Without much fanfare on 18th April 2017 the guys over at Coinbase released a beta version of Token on the ethereum testnet saying;
We believe that everyone in the world should have access to financial services, and with smartphones becoming ubiquitous, digital currency can make that happen.
Let me jump right to the magic;
Token also has a built in reputation system which lets you know who you can trust. Every user and app builds reputation over time as they transact with others on the platform.
Why is this important?
Firstly, the case argued in this announcement together with previous rhetoric centres around the need for "inclusive finance". Armstrong brandishes a picture of Hong Kong (the world's most economically free place) in the 50s and Hong Kong today (wow what a transformation!) and proceeds to extol the wonders of people having access to finance. Its a big gripe of mine, and could provoke a back lash, but if every place does as Hong Kong did we will need five earths to provide the necessary materials. But who cares, now we can all get rich, eh?
It is not the purpose of this article to get into that debate. I will do it in another post where I predict central banks crytocurrency / sovereign blockchain roll out and describe corresponding measures that they could take to bake in "green" to their loans to the private sector, by offering lower interest rates to greener and more sustainable uses, and corresponding higher interest rates to polluting and/or land-degrading uses. Quite what is going to happen if a vast percentage of the economy is using bitcoin, ETH or other currencies with no control over "natural capital", I am still trying to get my head around.
I was in Munich at Blockshow when Humaniq's (which also uses the "2 billion unbanked" message to promote its opportunity) white paper raised tonnes of money, but let me tell you something about smallholder farmers in Africa. In Rwanda, 4 million tonnes of soil runs off the land into the now brown streams. This is due to ever more intensive farming. It breaks the hydropower equipment, and makes the turbidity of the water 100 times more than should be consumed. If you give Rwanda's farmers easier access to finance, many will degrade their land faster. Added to this, they will use fertiliser to increase short term productivity, which will also run off the land into water costing millions to clean before it can be consumed. There are solutions to this such as the Climate Smart Lending Platform that has devised a loan product that rewards sustainable practices as part of the terms of the loan. This is both revolutionary, and necessary.
Blockchain needs to go beyond "necessary" and enter the world of the truly revolutionary. Work out what will really save our planet.
Getting back to Token, I was struck by some comments on the support page where some early adopters asked for an ICO. Interestingly, Armstrong responded;
No plans to do one yet, but it is something we've contemplated. Maybe you all can help us brainstorm actually...what would a Token token be used for in the app? The main use case I can think of is as an attention token - used to feature apps or users (like an ad) and the people viewing those featured apps and users get paid in these attention tokens. Thoughts? Better ideas? Thx
There is an appetite and, more importantly, an opportunity in this early stage to embed some answers to our future survival in the rubric of blockchain. Can someone come up with a token use for Token which could be funded by ICO and deliver sustainable finance, eco-credit or whatever name you want to give it? Given the "magic" that I highlighted at the outset of the blurb, it would appear that Token is aimed at lending in the long term. Why else build reputation in app for users by default? Bitbond is just great isn't it? Here, potentially, you have hundreds of micro lenders from all over the world (many perhaps from emerging economies) investing in British eBay businesses. Oh, how things are being gloriously turned on their head! So, in this instance the "reputation" comes from eBay track record (and others also use things like mpesa wallets or even LinkedIn to get a read on risk), but on Token your reputation grows with every transaction.
Imagine a community in Africa start using Token for inter-community trade. I predict that those with "reputation" will be able to borrow on this platform too, and suddenly the great unbanked are actually banked to the extent that they can borrow as well as transact. But will the money that flows destroy our earth "home" as the next Hong Kongs are built or will the Tokens and Humaniqs work out how to save our planet. Allow me to state the obvious, if they don't what was the point?