Crypto Primitives
Description
By Jacob Horne:
"At some point in the past 6 months, you may have read or heard the terms “Cryptoeconomic Primitives”, “Financial Primitives”, “Crypto Primitives” or just “Primitives” being used in relation to some projects in the cryptocurrency space. The usage of these terms has varied, and some debate has occurred in attempt to clearly define exactly what some of them are.
Broadly speaking, I think there are two categories of primitives being talked about in the cryptocurrency “Crypto” space."
(https://www.coinbase.com/blog/the-emergence-of-cryptoeconomic-primitives)
Typology
Jacob Horne:
"The two types of Crypto Primitives are:
- Category Primitives: e.g. Financial Primitives (post coming soon™), Governance Primitives (staking, voting), Token Primitives (NFTs, RFTs, ERC20), Regulatory Primitives (securities protocols) and so on."
(https://www.coinbase.com/blog/the-emergence-of-cryptoeconomic-primitives)
Related Technical Terms
Jacob Horne:
"Token: a programmable blockchain asset
Protocol: a clearly defined set of functions and behaviors
Mechanism: a system of parts working together in a machine; a piece of machinery.
Primitive: well established, generic building blocks. They are designed to do one very specific task in a highly reliable fashion
Incentive System: denotes a structure motivating actors as part of an organization to act in the interest of the organization
Cryptoeconomics: the combination of cryptography and economics to create robust decentralized P2P networks. Cryptography is used to prove things that happened in the past, and economic incentives are used to encourage desired properties to hold into the future¹. Code and economics are intrinsically interlinked."
(https://www.coinbase.com/blog/the-emergence-of-cryptoeconomic-primitives)