An Introduction to Fetch.ai: A Guide to Getting Started
DISCLAIMER: Please note that this guide is (1) informative (perhaps insightful but not advisory), (2) not exhaustive and (3) not in any way sponsored by or in any way affiliated with Fetch HQ. None of the information is nor is intended to constitute legal, tax, financial or investment advice. Any and all assertions made by the author(s) are understood to be true at the time of writing. Moreover, at the time of writing, the author is not directly nor indirectly employed by Fetch.ai(/Fetch HQ). The author is by no means an expert of Fetch and FET and AEA are novel monetary and economic digital assets respectively (and thus caution is advised when interacting with them or seeking to acquire them).
Contents
Brief Introduction
Previously on The AEA Explorer
Why Does Adoption Matter?
Basic Practical Steps to Getting Started
More Advanced Practical Steps to Getting Started
Closing Thoughts
Sources/References
Other Updates
Brief Introduction
For those new to the blog, welcome! You have not missed much. My name is Peter and I am the Chief Editor of (and Writer for) The AEA Explorer. I aspire to use this blog as a medium through which anyone who is genuinely interested in Fetch.ai can better understand the value of the opportunity it presents. My #1 focus is ensuring that this blog is and remains a source of high quality, independent, Fetch-themed content, which operates in the best interests of its subscribers and its writers.
This post is the second part of a two-part blog series on “An Introduction to Fetch.ai”. This part is all about the what, and where to getting started on the Fetch platform, and includes possible on-boarding strategies onto the Fetch ecosystem for Fetch-curious individuals and perhaps adventurous companies (rather than for nation-states or network-states).
Without further ado, let’s get into it.
Previously on The AEA Explorer
For those who are new, below I have provided a brief summary to bring you up to speed:
Fetch HQ has achieved the monumental feat of creating a new world - frankly, a better world - for generating wealth via highly advanced “economic dimension engineering”. Economic dimension engineering is not a technical term, just one I made to capture the significance of what they have done.
Fetch’s technology stack itself is as useful as it is advanced: it is a complex integration of artificial intelligence (namely multi-agent systems), machine learning, distributed ledger technology (i.e. blockchain as well as cryptocurrency native to it) and multi-stakeholder system design and operational dynamics, capable of solving (many) intractable coordination, organisational and logistical problems across multiple industries and sectors, in the physical and the digital worlds, with few or many stakeholders. It is a software layer that is able to help structure and govern socioeconomic interactions, relations and resources in physical and digital environments on a peer-to-peer basis. I think of it as a protocol for trade (for interactions between or involving network participants).
In simpler terms, Fetch.ai has created a virtual layer, which can be overlaid on top of physical or virtual space, which is inhabited by AEAs, capable of doing work native to cyberspace, facilitating monetary value exchanges (e.g. Starfleit DEX) and economic value exchanges and representing the interests of virtual or physical things, robots and people. (Thus the structural barriers to trade that hold back wealth creation have been defeated, and (human and machine) civilisation has been delivered from the burden of high socioeconomic transaction costs.)
Agents (aka AEAs) are virtual intelligent economically-able and financially-able robots. (Able in the sense that these robots can have capabilities that make them economically and financially useful, both subjectively and objectively.) Based on the type of work they do, they can be categorised into three groups: workers, facilitators and representatives. Worker agents specialise in the performance of particular tasks, characterised by the absence of facilitator and/or representative functions. Facilitator agents leverage their positions as economic and/or financial intermediaries - in addition to their skillsets, intelligences, network and other resources - to offer economic and/or financial goods and/or services. Representative agents have (socio)economic interests of their master(s) secured to them and do the bidding of their master(s). Balaji Srinivasan, author of “The Network State” and ingenious thought leader in the web3 space and much more besides, explains the concept of an AEA well here.
In terms of their potential, what makes agents (truly) distinct from other digital assets? In a word: agency/autonomy.
Many in the crypto/DLT/web3 space view tokenisation in a representative sense. The current paradigm thinking is such that one would create a digital representation of value in order to transcend the structural limitations and inefficiencies tied with its physical form by mapping, in essence, the latter to the former. This representation serves to transfer value, for trading intents and purposes, from atoms to bits and thus is digitisation of value (which, by extension, is also the demonetisation and/or decapitalisation of value in physical things, as monetary and/or economic value flows from the physical thing to the digital token). Examples include the tokenisation of unique digital or physical property (and interests in said property) via NFTs.
AEAs are a new proposition, unseen anywhere else in the space: What if the digital representation of value itself had agency? What if said representation was able to act with a degree of (unilateral) autonomy akin to that of a human? In the previous post, I explained AEAs as having economic and financial personality on purpose (as agents can perform both basic and advanced economic and financial functions with low-to-no interference like humans). I think this concept - where a digital representation has value due to its own abilities and autonomy (i.e. “AEAs as workers and/or facilitators”) and not necessarily due to its link to off-chain and/on-chain assets, things or interests (i.e. “AEAs as representatives”) - is an under-explored area with huge growth potential in the coming years.
Furthermore, when you account for the fact that they can be programmed and are not bound by the laws nor the costs of operating in the physical world, AEAs have the highest (socio)economic potential of any other type of labourer (i.e. in comparison to humans or physical robots). This means they can create and facilitate more economic value than humans and physical robots (relative to their creation and operational costs) by orders of magnitude (over a large physical area and over the course of their lifetime).
Fetch’s tech stack is a structural solution to three structural problems (that are global and socioeconomical in nature).
From the representative agent perspective:
In an orderly, decentralised and privacy-preserving way, how can anyone and/or anything trade (socio)economic (or monetary) value with anyone and/or anything, across space [both digital and physical] and time? To achieve this, value needs to move to a more friction-less form and plane, as atoms are structurally inefficient and limited when it comes to representing value. Thus “AEAs as representatives” (aka digital twins) come into play: they hold the (socio)economic interests of people, things and robots [which can include their identity, personal preferences, relationships.]
From the worker and facilitator agent perspectives:
How can we digitally develop the physical world? The physical world is digitally undeveloped. In my opinion, this reality stems from the fact that in the physical world there is no infrastructure and thus no commercial incentive to build digital industries and ecosystems on top of physical things or places. (The global fad that was Pokemon Go in 2016 is an interesting case study that I think ultimately supports this thesis.) Moreover, how can we further develop the virtual world? The digital world is digitally underdeveloped. In today’s digital world, digital and digitised resources are owned by platforms (as opposed to their true owners) and are not allocated via free, globally competitive markets.
These perspectives highlight a particularly significant use case for AEAs: underpinning digitally-native economic and financial industrialisation. By this, I am referring to the process of developing digital and physical spaces for particular economic or financial activities/output using software.
How so? Economically speaking, worker agents are needed to do specialised economic work native to digital realm cost-effectively, while facilitator agents can play a role in forming and underpinning digital value-chains and supply-chains to monitor and moderate the free flow of (socio)economic value across the Open Metaverse.
In terms of finance, worker agents can, for instance, specialise in generating innovative financial instruments and monitoring and managing the instruments’ risk profile 24/7/365, which would be ideal for de-risking operations of enterprises, while facilitator agents can play a role in forming digital capital markets [providing a basis for capital raising activities, perhaps denominated in FET] and offering bespoke supply-chain finance goods and/or services.
For those who are interested in this, I recommended researching into the MetaFi concept, proposed by Outlier Ventures.
All commodities (i.e. fungible raw inputs need to make finished goods) are economic assets by nature as their value in the use in the actual thing like sugar, coffee beans, wheat, cotton, etc. Some commodities like houses and gold serve dual purposes. These commodities are also financial assets as their value comes from being an investment/function as a store of wealth (a wealth preserver/monetary battery) and/or store of productivity/productive capacity (a wealth producer/economic battery). I view AEAs as both economic and financial assets, as agents can create and add value in the real economy but also generate income from financial activities and/or the fruits thereof.
AEAs represent labour being reduced from flesh and bone to electricity and code. AEAs successfully capture the key elements (i.e. mobility, intelligence and autonomy) tied to doing work of varying types, amounts and frequencies. An AEA functions as an intelligent economic engine, able to convert electricity and code (inputs) into useful socioeconomic work native to cyberspace (output) with near 100% efficiency, with the AEA itself being a store of electricity and code structurally optimised towards satisfying (socio)economic ends (“a (socio)economic battery”). Or as Balaji Srinivasan puts it:
Robotics enables physical hyperdeflation. Labor becomes just electricity & code. Real prices for everything should fall, including cost of living, if fiat also recedes. As a goal, if your annual crypto dividends can pay for the electricity, you should be able to live off robots.Not CGI https://t.co/eZ5bCaJTdf
Brian Armstrong - barmstrong.eth @brian_armstrong
Now everyone is up to speed, let’s turn our attention to the focus of this post.
Why Does Adoption of Fetch Matter?
I know it’s bit meta but let’s start with this tweet:
This triggers these questions: Why is adoption so important? Why does it matter?
To be brief, adoption matters because the value created (and subsequently captured) by any network is a direct reflection of the value that comes from the connectivity between its nodes (as facilitated by that network) as well as the number (and quality) of the nodes on the network. This matters both to those on the Fetch.ai network but also those yet to join the Fetch.ai network. Ultimately, adoption [of Fetch] is the first part of the on-boarding process. The second part is the continual usage of it.
To elaborate further, the realised (and potential) value of an internet [which is a digital global information network of networks] arises due to two crucial truths about networks:
There is value in global connectivity and;
A network - a collection of nodes (or users), with the ability to form connections between themselves, underpinned with mutual consent - has value in and of itself. Whilst it sounds idyllic, it is true. It is rich in potential. Look no further than Metcalfe’s law to understand why: Metcalfe's law states that the value of a telecommunications network is proportional to the square of the number of connected users of the system. (First formulated in this form by George Gilder in 1993.)
Joining a network could be seen as both an end in and of itself (e.g. able to be notified/informed of events, developments, etc.) but also a means to an end (e.g. able to connect with others on that network in order to share or receive information). The internet puts this idea on steroids: connecting with anyone anywhere on any (relatively advanced) device at any time is truly revolutionary, and rightfully so, as throughout all of human history this would have been impossible, or at best, commercially infeasible. [It is is a win-win situation both for the node joining and the network itself.]
(Just in case you were wondering, in Fetch the nodes are the agents). But the point to focus on here is that Fetch. takes this concept to its logical end point: Why can’t physical things (with the help of edge computing devices such as IoT) be able to join a digital global information network? Why can’t virtual things of value be able to join a digital global network using intelligent agents to represent them? More nodes on a given network means more users of the network. This means each node has a greater capacity to form connections with those would not otherwise be able to be formed. The relative ease of this allows for spontaneous connections to form of varying depth, which very much mimics the realities of life, catering to the wide range of needs and wants of users.
There is value through global connectivity
Whilst a network’s existing user base may be enough to encourage new users to join it, the value to each individual user after (a certain point) moves beyond the number of users other users can reach (breadth of the network) and towards what the users can use the network for (depth of the network). This is true individually but also collectively. The value from the depth of the network can come from other nodes in the network as well as the network protocol/host.
More links between the nodes means the network is of greater value to each individual node. Why? Because each node has greater capacity for lots of information to be sent to it relative to the costs of transmission that information, thus more information can be sent. (As a side note, as the difficulty for transmitting information falls, the demand for transmission increases (Jevons Paradox).)
Again, this is nice Peter but what’s your point? Fetch network distinguishes itself from other networks here yet again. I can point to three examples.
Thanks to the AEA Framework and Decentralised Delivery Network (DDN) Framework, the latter of which is under development at Fetch HQ and set to premier this year, lots of value can be created (AND captured) by the nodes of the network in a bottom-up way. These frameworks fundamentally form the backbone (technical back-end) for an alternative to current supply-and-demand aggregators like Airbnb and Uber (which are specialised-and-siloed platforms that are undesirable result of the value creation and value captivity dynamics that plagued web2, such as lock-in network effects), as value accrues to and follows the user not the platform.
Collective Learning (CoLearn for short), another digital infrastructure project built by Fetch HQ, allows the wisdom of the crowds to cost-effectively harnessed. Wisdom held by one being can in a privacy-preserving, consensual way be shared with others on the network, which is a bigger deal that it sounds.
In the case of Fetch network specifically, the emergence of a super-intelligence (an economic “god”) will be a great tool to aid in decision-making individually and collectively (for those plugged into it).
Why is continual usage important? Why does it matter?
In a word: Momentum. The Fetch ecosystem, like other blockchain projects, is meant to be a self-sustaining system that attracts greater amounts of demand for and thus supply of economic and financial capital. A virtuous flywheel develops; a concept explained well by Ali Yahya in the video below, which I highly recommend you watching from start to finish. (Whilst it does not completely map to Fetch but it is still useful as a mental model.)
In the previous post, I mentioned what would support Fetch’s ecosystem growth would be the “removal of present and/or continual investment in/economic and financial capitalisation of legacy systems and structures”. Ultimately, the Fetch ecosystem must attract (or “earn”) the economic and financial capital it needs and wants (i.e. capital allocators must be willing to allocate capital towards its operation). This will cost-effectively direct economic and financial resources (i.e. access to new and existing data deposits and large amounts of currency via financial instruments and securities) towards investment (and reinvestment) in enterprises (social, economical or both), built within Fetch.ai ecosystem. (Akin to attracting foreign direct investment (FDI) in traditional frontier markets.)
From a technical perspective, what Fetch needs are digital property (AEA) developers (aka software engineers/AI programmers and others), who will build basic technical infrastructure (basic relative to Fetch HQ’s infrastructure projects) and non-technical infrastructure that is either centred on Fetch.ai network (e.g. AbelOS, this blog, etc.) or assets native to it (e.g. AEAs), especially for non-technical end users. I suspect Fetch HQ is well aware of this reality, as evidenced by their recent launch of the $150M Developer Fund (which I covered towards the end of the last post), designed to kick-start development. In my assessment, with time, the ecosystem will also need to establish advanced, non-technical infrastructure like the aforementioned digital capital markets to create genuine demand for the currency and build out its economy/ecosystem.
Basic Practical Steps to Getting Started
Below I have outlined a series of steps for those who are interested in getting started. I have described as basic as they can be generally applied to all as do not require any specialist skill, knowledge or experience (ideal for non-technical users) nor are they costly (in the financial sense).
Beginner’s Guide to Getting Started:
Read widely to understand what Fetch has built. I would suggest reading Fetch HQ’s publications (including its whitepaper), Fetch HQ’s Medium articles, Autonolas education articles and blog, Outlier Ventures materials on Web3 toolkit and Open Metaverse OS (more detail here).
This is the most important point, especially for those who want more than a surface-level relationship with Fetch (see my next post). Builders must understand what they are building on and with before buildings or structures can emerge. There needs to be a sound intellectual foundation that precedes construction.
Make a priority to understand quality primary and secondary sources. I do include the links where appropriate throughout the blogs via hyperlinks, and also include a “Sources/References” section for any I could not include via hyperlinks. To test your understanding, consider using the Feynman technique to explain what you have learnt to others (perhaps by tweeting a thread on Twitter).
Subscribe to The Fetch.ai Newsletter to stay up-to-date with news across its ecosystem.
Subscribe to The AEA Explorer and read, comment and share the posts. This clearly is a shameless plug, but based on public and private feedback thus far, I certainly would not advise against it! I will definitely try my best to make it worth your while.
Join the Fetch community (the “Fetchers”) on Twitter. The following accounts are Fetch HQ: @Fetch.ai; @Fetchai_Twin; @HMsheikh4 (CEO at Fetch); @jonathan6620 (CTO at Fetch); @MariaMinaricova (Director of Business Development at Fetch); @Mettalex; @atomix_defi. The following accounts are some in Fetch community that are worth following (in my opinion): @MawaMaverick; @PeterOImafidon (myself); @spacetravelle20; @KenKaneki_Otaku; @Atari_Buzzk1ll; @Valoryag; @Autonalas; @aea_dev and; @david_enim.
Why Twitter in particular? Because that is where the community lives: it is where Twitter Spaces happen, announcements are first made and the opinions from the community are shared. Additionally, having a Twitter account allows you to be able to read Twitter threads included in past, present and future blog posts, create lists that allows you to create your own curated timeline of tweets from particular accounts (regardless of your timeline thread) and set alerts for when particular accounts tweet.
Join the Fetch.ai official telegram (official chat group), especially if you want to ask questions to knowledgeable community members. A word of warning: pay attention to the pinned messages (especially warnings about scams).
Explore the Fetch.ai Network site (especially the Learn tab and the Use tab).
Set up a Fetch.ai Browser Extension Wallet. Here’s a guide from Fetch HQ on how. Once setup, you will be able to start receiving FET.
Check out Fetch Improvement Proposal discussions on Github. This will help you stay on top of proposed changes to the protocol. For more information, read this. Below I have included a thread on the most recent one:
Watch useful YouTube videos. As mention in point 1, be discerning and make sure what you are watching is informative and accurate content. A good place to start would be watching talks from Jamie Burke (CEO of Outlier Ventures) on the convergence stack thesis, as well as interviews by members of Fetch HQ (past and present). I would also consider watching and subscribing to Fetch.ai YouTube channel (including Atomix and Mettalex) as well as MawaMaverick.
Create (accurate) Fetch memes (or creative work). The aim is to try and win (over) hearts and minds, especially of those who are not part of the community!
More Advanced Practical Steps to Getting Started
In my last post, I discussed the major stakeholders of the Fetch ecosystem. Below is my rough thinking for steps that can be taken that serves them individually but also the collective good:
To Validators
Keep an eye out for my post (“An Independent Inquiry into Possible Product and Service Validator Offerings”), which should be out by Q4 2023.
If you have not done so, read this Medium article.
To Developers
Get started developing using Development Documentation provided by Fetch HQ (available here), as well as Autonolas’ open-source library (available here).
Considering applying for the Fetch.ai grant from the $150M Developer Fund. This fund is geared towards those from prospective projects either from Cosmos or EVM seeking “to build upon Fetch.ai network or scale using Fetch.ai's toolkits” and remains open.
According to Fetch, it is not time-bound so whilst there is a finite amount of money, rushed applications gain no benefit (quality > speed).
Consider this if applying: “The development fund would be particularly interested in DApps that cannot only serve a specific domain but can also become a building block for other DApps to have a multiplier effect on increasing the utility of the Fetch-ai Network. ” (Source: A recent interview post with Fetch’s CEO by Crypto Daily).
Consider joining the developer community on Discord here.
To FET coinholders
Ensure your wallet and funds are secured properly, following the guidance provided by Fetch HQ as well as the digital asset industry’s best practices.
Should you want to stake FET, here’s a guide from Fetch HQ on how.
To FET stakers
Evaluate validators carefully before selecting who to delegate to, taking care to look beyond commission rate. It is worth reading the Recap of Community AMA with 5 Different Fetch.ai Validators on Reddit post by Fetch HQ to better sense of what to look for.
Ensure you declare and submit tax form to your tax authority in accordance with local laws. (I am no tax expert but I am aware that stake.tax offers tax-reporting services for FET stakers).
To End users
At your risk and of your own volition, you may want to acquire FET from a decentralised or centralised cryptocurrency exchange of your own choosing (that lists FET).
Consider setting up a digital ID on Yoti. Here’s why. TLDR: Yoti is able to provide AEAs with “the ability to prove their owner’s identity or their owner’s attributes (such as nationality or that they hold an active driving license) to another agent”. This allows end users access to wide array of services that will need authentication or identification.
If you run an online store, consider integrating Zoidpay to allow users to pay in FET. More information in the tweet below:
Closing Thoughts
Whilst I could write more on this topic, I will leave it there for now.
For those interested in risking their capital in connection with the Fetch.ai ecosystem, they should do so with caution. As a very unique and distinct digital frontier market, Fetch is certainly worth evaluating on its own merits. Given the uncertainty and different types of risk involved, it is likely to be most suited to those with a high risk tolerance AND carrying capacity. This is simply because of the lack of risk-sharing and/or risk-mitigating measures available. For instance, no currency derivatives exist to hedge against the fluctuations of the price of FET at the time of publication. As FET is a freely traded digital currency, there is no clear way to limit or mitigate exposure to the price swings. [As a side note, for those operating in the UK, even if such derivatives existed, following Financial Conduct Authority’s decision to ban crypto derivatives them for retail consumers, such derivatives would not be available to you as a retail consumer.]
Having said that, I am of the opinion that while the risks are great, the rewards (at the time of publication) are far greater. I would not be risking my professional reputation, my free time in my prime working years, and my own capital to pursue Fetch related projects (e.g. writing and editing this blog (which includes researching and drafting special reports such as validator products and service offerings), drafting responses with Fetch in mind to the Law Commission reports such as a response to the Digital Assets consultation paper (see here), leading the development of Fetch.ai-network centred and native (infrastructure) applications like AbelOS, etc.) if I did not believe this sincerely.
I leave you with this tweet:
Sources/References
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfe%27s_law
https://cdixon.org/2016/05/11/the-typical-path-of-how-people-respond-to-life-changing-inventions
https://outlierventures.io/research/metafi-defi-for-the-metaverse/
https://docs.fetch.ai/#get-started
Summary of DDN Framework - Watch this video.
Moats in Web3 - Read here.
https://medium.com/fetch-ai/a-gentle-introduction-to-the-fetch-ai-framework-990b487de4d
Blog Updates:
Next Blog Post(s):
Seemingly Farfetched: Overcoming Substantial Barriers to Widespread Adoption (of Fetch’s Technology) [Scheduled for 29th August 2022]
This post will be going into greater detail for those who want to play a more active, less superficial role in advancing the development of the Fetch ecosystem.
Introducing AbelOS v1.0 (Part 1) [Scheduled for 15th September 2022]
In two parts, first part is the context. 2 key questions that will be answered: (1) What is an AEA operating system (OS)? (2) Why do we need them? Second part is the tutorial/walk-through (scheduled for 2023).
Possible Guest Post [Scheduled for October 2022]
Making the case for RADDAR [Scheduled for 15th November 2022]
Annual Letter to Subscribers [Scheduled for 15th December 2022]
An end-of-year report to The AEA Explorer’s subscribers only, writing from the frontier. The report will highlighting successes and lessons from this year (both for Abel and The AEA Explorer) and sharing what I have lined up for next year.
If I reach 500 followers on Twitter and 500 subscribers on Substack by end of year, I will set up a 1-hour long Twitter Spaces to discuss this letter with subscribers. If I reach 500 followers on Twitter or 500 subscribers on Substack by end of year, I will arrange something else instead (and allow my subscribers to vote on a poll on Twitter).
Please note that the titles are subject to change and the Editor reserves the right to cancel or delay the publication of any unscheduled post (i.e. posts that do not have a definite scheduled date) indefinitely.
Questions to the reader/subscriber (feel free to respond in the comments):
What would you like to see me cover in this blog?
Is there any area of the Fetch.ai ecosystem that I should be paying particular attention to?
What brings you to the blog? If you are subscriber, why did you subscribe?
How did you hear about the blog?
Are there any questions about the content of this post?
These questions allow me to have a better understanding of my audience and their expectations.