A brief introduction to Idena, the human-centric blockchain project for everyone, with some tips on getting started.
Since I first took an interest in blockchain technology, I've been most intrigued by projects with broad appeal. To this day, I still think too many projects in the space are difficult for your average Joe to engage with, without having some background in computing. As my less diplomatic brother would say, too many blockchain projects are "created by nerds, for nerds". We've all seen people discuss "potential for mass adoption" of projects that require doctorates in engineering just to get started. I'm of the firm belief that user-friendliness is one of the most undervalued aspects of tech projects out there.
STEEM (of course) was a particularly novel and user-friendly project which caught my attention a couple of years ago. More recently, I've been exploring Idena, a project which allows people to "mine the first human-centric cryptocurrency" using any consumer laptop. Not only that, but you are not at any disadvantage to mining farms, as a "one node per person" rule is central to the project. That in turn results in one of the holy grails of blockchain; a truly decentralized network.
This is achieved by running a global, synchronized Turing test. At the exact same moment, everyone with an Idena node, wherever on the planet they may be, must log on for a few minutes and prove they're human. Pretty nutty idea, and there are other ways of attempting to achieve the same result, (such as "web-of-trust" or KYC) but all come with their own caveats.
There's three things you'll need to do, to get involved and start earning and mining Idenas native $DNA token. Firstly, you'll need to download the client here. Install it on your computer and you're almost ready to go.
Then, you'll need to get an invite. Don't worry, it's fairly painless. When someone on Idena invites another user, they can earn rewards for a short time, but only if the new member contributes to the network by solving and creating "flips", Idenas Turing test model. A flip is essentially a four part comic strip, presented in it's original form, as well as shuffled. People can select which version has reasonable logic, while AI tends to draw a blank. So, to get your Idena invite code, you'll simply have to prove to a current member that you're keen to get involved, and have learned the basics of the project.
If you join the Idena Discord Server, you can go to the "Flip School" section and ask for an invite. Most likely someone will ask you to create an example flip using two seed words. For example, if your seed words are "cat" and "water", you might create something like this:
You can create your example flip in the Idena client, or using Photoshop. Upload the screenshot to the Discord chat, and if it shows that you have a grasp of the concept of flips, you'll be granted an invite with minimal fuss.
Want to get up to speed on flips in under 5 minutes? Watch this:
Once you've entered your invite code into the Idena application, your wallet and node are up and running. Validation sessions currently take place around every ten days. Every time you take part, after solving flips to prove you're human, you will be rewarded a certain amount of $DNA. After your first validation session, and between subsequent sessions, you'll be tasked with creating flips from seed words. The good news is that you are also rewarded for creating flips. And then there's also mining, another way you can earn even more $DNA!
Idena is a young project, and currently the market cap is a mere 2 million dollars, but the community is rapidly expanding, and already, you can trade $DNA on Qtrade exchange.
While I'm not involved in it's development, I'm passionate about this project and an active member of the Discord channel. If you have any questions or corrections, hit me up in the comment's and I'll do my best to address them.
More info and useful links:
Idena Home
Idena Stats
Idena Educational Portal
Idena Chat on Discord