Quurk Lightpaper

# Quurk Lightpaper ## Building the Decentralized Future of Learning Quurk is a game-based learning company building the first open world learning game in Web3. The intention is to create a value-driven and player- centric circular economy that not only skills and rewards players in computational thinking and coding, but also rewards contributors/creators for creation of new game content and assets through our open dev tools and P2P community. We started the company because we all share the fundamental belief that education should be made available and accessible. The conception and design of the game, its core gameplay mechanics and unit economy were meant to address some of the current problems traditional education pathways in classroom-led education have yet to address: 1.The impending digital skills gap that our current and future crop of students encounter, likely leading to a scenario where graduates are not skilled enough to take on jobs of the future. 2.The gross inequity in access to the same learning opportunities means students in poor or at-risk communities are less likely to break the cycle of generational poverty whilst the wealth gap grows. 3.The changing role of education that must be undertaken in the face of a more accessible and decentralised internet where access to information is now free, and changing workforce demands means employers value skilled candidates with specialisations instead of degree holders. Thus, this led to the inception of Pastopia, and our sole intent was to create a self-sustaining ecosystem that provided the means for a fulfilling self-led learning experience, where players come away with real skills in computational thinking and coding fundamentals whilst enjoying open-world gameplay. evolving into a P2P learning environment where better skilled players can help or perform tasks for other members of the community. As part of the game design, we utilise the fundamentals of positive psychology and Gagne’s Conditional Learning Theory to approach content abstraction into gameplay and narrative design, so as to ensure our games not only entertain but also educate. This is supported by an underlying ReFi token economy which channels profits to support education initiatives to help upskill and uplift human capital, with the value accruing into a social impact score determined by our own proprietary metrics and pegged onto our own native $QRK token. ## Building the Decentralized Future of Learning The Quurk token economy is designed with the intention to create a robust and equitable knowledge sharing economy that rewards its learners and creators. The native $QRK token in its incarnation will serve as a reserve asset in the ecosystem and the center of liquidity that will help substantiate the ReFi system and support our initiatives to uplift human capital in at-risk communities. The work done in supporting these initiatives are meaningful, with its greater impact designed to help these communities to alleviate the debilitating cycles of poverty. Hence, the Quurk protocol will have a proprietary Social Impact Return On Investment that will correlate to the $QRK token. This will allow non- profits, foundations, charities and NGOs to see the accruing benefits of our protocol’s ReFi impact investing efforts. ### How will this work? ![](https://i.imgur.com/UHsu0di.png) Where ***A*** is skills learned (achievement) in Quurks game, ***s*** is time of learning in Quurk, ***Q*** is a vector of the quality of the creator or creators and their contribution and production to Quurk, ***C*** is a vector of the users characteristics of innate abilities to succeed, H is a vector of in House characteristics of game improvement, ***I*** is the last vector and represents Inputs on which the Non- profits bring through their measured data for geographic areas and their metrics. This will compile to create a score for Quurk in education impact. We can use this to compare to the standard education score of specific areas. The difference in those scores can be our impact. That is what we can use to create monetization of our impact and for Quurk and its QRK token. ## How Can Social Return on Investment Be Defined? Social return on investment is an innovative approach to measure the value of social outcomes in human services initiatives. Derived from concepts of business and economics, it builds on cost-benefit analysis, social accounting, and social auditing to measure and communicate the value of both monetary and nonmonetary program outcomes. SROI was first developed by REDF (formerly the Roberts Enterprise Development Fund). Practitioners and others in Scotland, the United Kingdom, and, increasingly, the United States use SROI to determine the social return on investment of policy and program initiatives. According to Carla Javits of REDF, SROI helps answer the following questions: * How can we measure the success of our efforts? * How do we know whether we are accomplishing what we set out to do? * How can we make informed decisions about the ongoing use of our resources? At the most fundamental level, return on investment is the difference between the total amount of monetary benefit derived from social investments divided by the total amount of monetary costs: ![](https://i.imgur.com/dmP2nJC.png) ## Social Return on Investment works for Quurk **SROI** is useful in the traditional sense for corporations because it can improve program management through better planning and evaluation. It can also increase the corporation’s understanding of its effect on the community and allow better communication regarding the value of the corporation’s work (both internally and to external stakeholders). Philanthropists, venture capitalists, foundations, and other non-profits may use SROI to monetize their social impact, in financial terms. A general formula used to calculate SROI is as follows: ![](https://i.imgur.com/gHoxKRZ.png) SROI= IIA×100% SIV−IIA where: SIV=social impact value IIA=initial investment amount Assigning a dollar value to the social impact can present problems, and various methodologies have been developed to help quantify the results. The Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP), for example, is one method that converts and organizes qualitative information into quantitative values. While the approach varies depending on the program that is being evaluated, there are four main elements that are needed to measure SROI: * Inputs, or resources investments in your activity (such as the costs of running, say, a job-readiness program) For Quurk this is Cost of running Quurk, Cost of Development and Token Incentives * Outputs, or the direct and tangible products from the activity (for example, the number of people trained by the program) Outputs for Quurk are No. User Accreditation / progress, No. of users using Pastopia (The world inside the game where playing takes place) * Outcomes, or the changes to people resulting from the activity (i.e., new jobs, better income, improved quality of life for the individuals; increased taxes for, and reduced support from, the government) in the case of Quurk the outcomes are Education production function vs demographic avg. education production function, No. of token rewards per user, No. of users referred to a job, Reduced investment needed form charities for education through economic optimisation of Pastopia (education production function) * Impact, or the outcome less an estimate of what would have happened anyway (For example, if 20 people got new jobs but five of them would have been hired in any event, the impact is based on the 15 people who got jobs directly as a result of the job-readiness program.) The impact with Quurk is the difference in Quurks education production function score and the traditional education functions score. ## Quurk and Staking Quurk is game-based not gamification and is free to play. However upon more successful advances in the game a subscription service is implemented to unlock further features. The game itself relies on its users to construct blocks of code to progress in gameplay. They solve puzzles, explore the world and defeat enemies by piecing these blocks together correctly in a learning environment. Every block costs a different amount of the game’s asset, Bemella. Bemella is also earned throughout the game by players/learners for solving puzzles and completing quests. In-game NFT’s are also acquired during this process and can be stored within a user’s chest (will be available on a marketplace). Bemella will be very native to most game users in how it is used in the game but will also facilitate defi mechanisms. It will have staking in game while the players are exploring and accumulating more. The spaceship in which the players arrive at the world of Pastopia will be where this goes on. Imagine being on the ship is like a dashboard into defi. This is also where the NFT’s that are obtained can be stored or sent to a marketplace in partnership with Acxyn. Creators will also be a major component of Quurk. As they familiarize themselves with the game and its process they can expand their coding knowledge and acquire new skills as different languages are implemented. Thus gathering more rewards and more opportunity for newer players to explore new worlds. The QRK token itself will also correlate to a reward system from the building blocks of the game itself and in-game items will be NFT’s made available on a Tezos marketplace in-game. Users and Creators within the game will benefit solely just from using Quurk. The compounded value will be generated from the Refi mechanism. Staking and sustainable yield will be available for users while playing and learning alongside the creators who will be rewarded more based on their contributions in building out new advancements in the game and learning process. This will drive more people to want to contribute to Quurk knowing that they can earn for their contributions but also because it will help the Social Impact score of their local area or beyond. Lets talk about staking. Quurk is free to use but if players and creators want more access to SDK tools and more languages to learn they need to subscribe to the service of Quurk. There will be a tier system regarding that but what is most important is as they progress in the game and expand their knowledge they will earn rewards in QRK. QRK token will be spent in game for NFT’s and potential new opportunities or tools but while they wait on acquiring more from learning they can stake it in the protocol and be rewarded in sQRK (staked QRK). Staked QRK can also be redeemed for QRK at different times of benefit to the user / creator at the settled rate upon transaction. This will be done in the most self-explanatory method so they don’t have to be bothered by demands of Defi. Quurk will be utilizing everything from the Tezos ecosystem including the Harbinger Oracle. It will rely on this for all of the price updates of QRK and other assets to be allocated later. In partnership with Acxyn (also being built on Tezos) Quurk will use a shared marketplace for NFT’s. Quurk will have a fixed supply and the team will be vested for TBD years. Investors will be asked to vest for a period of time depending on the creation of a Social Impact. This will allow Quurk to truly gather those that believe in its vision and not those just looking for profits. During that time they will be staking and earning sQRK. A governance token will be decidied upon for creators and users to help with improvements to the game and for Non-Profits to take part in helping desiginate areas of need and benefit. ## Bemella A popular digital payment network built on its own blockchain. ### BELLA The basis for Quurk, like any other cryptocurrency, lies in its blockchain that provides a permanent and unchangeable record of transactions. In Quurk’s case, the blockchain, or electronic ledger, that keeps track of transaction information such as accounts, balances, and transfers, is called BELLA (which stands for Bemella Ledger). The blockchain is secured cryptographically with key pairs, and transactions are only authorized by the holder of private keys. This is where the similarity with Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies ends. ### Quorum-based Quurknet doesn’t use Proof-of-Work or Proof-of-Stake network consensus protocols. Instead, it has a quorum-based consensus method, which Quurk calls QPCA (Quurk Protocol Consensus Algorithm) to allow a majority of validators – servers specifically configured to participate actively in consensus – to agree a set of transactions should occur in a ledger entry. That agreed-upon version of the ledger entry is validated and written to the blockchain, and its contents can never change. ### Unique Node List While Quurk provides a default recommended list of ~TBD validators based on social impact performance, each participating node in the network is free to choose its own list of validators. This list is called a Unique Node List, or UNL, that is specific to each node. This is just like XRP except that the holders of QRK will decide the validators. This greatly impacts and changes how Quurk works compared to Ripple Labs because those that make the most social impact or invest in that purpose will decide the validators and not just a small centralized matter. Each node will carefully choose validators from among the most socially impactful validators based on who behave honestly most of the time and not collude with other validators to break the rules. ### Consensus Each validator proposes what they deem to be the correct block containing new transactions. They compare blocks, or ledger entries, every 3 to 6 seconds, and if an 80% majority of validator nodes agree on the transactions and order, a consensus is achieved, and the block is added to the **BELLA** and forms the starting point of the next block. However, if 80% of validators don’t agree on what transactions should be written to the ledger, each validator modifies their proposals to more closely match the other validators they trust on their UNLs. This may repeat for several rounds until a consensus is reached. As long as fewer than 20% of trusted validators are faulty, consensus can continue unimpeded; and confirming an invalid transaction would require over 80% of trusted validators to collude. If more than 20% but less than 80% of trusted validators are faulty, the network stops making progress. ### Bemella supply Bemella is neither mined nor minted, but rather 100 billion Bemela will be pre- mined at the launch. 80 billion of the tokens will go to the Quurk Labs foundation, which oversees the Bella network and sells Bemella periodically at market prices to fund the ecosystem.(This will be released from the Quurk Escrow). The remaining 20 billion will be kept by the early adopters of the network. Although each transaction on the BELLA burns a little bit of Bemella, supply is hard to forecast because of regular sales by the Foundation ( 1 billion Bemella a month is released) and unscheduled and unannounced sales from the co- founders. ### Speed and transaction costs Since there is no mining involved in Quurk, there isn’t the same environmental impact as a Proof-of-Work system like Bitcoin. Also, the transaction cost of Bemella is extremely low. The current minimum transaction cost required by the network for a standard transaction is 0.00001 Bemella (or 10 ‘drops’, the smallest unit of Bemella). Additionally, whereas it takes 10 minutes for a block to be solved in Bitcoin and up to 60 minutes for probabilistic finality, Quurk will take 3 to 6 seconds for transactions to be sorted, agreed, and added to the blockchain, even for payments internationally. ### Bridge currency Unlike other digital currency protocols, the Bemella Ledger allows users to denominate their transactions with any currency they prefer, including fiat currencies, digital currencies, and other forms of value, in addition to Bemella. This is very important for foreign exchange transactions, as someone looking to move money across the world won’t need to conduct foreign exchange but will instead send and receive in local currency on either side of the transaction. Quurk also offers auto bridging, which finds the best exchange rate should the parties want to exchange currencies. This also means that money can reach markets that normally might take longer or cost a lot more to reach. Because of this mechanism the social impact score can be actively comprised and used. The QRK token that is distributed because of this score and is also part of the governance in Quurk that controls validators of Bemella will be distributed in accordance to the investments for social impact. The rate of issuance will be decided. (TBD) ## How Quurk can multiply ROI on SROI ### Calculate Impact Once Quurk and its community leaders establish a complete accounting of the relevant costs and monetized benefits, they need to calculate the impact for each stakeholder in Quurk. This will lead to the development of the impact map. This part of the tool helps Quurk and its leaders quantify and map the total unit value received by each beneficiary. The process for this stage of the work is as follows: * Multiply the financial value by the quantity of the outcomes, which equals a total unit value. * Repeat this process for each outcome to arrive at the total unit value/impact for each set of outcomes. Calculate the net present value of the benefits. To determine the SROI, Quurk and and their analysts need to calculate the net present value of the benefits. Net present value reflects the value of the benefit over time. It is the sum of all the periodic cash flows adjusted to present-day value at the appropriate discount rate rr and benefit period tt. The net present value of the benefits is the numerator within the SROI equation. ![](https://i.imgur.com/cLrr2KG.png) ### Deadweight Is the percentage of benefit that would have happened regardless of the presence of the community school program. In measuring the value of community schools, it is necessary to deduct the value of programs and activities that operate regardless of the program components that are unique to a community school. The objective is to determine the value attributable solely to the presence of community school programs and activities. ## Traditional SROI compared to Quurk To derive the SROI, the total value of the benefits must be computed. Community school leaders must then make the required mathematical calculations by first subtracting the deadweight and then calculating the net present value. For some community school leaders, the calculation of the net present value will be the most difficult step. However, the net present value can be calculated automatically by using a preprogrammed equation. If calculating the entire SROI manually, community school leaders follow this example as guidance. Total Value of the Benefits = $5,000,000 Total Value of the Investments = $1,000,000 Deadweight = 25 percent Time = 5 years Discount Rate = 3 percent #### Step 1: Subtract Deadweight ![](https://i.imgur.com/rCTnEtM.png) #### Step 2: Calculate the Net Present Value ![](https://i.imgur.com/XoxQ9hh.png) Net Present Value = Year 1 + Year 2 + Year 3 + Year 4 + Year 5 = $9,903,692 #### Step 3: Calculate the SROI ![](https://i.imgur.com/fHgde7d.png) ## How Quurk can multiply returns So in the traditional model the Social impact score is 9.9 Quurk can use this same practice but quantify the returns by leveraging blockchain and Defi. This will allow investors to have a multiple return. Quurk can generate a better score and use that to reward its early investors. Quurk will also be able to have a faster impact then having to wait 5 years for overall impact. That will mean quicker returns and more social impact in the areas of greater need.