Universal Basic Income on the Blockchain

FM: So what is it about the blockchain that makes it the perfect vehicle for UBI?

ED: Well, the great blockchain experiment started with Bitcoin back in 2008, and if there was anything we learned from it, it’s that it is transparent and virtually incorruptible and unhackable. Being decentralized by design, it has no single point of failure and cannot be controlled by any single entity.

So if you go back to my objections about governments implementing UBI -- policy changes, the possibility of corruption or cheating or manipulating the system -- then you will understand how putting UBI on the blockchain is a perfect fit.

FM: Why did you choose to clone EOS?

ED: What I really like about EOS is that, unlike Bitcoin or Ethereum, there are no transaction fees for using the blockchain. I mean, it wouldn’t do to build a token on a blockchain network where you would have to spend to receive an income. And at the start, the UBI token won’t probably be worth very much so you might even end up spending more in transaction fees than what you would actually be getting.

And of course, EOS’s delegated proof of stake (DPOS) consensus algorithm makes it very fast and scalable, which we would really need if a huge amount of people want to claim their tokens. And since it’s practically free, why wouldn’t anyone claim the tokens anyway? We already witnessed how Bitcoin went from being worth less than a cent to now being worth thousands of dollars. Even if UBI doesn’t go up to those levels, it’s still going to be worth something, and who would turn his back on free money?

FM: Why not just use EOS and build UBI on top of it? Why clone it?

ED: With a market cap already in billions of dollars even before officially launching its own blockchain, EOS has become quite expensive. If the UBI project becomes very large, we would need a large amount of EOS tokens to run the project, which would cost us maybe millions of dollars, something we don’t have at the moment.

And also, we don’t own EOS so we can’t really control the infrastructure on which UBI will be built.

But by cloning EOS, since the code is open-source and free, we create our own blockchain and the infrastructure, which is Enumivo, on which UBI will be built. And I want to continue creating and developing other projects on top of Enumivo, and I want the community to pitch in also and share their ideas and talents, so that we create real value for the blockchain.

FM: So it’s really about creating value from the ground up?

ED: Yes. Even in the token distribution, I decided to give the tokens away virtually for free, instead of having an ICO. Why? Because an ICO creates value only artificially. People will be investing on ideas on paper but which may not see actual implementation. And once the developers cash in on their tokens, they may not be as motivated anymore to make the project work.

But here it’s different. I have a core team of volunteers whom I decided to pay in ENU tokens for their contributions and efforts. These tokens aren’t worth very much right now but that motivates us to make this project work because there’s a reward we can look forward to later in the journey, instead of the ICO mentality of getting the money up front.

In the initial distribution, I estimate that around 100,000 people were able to receive ENU tokens for free, and we are still giving away tokens via bounties and other programs. What I want is for ENU tokens to really be scattered as widely as possible, and somewhere along the way, we will have people come and work with us, who believe in the vision, who will help concretize ideas, educate others, and even build applications on top of the blockchain, so that more and more people will use it and find it that it helps them in one way or the other.

This is how we create real value.