Where fiery debates do kick off in the Ethereum community, there are big matters at hand worth effectively hashing out. But accurately gauging opinions is still no small coordination problem in a diverse and decentralized ecosystem like Ethereum’s.

That’s where Burn Signal comes in. First unveiled last fall, Burn Signal is an advancing Twitter-like signaling tool that can help provide clarity wherever the Ethereum ecosystem and its stakeholders have burning questions 🔥

Today, we’re excited to announce that Burn Signal is live! Check it out at burnsignal.io

Key to understanding why Burn Signal is useful as a public good is grasping what sets it apart from more gameable “coin voting” mechanisms. Beyond being permissionless, and thus inclusive, Burn Signal is resistant to plutocracy by design. How?

The system has three main pillars: quadratic voting, an integration with the BrightID identity solution, and burning ether (ETH). Quadratic voting helps prevent plutocratic signalling, i.e. wealthy users dominating votes. BrightID blocks Sybil attacks, so fake pseudonymous accounts cannot influence outcomes. And users burn ETH to signal their opinions, meaning they’ll be incentivized to vote rationally since their ETH could be used elsewhere.

With Burn Signal, then, you could burn a little bit of ETH to chip in your two gwei to a wider ecosystem discussion, or you could burn a hole in your digital pocket to back one of your burning desires in the community. Someone who has several irons in the fire, as it were, will be willing to burn more ETH to send a bigger signal on a given subject. It’s wide open from here!

For now, the Burn Signal team is firing away on developing an MVP app, and the recent donations from the project’s Gitcoin Grants Round 5 contributors are a real boon on that front going forward. We sincerely appreciate the support and want to invite the community to start exploring Burn Signal further as it continues progressing to maturity 🔥

Adding Fuel to the Fire

For anyone looking to take a deeper dive on Burn Signal, you’ll need to get verified through BrightID, a social identity network, first. You can download the BrightID app through the Apple App Store or Google Play. The whole onboarding process goes like this:

  • Download BrightID on your phone and make some connections (t.me/burnsignal is a great place to find some other BrightID users to connect to)
  • Go to burnsignal.io
  • Sign in with a MetaMask, WalletConnect, or Authereum wallet
  • Once signed in, click on the BrightID next to your avatar
  • You’ll be taken to “Bright Ethereum,” where you’ll verify your address
  • A QR code will pop up; scan that using a QR scanner
  • Send a 0 value transaction to brightID.burnsignal.eth
  • After this, you can use Burn Signal to vote and ask questions

If you have any further questions or comments, don’t hesitate to reach out. We firmly believe Burn Signal can help the Ethereum community solve how it solves problems, and toward that mission we’re happy to take an all-hands-on-deck approach. If you’re interested in learning more about the project, feel free to jump right in 🔥

  • Join our colony at colony.io/colony/burn
  • Join our Telegram group at t.me/burnsignal
  • Star out GitHut at github.com/burnSignal
  • Follow us on Twitter at twitter.com/burnsignal