Once bitten by the blockchain bug, I started to become obsessed by how crypto tokens could be used to represent value that was previously not captured by all relevant players and how that could be leveraged to align incentives. At first, I was an enthusiastic, but still passive, observer - and sometimes retail investor - marveling at how some of the early programmable blockchains were beginning to unlock a new financial reality in a decentralized ecosystem.
A combination of chance and the importance of personal relations in Latin America led me to advise on a project providing free telemedicine and tele-psychology services through a crypto app, and designing their crypto-economic model to make this a reality. Doing so was enthralling because I had a chance to put into action ideas that I had observed in other projects and see them in action on a working platform. It opened my mind to thinking what other walks of life could be better aligned through crypto token models. One of the ideas that I had in mind was how to more fairly distribute the value of the data generated by browsing online. When chance again led me to a meeting with Latin America’s leading native digital content site, that idea became Tegger and I started a new journey.
Tegger is creating a fair data economy through a simple no-download widget that lets users choose when they want to share data in exchange for tokens on partner sites. We provide a simple marketplace where users can redeem their tokens for digitally delivered rewards. We seek to give users back control of their data and reward them when they choose to share and have started with 8 sites in Mexico and Colombia and 21,202 users (as of 12/17).
Although my original idea for Tegger and the way we started to build it always incorporated a crypto token and a blockchain component for data storage and transparency, we decided to leave these features out of the MVP for pragmatism and to simplify our storytelling with end users. The MVP therefore relied on an internal accounting tool to keep track of the points users generated and allowed users to trade their points for rewards on our marketplace but not send them outside the system.
After several iterations and a lot of learnings we decided to apply to Celo Camp because we wanted to re-incorporate crypto into our model. Celo was an obvious choice because of its conviction for justice -which we share deeply- and its simple, mobile-first approach to attract a mass audience.
The camp was a fantastic experience. It was full of valuable sessions, both for business and personal growth. I appreciated the balance of technical and business aspects and the attentiveness of the facilitators. In addition, the quality of a lot of the startups in the program pleasantly surprised me and exposed me to interesting up and coming crypto projects around the world.
During the camp, we built a Tegger ERC-20 token on the Celo blockchain to convert the points that we use on our system to a crypto token. We also worked on a module and smart contract to allow users to send their tokens to external wallets and exchanges. We are continuing to work on this second point to make the integration seamless and effective.
We look forward to continuing to build a fair data economy and to leverage the tools and community that Celo has built to maximize the positive impact that we know Tegger can have.
For more information, visit https://tegger.io/.
Author: Renato Carregha - Tegger, Founder
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