The Value Prop compiles crypto use-cases to battle skeptics
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Illustration: Shoshana Gordon/Axios
Polygon launched a database cataloguing the different ways folks are using blockchain-related services across verticals from social impact to education.
Why it matters: The initiative was inspired to answer the question of "what is crypto's value proposition," Rebecca Rettig, chief policy officer at Polygon, tells Axios, and in part, to push back on Washington criticism enshrined in the President's economic report that its innovation has been mostly about creating "artificial scarcity."
- Between that criticism, the crime and fraud, the good in crypto is being eclipsed by the bad.
Zoom out: Polygon Labs is the company behind the network Polygon, a sidechain of the Ethereum blockchain, or what is called a Layer 2.
- The database, called The Value Prop, include things in widely known categories like remittances and investments, plus more obscure projects that deal in things like behavioral nudging.
How it works: The database is crowdsourced, and the 150+ projects listed are not endorsed by Polygon Labs.
- It's meant to be a "living document" like Wikipedia, according to Rettig.
Quick take: The website is useful for discovery, with sorting available by use-case, network, and "verticals" — business-speak for industry.
- There's not a ton of information about each, though.
Zoom in: Projects that make it onto the site are checked for:
- Public information that can be independently verified as accurate;
- Operational or near-operational apps associated with the use;
- Current or past users and a valid working website about the app;
- Use on, or having been built on a blockchain, or inclusion of crypto in the app.
Rettig's "favorite" is UNICEF DAO, which is in the testing phase of making the funding process for digital public goods more efficient. It's built on Polygon.
- There's also QuestBook that promotes learning web3 development that rewards completed quests with NFTs and crypto.
- And an XR metaverse RecycleFarm, which promotes recyling — that's in the behavioral nudging category.
