Open3D Club Utilizes Bitcoin to Create a 3D Printing DAO

A new proof-of-concept is in the making called the open3d.club that hopes to enable connections between 3D printing artists, printers, and developers utilizing bitcoin incentives. The project aspires to be a distributed autonomous organization that promotes the 3D printing ecosystem in a decentralized manner.

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3D Club Removes Barriers to Entry Utilizing Reputation and Bitcoin Incentives

Open3D Club is in its earliest phase of development showing the very basics of what the project aims to accomplish on its website. Currently, the platform showcases a wide variety of 3D designs that can be downloaded for free. The 3D models show a 360-degree image of each design, the artist, and the model’s dimensions. If the platform grows popular, the project aims to be “one big database of many STL 3D models.”

Once a user is happy with a particular 3D printable object they can download the model or request it be printed at an independent 3D printing studio. The Open3D platform connects printing stores on a map close to the customer’s proximity. 3D printing stores can offer a deal for producing and manufacturing the finished product.

Stores are paid in bitcoin, and the model’s file is transferred to the printing studio’s location. Furthermore, while the transfer processes advertisers can pay bitcoin to host an advertisement relevant to the 3D printing industry. The two revenue streams are distributed to all participating members of the Open3D printing club. Bitcoin.com chatted with the creator of the Open3D Club, Bicba, to explain to our readers what the platform is according to the organization.

Open3D Club is a platform in the early stage of development, envisioned to connect designers of 3D models, 3D printer owners and end users in a decentralized way. Since our team doesn’t have a software developing background, the first iteration of the website is designed as a showcase to explain how it should function and look like. The goal is to hide all the complexity of the new emerging technologies used on the platform and to enable people without any experience in additive manufacturing to have access to the library of 3D printable models. 

“It is also a suggestion for a new model of sharing and monetizing content on the Internet by encouraging collaboration of different groups of participants. Protecting privacy by not collecting any data about user activity is an essential principle we choose to follow in this model. In order to solve trust problems between parties, the whole platform is open source, and it should gradually evolve towards a protocol. 20% of all potential income is devoted to the 3D prize page, on which bounties are offered to achieve improvement in user experience and reach a protocol level. Programmers who can solve the first eight challenges will get 80% of shares (each bounty is 10%) in the software developer’s team,” explained Bicba of the Open3D Club team.

A 3D Printing Distributed Autonomous Organization

In essence, the Open3D Club will use certain aspects of the platform to form a distributed autonomous organization (DAO). This includes a multi-signature wallet for bitcoin escrow, openly available source code, and a constant feedback loop of income distribution and platform usage. Open3D Club says, “every single aspect of this platform is decentralized: decision-making process, payroll, accounting, hosting, storage, etc.”

Because the platform is so young, there is a team involved with the Open 3D Club platform development and the project is looking for more volunteers. In the beginning, the level of automation is quite low says the team. Reputation is a big part of the system and contributors earn reputation by work performance and participation. Currently, the team’s 3D prize page consists of eight challenges to jumpstart the web platform. Implementing one of the challenges gets a person 10% within the software developers team. Open 3D Club says, “once we solve first eight 3D prizes our original team will shrink down to 20% of developers team.”

During our conversation, Bicba explains how the Open3D Club idea got started and why they chose bitcoin as an incentive for the platform’s operations.

“When I made my first coffee table using CnC technology I had a realization that the same set of drawings can be stored on the Internet and used on demand indefinitely, anywhere in the world,” details the Open3D Club creator. “3D printing was just a natural extension of this idea. At first, the platform was supposed to function similarly as Wikipedia, but Bitcoin made me think that people who want to contribute can be incentivised and rewarded for their work if the platform becomes successful. I have to point out that it is practically impossible to organize the platform in this way without exclusively using cryptocurrencies.”

The Open3D team understands the project has many features to build and develop. The initial steps of the project is a vision of how the club’s platform will work. Open3D Club notes that the entire platform is a “joint effort of many different groups of people having a wide range of various skills.” All of these factors of self-involvement and mutual-cooperation will come into play to evolve the Open3D Club in the future.

What do you think about the Open3D Club idea? Let us know in the comments below.

Images courtesy of the Open3D Club

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