Our motivation for SoV0 is to achieve the platonic ideal of a pure coordinated store-of-value asset. As in, take the value prop underlying gold, and push it to its logical conclusion:
- Value is fundamentally a coordination game, and gold is valuable because it's a natural coordination point, owing to: [1] limited supply growth (i.e. scarce) [2] persistent (i.e. doesn't decay much), and [3] compellingly due to... being shiny.
- Similarly, SoV0 aims to be an even more natural coordination point by satisfying all of these properties to the maximum extent possible: [1] fixed supply [2] zero fees (basically fees = decay), and [3] compelling elegance of being the simplest possible thing that can satisfy fixed supply & zero fees.
In terms of design, SoV0 is about as basic as a blockchain can be: just a text document detailing who owns how much of the asset, plus some basic support for sending & receiving assets. The main challenge here (and SoV0's core novelty) is how to enforce proper operation of such a system without monetary incentives. This requires that SoV0 be intentionally limited in functionality (e.g. slow, no smart contract support, too coarse to be a currency). As a result, there's no need for fees to regulate the system, and consensus can be directly maintained by users rather than explicitly paid for (as in rewards in proof of work / stake). More details in the whitepaper: https://github.com/sov0/sov0.
More broadly: Our interest in the blockchain space is strongly motivated by an aesthetic preference for building 'ideal' institutions that can eventually exist in a fixed form forever, and thus feel more like fundamental aspects of the world than typical human constructs (so, more like Bitcoin, less like the Ethereum or other modern general-purpose L1 blockchains). SoV0 is our first attempt at applying this approach to the simplest possible case: a pure store coordinated value store.
I'll do my best to answer any questions here. Thanks!