A Simple Guide to Cent, a Decentralized Social Network

Cent derives its name from the fact that it runs on these two core principles — in(cent)ivization and de(cent)ralization.

Imagine a mash of Twitter, Medium, Quora, Craigslist and Steemit, taking it's best features and putting it all together in one platform. Long-form content, crowd-sourced questions and answers, bounties for tasks and incentives for creating your content.

You can think of Cent as new kind of Social Network, a censorship-resistant network that runs on Ethereum, utilizing innovative state channels, and incentivizes thoughtfulness and creativity that anyone can join.

It's currently in Beta right now, but there’s been tremendous support for it by the community and it’s easy to see why. The interface is sleek and well designed, and the incentives are very well designed. See for yourself at https://beta.cent.co

How do I use it?

True to their vision of allowing users to Earn from anywhere, Cent can be accessed on any browser and on any device as long as you have an internet connection. You'll just need to sign up for an account with your Email, and an Ethereum Wallet for your rewards.

Mobile
There are a wide variety of mobile apps that will provide with both an ETH wallet as well as a Web 3.0 enabled wallets such as the Coinbase Wallet, Opera, Trust Wallet or Status.

This combination will allow you to seamlessly send and receive ETH as well as sign unique messages on DApps such as Cent - all within one app. Plus you can surf ordinary websites too.

Desktop
Simply install Metamask on your web browser, either Chrome, Firefox or Opera. This enables you to connect your Ether wallet to your web browser. Learn how to use Metamask here. After you set up your Metamask account, head to the Cent’s website to sign up!

Creating an Account

Clicking an account is pretty simple and can be done in just 3 steps.

1. Click on the button on the top right and there will be a “Welcome to Cent” pop up,

2. Fill in the details and select "Join".

3. Go to your email and verify the account and you’re ready to start!

Since it's still early days, if you're fast enough you can get the Username you always wanted but was always taken!

How do I set up my Cent Wallet?

To set up your brand new Cent Wallet you have to access Cent using a Web3 supported browser, check the previous steps mentioned above on how to get one.

Now that you have access to Web3 [Note: make sure to login to MetaMask first if you are using it] go to the Cent Menu and click Account > Wallet > Setup. You will be asked to sign a message.

This is simply to confirm that you own the address you are signing with and it is free.

Now your Cent Wallet is configured. So as long as you have already deposited ETH into your Cent Wallet, whenever you want to make a tip, post a bounty or withdraw your earned ETH you will simply be asked to sign a message using the authorized address that you entered in the previous step.

How do I add ETH to Cent Wallet?

To add ETH, go to the Cent Menu and click Account > Balance > Deposit then enter the amount of ETH you would like to deposit.

That's it for the initial set up! In the next part, we'll be going through Posting your first post on Cent.

You can read more from Cent’s Blog post on Wallet Set up here: https://medium.com/cent-official/cent-wallet-setup-aa18490481aa

Writing your first Post

Click on the ‘+’ symbol in the top-right corner of the site and you'll be redirected to this new post page. Here you can write about anything, that’s right anything. Just write down whatever you're thinking of, fill in the Title, body and the proper channel and the Cent users or Centians will be more than happy to help you out if you are looking for a conversation, a specific answer, action or something else and respond accordingly.

Once you've written your post you can choose to add a bounty to it.
 

What are Bounties?

Simply put, bounties are a way for you to incentivise thoughtful responses and increase viewability. So if you need anything - from crowdsourcing active responses for surveys, or figuring out what book you should read next, to getting your thesis or paper edited - or if you just want to say something, simply set a bounty and post it.

The minimum bounty you can set is 0.001 ETH or ~$0.15

Adapted from: https://intercom.help/cent/faq-s/using-cent-bountying/what-is-a-bounty

If you don't want to add a Bounty to it, just add a channel to it (The category you feel is most in line with your topic), click Publish and you're all done!

Writing my First Post on Cent

I made a short post on “Crypto Reads” that I collected over the past year. You can check that out here: https://beta.cent.co/+nv12wf

I also added a small bounty for 10 Recipients, now whoever comments on this post, they will earn a small amount of ETH if other Centians sort their responses to the Top. More on that later.

Now, posting a bounty does require some ETH in your Cent wallet, but rather than sitting and waiting around for network confirmations like you always have to when sending ETH, all you need to do in Cent is sign a message with your authorized address. That’s right! It’s super simple thanks to Cent Wallet’s innovative State Channels approach. You can read more on that here.

Just click “Sign” and voila! Your post is good to go.

Closing

Thanks for reading! This post represents just the first in a series of Cent posts, in future articles, I'll explore some tips and tricks of Cent and how it all works together.

Let me know your thoughts in the comments or in the Cent Post!  

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This post also represents the first of a series of posts I’ll be making exploring DApps as I use them, hope you enjoyed it! If there's a DApp you'd like me to check out, send me an email over at daryllau@coingecko.com or reach out to me on Twitter @Daryllautk.