Zoints Litepaper

Zoints Team
2021

Abstract
We propose Zoints, a social and community network that utilizes the Solana
blockchain to enable “Patronage 2.0” where Creators, Communities, AND
Fans can earn recurring subscription rewards via a novel split staking
mechanism.

1. Background
The frustration regarding user’s time and content being exploited for financial gain by
centralized social networks has given rise to the “Creator Economy”, a new economic model
where more than 50 million people who identify as Creators [1] can receive compensation
directly from their audience. A diverse set of Creator-centric platforms have been introduced on
various blockchains. These platforms tend to focus on NFTs or “Creator Coins,” where Fans
can invest in their Creator of choice. Other non-crypto sites allow Fans to subscribe to a
Creator’s professional space by using their credit card.

2. Innovation Opportunity
1. Recurring cryptocurrency rewards are pivotal for financial stability and success for
Creators.
2. Ads are essential to centralized social networks and result in user profiling. Blockchain
enables ad-free and privacy-centric models.
3. Only about 2% of a Creator’s Fanbase is willing to subscribe via credit card. [2]
4. Rich community interaction functionality aids Creators in establishing a loyal Fanbase.
5. Creators often want to join and collaborate in communities.
6. There is ample opportunity to onboard much of the world’s population not yet involved
with cryptocurrency into an easy-to-use platform that rewards its users rather than
shareholders.
7. Censorship is a persistent problem around the world, yet most people prefer the ease
and efficiency of large platforms (Reddit, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, eBay, etc.).
8. Blockchain enables new economic models for rewarding users.
 9. Centralized platforms like YouTube keep upwards of 45% of ad revenue. [3]

3. Zoints
Zoints is a social and community network that utilizes a novel split staking mechanism and the
Solana blockchain to create recurring subscription rewards for Creators, Community Owners,
AND their Fans.

We chose Solana as the primary blockchain to allow for low-cost, high-speed transactions and
unparalleled scalability [4], which enable the UI/UX improvements and the throughput necessary
to onboard hundreds of millions of Creators, Community Founders, and their Fans. The token
Zoints will utilize is a Solana Public Library (SPL) token called ZEE with the ticker of ZEE, which
makes it inter-operable across the Solana ecosystem.

For eventual decentralization and inter-operability with existing communities, we chose the
Xenforo community framework.

To seize upon the innovation opportunities in section 2, Zoints will be built with the following
functionality:

3.1 Creator Spaces and Communities

There will be two types of communities on Zoints, each with unique token functionality (as
discussed in sections 3.2-3.4). The communities can be customized via channels (which are
subsections of the community) that use apps such as threaded forum discussion, links, and My
NFTs. Many more “channel apps” will be added in the future. The two community types are:

1. Creator Space: Anyone who joins Zoints will have their own zoints.com/u/username
Creator Space specific to them, and anyone can follow and subscribe to them.

2. Communities: Anyone can use ZEE to purchase and then operate their own topic driven
/z/community-name other users with the same interest can then follow and subscribe to.
Communities can be focused on any topic, and the goals will be varied. Communities
are run by the Community Owner.

Both community types take part in the split staking rewards subscription system with minor
nuances described below.

3.2 Creator Space Staking

When a Creator joins Zoints, they receive their own Creator Space, which can then be
customized to their needs. They set a subscription price in ZEE, the cryptocurrency of Zoints.
Fans can follow the Creator and may also choose to subscribe for exclusive access and to
support the Creator. When a Fan subscribes, they stake their tokens in a Solana program for
the Creator. The Fan receives 47.5% of the rewards, the Creator receives 47.5% of the
rewards, and the person who referred the Creator receives 5% of the rewards. The reward is
variable based upon an emission schedule and the total number of stakers who split the ZEE
emissions for that time period. If a user chooses to unsubscribe and thus unstake, there is a
10-day unbonding period prior to the tokens being deposited back into the user’s wallet. If a
Creator adjusts the subscription rate, existing users are grandfathered in at the current rate.
This functionality creates a mutually beneficial relationship between Creator and Fan. This is
beneficial over Creator Coins as there is no investment in the Creator, thus the pressure to
perform and raise a token price is non-existent. The Creator does not become the product but
is instead collaboratively supported.

3.3 Community Staking

Anyone can create a /z/community-name on Zoints by purchasing the right to the url with ZEE.
As the Community Owner, they set the price for others to subscribe to and thus join the
community. When someone follows the community and chooses to subscribe, they stake ZEE
in a Solana program for that community. The Subscriber receives 47.5% of the reward, the
Community Founder receives 47.5%, and 5% goes to the person who referred the Community
Founder.

4. Channel Apps
When a user selects to create a new “Channel” within their community, the user is provided
options for “Channel Apps”. Current Channel Apps include threaded forum discussions, “My
NFTs” and links. Channel Apps are an area we will open up to outside developers.

4.1 Channel App Store

Developers will be able to create any Channel App they want. Channel Apps will be added to a
“Channel App Store” (subject to code review) where they can be purchased. Developers can
charge ZEE for their app.

5. Front page
The front page of Zoints will have two primary functions:

A. Rank all Communities by the number of Subscribers and be sortable by a variety of options.
B. Display ranked, curated content voted upon by the members of Zoints.

6. Tokenomics
Token - “ZEE”
Ticker “ZEE”

ZEE is a token that will have no ICO, presale, or private sale of any kind prior to launch.
In order to create a scalable, sustainable, decentralized Social and Community Network where
users are not the product, one must have a utility token. ZEE will initially be distributed to
participants of the network via an invite system where “Early Adopters” in section 6.1 will
receive a tiered amount of ZEE upon registration.

Zoints is a utility token and holders are conveyed no voting rights.

6.1 Token Distribution

Type Tokens % Comment

Team 1,600,000,000,000 16% Founding team members

Early Adopters 400,000,000,000 4% Early adopter fund

Partners 350,000,000,000 4.5% Partners fund

Reserve 2,050,000,000,000 20.5% Reserve fund

Staking Fund 5,500,000,000,000 55% Staking rewards

Total: 10,000,000,000,000 100%

Founding team members may receive up to 20,000,000,000 unlocked tokens at launch and the
remaining will unlock at 3% per month.

6.2 Staking Fund Emission Schedule

Year Total Yearly Emission

1 550,000,000,000
2 495,000,000,000
3 445,500,000,000
4 400,950,000,000
5 360,855,000,000
6 324,769,500,000
7 292,292,550,000
8 263,063,295,000
9 236,756,965,500
10 213,081,268,950
11 191,773,142,055
12 172,595,827,850
13 155,336,245,065
14 139,802,620,558
15 125,822,358,502
16 113,240,122,652
17 101,916,110,387
18 91,724,499,348
19 82,552,049,413
20 74,296,844,472
21 66,867,160,025
22 60,180,444,022
23 54,162,399,620
24 48,746,159,658
25 43,871,543,692
26 39,484,389,323
27 35,535,950,391
28 31,982,355,352
29 28,784,119,817
30 25,905,707,835
31 23,315,137,051
32 20,983,623,346
33 18,885,261,012
34 16,996,734,910
35 15,297,061,419
36 13,767,355,277
37 12,390,619,750
38 11,151,557,775
39 10,036,401,997
40 9,032,761,798

7. Decentralization
7.1 Governance
Holders of ZEE receive no voting rights. The Zoints Ecosystem will be managed by
/z/Community Founders. They will determine the future financial, legal entity, terms of use, and
development direction of Zoints. In addition, they will have veto powers over global community
and user bans.

7.2 Infrastructure

Zoints aims to progressively decentralize [5] infrastructure over time with the goal of allowing
Creator Spaces and Communities to spin off to their own site while remaining interconnected
with all other Zoints communities. We intend for social graphs, community subscriptions, private
messages, etc. to be moved on chain so that even if Zoints.com is non-functional, the spun-off
communities will operate unimpeded, and users can freely move between each with their
universal wallet login and maintain social and community connections.

References
[1] Forbes:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattklein/2020/09/23/50m-join-the-creator-economy-as-new-platfor
ms-emerge-to-help-anyone-produce-content--money/

[2] A Zoom conversation with the CEO of OnlyFans, Tim Stokely. March, 2021.

[3] How YouTube Ad Revenue Works - Investopedia:

https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/032615/how-youtube-ad-revenue-works.
asp

[4] Solana White Paper: https://solana.com/solana-whitepaper.pdf

[5] Progressive Decentralization: A Playbook for Building Crypto Applications - A16z:

https://a16z.com/2020/01/09/progressive-decentralization-crypto-product-management/