On September 22nd, I presented Serey at BitFest 2018 in Amsterdam. It was an amazing event organized by the BitShares Foundation and mainly attended by enthusiasts for BitShares and Graphene technology. As being part of the family – our Serey DEX and the Serey.io platform are making use of BitShares/graphene technology – we were invited to present Serey on the international stage.
During the day, we have built many great connections with core developers of BitShares, and with developers of other graphene projects. We have shared the stage with such organizations as BitSpark (Hong Kong), DasCoin (USA), PayGer (Germany), BitSG (Singapore), RuDEX (Russia) and many others. I look forward to work together with anyone that seeks to decentralize our future and that has a vision in which every human being is free and where blockchain technology provides the tools to secure our rights to life, liberty, and property. I will announce some great news soon as one such project is already taking shape as a result of a partnership with several other parties from the event.
One of the highlights was Stan Larimer’s talk regarding BitShares’ implementation of EOS technology. This will greatly benefit the whole BitShares/graphene community, including Serey. I will share more details with you in a later post.
For now, I’d like to confirm that we are committed to make Serey a national phenomenon in Cambodia! Please, see below the slides I presented at the event.
Serey is a new Social Media platform that specifically targets the Cambodian market. The country that saw nearly a quarter of the population decimated during the civil war of the 60’s and 70’s, the Khmer rouge regime, and the subsequent famine, has gone through rapid economic developments in the past two decades due to its friendliness to free markets. Accompanying this development is the adoption of new information technologies. One such technology is social media, and blockchain.
These two technologies are now combined into a social media platform called Serey. It rewards content creators, such as writers, for their creativity. The platform now has 400-500 users who all contribute by writing content ranging from short fictional stories to history, philosophy, and technology. Users can post any content they want. There is no central authority that can censor the posts in any way. The system is based on a democratic voting system in which every user can vote on articles. Dependent on the votes, the content creators are rewarded with the platform’s native cryptocurrency called Serey coins (SRY).
What does Serey stand for?
The name of the platform, Serey (សេរី in Khmer), is derived from the Khmer word seripheap (សេរីភាព) which stands for liberty or freedom. The platform is built on the philosophy of liberty and is inspired by Friedrich Hayek’s theory of dispersed knowledge. Realizing that every individual knows just a fraction of what is collectively known and that our collective knowledge is therefore decentralized, Serey is looking to encourage the sharing of the unique information that individuals possess through the Serey platform. It wants to create an open platform where everyone is free to enter, to exercise their creativity without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity. The platform also encourages to engage in thoughtful, civilized discussions.
There was no such online platform in Cambodia yet. Cambodia, at this moment, also doesn’t have a culture of reading and writing. Serey is aiming to transform this so there is also an educational component to it.
We need to learn to dance with our feet, with ideas, with words, and, need I add that one must also be able to dance with the pen?
The mission statement of Serey is as follows:
“Rewarding self-expression and creativity.”
Why is Serey run on a blockchain?
The Serey blockchain allows the storage of content – actually only the actual text of the article and no pictures or videos to keep block sizes minimal – in a distributed manner. Anything written on Serey is stored on a blockchain that is shared among many other servers, called witnesses, that run an exact copy of the blockchain. This makes all content tamper-proof and censorship nearly impossible. This is in line with Serey’s belief that everyone should have the right to free expression.
In addition, a blockchain serves the people’s right to keep the fruits of their labour. Serey cannot take away any of its users Serey coins. All earnings are rightfully theirs and they can spend it in any way they want.
What are the features of Serey?
Serey is principally a fork of Steemit – another social media platform on the blockchain – and therefore essentially makes use of the Graphene technology that also powers Steemit and Bitshares. However, whereas Steemit is trying to create a one-size-fit-all approach with their platform, Serey is entirely dedicated to the people of Cambodia. They believe that regional differences require different user interfaces and functionalities that match the people’s cultural makeup and level of sophistication with blockchain technology.
Compared to Steemit, Serey has a different layout, a market place section, a Khmer language option, an free advertisement section, and a simplified reward system.
The Serey Decentralized Exchange is currently under development and will offer an English and Khmer language option.
In addition, the Serey Decentralized Exchange is currently being built in cooperation with developers close to Steemit and Bitshares. It will be a full-fledged decentralized exchange that is accessible by anyone, anywhere in the world. Users will then be able to trade Serey coins (SRY) for 15-20 other cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dash, Bitshares etc.
Other features that Serey users can look forward to in the next six months are an online betting system, improvements of the market place section, an integrated chat feature similar to that of Messenger, and a mobile app.
If you are interested in Serey, please feel free to visit the website and to register for free. Most articles are written in Khmer, but English articles are welcome as well.
Medium’s largest entrepreneurship publication, The Startup, has published an article about Serey – a Cambodian social media platform on the blockchain that I have co-founded. I will publish the article here as well.
SEREY: an exciting Social Media platform on the blockchain in Cambodia
There is a new Social Media platform that specifically targets the Cambodian market. The country that saw nearly a quarter of the population decimated during the civil war of the 60’s and 70’s, the Khmer rouge regime, and the subsequent famine, is quickly rising. Accompanied by its astounding economic development of the past two decades, the country has clearly shrugged off its troubled past and is eagerly looking to a bright future. Accompanying its development also comes adoption of new technologies.
One such technology is blockchain. It is now adopted by the Serey team for their social media platform where content creators like writers and singers are rewarded for publishing their content. The Serey platform is recently live, and already has many users writing content ranging from fictional short stories to cryptocurrencies, self-made beauty products, and culture. The system is based on a democratic voting system in which every user can vote on articles. Dependent on the number of votes and who have given the votes, content creators are rewarded with the platform’s native cryptocurrency called Serey coins (SRY).
On the founders of Serey
The founders of Serey are two Cambodian brothers who were born in a Cambodian refugee camp called Khao I Dang which is on the Thai-Cambodian border. During the Khmer rouge period of 1975–1978, their parents fled the country and ended up in the camp. For a more detailed recollection of life in the camp, one of the founders’ memoires of the camp has been published by the Foundation of Economic Education which is located in the United States.
In 1991, at the age of around 5–6 years, the founders were granted residentship in the Netherlands. They have been educated in Economics (Amsterdam, the Netherlands) and Philosophy (Macau and Dublin, Ireland). Influenced by the philosophy of classical liberalism and Friedrich Hayek’s theory of dispersed knowledge, the two founders have sought for ways to utilize blockchain technology to create a platform where people can express their creativity in Cambodia, share knowledge, and engage in thoughtful, civilized discussions. At this moment, there is no such online platform yet. The founders are hopeful that one day the Serey platform will be seen as the testimony that Cambodia is full of talented and vibrant people.
On the Serey Vision and Philosophy
Serey aims at becoming a premier Social Media platform where people can express their creativity freely. Realizing that every individual knows just a fraction of what is collectively known and that the nature of our collective knowledge is therefore inherently decentralized, Serey would like to encourage sharing of the unique information that individuals possess through the Serey platform.
In short, Serey wants to create an open platform where everyone is free to enter, no matter what their station of birth, race or economic power is. It is a place where anyone, anywhere may exercise their creativity without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity. Where users share fun and interesting content with each other, while making friends.
We need to learn to dance with our feet, with ideas, with words, and, need I add that one must also be able to dance with the pen?
On the Serey Mission
The Serey mission can therefore be summarized as:
“Rewarding self-expression and creativity.”
On the differences between Serey and traditional Social Media
Traditional Social Media like for example Facebook and Twitter have generated billions of dollars for their shareholders by taking users’ content and selling it to advertisers. Instead of channeling value to a small group of shareholders, the participants of the Serey platform are rewarded for their writing. Hence, value flows to those that provide content.
The very first moment you join www.serey.io, you are offered a small amount of Serey which gives your voice a weight in determining what content should be rewarded.
On the Serey platform and its features
Serey is principally a fork of Steemit — another social media platform on the blockchain — and therefore essentially makes use of the Graphene technology behind Steemit and Bitshares. However, where Steemit is trying to conquer the world, Serey is entirely dedicated to the people of Cambodia. Serey believes that regional differences require different user interfaces, and specific functionalities that match the people’s cultural makeup and their level of sophistication with blockchain technology. The Serey team have therefore chosen to create a platform with:
1) A brand new layout
2) A market place section
3) A Khmer language option
4) An advertisement section
5) A simplification of the reward system
The Serey DEX in May/June, 2018
In addition to the above changes, Serey will release a Serey Decentralized Exchange (Serey DEX)which is currently being set up in cooperation with developers close to Bitshares and Steemit. It will be a full-fledged decentralized exchange accessible by anyone, anywhere in the world.
The Serey Decentralized Exchange is currently under development and will offer an English and Khmer language option
Next to the Serey coins (SRY), the exchange will have the most important cryptocurrencies listed like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dash and also such national currency digital assets like bitUSD, bitEUR and bitCNY. With the Serey DEX, Cambodian people will have an interesting cryptocurrency trading platform to look forward to. It will be available in English and in Khmer — the native language of the Cambodian people. Currently, there is not one local cryptocurrency exchange in Cambodia yet.
Other features
Other exciting features on Serey to look forward to this year are an online betting system, improvements of the market place section, and an integrated chat similar to that of Facebook.
On the Blocksimple Partnership
The Serey team has a partnership with the highly regarded USA based blockchain consulting and development service, Blocksimple, which has experience developing blockchain projects in the USA, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Ukraine. Next to consultation on the development of the Serey platform, Blocksimple has also developed its pre-sale website, and continues to be an important partner for Serey.
On the Serey Whitepaper
Serey has released their whitepaper publically, which you can find here.
On the Pre-sale/ICO
Currently, Serey is going through a pre-sale. There are 100 million initial Serey coins created of which 55 million is sold to the public at the starting price of $0.015 and gradually moving up to $0.020. The team is hoping to raise at least $500,000 which will give them enough breathing room to develop the platform for the next 5 years.
In addition to a rise in the price of one SRY, investors can also benefit from (1) receiving interest on the coins due to its Delegated Proof of Stake system and from (2) an increased weight of their voting power when they upvote articles on the Serey platform. This means that they have more influence on the distribution of rewards to articles.
In order to take part in the pre-sale, one should make an account on www.serey.io first.
A link to the pre-sale website is www.sale.serey.io, and the payment methods are BTC, ETH and LTC. More information on the pre-sale can be found in the whitepaper (pp. 14–15).
Contact
If you have any questions, you can reach the team through:
Chhay Lin's Philosophy Musings 