Problems
The Cardano ecosystem has much room for development and certainly needs more builders. With Cardano’s Proof-of-Stake, ADA stakers reap a reward every five days at a 3–4% APY. However, most ADA staked on Cardano is not used to develop the ecosystem. At the same time, innovative projects find it hard to raise funds during the bear market.
What can we do about this?
Teiki
Teiki is a decentralized crowdfunding protocol initially built on Cardano and IPFS. The protocol has high degrees of decentralization and low transaction fees. We utilize Cardano’s liquid staking to build a novel subscription model, where backers stake ADA at Teiki Smart Contracts to generate rewards for project creators.
We integrate numerous AI to minimize the time one needs to raise funds and manage a community. Our content moderation AI removes the need for a lengthy review process. The generative models and writing assistance help creators start a project in a few days. The process usually takes weeks on platforms like Kickstarter. KYC alone needs 3–7 days. For backers, Teiki summarizes and recommends content to improve the browsing experience. We also have podcast generation, OCR, chatbots, and much more in the future.
Projects launching on Teiki must meet specific requirements prohibiting scams, impersonation, political activities, NSFW content, and more. The development team first sets the rules before decentralizing the process to on-chain voting in later generations. Teiki encourages creators to update progress regularly and stay close to their community. More information will be detailed in our Creator’s Handbook once published.
At Teiki, we pursue decentralization. While creators fully control the delegation of their backers’ staked ADA, Teiki delegates all ADA to single pools by default. In summary, we are building a future where holders stake ADA for innovation, and Teiki spreads staked ADA across single pools for decentralization.
Subscription Model
Teiki’s crowdfunding mechanism is a subscription model built on Cardano’s liquid staking, where backers stake ADA at smart contracts to generate rewards for project creators. Backers can withdraw their stake any time, especially when a project fails to progress. Since they do not withdraw rewards before sending payments to creators, backers potentially avoid an income tax. In return for giving up their ADA stake rewards, backers get back $TEIKI tokens and the rewards that a project promises. All funds are secure, transparent, and verifiable on the blockchain.
Tokenomics
$TEIKI is the governance token of the Teiki protocol. $TEIKI holders can vote on-chain to govern the protocol from Gen II (Q3 2023), including adjusting fee structures, prioritizing new features, and spending the protocol treasury where fees are paid.
We strive to create a high-utility and equitable token representing the contributed effort of the protocol, projects, and backers.
Therefore, $TEIKI is non-pre-minted and does not have a max supply. The protocol only mints $TEIKI when a project meets a fundraising landmark.
When minted, $TEIKI is shared equally between the protocol treasury, project, and backers. Only the backers’ portions are liquid. The protocol treasury locks the team tokens until Gen II. The project’s locked portion is gradually burned in one year and is only there for governance.
There will only be $TEIKI if there is successful funding in the protocol. The number of $TEIKI tokens is proportional to the total values the protocol creates.
For Project Creators
Anyone can launch a project on Teiki if they meet the following pre-requisites:
- Have a Cardano Wallet.
- Have over 500 ADA to lock as a pledge and pay transaction fees.
- The project does not violate Teiki rules (e.g., running political campaigns), else the project will be closed and fined the pledge.
The creator fills in details to create a project, including the description, logo, milestones, and social media. To reduce friction, Teiki AI helps creators generate names, taglines, keywords, logos, banners, and text from images and summarize texts.
Once submitted, the Cardano blockchain and IPFS store the project details with absolute transparency. Once created, new projects gain built-in functionalities through parameterized scripts on Cardano and are ready to raise funding and build a community.
We aim to reduce this process from weeks on traditional platforms to days in the Teiki App.
For Backers
Backers are ADA holders seeking to foster innovation, especially in the Cardano ecosystem. Backers only need a Cardano Wallet with ADA to interact with the Teiki protocol. By giving up ADA stake rewards to support projects, backers get rewarded liquid $TEIKI once the project meets a funding landmark. Projects usually provide further rewards and perks for their community to stay competitive.
In later generations, Teiki will support on-chain rewards with integrated governance and minting policies. Projects can enable governance that only backers and project token holders can join.
Conclusion
Teiki is a decentralized crowdfunding protocol that fosters innovation. We embrace AI to maximize user experience and competitive advantages. The governance token is non-pre-minted and highly equitable. With core values in decentralization and transparency, Teiki starts in the Cardano ecosystem before expanding to broader markets.
