[sanity]

Our intention is that Freenet will only consume surplus resources, but we plan to build a reputation system that could have a notion of "karma" that is earned by providing resources to the network. This karma could be used to gate access to resources, for example like a VIP chat room on River.

So there are a lot of possibilities but for now users are motivated by a desire to see the network succeed, and that seems to be a sufficient motivator at our current scale.

[alun]

Seems reasonable to build a cryptocurrency around this. The network could pay the cryptocurrency out to users dedicating resources. Have you thought about that?

[sanity]

You'd still need to solve the double-spend problem, because while contract state on Freenet will usually synchronize within a few seconds, it isn't guaranteed to converge to a single globally consistent state.

Freenet's approach works well for things like group chat, where temporary inconsistency is mostly just an irritation, but for a cryptocurrency it is fatal.

I'm not saying you couldn't build a cryptocurrency on Freenet, but you'd still need a solution to that problem.

[Groxx]

Ghostkeys seem like part of a decent approach to this, since it's a "prove contribution without dictating how" system. Crypto/cash/"they gave me a high five, they're cool" are all equally valid, and it's not a proof of work that costs substantial money to operate: https://freenet.org/ghostkey/

Currently it appears centralized, but in principle it'd be pretty easy to shift it to a web of trust instead, and hosts can choose what they allow and how much they value it.

(zero-knowledge proofs seem probably rather important to adopt tho, as right now it'll tie you to a stable pseudonym)

[thrance]

Cryptocurrencies have a toxic reputation. Associating one to this project is a sure path to killing it.