by Quentin Mathys | May 15, 2018 | News
Cryptocurrencies have taken over the news in recent years and I’m sure some readers have even looked at a Bitcoin Trader review, looking to see if it’s something they should invest in. But outside of trading, not many people understand the potential applications of Bitcoin and blockchain. This is why today, we’re going to be talking about Swiftdemand. SwiftDemand is a basic income blockchain experiment in which each user who is signed up daily receives a certain number of Swift tokens. The project’s white paper gives a clear understanding of the implementation of this Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) providing Universal Basic Income and how the Swift Protocol works.
The concept of SwiftDemand is to create a transactional currency that provides basic income. Hence, four types of accounts are required to ensure that the ecosystem works:
- Citizens – The registration to become a Swift Citizen is open to anyone and is for free. However, a unique individual should only be allowed to have one account that receives the basic income and is validated by an Identity Provider.
- Entities – There are accounts not tied to individuals and are allowed to exist for business or privacy purposes. However, these do not receive any basic income.
- Delegated Nodes – these are responsible for maintaining full nodes, containing every single transaction that has occurred on the blockchain, and for creating new blocks for the tokens. Delegated nodes are elected by Swift Citizens, and the elections occur every 6 months.
- Identity Providers – These ensure the validation of the Swift Citizens identity, create new citizens by generating a key pair, i.e. a public and a private key allowing to encrypt information that ensures data is protected during a transaction, and include the identity on the blockchain.
As specified by SwiftDemand creators, the goal of the Swift protocol income distribution is to provide a faire method of providing Swifts to all Swift Citizens. Swifts are distributed on a daily basis under the form of a basic income and, today, the grant is set at 100 tokens. However, it is subject to change as the amount of tokens distributed depends on the number of Swift Citizens that exist in the ecosystem.
It can be said that SwiftDemand is on the verge of becoming a cryptocurrency for basic income distribution. It depends on the number of new members registering but with the growing popularity of virtual currency, the chances are highly in favor of SwiftDemand. If you are interested in learning more about top crypto to invest in for higher profit probability, you can go through blogs and websites discussing the same.
It is also important to note that the basic income has to be claimed by the Swift Citizens with a maximum of seven unclaimed days of Swifts. For example, it means that if a Swift Citizen claims its basic incomes every four days, he will be granted 400 tokens every four days. Another way to earn Swifts is through referrals program. When any Citizen successfully introduces a new user to SwiftDemand, his/her account is granted with 500 tokens.
This attempt at implementing a universal basic income has the potential to make basic income more visible. Despite a complex protocol, the platform is free and easy to use. Even though the Swift currency does not have any value outside the Swift ecosystem, citizens have the opportunity to sell goods and services, transfer their tokens or make purchases, creating a parallel economy ruled by basic income values.
More information at:
Swift Protocol White Paper (Draft)
One Pager – SwiftDemand
“Swift Demand: Swifts Token Attempt At Basic Income Project?“, Bitcoin Exchange Guide
Article reviewed by André Coelho.
by Quentin Mathys | May 10, 2018 | News, Research
District of columbia Lincoln memorial Washington monument. Credit to: History Channel.
The district of Columbia has released on the 27th February 2018 a policy analysis that examines different approaches and strategies for providing a locally-funded guaranteed minimum income or universal basic income for its residents.
The study, named “Economic and policy impact statement: Approaches and strategies for providing a Minimum Income in the district of Columbia”, starts by evaluating the cost of living in absence of public social safety net assistance for three types of low-income households, 1) single adults without children, 2) single adults with one child, and 3) single adults with two children. The results show that a single adult without children would approximatively need an annual income of US$ 36 988 to meet their basic needs. For a single parent with one child, the annual income need is roughly US$ 66 113, while a single parent with two children would need about US$ 96 885 a year.
The paper then discusses the existing monetary and in-kind entitlements benefits, supports, and maintenance provided by the federal and District governments to low and moderate-income residents. According to the authors, the existing social safety net is strong enough to allow households who have full access to the public benefit programs to meet their basic needs. However, as Ryan Harrison underlines in his article about the report, households most in need for assistance do not qualify for the cash grants available, due to the work requirements of these means-tested policies.
In the next section of the study, the economic feasibility of implementing a basic income in the District is discussed. The authors explore three amounts for basic income where the first one is set at 100% of the Federal Poverty Line (FPL), the second one at 300% and the third one at 450% of the FPL. The associated gross cost of the three policies is estimated at 7, 21.5, and 32.2 billion US$ per year, respectively. According to the authors, the implementations of a basic income set at 450% of the FPL is the only approach that would allow all the households to meet their basic needs. This is debatable, since being above the FPL would, in principle, mean that basic needs were covered. However, the authors fear that such amount would lead to many households deciding to drop out of the workforce and making this implementation expensive and inefficient. This is also questionable, considering existing results from performed basic income pilots. Based on these issues, the report does not simulate the impact of providing a universal basic income in the Columbia district.
Furthermore, the authors only discuss the gross cost of implementing a basic income. Mentioning the net cost would have been relevant, as cost reductions can be expected in existing social assistance programs, and a restructuring of income taxes and /or other forms of taxes to finance the reform. The report, nevertheless, introduces an important discussion about the feasibility of a basic income implementation of in the district of Columbia.
More information at:
Susana Groves and John MacNeil, “Economic and policy impact statement: Approaches and strategies for providing a Minimum Income in the district of Columbia”, Office of the Budget Director of the Council of the District of Columbia, January 27th 2018
Ryan Harrison, “District of Columbia releases policy analysis for basic income”, Medium, April 8th 2018
“Council Budget Office releases Economic and Policy Impact Statement: Approaches and Strategies for Providing a Minimum Income in the District of Columbia”, David Grosso DC Council at-large, February 28th 2018
