Ever since Satoshi Nakamoto published the Bitcoin whitepaper on October 31, 2008, every cryptocurrency was supposed to articulate its vision, design, and purpose through a whitepaper… Just kidding! That was traditionally the case, but as more and more coins were minted, coupled with the ambiguous policy period a few years ago, it led to a strange phenomenon: the clearer you wrote, the easier it was to fall afoul of the law—a “don’t be serious, you’ll lose” mentality. Later, with the memecoin craze, where a coin could be minted with two or three clicks and “utility is irrelevant” became the mantra, fewer new coins came with whitepapers. Even if they did, they were often just a few brief notes. President Donald Trump’s TRUMP coin and USD1 are prime examples.
However, in some ways, I’m quite old-fashioned and remain passionate about intrinsic value, insisting on creating useful tokens. That’s why, several months ago, I began writing the LikeCoin v3 whitepaper, and in early May, I released the initial draft to gather community feedback and brainstorm ideas. Yet, even with Bitcoin, the vast majority of holders don’t read the whitepaper, let alone for LikeCoin. Therefore, in the following, I will use plain English and a Q&A format to help users without a technical background understand the basic concepts of LikeCoin v3 and jointly participate in the birth of this new version.
Where will LikeCoin v3 bring decentralized operations?
Books. The whitepaper opens by clearly stating its focus with the title “The DeBook Protocol.”
DeBook is a continuation of the decentralized publishing advocated by LikeCoin v2, but with a slightly narrower scope. It no longer focuses on content like Writing NFTs or images targeted by projects such as Paragraph and Zora, but instead concentrates on books. After all, books alone are a lifelong endeavor.
What aspects will DeBook decentralize, and what problems will it solve?
Text, metadata, curation, and sales channels.
- Decentralized storage of text: Aids content preservation.
- Decentralized storage of metadata for books, authors, and readers: Constructs a relationship network among books, authors, and readers, bringing the “reading world” onto the blockchain.
- Decentralized curation: A book’s exposure will be determined by reader support, turning readers from passive consumers into active stakeholders.
- Decentralized sales: Allows YouTubers, podcasters, book reviewers, and even physical bookstores to sell books within the ecosystem, avoiding the oligopoly of traditional e-book platforms and fostering industry co-prosperity.
Why move back to Ethereum?
After years of development, Ethereum has resolved its high cost and low capacity issues, so the reasons for operating our own public chain no longer exist. Developing on Ethereum allows us to concentrate resources on the application layer, making DeBook accessible to the general public.
Furthermore, Ethereum is the most decentralized and robust world ledger. Using it to store book metadata is most beneficial for preserving history and knowledge.
Will the LikeCoin token still be useful after moving back to Ethereum?
Yes, and it’s very important.
In v3, the more LikeCoin tokens a book receives in stakes (staking), the higher its exposure. Readers who stake their LikeCoin tokens on their favorite works help excellent works reach a wider audience. Unlike traditional bookstores where experts select books, or social networks where content is chosen by black-box algorithms, in the LikeCoin v3 ecosystem, a work’s visibility is determined by a completely transparent mechanism. This is decentralized curation.
In addition to the newly introduced decentralized curation, LikeCoin tokens can also be used for community governance and micro-support for creators.
I just want to read books. Why should I participate in curating them?
Staking LikeCoin tokens on your favorite works is not just about showing support; stakers can also receive a portion of the work’s revenue. In Web3 terms, this is curate-to-earn. Secondly, some authors may offer exclusive benefits to stakers, such as book clubs that only token holders and curators can participate in.
V3’s staking mechanism upgrades users from mere readers, recipients, and consumers to active curators, participants, and stakeholders, restructuring the distant, one-way relationship between authors and readers. Whether for the ecosystem or for yourself, participating in book curation is worthwhile.
That sounds nice, but I’m not interested. So LikeCoin is useless to me?
I understand you just want to read quietly. To take a step back, you can also view the LikeCoin you receive from buying books as a reward. If 3ook.com were an airline, LikeCoin would be its frequent flyer miles.
Even if LikeCoin is only used as points, the immutable, self-managed, and freely transferable nature of cryptocurrency means that points won’t become outdated or confined to a specific platform. Instead, they can be exchanged for stablecoins like USDC and used for everyday consumption, which is a significant step forward compared to traditional rewards.
How many LikeCoin v3 tokens will be minted, and is there a cap?
There are currently 1,467,770,016 LikeCoin v2 tokens in circulation. I will propose in the v3 whitepaper to mint and cap LikeCoin at 1,500,000,000 tokens, with a one-to-one correspondence for upgraded v2 tokens. The remaining 32,229,984 LikeCoin will be allocated to the community fund.
These parameters are my suggestions. Once the whitepaper is finalized in July, the proposal will be submitted to the community for approval before being established, and then we’ll choose an auspicious date to mint the tokens (just kidding).
What exactly is a Protocol, and what’s its significance?
Literally, a Protocol is a rule of conduct. In the context of DeBook, it refers to industry standards. LikeCoin v3 is the standard for decentralized publishing.
- When authors adopt the LikeCoin Protocol to publish, their works automatically become part of the ecosystem, preserved by the community, and discoverable, purchasable, and readable by readers. Currently, there are about 189 authors who have published books in the LikeCoin ecosystem.
- When bookstores and influencers adopt the LikeCoin Protocol, they can automatically participate in selling books within the ecosystem. Currently, there are 175 sales channels within the ecosystem.
- Applications developed according to the LikeCoin Protocol can automatically interconnect and share and co-build the same book library. 3ook.com (Liker Land) is currently the only bookstore application in the ecosystem, but anyone can use the underlying data and infrastructure, or even fork 3ook.com’s code to build another storefront.
The emphasis on “automatically” three times above means there is no admission mechanism. Participants don’t need to apply, and no one holds approval authority. It’s like the internet: as long as you open a browser and interact using the TCP/IP standard, you are part of the entire internet—and “IP” stands for Internet Protocol.
After all that talk, when will it be launched?
If the whitepaper is approved by the community and the development budget is approved in July, LikeCoin v3 is expected to launch in late August, with token upgrades becoming available.
Further Reading:
- LikeCoin v3: The DeBook Protocol (v2025.05.14)
- LikeCoin v3 Upgrade Progress Report: Top 10 Highlights
p.s. Whether it’s the intense heat or some other reason, the lychee harvest in our village this year is more abundant than it has been in over a decade. Bright red clusters of fruit hang from branches everywhere. Yesterday, after the villagers harvested and started selling them, one of them offered me a taste as I passed by. It wasn’t particularly sweet, had a large pit and little flesh, and wasn’t sold cheaply. Yet, I happily pulled out my wallet and bought a large bag anyway, enjoying this short-distance farm-to-table food and supporting local farming.
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