HBD for daily payments
Hive started as a "blockchain-powered social media platform". Several decentralized applications allow blogging, micro-blogging and vlogging, and earning rewards in crypto.
But its remarkable design and versatility has since been leveraged for several other use cases, especially gaming with Splinterlands, Terracore, Exode and other "play-to-earn" games.
More recently, with the attention that stablecoins have started garnering in the cryptoverse at large, Hive advanced crypto-economics system shone again in a HBD-fueled payments project called "Distriator"
Blockchain-powered, peer-to-peer payments were at the very heart of Bitcoin, the intellectual ancestor of the whole cryptoverse. I have written several pieces underscoring the reason why Bitcoin's design lacks certain important features to fulfill Satoshi's vision of a "peer to peer electronic cash system". On the other hand, the humble "Hive-Backed Dollar" displays many of these attributes and functionalities:
- A stable value with respect to a typical "shopping basket"
- The possibility to spend it in a few seconds and without any transaction fees (like cash)
- A safekeeping method that is user-friendly, with human-readable labels rather than complex blockchain addresses to recall and recognize
- The possibility to earn it through labour and no capital (by blogging)
The power of open brands
With OffChain Luxembourg we took up the mission of introducing crypto payments in people's daily lives in order to show the largest number that crypto is much more than a new, highly speculative asset class, and that it has the power to upend the financial and payment infrastructure and change it for the better, by adding:
- More resilience
- More competition (thus indirectly inciting incumbents to innovate and offer better service)
But let's take a step back and ask "what is OffChain Luxembourg"?
Fundamentally, OffChain is an "open brand". When I was looking to organise open events around blockchain and crypto topics in Luxembourg, I found kind support from the "OffChain Global" core group who provided the name, the logo and other graphic assets, help and advice with graphics and announcing the event for free, without expecting anything in return. With three other enthusiastic people, we found ourselves blessed with the ability to use for free the "OffChain" name, a brand enjoying global recognition. We became the "Luxembourg chapter".
It is now our turn to "give back" something to the global communities - both:
- the Hive community which offers to us all a full payment stack complete with a free PoS, several free wallets, and a feeless stablecoin, ready to be deployed
- the OffChain community which brings together open-minded people from all around the world, ready to pioneer financial freedom and innovation.
Innopay - an open brand
OffChain Luxembourg a.s.b.l is thus offering to all those interested the "Innopay" brand.
What does "the package" include:
1. A name, a set of logos and graphic assets.
2. Free advice and assistance on how to implement the underlying payment stack in small shops anywhere in the world. The payment stack is already available for free in the Hive eco-system and includes:
a. the free "point of sales" terminal for merchants, implemented as a web app at v4v.app
b. the "step-by-step" explanation for merchants and showp owners unfamiliar with crypto
c. the free individual wallet for the prospective customers
d. an explanation as to why customers might want to try the crypto payment method, and that even before pointing out the cashback incentive
3. Free full-stack JS code which has been successfully piloted during our "1st Anniversary" event at The Independent Cafe in Luxembourg and that is distributed under GPL licensing terms (basically, you modify it as you wish and use it as you wish as long as you keep it open source)
A new era in payments and finance
As long as crypto remains a mere "asset class" in the hands of investors and savers, the original promise of Bitcoin, that of an alternative financial world where the power is not in the same hands as those that were responsible for the Great Financial Crisis, remains unfulfilled.
For Satoshi's vision to take shape, crypto needs to offer regular people a way to rebalance the power relationship between regular civil society and the powerful political and financial elites (which heavily overlap, nowhere more so than in the US). The way for regular people to be autonomous from the current banking and financial elites is to have an alternative for earning "monies" and then using those monies, spending to pay rent and put bread on the table.
Innopay is our small contribution, our little gift to the world, toward that goal. We are basing it on the free, collaborative model of both the OffChain Global and the Hive blockchain communities: "we are all in it together, the win of one of us is a win for all of us."
Take it, think of an economical model, reach back to us for advice, to ask questions or simply to discuss alternatives. Let's spread it all over the world to give people a bit of leverage over the powerful traditional financial elites.