Project Spotlight: Cherish — The Creators Network (2024)

Cherish is a decentralized social network entirely based on the Cherry Network. Founded in August 2021, it’s been incubated by Cherry Labs ever since. This week they plan to go public, selling their token through an IDO hosted by Seedling.cm.

Roadmap

We consider Cherish as a flagship project for the Cherry Network. Cherish uses most of the features available through the Cherry Network, especially the ones unique to Cherry: artists on Cherish can upload files directly to the Cherry Storage file system and administer who can view them. Thanks to this granular access hierarchy, Cherish artists can accept subscriptions or tips to unlock access to individual or groups of media they’ve shared to their feed.

To top things off, the entire business logic is based on the Cherry Virtual Machine and powered by the Cherish Coin that is deployed on the Cherry Network.

Among the most exciting elements of their roadmap is a way for artists to accept commissions such as “paint me a portrait of my dog” and manage their own eCommerce shop, all based on the same decentralized Cherry Network system. Artists and their fans will be able to interact creatively and commercially in a mutually beneficial exchange of art and money with no threat of censorship. Cherry Labs is very impressed with the Cherish team’s progress so far, and we are confident these features will be developed and deployed within six months in accordance with the team’s public roadmap.

Cherish also is planning a very ambitious addition to their core social network proposition: an NFT marketplace. While this is a bit further down the line, we agree with the Cherish team that this is a natural and valuable addition to the Cherish platform. Artists already using Cherish as their social media to post content for their fans to consume would seamlessly also become able to release NFTs of their new creations and market them in a dedicated venue tied with a secondary marketplace.

Technology

Cherish uses Cherry Network for all of its logic and storage requirements. Its code is implemented in the ink! programming language, a framework that compiles Rust into WebAssembly that can be run natively in the Cherry Virtual Machine. The Cherry Labs support network has been really hands-on, helping the Cherish engineers write and perfect these valuable pieces of code; we are proud of the quality achieved.

The access hierarchy is based on the Cherry Storage system common to all Cherry Networks nodes, infusing IPFS with new features. For example, users of the Cherish social media platform can create and publish content and delete it — as they would if the files were hosted on Filecoin or a similar naive IPFS network. However, Cherry Storage allows artists also to update files which is invaluable when, for example, they make a typo in a blog or wish to update the splash logo of their video series.

Since everything is based on the blockchain, all activities on Cherish are also decentralized with a sturdy global redundancy mechanism that ensures files are never lost. Cherish is also fully censorship-resistant, which means that nobody but the artists can make changes to their feed. Once files are published, everyone who has access to them is able to read them. For this reason, the Cherish team has begun accepting applications to become an artist on Cherish. It will only accept new artists who undergo a stringent verification process to preempt any illegal activity on the Cherish platform. This verification standard will be relaxed as Cherish grows to allow for a diversity of opinion and a truly open platform in the spirit of web3.

Team

Cherish has 4 full-time core members led by the Project Lead Marvin, flanked by Armoniel, Cherish’s Lead Developer, who manages two experienced web3 developers. Cherry Labs also supports the Cherish team in the business, marketing, and development areas.

Marvin aka Marv — Project Lead @ Cherish

He is an experienced entrepreneur and marketer in the entertainment, cannabis, music, and crypto sectors. Other than this, he is a capable life and business coach helping businesses reach their potential. His out-of-the-box thinking and analytical skills serve as a means to propel projects forward.

Marv first joined the crypto landscape in 2016. In 2021 he took a deep dive into the world of low-cap coins and realized the potential for startup projects in the scene. He founded and consulted for projects of various sizes, many of which are now successfully deployed and operational.

One of these tokens was Cumrocket, which Marvin founded, worked on from its earliest stages, and propelled it to become a mega-viral coin. Cumrocket peaked at an astounding $369,719,927 fully diluted market capitalization in mid-2021, and it’s since settled at more than $71,000,000 fully diluted valuation. With a similar business model, but a much improved technical team, Marvin seeks to apply what he’s learned with his Cumrocket experience to elevate artists’ ability to express themselves creatively through Cherish.

While working full-time in the world of crypto, he learned the ins and outs of starting and developing projects and captivating large audiences and communities. He brings clarity, structure, management experience, and a drive for social engagement to the team. Marvin holds a degree in International Business Management and International Business from Artevelde Hogeschool and Erasmus University Rotterdam.

Armoniel — Development Lead @ Cherish

Armoniel is a skilled web3 developer. After completing his graduate studies in computer engineering from the ETH Institute of Zurich, Armoniel spent time working for fortune 500 corporations in southern Germany. He found crypto in 2017, and he’s been captivated by it ever since.

Having decided to make blockchain his full time job, Armoniel quit his day job and freelanced for a variety of web3 projects, now successfully running on the Ethereum and Polygon chains. Armoniel was directly involved in the development of a major DeFi protocol used by thousands of users a day.
He discovered Cherry in the summer of 2021, and, interested in learning how this exciting new platform work, he decided to deploy his own smart contracts and play with the codebase. Armoniel was instrumental in testing the Cherry Chain in its early stages. He is still involved as a community developer in the quality assurance processes to make Cherry Chain production-ready for all.

From his initial explorations, his work lead him to build what is now known as Cherish, a set of advanced ink! smart contracts that leverage the Cherry Storage capabilities in the context of a social media platform. Armoniel is passionate about art and the ability to express one’s creativity free from censorship. He intends to build Cherish out with the objective to provide a safe haven for artists and their fans to congregate and share a free flow of creativity freely and unrestricted.

Eoghan — Project Manager @ Cherish, Principal @ Cherry Labs

Prior to joining Cherry Labs, Eoghan worked as marketing lead for Cherry during its early stages. At Cherry Labs, Eoghan identifies investment opportunities for the incubator, conducts due diligence of target companies, helps to manage portfolio companies, and ensures that the Cherry Labs organization is operating effectively. He also takes a coordinating role across the Cherry ecosystem, ensuring that the different entities fit together where necessary. His responsibilities as Head of Growth at Cherry complement his mission in Cherry Labs.

Eoghan’s work experience has included a broad range of positions in the business. He worked as a management consultant for several years, focused on fintech transformation of global organizations. Eoghan was an early adopter of cryptocurrency since 2010, always being involved in the industry to some extent. In his time as an independent consultant, he advised blockchain startups on how to raise funding and manage projects. He has also written for most of the major crypto media outlets.

He holds degrees in Management, Informatics, and social sciences from Trinity College Dublin, Erasmus University Rotterdam, and Sciences Po Bordeaux. Eoghan is passionate about decentralization, startups, and the future of economics, and the Cherry ecosystem is the ideal setting to explore these goals.

At Cherry Labs, we understand the impact that the web3 is already having on digital society. We firmly believe it will permanently change how we interact virtually on a global scale.

Cherish looks to shake up the social media model by ensuring that the creators and users are the main beneficiaries of the wealth generated by the content they generate. Unlike major social media platforms, many of which either take a significant cut of revenue generated by user content or don’t reward creators at all, Cherish has pledged to reward users for their content and engagements fairly.

Cherish integrates many valuable features that complement their social media product such as ecommerce, commissions, and a NFT marketplace. We believe this is a winning combination that will allow a seamless experience for artists and fans alike.

It’s not enough to have an incredible offering — there needs to be an impressive team working to deliver it to users and lead development to success. This is part of the reason why we invested in Cherish: their experienced team is comprised of media professionals, software engineers, and blockchain experts, assisted by a superstar range of advisory partners (including our very own Eoghan Gannon) — Cherish has the right people in place to lead its growth.

With more than 50 million content creators and billions of social media users worldwide, Cherish benefits from a staggering addressable market and tackles crucial pain points for many of these users — the fragmentation of social media and a lack of incentives. It leverages the latest blockchain innovations, including Cherry Storage, Cherry Originals (NFTs), ink!, and the Cherry Virtual Machine to deliver Cherish — The Creators Network, the ultimate web3 decentralized social media platform.

🌐 Website: https://cherish.cx

👥 Telegram Group Chat: https://t.me/cherish_cx

📣 Announcement Channel: https://t.me/cherishnews

🐦 Twitter: https://twitter.com/CherishDApp

And make sure to check out the alpha version of their dApp: https://cherish.cx

Cherry labs is an incubator that specializes in blockchain products and applications. We are currently open for applications from all teams and developers building on the Cherry Network. Learn more here:

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