Kusama lives and makes creativity* possible - by Virto

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Kreivo means creativity and it’s also the name of the parachain the Virto team deployed in Kusama as the winner of auction 102 a couple of months ago.
We will use this parachain to test and integrate the tools focused on UX/DevX that we have developed for the past 3 years and any future developments, as well as integrating real-world applications that partners in Latin America are excited to turn into Web3 businesses with social impact.

Kreivo is not a new thing, it just took a while to find the right conditions to showcase this bet for a different kind of parachain, one that is kick-started by the community and behaves as a common good not having a token and using KSM as it’s native asset while remaining sovereign and self-sustainable.

We have been preparing the ground for some years now, with the help of grants and then earlier this year when the Virto team received 6 months support for a “trial fund” to prove itself as a capable ecosystem agent that can bring innovative solutions to the common problems that affect us. But tools need to be used! with Kreivo we have the playground to experiment and put together the many pieces of our puzzle we’ve been building.

Kreivo as a product

We are creating a robust and sustainable payments & community management infrastructure for cooperatives(commercial communities) whose users transact with real-life products and services. A standout feature is the ability to lock a small contribution from each payment in the region where the transaction occurred to incentivize the creation of local communities. It is our long term mission to use this technology to fight inequality(specially in Latam).

The Virto team is joining as one more commercial community to provide the infrastructure services of the underlying protocol in a simple manner. Anyone looking to establish Web3 cooperative will see a simple subscription based Solution as a Service platform that is a smash of Discord, Stripe and Wix.

Notice how I don’t use the term DAO? it’s important for us and the projects we want to attract to exclude blockchain jargon or any related complexity to our communities and their end users, the team has experience building products that use blockchain technology that is completely hidden away from the end user.

Other use-cases

Kreivo is a great platform to bridge real-world businesses, such as decentralized on&off-ramps, Infrastructure as a Service, freelancing or sharing economy platforms among others.
Creating infrastructure without usage is pointless, that’s why together with a few partners we have been prototyping for a while the first communities that will launch on Kreivo besides Virto:

• Cubo: Makes investment in a diversified portfolio of real state easy with the CUBO token. The team was selected in the PolkadotRelayers program and is currently launching a pilot program to deploy affordable tiny houses in a touristic hotspot near Medellin Colombia.
• SwapCash: A localbitcoins-like platform to trade local currency in a decentralized way with the simplicity of Uniswap.
• Bloque: “Insta-stores” allow users to import their catalog of products from social media platforms to start selling in few clicks while receiving payments in local currency(powered by SwapCash).

Building Kreivo MVP

Kreivo’s inner workings and initial functionality revolve around 2+1 key components:

• Communities pallet: We created a general purpose “DAO factory”/multi-collective pallet that allows local and commercial communities to establish their digital infrastructure and make decisions autonomously. Kreivo serves as their shared back-end, empowering them to conduct their operations, including payment processing.
• Payments pallet and fee collection system: Kreivo’s payments module ensures secure reversible transactions and dispute resolution. It also includes a configurable fee collection system that allows communities charge their fees or for the protocol to implement the local contributions or other impactful initiatives.

Governance: Kreivo adopts a “ranked collective” approach for protocol level decision-making, every community joins said collective and is able to actively participate in the governance of the system. This unique approach ensures inclusivity, prevents power concentration, and aligns with Kreivo’s mission of promoting a user-driven, accessible platform.

The Virto Team as an Agent of the Kusama Ecosystem

The Virto team is committed to being a valuable asset to the Kusama community, offering our technical expertise as a Rust+Substrate devshop to support various projects and initiatives within the ecosystem. The team’s experience in building products that seamlessly integrate blockchain technology with user-friendly interfaces sets us apart. We understand the importance of simplifying Web3 technology for communities and end-users, making it accessible and free from unnecessary complexity.

Next Steps: The Virto team is excited to continue building in Kusama where we have established our home and hope the community sees value in supporting our next set of endeavors. We wouldn’t be able to realize the vision of Virto and Kreivo elsewhere.
Despite market challenges this year and having downsized the team we managed to extend its runway to cover an entire year of development while delivering things than initially planned, we’ve remained transparent about budgeting keeping funds on-chain(probably the only team) and staking unused funds to secure the network.
It’s our goal to make Kreivo self-sustainable as soon as possible and we are working on it but you’ll probably hear from us in Kusama’s OpenGov at least once more.

Join us!: If you have a community that is looking to conduct an economic activity, we invite you all to reach out so we can set up your community in Kreivo, we are offering the first 15 communities free infrastructure for a year which includes our own flavor of a dedicated Matrix server(what Element connects to) for encrypted chats and “light contracts” integrated with the parachain and our own Matrix client created from scratch to integrate simple payments and governance.

[olanod]

Deeper dive into Kreivo’s internals

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Governance

Kreivo introduces a novel approach to blockchain governance, diverging from the conventional token-based model. Instead, it makes use of the available “ranked collective” system, where diverse communities within the chain join forces to collectively make key decisions. This inclusive framework ensures that governance is not solely influenced by token holdings but rather by the vested interests of the active communities.

Virto, as a commercial community, is a part of said collective, contributing alongside the many other community voices. Notably, the Kusama network’s interests would be represented through the “ksm.community”, a dedicated seat in the collective. This governance structure is designed to mitigate the dominance of ‘whales’ or large token holders, fostering a more equitable and community-focused decision-making process. End users keep maintaining influence over the network’s direction through their respective community’s governance mechanisms, ensuring a broad representation of interests and a robust defense against unilateral takeovers.

Community governance

Each community within Kreivo enjoys the autonomy to craft its unique governance structure, thanks to the flexibility of the pallet-communities. This component seamlessly integrates with other elements of the FRAME framework, such as offering a diverse set of runtime origins, managing a community from remote XCM origins and leveraging the power of the pallet-referenda.

The team’s contributions have allowed shaping the referenda pallet to support dynamic tracks enhancing its utility for the diverse and always changing community governance models.

The voice of a community is configured to be any one origin(except root and none), pallet-communities offers a varied choice of origins that allow representing all kinds of subsets of the community with different decision mechanisms. As communities grow they can also have different origins with their respective governance tracks to control different aspects of their organization such as managing memberships, controlling tokens and their supply, fees charged if there is an offering of products or services and many more.

The team will be working closely with the ecosystem via the Polkadot fellowship to allow Kreivo communities be first-class citizens across the ecosystem, this integrations will allow a community or its subsets to have representation across the entire network as a Pluraliry that can do all kinds of actions like participating directly in the relay-chain’s governance, do staking, control remote assets, use other parachain services and so on.

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Payments

Kreivo introduces a practical and secure payment system in the blockchain sphere, akin to familiar credit card mechanisms. Focused on secure transactions and dispute resolution, it provides reassurance and options for reimbursement, similar to established financial services. The system is adaptable, featuring a configurable fee structure that empowers communities to set their own transaction fees.

Transaction Flow:

1. Payment Initiation: Senders initiate payments specifying the reason and amount.
2. On-Hold State: Payments arrive in an “on-hold” state, restricting fund transfers.
3. Release of Funds: If the sender receives the expected product or service, they can issue a release, freeing the on-hold funds and getting back the “release incentive”(similar to a cashback).
4. Cancellation Options: Beneficiaries can cancel the payment to return funds, and senders can request a refund.
5. Dispute Resolution: In case of disagreement, the payment enters a dispute state, and a dispute resolver is assigned to dictate fund allocation.

Fee Customization System: Kreivo’s pallet-payments also features a customizable fees & discounts system, allowing a separate subsystem to set specific fees and discounts for each payment. This includes fixed system fees like the “local incentive” or fees configured by a pallet-community-fees for community-specific transactions.

In summary, Kreivo’s payment system, with its escrow-like functionalities, payment requests, and upcoming subscription features, offers a robust solution for diverse business transaction needs in the blockchain space. We look forward to the diverse implementations by communities and welcome detailed feedback to refine and tailor this payments infrastructure to the specific requirements of every commercial community.

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Usability beyond wallets

The evolution of Web3 has brought with it a steep learning curve, especially in terms of wallet usage and the associated complexities. Users are often required to navigate through the intricacies of setting up and managing digital wallets, as well as understanding browser extensions, which can be daunting for those new to the space. Additionally, the necessity to sign and pay fees for every interaction with the blockchain adds another layer of complexity and potential deterrent for widespread adoption. These usability challenges contradict what should be a fundamental aspect of any technology: user-friendliness. We see a path where experience with a blockchain can be enhanced to the point it is no longer evident there is a blockchain behind a service, a path where crypto wallets might just become a distant memory.

Pallet Pass

The “pallet pass” is in Kreivo streamlines user interaction with blockchain technology. It allows users to control an on-chain account through multiple devices, leveraging a system akin to pallet-proxy.
A key feature is enabling users to use their existing “passkeys” or built-in authenticators to create an account and approve transactions using native device features like fingerprints or facial recognition or a single tap of a YubiKey-like device. Pass integrates with the memberships system of the Kreivo communities, so members of a community who own an NFT-like membership, users can conduct blockchain transactions without incurring fees or be remembered to not have to constantly approve transactions. This approach simplifies blockchain transactions, removing the need for traditional wallet management and making the process more user-friendly.