How Unrival Works: Building Trust with Verifiable Promises
Centralized authority, generic reputation, and misaligned incentives create inefficient markets
Domain-specific promises, verifiable evidence, and economic alignment create trusted cooperation
The Hidden Wisdom Problem
In the 1840s, doctor Ignaz Semmelweis discovered that handwashing dramatically prevented maternal deaths, yet the medical establishment resisted this practice for decades despite clear evidence. This pattern repeats throughout history - valuable knowledge remains hidden in plain sight for generations despite proof of effectiveness.
Today, similar examples abound—like hypnotherapy's proven effectiveness for IBS and insomnia—while millions suffer needlessly, unaware of existing solutions. We are still bad at finding these "weird tricks" - like washing hands before delivering babies - even when they require minimal effort yet offer enormous benefits.
Despite our information abundance, we lack systems to surface, validate, and distribute valuable wisdom from our collective intelligence. The most transformative insights frequently remain buried beneath contradictory, unverified, or biased information, inaccessible to those who need them most.
Buried Solutions
IBS Treatment: Multiple clinical trials show hypnotherapy's 70-80% effectiveness for IBS, yet fewer than 5% of patients are informed of this option.
Pain Management: Evidence showing TENS devices effectively reduce chronic pain is widespread, but many patients face years of medication dependence instead.
Sleep Disorders: CBT-I demonstrates better long-term outcomes than medication for insomnia, but remains underutilized in favor of pharmaceuticals.
Systemic Failures
Trust Without Verification
Most online feedback systems lack verification mechanisms, making them susceptible to manipulation, fake reviews, and meaningless endorsements.
Information Asymmetry
Experts and specialists often gatekeep information, while platforms prioritize content by popularity or payment rather than accuracy or value.
Collective Intelligence Waste
Communities collectively possess solutions to most problems, but lack the mechanisms to effectively aggregate, validate, and surface their distributed wisdom.
Beyond Popularity: A New Framework for Trust
Agency Protocol transcends simple majority rule by creating a system where valuable insights are not only shared but rigorously validated and surfaced based on domain-specific credibility, not popularity or authority.
Agency Protocol Is:
- A robust anti-collusion mechanism
Leverages cryptographic techniques and transparent records to detect and deter coordinated efforts to manipulate credibility systems or outcomes.
- A precise way to describe expectations
Uses promises and assessments to define expectations, outcomes, and discrepancies, reducing information asymmetry in transactions.
- A mechanism for creating data as labor networks
Tracks data provenance and usage to ensure individuals contributing data are compensated proportionally to its value.
- Dynamic and self-improving
Iteratively refines parameters like credibility weighting and anti-gaming measures based on system performance and community feedback.
Agency Protocol Is Not:
- Tied to any single infrastructure
Operates on centralized servers, distributed databases, or peer-to-peer networks as required, without being locked into any specific technology.
- Exclusive to technological applications
Extends beyond technology to domains like community governance, education, or offline group decision-making processes.
- Limited to majority rule
Transcends simple popularity contests by weighting contributions based on domain-specific credibility, ensuring decisions reflect wisdom over mere numbers.
- Immutable or inflexible
Allows for iterative updates and revisions while maintaining historical records of changes, adapting to evolving community needs.
The Unrival Agent System
Unrival organizes digital entities (agents) in a hierarchical system, with each type inheriting promises from its parent types while adding specialized functionality.
Base Agent
The foundation of the system, with basic promises about cryptographic verification, unique addressing, and state management.
- Unique content-based addressing
- Cryptographic signature verification
- State change emission
Merit Agent
Specializes in tracking domain-specific credibility based on promise fulfillment history.
- Domain-specific merit scoring
- Merit-weighted assessment
- Transparent merit history
Assessment Agent
Evaluates whether promises have been kept based on evidence, with their own merit at stake.
- Evidence-based assessment
- Conflict of interest declaration
- Staked merit on assessment accuracy
Key Mechanisms for Incentive Alignment
Domain-Specific Merit
Merit is always tied to specific domains rather than general reputation. This prevents inappropriate influence across unrelated areas and creates accurate signals of domain expertise.
How it works:
- •Merit exists within namespace hierarchies (e.g., medicine/cardiology/diagnosis)
- •Merit scores don't transfer between unrelated domains
- •Higher domain specificity provides more precise merit signals
Skin in the Game
All participants stake resources (merit and/or credits) on their promises and assessments, creating real consequences for dishonesty and misrepresentation.
How it works:
- •Promise-makers stake merit on fulfillment
- •Assessors stake merit on accurate assessments
- •Merit-based stake requirements create efficiency for honest actors
Distributed Assessment
Promise fulfillment is verified by multiple assessors with domain-specific merit, preventing manipulation by any single party and distributing responsibility.
How it works:
- •Multiple qualified assessors evaluate promise fulfillment
- •Assessments are weighted by domain-specific merit
- •Batch processing prevents collusion and timing attacks
Manipulation Detection
Sophisticated algorithms prevent circular vouching, merit laundering, and other forms of collusion that could undermine the system's integrity.
How it works:
- •Graph analysis identifies circular dependencies
- •Matrix factorization detects collusion patterns
- •Temporal analysis prevents gaming through timing manipulation
Philosophical Foundations
Agency Protocol builds on ancient philosophical wisdom about trust, knowledge, and social coordination, implementing timeless principles with modern technology.
Nyāya: Bottom-Up Epistemology
The Nyāya philosophical school developed one of history's most sophisticated frameworks for determining reliable knowledge. Their approach centered on pramāṇa (reliable knowledge sources) and āpta (trustworthy experts with domain-specific knowledge).
Nyāya Principles
- Domain-specific expertise (not universal authority)
- Evidence-based verification (not blind acceptance)
- Trustworthiness demonstrated through reliable patterns
- Knowledge as verifiable process, not static content
Agency Protocol Implementation
- Domain-specific merit tracking
- Evidence requirements for assessments
- Merit earned through demonstrated reliability
- Full process transparency and verification
Coordinating Collective Action
Agency Protocol enables groups to act as unified entities through its Superagent system, coordinating complex collective behavior while maintaining accountability.
Superagent Architecture
How Unrival enables collective action with aligned incentives
Decision Mechanisms
Meritocratic Agents
Decisions weighted by domain-specific merit create expertise-driven governance
Democratic Agents
Voting mechanisms for equal participant influence in appropriate contexts
Consensual Agents
Deliberation-focused decision processes seeking broad agreement
Ensuring Accountability
Composite Promises
Superagents make and fulfill collective promises with distributed responsibility
Inheritance Controls
Clear mechanisms for merit and responsibility inheritance among members
Transparency Infrastructure
Full visibility into decision processes and collective outcomes
Frequently Asked Questions
Applications Across Industries
Agency Protocol powers solutions in diverse domains, from healthcare to finance to software development.
Healthcare
Create trust in specialty care through verified credentials, transparent patient outcomes, and domain-specific merit that highlights true expertise.
Finance
Transform financial services with verifiable performance reporting, transparent fee structures, and demonstrated fiduciary responsibility through staked merit.
Software Development
Improve SaaS reliability and client trust through verifiable uptime promises, response time commitments, and security incident handling with real stakes.
Start Building With Agency Protocol
Transform how your organization creates trust, aligns incentives, and makes better collective decisions with a system designed for true accountability.
For Developers
Build applications with domain-specific credibility, transparent assessment, and aligned economic incentives.
Explore the Agent SystemFor Organizations
Implement Agency Protocol to improve trust, streamline decision-making, and create better alignment.
Get Started Today