What’s Trending in The Network State

Jur, the upcoming Polkadot parachain building the DAO 2.0 stack, invites founders to pitch their Startup Society ideas to notable figures from Web3, including Tim Draper (Draper Associates), Ed Hesse (Energy Web), and Trent McConaghy (Ocean Protocol) for a chance to win a share of the USD 10,000 grand prize, along with the opportunity to launch their Startup Society through a dedicated grant program. Unlike DAOs, Startup Societies are flexible founder-led forms of congregations that are value-based to let communities aggregate easily around a shared purpose. With its’ DAO 2.0 stack, Jur aims to kick off the 1-click Country ecosystem to build the future of governance, enabling Web3 communities with interoperability, growth, experimentation, and evolution into network states.  Jur invites existing online community builders, influencers, DAOs, and innovators to participate in the first cohort of the Startup Society Founders Awards. The Awards will provide a platform for founders to experiment with new societal models and offer USD 2,000 and 1,000 $JUR each to the top five Startup Society proposals.  Web3 technologies are changing the way we think about community and governance. Jur founder Alessandro Palombo states, “Jur believes that Web3 requires simpler structures to enable community building and governance. That's why we are developing an ecosystem to support Startup Societies, designed to be Web3-native communities based on shared values and simple, consensus-based decision-making. In addition, with the Startup Society Founders Awards launch, we want to encourage further innovation and experimentation in this space.”To keep the process decentralized and transparent, the evaluation process to shortlist the top 10 proposals, will be undertaken by Jur community volunteers, along with a panel of experienced advisors including Zane Austen from Balaji’s team at The Network State, amongst others. The Jur team and advisors will refine the shortlisted proposals to be presented to the judges, Tim Draper, Ed Hesse, and Trent McConaghy, who will select the five winners to present their ideas live on Demo Day. “Startup Societies offer an exciting new way for people to come together and work towards a shared purpose,” says Ed Hess, Energy Web’s founder and one of the judges for the award. He adds, “Jur is building the tools and infrastructure needed to power the next generation of Web3 native communities. I’m excited to be part of the Jur Startup Society Founders Awards and see the innovative proposals presented.”The deadline to submit your proposal is 31st March 2023. Take advantage of this opportunity to be a part of the next generation of Web3 Startups Society founders. Apply now!

We are excited to continue the growth and development of Jur as we announce the updated $JUR Token Model. Important decisions have been made to redefine the $JUR Token Model with innovative, new features in order to better support the Jur Network. The Token Model is part of the Jur Economy. Jur 2023 is highly focused on the Jur Economy as a catalyst of Jur’s growth potential.    The new sections of the Jur Documentation pertaining to the Jur Token Model offer clarifications on the following: The deflationary system in Jur Use of the $JUR token Staking of $JUR Other sections will follow, covering updated Tokenomics, Crowdloan Terms, and the Flywheel Dynamics of the Jur Network.  Read now! *** As Jur progressively decentralises, maintaining open communication with our community is a priority. It is up to the community to reflect and propose changes. Jur will become fully owned by the community. The Token Model is one of the elements necessary to achieve product-market fit, a pre-condition to full decentralisation. The $JUR token is designed as a tool for coordinating actors in a distributed ecosystem; without it the system would not function properly. The Token Model will initialize and catalyze growth of the Jur Network. Value generated by the $JUR token is delivered by the Network Flywheel, a topic that will be expanded in a future section of the Jur documentation. *** Having said that, let us come to the news: $JUR is deflationary The $JUR token is deflationary. 1B of $JUR tokens have been generated, and no new tokens will be issued. 20% of each transaction fee is burned. In Web3, it is sometimes a matter of approaches rather than right and wrong. It is common to see systems in which an inflationary logic is present as a form of incentives for collators activity.   At Jur we have matured a different decision. We think it is more beneficial for Jur to take an approach of organic growth in the number of collators. Collators in Jur are paid with the 20 percent of transaction fees transactions and from deflation built into the system itself. The number of collators will grow organically as the number of transactions in the chain itself grows organically. We do not introduce inflationary systems, which are in fact by their nature dilutive of the token’s value. The security of the network is on the other hand guaranteed by Polkadot, and the decentralisation implied by more collators will happen gradually as the Jur Chain usage grows. A deflationary mechanism presents the further benefit of introducing a timeless logic of value creation for network actors. Each transaction generates a decrease in the circulating supply of tokens generating a value accrual directly proportional to the use of the chain at any point in time, without being time-bound to initial settings and estimations made by the core team prior to deploying the Mainnet.  Read more here. $JUR – Society Rewards An innovative element in Jur concerns a choice of use of transaction fees. A substantial portion (40 percent) of transaction fees is dedicated to rewarding the most active communities on Jur, i.e., those that use the Jur Chain the most. This innovative logic causes the chain to indirectly redistribute $JUR tokens to the most active users, generating progressive power in their hands to direct the growth and development of the network itself. $JUR token holders, that meet specific criteria (defined in the subsequent section), actively decide recipients of these rewards.  This logic supports the vision of a network designed to be foundational to multiple network states and determines in the long run the basis for a competitive advantage over any other possible construct. This aspect of the token model is designed to exponentially enable network effects, making the chain and Jur, as an ecosystem, the best for creating new forms of censorship -resistant communities and network states. The goal is to make Jur the infrastructure where the incentive system and the presence of an already developed ecosystem makes experimentation and creation in the network states field as effective as possible. Read more here. $JUR Staking: meta-citizenship  We are particularly pleased to introduce a different approach to staking. At Jur, we identify the $JUR holder as one who generally believes in a future in which Network States become a reality. The $JUR holder intends to participate in and contribute to the change. The $JUR holder can become a meta-citizen by staking a minimum amount of $JUR. He accumulates a score expressed in weJUR, receiving one weJUR for every 24 hours of staking. The higher the weJUR score, the greater its weight and the percentage of Society Tokens allocated to meta-citizens rewards it will receive.  Jur will allow the issuance of Initial Society Offerings of various kinds. A percentage of each token generated will be issued to those who are staking $JUR.  $JUR is designed to condense the value of the social constructs and related economies created on Jur as a network. This logic results in direct co-participation and co-interest of $JUR holders in each Society created on Jur, resulting in a boost and incentive for the success of the Jur ecosystem as a whole. Each $JUR holder accrues an interest in the success of the entire Network States ecosystem, and mutually, the most successful Societies (i.e. communities) receive $JUR so that they become co-interested in the ecosystem as a whole.  The $JUR Token model is intended to be an enabler of a thriving and growing ecosystem of hundreds of Web3 Societies, some of which will issue their own Tokens and evolve into Network States.  Read more here. Stay tuned for the upcoming Jur Economy sections!

Jur had a momentous year. To frame the scope of the possibilities that lie before us, let’s consider the context.  Distributed ledger technology (DLT) was first used to create blockchains for recording ownership and transactions of cryptocurrency. Then DLT was used to create blockchain-based financial applications. Now DLT has expanded to other uses, supply chain tracking, gaming, intellectual property ownership (NFTs), dispute resolution, and more. It is becoming clear that blockchains can do a lot more than just offer a new form of money. Blockchain technology can touch every aspect of society in a way that will bring change and benefits on a level comparable to the internet revolution, the creation of the “world wide web.” Web1 was the era of static pages and content consumers. Web2 was the era of the web as a platform, where everyone could be a content producer, on platforms owned by tech giants. In Web3, as conceived by Polkadot founder Gavin Wood, decentralised technology replaces the tech giants and gives power back to the people in a profound way. In late 2021 and early 2022, a movement began to gain momentum; pioneers began to realize that Web3’s potential is not limited to decentralizing economic relationships with DeFi applications. That is a great use case, but there is something bigger. Web3 technology can change our forms of social organization and governance from the ground up by allowing people to create new experimental forms of society and governance.  Lack of trust in government and institutions is a big problem with long-standing entities, and would surely be an issue for someone considering opting into a new society. But it is exactly the problem Web3 solves. The magic of Web3, after all, is inviolable trust. As a fundamental property, properly designed and implemented, Web3 technology solves the problem of trust. With trustworthiness guaranteed, people can confidently choose to risk participating in new social experiments, secure in the knowledge that they will get exactly what they have agreed to. Everyone else can audit the measurable results of the experiment. The Network State model offers an overview of a path to new forms of sovereign societies built on “trustless” technology– that is to say, technology that eliminates the need for trust because results are certain and transparent.  In response to this opportunity to lead in a watershed moment in human history, Jur shifted its focus from dispute resolution to a broader mission. Scytale Investment, Move to Polkadot, New Website, New Lightpaper After laying the groundwork earlier in the year, in March Jur team secured an investment from Scytale, which was an early investor in Polkadot. Scytale founder & CIO Mark Cachia joined Jur as an advisor and the team began planning a move to Polkadot, with a plan to build tools to create and govern new societies and Network States. Jur laid out the new strategy to expand the Network State movement on Polkadot here. The team also announced the release of a new Website in April and followed up in June with a Lightpaper published as a Gitbook to encourage community involvement.  NFT Passports,Tim Draper & Others Receive Pre-Constitutional Citizenship, Passport Gated Discord  In May, Jur team took a historic step forward, issuing the first NFT Passport to a legendary tech investor Tim Draper, who joined Jur as the first Pre-Constitutional citizen. Over 2,500 citizens have now applied for and received Jur NFT passports on the Moonbeam network. Meanwhile, the team has added several features since the initial release: passport holders can upload a custom cover image, store social media credentials, and generate QR codes to share their passports with others.  The passports can also store stamps and badges. The stamps allow access to gated spaces like Jur’s Discord channels and badges are awarded in recognition of citizen contributions.  Jur Community Gets To Work - Jur Labs and Working Groups Jur’s goal is to give people the tools they need to create a better world by experimenting with new forms of society and governance. In order to serve users, Jur must understand their needs. Community involvement is essential for the success of the project. In discussions with legal tech experts and lawyers, the team identified two opportunities to create useful legal common goods that everyone can use to solve frequently recurring problems. The experts concluded that standardized contracts to cover two use cases are urgently needed. Accordingly, Jur team recruited experts and formed two working groups, one to create a flexible standardized contract for NFT Terms of Service/Sale contracts and another group to create a flexible model SAFT (Safe Agreement for Future Tokens) contract.  The NFT group completed considerable background research, but before they could complete their model, another group, a16zcrypto, delivered their own excellent contract. So the NFT workgroup disbanded, but members helped pioneer the method for developing future legal common goods.  Jur Labs and The Network State Wiki Jur’s development team implemented gating in Discord and bot-supported channels to address particular topic areas. Over 80 pioneer citizens joined Jur Labs. The Labs were initially split into a dozen channels where citizens could discuss topic areas like the concept of “limited liability identity” for Web3 citizens and crowdfunding territory for experimental societies. Seeing a more pressing need and the opportunity to create something directly useful, lab participants are now focused on the immediate task of editing the Network State Wiki, initially created by the core team at Jur.  Presentations and Publications Adding perspective to the information in the Network State Wiki, Jur founder Alessandro Palombo (Ale) published a paper titled the Network State Revolution as a response to the vision laid out by Balaji Srinivasan in The Network State. Jur also published several blog articles summarising Balaji, Gabriele, and Buterin discussing the Network State and related concepts.   The team landed a coveted presentation slot on the Berlin stage of the prestigious annual Polkadot Decoded conference where Ale delivered a lightning pitch on “A Native Jurisdiction for a Trusted Web3.” Jur was also invited to present at a special event that was held during the Substrate Sub0 conference. While in Lisbon for Sub0, Ale presented Jur’s “Network State Primer” to the Network State Foundation. You can watch Ale’s presentation to the NSF on youtube here. Ethos Testnet, Token Swap Pallet, Jur Chain Security Audit by CertiK In the last quarter of 2022, Jur released updated documentation and completed development of the Ethos testnet which will be forked to create the Jur parachain. The team also completed the token swap pallet and a proposal pallet for the community module of the Network State stack. To ensure security for the token transfer and for future features, Jur entered in a partnership with CertiK, which will provide ongoing auditing services.  Ale Joins Moonsama as Governance Advisor. The First Network State? CityDAO podcast Jur founder Alessandro Palombo was invited to join Moonsama as a governance advisor. Supporters of this community-driven NFT and multiverse project need the kind of tools Jur is building. Moonsama leader @DonnieBigBags tweeted “We're looking forward to building a Network State with you Ale!”  Earlier this month Ale met with Eric Gilbert-Williams, who hosts CityDAO’s podcast (which we highly recommend), and recorded this. We think you’ll enjoy it! 2023 - Token Swap, New Parachain, New Pallets, New Societies The Jur team is looking forward to a very exciting year, beginning with the token swap from VeChain to Polkadot, the parachain auction, and Polkadot parachain deployment. The team will be working with Moonsama, other society founders, and the Jur community to assess needs. Using an iterative lean development process, the team will create and release new pallets that anyone can use to create new experimental societies, validating products with users and adding features in response to feedback. You Can Be Part of the Process. Join Jur and Shape the Future! Jur’s mission is to serve humanity by making it easier to experiment with new forms of society and governance. That means that Jur’s mission is to serve you. Get your free NFT passport here and then join Jur on Discord.

Jur is creating a Substrate-based chain that will connect to the Polkadot Relay Chain securely through Cumulus. This design allows Jur chain to rely upon the Relay Chain’s efficient block finalisation and security. Jur will bid for a parachain slot in the first quarter of 2023. Until the parachain slot is obtained, Jur will run as a testnet parachain of the Rococo network.  Ethos is the testnet chain of Jur which has been recently released while waiting for the activation on Rococo (request pending here). The production parachain will have the same runtime as Ethos when it is launched. New features/pallets will be tested on Ethos before going live on the main chain. The first release of the runtime contains the token swap pallet to allow JUR holders to exchange VIP-180 (VeChain) JUR for newly minted JUR on the new parachain and the proposal pallet for the Community module of the Network State stack. These pallets will be deployed and tested on Ethos over the next few days.  Jur team has its own quality assurance and audit procedures, but will not be the sole source of testing. Jur has involved leading security firm CertiK for auditing of the Jur Chain runtime configuration and the token swap pallet. CertiK ensures the highest degree of protection for users of the chain. Jur is developing a Layer 1 blockchain built on the Substrate framework that aims to empower censorship-resistant communities with the tools they need to thrive. Learn more in the updated Jur documentation and join the Jur community on Discord to be part of the Network State revolution.

On December 16, 2022, Jur published updated documentation explaining the redefined scope of the project. Jur has always been focused on using blockchain tools to bring the benefits of “trustless” systems to social relationships, expanding from a narrow focus on justice to a much broader vision of helping people create better forms of social organization. In 2018, Jur began developing a blockchain-based system for creating contracts with escrow accounts attached to a dispute resolution system. Jur then took it a step further in 2020 and began designing a system to deliver legally binding arbitration decisions with enhanced blockchain reliability. In 2022, as a result of constant iteration on the non-financial vertical of Web3, Jur realised a profound need. In response, Jur pivoted from providing only “justice” tools to providing a complete set of tools to create and manage societies, tools that can serve the nascent “Network State” movement. Jur’s new tools can be used for many purposes. But in order to fully understand Jur’s new scope, one must have a basic grasp of the network state concept, so the documentation briefly explains this idea and its origins before continuing to explain the components of Jur’s new stack, which will allow people to create and manage societies. Creating new societies is an experimental process and Jur expects that revelations requiring redirection of efforts will be common. We will come to understand what tools are most needed as people work through the process of building societies. Because of the dynamic nature of experimental societies, Jur’s new documentation has been published in the form of a Gitbook to facilitate frequent updates. The project will be continuously redefined in response to the ongoing process of discovering society’s needs.  You can read the documentation here. The Jur community is also maintaining a Network State Wiki with more detailed explanations of the network state model and related concepts. This movement is about citizens, people like you who believe we can create a better future. Get involved! You can contribute to the wiki and earn $Jur. First you will need to get an NFT passport and join Jur on Discord and help shape the future.

It's with great pleasure that we announce that Jur has selected CertiK, a leading security-focused audit platform that analyses and monitors blockchain protocols and DeFi projects for the auditing needs of the upcoming Jur Chain, a Substrate-based Layer 1 chain for powering Societies, Countries and Network States. The audit begins with the token swap stack that will allow JUR token holders to migrate their VIP-180 JUR tokens from VeChainThor to the new Substrate-based chain, the Jur Chain. The audit involves several components: A smart contract deployed on VeChainThor that allows users to deposit their tokens A patch on the VeChainThor node that exposes some custom endpoints to retrieve data from the VeChainThor blockchain that is not exposed by default A custom built pallet on the Jur Chain that will allow users to claim the deposited tokens on the VeChainThor side For the more technical savvy the token swap is implemented as a one way token lock. Certik, founded in 2018 by professors from Columbia and Yale, is a pioneer in blockchain security, utilizing best-in-class Formal Verification and AI technology to secure and monitor blockchains, smart contracts, and Web3 applications. CertiK has audited top projects like Ocean Protocol and Phala Network. The Jur team is working with CertiK,  to ensure the highest level of security for our community,  and will continuously strive to apply the strictest industry security standards. More information on the audit can be found here