Proof of Vibe
Imagine a world where builders earn like YouTubers. In this world, builders make money based on the impact, engagement, and retention of what they built. That’s how Proof of Vibe could remunerate creative output.
Why is this important?
Current blockchain networks reward developers based on transaction percentages from their apps. This forces them to build applications that generate transactions without solving real problems or needs. By distributing the rewards this way, developers focuses to increase transaction volume instead of building products with real-world utility. They optimize the experience for increasing the TVL, number of transactions, new wallets, active wallets, metrics that measures bussiness growth, not the positive changes the product brought in peoples lives.
Value of attention
Consider people who create a wallet. That's one more user for the blockchain, yet the developer who onboarded them didn't earn any reward. How about those who use the app without making any transactions? We value time more than ever, yet not so many companies want to remunerate people for using the platform. There's an unbalanced power dynamics that incline towards the companies that own the platform. This is what Thomas Poell called platformization. It's how all platforms work, including Uber, Airbnb, Facebook, the App Store, and blockchains. This misalignment in power dynamics needs to change. In today's attention economy, all forms of engagement deserves compensation. For the people who built, and for those who use what's being built. Blockchains and AI should shake hands for this to happen.
POW → POS → POV
Phase I: Proof of Work (POW) = Earning based on energy power
Phase II: Proof of Stake (POS) = Earning based on capital power
Phase III: Proof of Vibe (POV) = Earning based on creative power
On a larger scale, we are in a creative era where anyone with a smartphone can earn income based on their creative power and imagination. But what about smaller scales or specific industries? The patterns of history tend to repeat themselves at each scale. In the blockchain industry, we've already witnessed the first two phases. In the first phase, people used their computational and energy power to earn rewards. In the second phase (POS), rewards were distributed to those who had the biggest capital power in the network. There is one more phase that hasn't emerged yet, though it's beginning to take shape as more tools enable creative people to develop their own apps and products.
Proof of Vibe
Imagine vibe coding built on a blockchain foundation. In that world, the next phase of the earning mechanism would take shape. The most reasonable term to name the concept is Proof of Vibe. This mechanism would enable any participant in the economy, being a creator or user, to be remunerated according to their implication and value produced within the system. It would create a meritocratic digital society, where earning power is not in the hands of the richest, but in the hands of the most creative.
Brave already proved you can pay users for attention. Steemit already proved you can pay creators for content. Reddit tried it with Moons and got killed. The piece nobody has built is the one that pays the builders themselves, indexed to whether what they built actually matters to people. That's the gap Proof of Vibe could fill.
A speculative design exercise written in 2025.