Today I have been inspired by the low number of votes for coinpayments.net ( CoinPayments.net NuBits Vote - last day )and a video I watched about how grassroots Bitcoin adoption works at a merchant level on the Dutch Bitcoin cities and Spanish ones in Madrid and Barcelona. http://coincourant.nl/de-week-van-bitcoin-alle-grote-bitcoin-straten-delen-hun-verhaal/ The page is in Dutch, but the video is in English and about Bitcoins. My takeaway from it is that you probably start from grass roots to explain concepts and work on recognition of the NuBits name and ensure there is something for the merchant in it, e.g. in the form of new customers.
Therefore it looks like you need to control the chain from training, marketing and exchanging cryptos to fiat for the merchants to ensure they are supported all the way and to make it as easy as possible. In Arnhem (small Dutch city) they built their own payment provider (bitkassa http://www.coinsetter.com/bitcoin-news/2014/12/01/bitkassa-netherlands-competes-american-heavyweights-1939) to be able to support the local needs.
Now we have an Android client and soon a second one, NuBits can be accepted at point-of-sale, however we still need merchants to do so. The questions is how to go with that.
I think that payments providers are transitional but required at this stage of adoption. It provides merchants with some securities, support and services we can’t deliver yet without a solid business model. Most will need that to start accepting cryptos in general. The video showed that a lot relies on volunteers and very local initiatives regarding marketing and training. Should NuBits liaise with local payment providers or stay with the big boys?
Can we think of a business model where people support merchants in these initial stages in a way that suits the local situation and level of support they likely need? This may differ from region to region and from country to country so I’m open to different ideas.
Vouchers etc. could generate interest in communities. By having merchants selling vouchers (for profit), they get exposed to NuBits and they might also willing to accept them as payments. Should we invest in such schemes?
Agree, eventually we will do something with the other 253 different currencies… With strong coins (Euro, Yuan, Yen etc.) it would help, but in countries with relatively weak coins (read: weak government governance) it would not and a US$ would be seen as a better option.
Euro should have priority. The Euro zone has countries more friendly to cryptos than the US. Pegging to the yuan will draw the wrath of the CN government. The yuan is mostly pegged to the USD anyway.
Here in Italy there is a startup, active mainly in the island of Sardinia, called Sardex. They provide credit to local businesses with a virtual currency called Sardex = 1 euro. It is not peer-to-peer but it works with the local community.
The main idea is that local businesses can trade between them using Sardex as a barter system. I buy cheese from your factory and sell it in my supermarket, I get -300 and you +300 in our accounts. You could buy milk from a farmer with your Sardex and the farmer could shop in my supermarket. This creates a local cycle and the business owners can discover each other via a newsletter that Sardex communicates.
In the end of the year, if my account is negative I have to pay Sardex the difference in euro. To enter the circuit they charge a fee and the amount of credit you get, depends on your company’s revenue. Some business owners were talking about paying part of their employees salaries in Sardex if they desired.
The main selling point of Sardex is that they provide liquidity, 0% credit (you pay back what you borrowed, not more) and local product discovery that usually means higher quality and/or cheaper price.
In the case of Nu bits this could be implemented by granting custodian local companies that will adopt a similar business model with Sardex.
They would function as local exchanges, credit providers, and do the needed marketing to increase adoption.
This scenario is not without issues though. What happens when a creditor bankrupts? What are the legal liabilities of the custodian local company towards the Nu network (or the shareholders)? What about the legal framework (AML/KYC)?
Very interesting. I know other European cities issues their own local currencies. It seems that Nubits or any internet currency doesn’t have an intrinsic advantage over traditional alternative local currencies, because local currecies has their advantage being local and personal.
But if you use a cryptocurrency to back up several
currencies locally used in different cities that have close commercial links, allowing the local currency in one city to be used in another city, then it might be possible to get the best of both worlds. By backing up I mean the local currency provider issues notes (such as sardex). Every note has a public address printed on it, which can be verifed to have N unit of the cryotocoin belonging to the wallet of the issuing company, N being the face value of the note. Besides how sardex was used, anyone with the notes can cash out the backing cryptocurrency to his personal wallet at the issuing company window/ATM. Now if this cryptocurrency is pegged to 1 Euro, the note holder can cash out Euro.
Interesting Sardex, almost forgot about those bartering schemes. The legal implications vary strongly from country to country and mostly it is not clear at all. It seems that selling crypto coins is mostly allowed, but when you buy them back you are seen as an exchange with all the legal implications which come with that.
This sounds interesting, but still unsure about legal framework what will apply. I don’t see what the difference would be from trading and using e.g. Sardex versus trading and using NuBits. I’m afraid that the only way to figure out is actually trying unfortunately. Not a great option.
The scheme quote helps to lessen the legal uncertainty. It makes sure the issuer really has the crypto reserve for every issued notes, hence reducing risks of the user and eleminate possibility of a bank run. If the backing up crypto is exchanged widely such as BTC or PPC, and the face value of the note is denominated in the crypto, it’s just selling/buying crypto coins in paper forms.
If the issuing company backs up a note of 1 euro face value with, say 10 euro worth of BTC, and sells and buys the 1 euro note for 1 euro, then there could be problems with the authority.
1) Reserve ratio metric showing that we have more than enough USD$ on the buy side to cover all the Nubits they may sell and the risks of not being a centralized or legalized service, 120-150%
Now we don’t have this reserve ratio so i think advertising Nubits for merchant right now may be harmful or at least a waste of time.
2) Wide adoption rate so they are motivated enough to bother accepting Nubits.
So i think concentrating on the User right now is the best option, marketing Nubits Advantages and motivating Shapeshift.io to Accept Nubits soon or creating our own service.
I think the moment Shapeshift.io accepts Nubits and documenting the first buying process on Amazon or any other online merchant site, we will have a lot of marketing to do, but not much until then.
I’d like to, as far as i know other Share holders have done it and they said they are considering the idea and expecting to adapt Nubits “later this year”, but extra promoting won’t harm i think!
