DP #144 - HyperPlace - A decentralized marketplace designed to sell things--fast.

HyperPlace is a marketplace designed to sell things—fast. HyperPlace does this by utilizing an incentive based, crowd-sourced curation system wherein the listings with the best value propositions inherently rise to prominence.

What HyperPlace Is

HyperPlace is a radically different online marketplace that

Allows Sellers to pay almost exclusively for value gained in the form of speed to sale
Allows Buyers to browse a marketplace curated by perceived value
Rewards human curators for browsing, prioritizing, and voting
Pays NO dividends to those who do not contribute to the marketplace

How HyperPlace Works

There are three equally important parties in HyperPlace: the Buyers, the Sellers, and the Hypers.

The HyperPlace Process

Anything can be listed on HyperPlace. Because either individual items or sellers’ entire portfolios can be Hyped, HyperPlace can appeal to one-off sellers and producers alike. This creates a market where all items--new, old, unique, and thousands at a time--can be listed side by side, Hyped and curated as a single market, and purchased by willing buyers.

Listing

The listing process for HyperPlace will largely mimic that of other marketplaces. The Seller will provide pictures and pertinent information as appropriate. A slight difference will be the emphasis based on correctly categorizing the product.

The categorization of the product is important because it will allow for sub-browsing of categories. For example, if a seller was listing the video game Mario Party 8 for the Wii, it could be categorized in Electronics > Video Games > Games > Nintendo Games > Wii Games. This would allow the listing to increase visibility and be seen in “All” as well as the “Electronics”, “Video Games”, “Games”, “Nintendo Games”, and “Wii Games” subcategories. This incentivizes the user to categorize the listing with as much detail as possible.

Hyping

Hyping can be performed two ways: Hyping a listing or Hyping a Seller.

Hyping an individual listings will likely be both more time consuming and more profitable than Hyping a seller. In this scenario, a Hyper will browse listings and look for good value propositions. Upon finding a listing that the Hyper believes offers great value, the Hyper will determine the share of his/her votes to use and back the listing accordingly. By doing so, the Hyper both stakes his/her claim to a portion of the listing fee and increases the item’s visibility by raising it order of appearance and making it more likely to sell.

A Hyper can also choose to Hype a specific Seller. Here, a Hyper will likely do research to find Sellers which offer great values with regularity. This can be determined by viewing Sellers’ current listings as well as their websites where, along with a standard rating system, other metrics such as “Items Sold in the last [day/week/month],” “Average time between listing and sale,” and “Average price of item” can be found. When Hyping a Seller, one can choose to split votes evenly across a Seller’s entire portfolio, add all of their votes to a Seller’s most recent listing only, or split the difference and allocate a portion of votes to the Seller’s most recent listing and split the rest across the Seller’s remaining portfolio.

A Hyper does not have to choose exclusively between hyping a single item, hyping multiple items, hyping a single seller, or hyping multiple sellers—votes can be distributed however their owner sees fit. It is expected that voting for different types of listings and different sellers will offer different value propositions and different types of risk. As is the case with diversifying one’s financial portfolio, diversifying one’s vote portfolio should also be profitable.

Buying

Buying on HyperPlace is a simple proposition, similar to Amazon or Ebay. It is assumed that most people will choose to browse the different categories and sub-categories (described in the Listing section) as they will be sorted by perceived value, but direct search will also be possible.

HyperPlace will originally accept Ether as payment, but other currencies could (and likely should) be adopted as the HyperPlace’s stakers decide they should be integrated. As there are countless players working in the exchange space, this represents possible partnership opportunity with other districts and/or companies.

How HyperPlace works with district0x

The DNT token plays a pivotal role in HyperSpace. Specifically, staking HyperPlace with DNT benefits the DNT holder in two important ways. First, it allows for the staker to be compensated for their role in HyperPlace. Second, it allows the staker to participate in the governance of HyperPlace. Let’s explore these in more depth.

Compensation

The number of votes a staker receives is directly proportional to his or her stake in HyperPlace. As the system is designed, more votes allow a user to claim a higher percent of the listing fee when an item is sold, or conversely, allow a user to claim a small percentage of the listing fee from a greater number of listings.

By limiting Hypers to those who have a stake in HyperPlace and allotting votes by stake size, it ensures that the system cannot be “gamed” by creating multiple accounts. It also ensures that those who can receive profit from the system are invested in HyperPlace’s success—financially and otherwise.

Governance

It is expected that HyperPlace will face the same challenges as traditional businesses that experience growth. HyperPlace, however, is completely decentralized. While this is particularly exciting as it allows for some fees to be dramatically lower than competitors, it also provides the opportunity for stakeholders to govern.

Though a fee structure has been proposed here, it may well need to be adjusted over time to accommodate demand and retain HyperPlace’s value propositions to buyers, sellers, and stakeholders alike. Additionally, it may be deemed that some percentage of income (always or for specified time frames) should be allocated to endeavors that will help HyperPlace grow and capture market share (things like advertising, bounty programs, partnerships, etc.).

In these cases as well as in others that will arise, it only natural that those who have stake in HyperPlace contribute to the decision making process. As with the Hype votes, governance votes will be allotted proportionally with DNT stake in HyperPlace.

Listing Rates and Distribution

Proposed here are suggested fee and distribution structures which will give HyperPlace a distinct advantage in the marketplace. It is assumed that these rates will act as a starting place and will need to be updated from time to time to maintain HyperPlace’s competitive advantage.

Listing and Sales Fees

The feels for sellers on HyperPlace will be composed of two parts.

First, a small non-refundable listing fee will be charged at the time of listing. This fee, which will be subtracted from the sales fee at time of sale, is designed to decrease spam listings. As it is subtracted from the sales fee, listings are essentially free for sold items.

Second, a time-based sales fee will be charged as a percentage of the sale price. This will allow Sellers to pay less as value gained is lost (that is time between listing and sale is increased).

It is proposed that the listing fee begins at $0.10 USD (0.0002611321 Eth at time of writing). Again, this fee is deducted from the final sales fee at the time of sale.

The listing fees are slight more complicated. As discussed, HyperPlace will sell items quickly or offer massively discounted rates.

Time Frame	Fee
Less than 1 Hour	10%
Less than 3 Hours	9%
Less than 6 Hours	8%
Less than 12 Hours	7%
Less than 1 Day	6%
Less than 2 Days	5%
Less than 3 Days	4%
Less than 1 Week	3%
Less than 2 Weeks	2%
2 Weeks or Longer	1%
Unhyped Items	0.5%

Unlike traditional online marketplaces, HyperPlace allows sellers to pay only for value gained. Despite the advantage gained due to the novel curation approach, HyperPlace’s fees are extremely competitive. This can be seen in the examples offered here. USD will be used for examples as current competitors do not accept Ether.

Hyping and Distribution

As outlined in the process overview, all seller fees are to be distributed among those who have hyped the listing. Though Hypers will be incentivized to hype newly listed items due to the fee structure, it is also proposed that Hypers are further incentivized to search out and Hype new listings by instating an early Hyper advantage.

This will incentivize those who Hype listings early, provide incentive to continue hyping listings that have moved past the highest fee timeframes, and decrease the value of hyping an item that has already reached a high listing position.

This incentive structure will be structured as receiving a 0.3% increase in staking value per hour staked up to a max of 100% increase. A few examples of how this would work are provided below. USD is used here for ease of understanding.

Because the incentive for hyping an item that has no hype would be the entirety of a sale fee in the event an item is sold it will likely be extraordinarily rare that a sold item has no Hype. In the event that this does occur, however, a minimum sales fee of .5% is to be charged. This fee will be deposited to a HyperPlace account which will be allocated as the governing body sees fit.

Use Case Examples

0xb17a61357bC751cB8515768F334770edb4E4D36F

district0x / district-proposals