features such as browsing courses, crypto tasking, tracking progress, and communicating with instructors and peers. To incentivize and reward learners and startups, Wezesha will incorporate digital passports and tokens, including their own token called WEZ, representing membership in the community and granting access to exclusive features of the Wezesha DAO. Wezesha will generate revenue with a fee-based system for users as well as through partnerships and collaborations with educational institutions, businesses, and other stakeholders in the web3 economy. Wezesha’s uniting principle is the belief that everyone should have access to high-quality vocational education and the opportunity to develop skills and knowledge that can unlock their potential. And that is an excellent mission.  Fair Squares Fair Squares is committed to solving a significant problem that impacts a huge number of people, the lack of affordable rental housing. The founders of this nascent Startup Society are building a digital coordination framework to connect citizens who need housing, real estate sellers, social investors, builders, other real estate professionals, and public policymakers. The guiding principles of the Society are affordability, equitability, and transparency in the creation, sale, and renting of residential rental real estate.  Rental housing is often created by developers and owned by landlords. Their profits can be quite high, and the resulting rental rate housing is expensive. Fair Squares’ founders believe they can reduce rental costs by 14% by changing the capital structure. Instead of a normal landlord or developer putting up all the money, social impact investors within the Fair Squares community will fund projects in exchange for fractional ownership generating a low-risk return that is comparable with other risk-off assets like bonds. Initially, Fair Square will focus on crowdfunding the purchase of residential real estate and in later stages may progress to development.  The Founders are building bridges with government bodies including Housing Europe, Municipality of Groningen, and University of Erasmus & Utrecht, and working to develop a blockchain-based system with a grant from the Web 3 foundation.  Congratulations to everyone for being part of this important movement! Congratulations to all five winners and the runners-up along with all the participating Startup Society Founders. Jur team is excited to be working with you all as we enter what may be a true watershed moment in human history, the launch of Startup Societies that foretells the dawn of the Network States.

Throughout history, individuals have consistently banded together to establish groups. Fundamentally, this was because humans were more exposed to natural elements and predators during less civilized times, and as such their odds of survival were far greater in numbers. As these small collectives of people grew, so too did the size and scale of their environments.  Hamlets became villages, villages turned into towns, and towns grew into cities as humans galvanized to form innovative societies (where the ideas of individuals and collectives are effectively built upon and improved upon by those who succeed them), pushing the boundaries of civilization ever-forward – in the pursuit of central goals such as increased power, access to resources, and improved living standards.  For example, the agricultural revolution allowed societies to evolve from small tribes of hunter-gatherers to builders of advanced infrastructure (such as roads, waterways, and cities) and also introduced governments with the purpose of establishing laws and creating stability. Then came the printing press, which helped to give rise to national consciousness and the nation-state, as news could be printed and distributed faster to encourage collective knowledge. Then followed the combustion engine and the creation of the internet, which helped to usher civilization into a new technological era. All of these watershed moments have helped shape the very fabric of how we live today, how we interact with each other, and even the very thoughts we have on a daily basis. It is now clear however, that the next watershed moment of societal evolution is officially upon us. The mass adoption of the internet ushered in a new era of global commerce, enabling individuals and businesses across the world to interact with one-another at the touch of a button. Now, with the web3’s immutable, uncensorable, and transparent technology, societies themselves will be able to keep pace with commerce by creating a social network with an aligned mission for collective action.  A Network State is a social network with an aligned mission for collective action toward achieving a specific goal. As many projects theorize on how to create a scalable model of this very ethos, Jur is already ahead of the curve creating the infrastructure to support this movement.  A Jur society can be leveraged by existing real-world communities through its central concept; a 1-click, no-code ecosystem – bringing Web3 to communities with the touch of a button. In addition, Jur’s infrastructure helps to power anything from societies and communities to entire countries and Network States with full transparency and fairness.  A Look Into Jur’s No-Code Solution  Jur is focused on bringing autonomy and cohesion to both online and offline communities by helping to coordinate better, grow, and evolve. The project’s aim is to return power to the people. The Startup Society dApp allows founders to create and manage their censorship-resistance societies. The Society dApp lets community founders define their values, rules, traditions, and more and its governance model allows the society to decide on key issues with an immutable record of votes to help shape the community’s culture. A wide range of options help define the degree of decentralization needed by each society.  NFT passports allow societies to issue memberships and gate exclusive access to virtual and physical spaces. Its badge system, which lets founders issue rewards, create roles, and coordinate working groups and guilds helps to establish an on-chain record of collaboration and recognition. These features form the agnostic backbone of Jur’s system and are designed to be customised by founders to best suit the unique characteristics of their relevant community.  A Real-World Application Example To fully grasp just how effective Jur’s system can be in a real-world application, it is worthwhile to create a hypothetical use-case – a good example would be Extinction Rebellion (XR). XR was established in the United Kingdom in 2018 and has since spread to many countries around the world. The activist group promotes nonviolent civil disobedience to raise awareness about  – what it believes – is a climate crisis, to compel government action on climate change. By utilising Jur's Startup Society dApp, XR could further enhance its community management and engagement. With Jur's one-click feature, XR could easily establish their society by defining the values, rules, and traditions that underpin their movement, such as emphasizing nonviolent direct action, decentralized decision-making, and collaboration among activists. The dApp allows XR to implement a governance model tailored to their decentralized structure, including setting up working groups and organizing decision-making processes, all while maintaining transparency and trust within the community. To recognize the efforts and achievements of its members, XR could create a badge system, encouraging engagement and fostering camaraderie. Additionally, they could issue NFT memberships or passports to grant exclusive access to certain resources or events, strengthening the community further. NFTs could also be employed as a fundraising tool, with proceeds directed towards supporting the movement's initiatives. Lastly, Jur's dApp enables XR to select a suitable fundraising model for their goals, ensuring that their vision is upheld. Overall, by incorporating Jur's Startup Society dApp, Extinction Rebellion can streamline its governance, engage members, and strengthen its commitment to addressing the climate crisis. There are of course an almost infinite number of ways in which Jur’s web3 tools could be incorporated into existing societal paradigms, large and small. At its core, it is fair, unbiased and scalable – allowing communities to work in harmony together for self-growth and collaboration, providing a system that truly benefits everyone involved. Now that is an idea worth exploring. 

Jur AG ("Jur") publishes quarterly Market Reports to share news about products, partnerships, and strategies and provide notice of $JUR token distribution. Jur AG, a responsible stakeholder and $JUR token holder, chooses to be transparent about token management to keep the community and contributors informed.  Market Reports are published within 10 days of the end of the quarter to accommodate recent quarterly events. This quarter has seen significant progress with the Ethos Testnet going live on Rococo, launch of the Startup Society Founders’ Awards, and much more.  Q1 2023 Highlights Releases Jur Ethos testnet parachain goes live on Polkadot’s Rococo New Token Model & Tokenomics Jur’s solo chain & token swap announced Events & Acknowledgements Startup Society Founders’ Awards (SSFA) Launch Weekly Community Calls covering Tokenomics, Network State, Startup Society Founders’ Awards   Parachain.info Jur listing Team We hired a new addition to the tech team, to be announced in Q2. Partnerships Trent McConaghy, founder of Ocean Protocol and a passionate advocate for digital sovereignty, along with Aeron Buchanan, Vice President of Web3 Foundation, joined Jur as advisors. Technology & Team Jur successfully deployed the Ethos Testnet on Rococo. The Jur Chain will soon be released on production as a solo chain while awaiting a Crowdloan auction opportunity for our parachain slot position. The Token Swap dApp has also been successfully deployed on Ethos and is currently undergoing tests on the solo chain. In parallel, the Startup Society dApp development is progressing towards an alpha release in Q2. Jur published a new token model featuring the weJUR score concept. Meta-citizens stake $JUR tokens to generate a weJUR score, which will be displayed on their passport. When new society tokens are created on the Jur Chain through Initial Society Offerings (ISO), a supply will be airdropped to citizens in proportion to their weJUR scores. Finally, Jur has concluded a key hiring that will be announced in Q2.  Community & Publications The Network State revolution is gathering steam, and Jur is at the forefront. The Startup Society Founders’ Awards is in full swing, with prestigious judges Tim Draper, Trent McConaghy, and Ed Hesse slated to award five founders who will each receive $2,000 USD and 1,000 $JUR.  The awards have attracted a lot of attention with over 50 prospective founders from existing communities representing 500,000 community members. Jur’s Discord community members have been actively supporting the first cohort by asking founders questions and offering suggestions on their proposals.  The community elected a committee of five citizens to evaluate and shortlist the top ten proposals from which the judges will select the five winners.  Jur’s Discord community has notably grown by 60% over the last three months to 622 members, an annualized growth rate of over 500%. And the number of pre-constitutional passports increased by 25%, reaching 2,926 citizens. Private Contributors In the past quarters, Jur has issued JUR Tokens as per the policy described in Jur Market Report #0. Jur did not distribute any tokens in Q4 ‘22. Also, Jur negotiated with remaining private contributors to postpone token distribution in a collaborative effort to improve liquidity in the secondary market and support the project’s growth. Company Reserve With the launch of the Jur chain we have updated our tokenomics to reflect our new path forward; rest assured that this does not affect existing token holders in any way.  Following the publication, we will update the wallets listed in the market reports to match these new tokenomics. Also, note that the amount originally allocated to the company reserve hasn't been used and should be considered locked until further notice.  Expenditure Report In Q1’23 Jur distributed 7,500 $JUR out of its Business Development, Tech & Operations wallet in appreciation for key contributions by Jur allies. No disbursement of $JUR was made to private investors. Jur Wallets Jur publicly shares information about its wallets to be transparent and accountable for the established vesting period. After the token swap the list below will be updated with new wallets and revised tokenomics; tokens can be swapped via a dApp that will be made available to all current $JUR holders. TypeInitial SupplyOld BalanceCurrent BalanceAddressIEO 10%100,000,000Team, Scientific Committee, and AdvisorsTransactions IDs: 0x5f849b62ffdd2b3beea298f4e1c0dc38974b1c9aab20d00afa3dd306d02174010x73e8ff2ac4a9df0e27a5948e0f7145e687870c9522bef152f59dc4cb987456fdPrivate Contributors10%18,763,774.1018,763,774.100xc01b26cd4b9525ad1b67a54fad53a8bff91ae01dTeam, Scientific Committee and Advisors10%100,000,000100,000,0000xf346f1ab880d5b2cd0333bf69c280a732fa4a1c4Company Reserve20%200,000,000200,000,0000x5d7fe18beff1c4f16115cb8cfcd87442a89d9278Business Development, Tech & Operations50%417,904,133.72417,895,633.720x747fa3858456f3978cc747ca4290111b933986d5 Help create the future you want to live in: Get Your Free NFT Passport Join Jur on Discord 

Polkadot India was an exceptional event! It was a pleasure for us to participate, and we strongly believe that it showcases the enormous potential of Polkadot.  We'd like to share an important strategic update with you. As you may have noticed, there have been some recent changes in the supply and demand dynamics of Polkadot's parachain slot auctions– now held monthly. Numerous projects, including Jur’s partners, routinely participate in auctions to initiate or renew their parachain leases. We have decided to launch Jur Chain as a solo chain first to ensure operational celerity. This will enable us to complete the $JUR token swap much sooner, without having to wait for the successful outcome of an auction. Similarly, this strategy ensures that Jur does not have to overspend on a slot in order to carry out the token swap or execute product delivery promptly.  Holders of $JUR will soon have the ability to migrate their tokens to the Jur Chain. The token swap dApp is now production-ready and will undergo end-to-end testing on the solo chain. We understand it's a hassle. However, keep in mind that Jur will participate in a crowdloan soon. This strategy is intended to guarantee a fast token swap independent from market dynamics.  We anticipate becoming a parachain in the near future and joining forces with other partners and projects in the space. With more than 51 societies attending the award, totaling 430K+ cumulative members, we are proud to build with our focus on our users. The Jur team has been working relentlessly towards this goal. Stay tuned for our announcement on the launch of the Jur Chain! 

What is a DAO? DAO is short for decentralised autonomous organization. A DAO has a community of members. Members are typically required to deposit cryptocurrency into a shared asset pool that they manage using governance tokens. A member’s voting power is usually proportional to the value of the assets they contribute to the pool. The organization is decentralised and autonomous in that there is no central or external authority controlling the DAO and its asset pool; all actions are determined by member proposals and votes. The processes of publishing proposals, voting, and transferring assets are all managed using smart contracts on the blockchain. DAOs are crypto-native communities focused on delivering economic benefits. Uniswap, the decentralised exchange, is managed by a very big DAO.  What is a Startup Society?  The phrase “Startup Society” describes a social model inspired by software startups. According to Balaji Srinivasan, “a startup society is a new community built internet-first, usually for the purpose of solving a specific social problem in an opt-in way.” Members of startup societies choose to join because they are united by shared values or a sense of moral purpose. Startup societies are likely to be founder-led initially, so they are not necessarily decentralised, but they may likely use blockchains. What is the difference between a DAO and a Startup Society? All DAOs are decentralised, but many Startup Societies may have some degree of centralised leadership. DAOs are typically narrowly focused on providing economic benefits for members. Startup Societies may be united by goals and values that transcend simple economic benefit.  DAOs are about blockchains and economic benefits, while Startup Societies use blockchains and may offer economic benefits, but are about a shared value in the sense that members are motivated by what Balaji proposes to call “One Commandment” - a clear value.  An Edge Case Example - Startup Society or DAO? Let’s consider a group of “sneakerheads” - people obsessed with shoe fashion - that has no centralised leader and is based on a blockchain. The group initially provides economic benefits to members by having the group allocate its shared asset pool to stock in sneaker companies. They have more social cohesion than your typical DAO because they all enjoy talking about shoes and have what you might call a subculture.  Then, horrified by working conditions at big brand shoe factories, they decide as a group to adopt a new model of providing economic benefits. They will create socially responsible profit by funding fair trade with artisan cobblers that generates a modest profit for members who stake to support the platform operation and growth. Members get shoes and/or money, cobblers get membership in the group and a voting token, a new market and buyers willing to pay a fair price. Each member gets one “membership vote” and up to four extra votes depending on the size of their stake.  Is this group a DAO, or a Startup Society? The answer is…yes. You could call it either one or both. As you can see, the line can become blurry. But at Jur, we would definitely call it a DAO that has evolved into a Startup Society. Perhaps there is no need to get caught up on the label. But if a DAO wants to evolve in the direction of a Startup Society, it may be helpful to start using the term to evoke greater possibilities, open minds, and broaden horizons.  Learn more about Startup Societies, Network States, and DAOs in our Discord Community.

Tim Draper, Ed Hesse, and Trent Mc'Conaghy will select five winning pitches for the Startup Society Founders’ Awards. Each winner will receive $2,000 USD plus 1,000 $JUR to support their startup society. Anyone can enter but to win, your society proposal needs to be clear, attractive to others, and realistic to achieve. Let’s talk about how to set up the basic structure to support a winning pitch: To enter, you will fill out a form to describe your startup society concept (which takes less than 2 minutes). In order to craft a winning proposal, you should focus on addressing the following questions: Why would people want to join your society? Does it have broad appeal with values that are common to many people? Or perhaps your society would only appeal to a narrow niche, but your citizens would be passionately committed. Is your goal useful and achievable? How could your society benefit citizens in a way that is realistic? When someone asks “what’s in it for me.” the answer should be something that is meaningful to them and something your group could really deliver.  As you consider your answers, try to imagine what someone could say that would get you excited about an idea like yours. Remember a time when you felt inspired reading about a similar vision? Strive to capture and share that creative energy.  You can also join the Jur community on Discord to talk about Startup Societies in general and get reactions to your specific idea. An Awards Committee will evaluate your concept and assign a score of 1 to 5. The ten highest-scoring proposals will be shortlisted for evaluation by the judges. Each founder on the shortlist will get support from the Jur team to refine their pitch for the judges. The judges will score the pitches on three criteria: desirability, feasibility, and viability. In other words, do people want a society like this? Can the goals of their society be achieved? Do the goals bring substantial benefits so that their society will endure?Pitch your Startup Society now!