The Evolution of Voting in StoryChain

One of the cornerstones of StoryChain is its regular competitions where winners get a share of the reward pool. But how do we decide the winner? It shouldn’t be centralized by the choice of admins; the community must decide. Our journey to find the perfect voting mechanism has been evolutionary, filled with trials, learning, and improvements.

Onchain Voting

Our initial approach was straightforward: onchain voting. It ensured transparency and security, leveraging blockchain’s immutable nature. However, we quickly encountered significant challenges. The gas fees associated with each vote were prohibitive, especially during network congestion periods. Additionally, requiring users to pay for each vote deterred participation and limited engagement. The cumbersome process was far from user-friendly, particularly for those new to blockchain.

Offchain Voting with Signature and Merkle Tree

To address the cost issue, we introduced offchain voting using signatures and Merkle trees. This method solved the gas cost problem by making voting free for users while maintaining security through Merkle proofs. However, it introduced complexity in the voting process. Users needed to understand how to claim their votes, and the overall user experience was not as seamless as we desired.

Incentivizing Voting

We realized that to increase participation, we needed to incentivize voting itself. We allocated a portion of the reward pool to voters. This approach did increase engagement, as users now had a stake in the outcome beyond just casting a vote. However, a new problem arose: users often didn’t care about the quality of stories and tended to vote for the first story they saw.

The Solution: StoryChain Quests

Encouraging Diverse Reading and Voting

Our next challenge was to ensure that users read and voted on multiple stories, not just the first one they encountered. We needed a system that would:

• Encourage the community to vote on multiple stories, not just one.
• Enable users to easily check out different stories.
• Ensure that the ordering of stories wasn’t solely based on creation time or current vote score, providing a fair chance to all entries.
• Make voting fun and easy.
• Serve as an introduction for web2 users to get accustomed to the stories and the platform, eventually leading them to create stories themselves.

Our solution is embodied in StoryChain Quests, our Telegram mini app designed to address these challenges and elevate the voting experience.

StoryChain Quests makes voting engaging and rewarding by gamifying the process. Users are encouraged to explore multiple stories through a fun, interactive interface. The randomness in story presentation ensures every entry gets its moment in the spotlight, regardless of its creation time or initial popularity.

Moreover, StoryChain Quests seamlessly integrates with both web2 and web3 users, making the transition smooth and inviting. Web2 users can participate in the ecosystem, get familiar with our platform, and earn rewards that can later be converted into our native tokens when they connect their wallets.

By making voting a fun, incentivized, and fair process, StoryChain Quests is the culmination of our efforts to create a community-driven, transparent, and engaging voting system that truly reflects the collaborative spirit of StoryChain.

Beta Testing and What’s Next

StoryChain Quests is currently under development and will be open to beta testing very soon. We’re excited to share this new platform with you and can’t wait to see how our community interacts with it. More information will be provided soon, so stay tuned for updates and be among the first to experience this innovative blend of social interaction, creativity, and blockchain technology.

Join us in this exciting evolution and help shape the stories of tomorrow!