The Noise
Social media rewards outrage, not accuracy.
False news spreads six times faster than true news on social platforms. Algorithms optimise for engagement — and nothing engages like a shocking lie. Authentic journalism loses every time.
The Gap
Centralised platforms own the truth layer.
Facebook, Twitter/X, and Google control what is seen, what is suppressed, and who is monetised. Independent journalists and citizen reporters have no seat at the table — and no revenue share.
The Cost
Democracy erodes when truth is optional.
From elections swayed by disinformation to press freedom declining in 73 countries, the downstream cost of an unaccountable information ecosystem is measured in democratic backsliding.
62%
of adults encounter fake news at least once a day
6×
faster — how quickly false news spreads vs. true news on social media
$78B
lost annually by media industry to ad-revenue centralisation
90%
of journalists report external interference in their editorial independence
How it works
Four steps.
One truth chain.
Submit
Any user — citizen journalist, OSINT researcher, or professional — submits a news article with sources. Each submission is hashed and anchored to the blockchain, creating an immutable record that cannot be altered or deleted.
Validate
A distributed network of expert validators, journalists, and trained community members reviews the submission. Each validation vote is recorded on-chain. When threshold consensus is reached, the article is marked verified or disputed — transparently, with a full audit trail.
Earn
Smart contracts automatically distribute Real-News-Coin (RNC) tokens to every contributor: submitters, validators, fact-checkers, and developers. Rewards scale with contribution quality — not with who shouts loudest.
Publish
Verified articles enter the community feed, each carrying a transparent provenance chain — who submitted, who validated, what sources were checked. Readers see the full truth trail, not just a headline.
Token economy
Everyone who builds
the truth gets paid.
Content Providers
Submit news articles with credible sources. Every valid submission is rewarded — incentivising quality over clickbait.
Journalists & Experts
Rate and validate article authenticity. High-rated expert contributors earn bonus RNC for maintaining the platform's editorial standard.
Validators
Fact-check sources and verify claims. The backbone of the trust layer — rewarded for every confirmed verification.
OSINT Researchers
Open-source intelligence analysts surface hard-to-verify stories from press-freedom-limited regions. Rewarded for bridging the information gap.
Developers
Contribute to platform development, smart contract upgrades, and tooling. Earn tokens for code that keeps the ecosystem running.
Community
RNC holders vote on platform rules, content policies, and validator requirements. No single corporation controls the truth.
Real-News-Coin
The currency
of verified truth.
RNC is an ERC-20 token built on the Ethereum network. Smart contracts handle every reward distribution automatically — no platform taking a disproportionate cut, no editorial board deciding whose work has value. The protocol decides, transparently.
Research voices
Heard in the field.
“The decentralized approach means no single actor can suppress a story. That's the foundation journalism always needed.”
— Expert interview, VERITI research · Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences / VPRO 2024
“Users need a way to be rewarded for doing the right thing — right now, all the incentives point toward engagement, not truth.”
— Participant, Real News Community whitepaper research · 2021
“Blockchain doesn't solve fake news. But it makes the provenance of every story undeniable. That changes everything.”
— Academic reference, decentralised governance research
Grounded in two years of original research
Real News Community builds on original whitepaper research (HU University of Applied Sciences Utrecht · 2021) and the VERITI project (Digital Society School · VPRO · 2024) — a validated field study into decentralised journalism co-creation with citizen journalists, OSINT researchers, and professional media.