What's going on Leo's?
As our weekend comes to a close, I thought I would share another Universal Basic Income cryptocurrency project I've learned about and gotten involved with. Circles is another project that is going to be built on the xDai network, which I shared about in my last post. So, hopefully you have gotten your metamask set up with access to the xDai ethereum sidechain. If not, no worries. Just make sure you get that set up sooner than later because xDai is becoming more and more popular. Currently, Circles is running on the Ethereum Kovan testnet so you won't need it for this project yet. Make sure you check out my last post about claiming basic income wth Honey token on the xDai chain here.
So what is Circles?
Circles is based on individualized cryptocurrencies and a social graph of trust between these currencies. This money will be for the purpose of creating a globally accessible Universal Basic Income. Basically, each time a new user is trusted, or verified, on the network a new personal cryptocurrency is created. This currency is regularly minted and added to their account daily. The idea is, that when a user is trusted that their currency is equal to another trusted user's currency and as more real people joine the ecosystem, these individual currencies become a global monetary system. That's about as simple as I can explain it. Here's a link to the whitepaper so you can check it out for yourself.
Ok, cool... How do I get set up?
Head over to the website to get started here. Once you're done exploring the site you can click "Get Circles" on the main page, or access the network directly here. Click sign up to get started and you'll be presented with some snippets of info on the idea of the system.
The first step is to choose a username. Make sure you are happy with your choice because this will be your identity on the network and cannot be changed. Once you create a username you will be give you 24 word mnemonic seed phrase. I always recommend writing this down and storing it on paper. It will have you confirm a specific word from the phrase to verify that you have copied it down, and then you're good to go.
You will be presented with a screen similar to this letting you know that your account needs to be verified by 3 trusted people. It will give you the option to share a QR code or a unique link to your profile. Once you have been trusted by 3 people on the network, you will get to complete account creation and be able to trust users.
Once verified, your account will automatically start generating your Circles UBI.
I don't know anyone who is trusted. How can I get trusted?
Well, I learned a trick that will get you verified quickly. If you share your profile with me in the comments, I'd be happy to trust you but you will still need 2 more people to do so in order to participate.
The alternative is to fund your account with a little xDai. When you create your account, it will generate an Ethereum address beginning with 0x... You can copy that and send some xDai to that account and will be instantly verified. I don't know the minimum account. I sent 0.1 xDai, or 10 cents and was verified. You can get some xDai for free here.
What else?
That's it honestly. It is a very new project that just launched. I recommend getting set up sooner than later and start generating some UBI before much more adoption comes. There will be marketplaces popping up left and right on official launch. Similar to GoodDollar, the tokens don't technically have value yet. We are creating a brand new economy.
Thanks for reading. I hope this simplifies things.
Drop your Circles profile link below and I will add a trust to your account!
Peace.