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There are many reasons that the world is beginning to look toward the viability of universal basic income (UBI). Some studies on the practice of distributing income to those who are in need have proven that UBI can have a positive impact on impoverished communities.

During 2011, a pilot test ran by UNICEF distributed basic income grants to residents of Madhya Pradesh in the form of monthly rupee payments.

Economist and professor at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Guy Standing asserts in his paper, “India's Experiment in Basic Income Grants,” that contrary to opponents of UBI, recipients were engaged in more agrarian and business related self-employment practices rather than participating in casual wage labor.

Standing points out, "Money is a scarce and monopolized commodity, giving moneylenders and officials enormous power.

" With a modicum of financial redistribution, many were able to pull themselves out of bonded labor and the region ultimately saw a decline in distress-driven emigration.In the same vein, a paper titled “Activation of Minimum Income and Basic Income:

History of a Comparison of Two Ideas” by sociology researcher Gianluca Busilacchi posits, "Basic income creates more occupation and frees part of a person's time, creating flexibility in the labour market.

"Other independent research found that the US economy might see as much as $2.5 trillion in growth if a UBI were to be integrated. To that end, several cities outside of India are or will be testing their own UBI pilot programs, such as in the cases of Oakland, California; Utrecht, Netherlands; Ontario, Canada; and in the countries of Scotland, Brazil, and Finland.

So, the question arises, if it’s being tested around the world, and these trials are suggesting UBI can be overall beneficial, is there a delivery system that could better distribute this income to recipients?

One might look to existing governmental institutions to leverage the bureaucratic fiscal management of a resource destined for the destitute, and why not?

Aid is already distributed in the form of social security income (SSI) payments, welfare checks, EBT cards (formerly food stamps), and by various other state-sponsored methods through these types of organizations, and while they have often been the subject of political scrutiny, many individuals rely on these institutions.

What if there was a better, more efficient way to not only disburse aid to those in need but also to identify them? A modern way.Enter the Ethereum blockchain.

The merits of Ethereum are numerous when it comes to distributing aid. It can deliver a level of autonomous transparency, allowing for easy system management and oversight. Furthermore, the Ethereum blockchain allows for the implementation of permission layers that can keep private consumer data from prying eyes.

Ethereum can do all this more efficiently than bureaucratic organizations, eliminating from the equation third parties that manage funds and may take a cut in the form of processing fees.

If the financial information of taxpayers is already tracked by government agencies via Tax IDs or Social Security numbers, it can be digitally fed into an API that interacts with the Ethereum Virtual Machine.

A system like this could then be easily adapted to suit proper distribution governed by autonomous application of executable distributed code contracts (EDCCs).

Opponents of UBI contend that it enables illicit use of allocations. A cryptocurrency-based dispersal could deliver a means of transparency to offset these worries. Low transaction fees are another appealing feature that Ethereum can provide.  

UBI Tokens backed by a government would be widely accepted by merchants who provide an assortment of goods and services. Anything that fiat money can buy, UBI Tokens would also be able to purchase.

They could be used to pay for groceries, utilities, or even to take the kids to a movie. Some might even choose to invest in their futures with fiat currency while the economy is stimulated by the commerce provided from UBI tokens.Per Standing:

“No conditions were imposed on recipients. This we regard as crucial. Those who favor conditionality say in effect they do not trust people to do what is in their best interest and that the policymaker knows what is.”

AI can study spending trends and provide variable caps, as deemed algorithmically logical in line with the goals of financial prosperity. By identifying successful cases where individuals surpassed the necessity for UBI by reaching a pre-set income threshold it may be possible to actually create a real system of financial footholds.

This type of social service could prove to be invaluable to humanity.If it is successful for social application, other forms of subsidies may become tokenized and run through similar systems, perhaps eventually putting an end to questions lingering over corruption, deep pockets, and so-called pork barrel politics.

An important note is that such a system would only work in the presence of a more robust identification system, integrating with verifiable income records to ensure honest practices and curb manipulation.

To that end, the 45th presidential administration is researching ways to effectively modernize identity provenance and transition away from the Social Security number, a known target for identity thieves.

If such a blockchain-based system of identification is implemented with tax ID metrics ingrained into it, it will represent a significant step towards the basis of the system with which an AI could integrate and aid in the distribution of UBI.

JEREMY NATION

Jeremy Nation is a writer living in Los Angeles with interests in technology, human rights, and cuisine. He is a full time staff writer for ETHNews and holds value in Ether.

Discover more stories like this on Ethnews here: https://www.ethnews.com/how-ethereum-could-deliver-universal-basic-income

Last year, Christopher Plant, a real estate agent from Philadelphia, paid $1,000 to buy four tickets to the hit musical Hamilton from an agent on Craigslist. However, when he tried entering the Richard Rodgers Theatre to watch the event with his family, he was turned away because his tickets were counterfeit.

Plant can consider himself lucky. He paid about 1.5 times the face value of the Hamilton tickets. Earlier this year, thousands of people bought tickets to an Ed Sheeran concert from secondary markets at eight times the face value. Many of those were found to be fake too.

Fraud, bots and touts—people who purchase tickets from official dealers and resell them at higher prices—are some of the endemic problems that riddle the event ticketing market. Organizers and ticket selling services have tried to counter these problems with various methods and technologies.

 Governments have tried to regulate it.However, progress leaves much to desire. Ticket touting is said to be a multibillion dollar market, and online ticket fraud continues to rise year-over-year.

Some experts and companies are placing their bets on blockchain, the technology that is disrupting various industries. Here’s how blockchain  might solve the challenges of the industry.

Blockchain’s solution to ticket-sale challenges

Blockchain is a distributed ledger of transactions, a datastore that is stored and simultaneously updated on multiple nodes. All transactions registered on the blockchain are permanent and irreversible.

As opposed to the opaque and walled-garden architectures that govern current online services, the blockchain is transparent and auditable by outside parties, and enables peer-to-peer transaction of digital information.

Bitcoin was the first application of blockchain. However, the technology is showing promise in many other industries and has proven to be an effective tool in fighting cyberthreats.

One of the key problems that blockchain solves is that of double spending. Once an amount of Bitcoin is transferred from one address to another, it can’t be replicated. This is a feature that has helped solve the problem of piracy and fraud in other domains such as gaming and music, where registering and maintaining ownership of digital assets is a perennial problem.

A handful of companies are exploring how the double-spending prevention functionality of blockchain can be used to prevent the production of fake event tickets. Upgraded Inc, a startup based in Walnut Creek, CA, has developed a mobile app that sells tickets on the Ethereum blockchain, where ownership of data is clearly defined.

Upgraded uses smart contracts, programs that run on the blockchain, to add smart features to digital tickets, such as setting restrictions for resale or forcing scalpers to transfer some of their profit to the event owner. To further prevent fraud, Upgraded has also added features such as hiding ticket barcodes before the event or while the user is away from the event venue.

London-based Aventus uses the Ethereum blockchain to transparently track ticket sales and associate a unique identity to each ticket. When purchasing tickets, users upload a token that represents their identity. This can be a voice sample or a mug shot or credit card information.

The information is hashed and tied to the ticket record registered on the blockchain. When ownership of the ticket is transferred to another user, the ID information is updated and stored on the blockchain as well. This can come useful in fighting automated programs that purchase tickets from online platforms.

Blockchain has its own challenges

While the idea of selling tickets on blockchain is great, caveats and prerequisites remain. Companies such as EventBrite, TicketMaster and StubHub already own a large percentage of the market, and are not likely to relent their dominance to blockchain startups any time soon.

For Sandy Khaund, founder and CEO of Upgraded, there exists a middle ground. “My goal isn’t to replace Ticketmaster or StubHub. It’s to be the Intel chip inside of ticketing,” he said in an interview with Forbes.

“When you go to Ticketmaster, you get a drop-down that says PDF, postal service or will call. In the short term, I want to be the fourth option. In the long term, I want to be the only option. The other three options should not exist.”Others, such as Russia-based startup KickCity, aren’t optimistic about ticketing giants embracing blockchain anytime soon.

That’s why the company focuses on creating incentives for the end users to switch to platforms that work on blockchain. KickCity provides a fully-featured, decentralized event marketing platform.

The platform revolves around KCY, its proprietary cryptotoken, and Ethereum smart contracts to allow for reward-based event promotion, ticket processing and transactions, and event community building.

“KickCity is focused on providing reasons for events organizers and everyday event users to switch to blockchain,” says Gideon Nweze, the CEO and founder of the company. “It’s basically a referral system in blockchain which rewards users who invite friends and rewards those who buy tickets. It’s very important to...continue reading : https://thenextweb.com/contributors/2017/09/30/ticket-touting-fraud-soaring-blockchain-might-fix/#.t...

In the current era of Blockchain evolution a new concept has emerged: tokenization. Tokenization is an intrinsic part of the Blockchain technology that serves the purpose of platform identification and accessibility.

The power of tokens

Every Blockchain platform is powered by tokens, sometimes also referred to as “coins.” Bitcoin is a token, as is Litecoin, Dash, and other currencies that function over a Blockchain. While tokens can represent money, as in the case of the above, they can also represent other things.

The demand for a particular Blockchain product is usually the main determinant of the value and eventual market price of its token. This is why there is a variation in the prices of different altcoins in the Blockchain environment.

For example, Bitcoin is more readily accepted by merchants than Litecoin, and is consequently more valuable.

The force behind Ethereum

Ethereum, despite coming after many older altcoins, remains the third most valuable cryptocurrency in existence behind only Bitcoin and the its recent fork, Bitcoin Cash.Ethereum’s value is largely determined by the demand for its platform by distributed application (dApp) developers.

Many of these developers issue tokens to grant access to their services, essentially building their own Blockchains atop Ethereum’s platform. In many cases, developers pre-sale their tokens as part of an initial coin offering (ICO), and they usually accept Ethereum’s token “ether” as payment.

In essence, the organic value of a given token or cryptocurrency is determined not just by the functionality, but the demand for its Blockchain product.

Blockchains and their tokens

There are numerous Blockchain products in existence claiming to offer different solutions to various problems. Many more are still in the development. Below are some examples of Blockchain products and what they do:

Steemit

Steemit is a social network that rewards users who participate in various ways. The Steemit token is called STEEM. It is used to reward content creators and curators of the best content on the site.

Dash

Dash, which stands for “Digital Cash,” is a fork of Bitcoin that is fine-tuned for more privacy and instant transactions. The platform’s token is called DASH. Dash is also self-funded through its own Blockchain (a portion of mining rewards fund the currency’s development) and features a working governance model.

ZCash

The token for Zcash is called ZEC. ZCash is a cryptocurrency that grew out of the Zerocoin project which aims to improve anonymity for Bitcoin users.

 Zcash payments are published on a public Blockchain, but users are able to use an optional privacy features to conceal the sender, recipient, and amount being transacted....continue reading: https://cointelegraph.com/news/tokenization-the-force-behind-blockchain-technology

Jen WiecznerSep 27, 2017


Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin, who is so influential even rumors of his mortality can swing that cryptocurrency's price, has come up with a way to revolutionize his industry's hottest trend: the phenomena known as ICOs.An ICO, or initial coin offering, is a nascent fundraising method that has become both extremely popular and controversial in recent months.

ICOs, in which companies sell their own digital tokens in exchange for the cryptocurrency Ethereum, have raised about $1.3 billion this year through the end of July, according to data from Smith & Crown. That's nearly quadruple the amount of traditional venture capital raised in the same period.

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Meanwhile, the top U.S. markets regulator, the Securities and Exchange Commission, has announced its intention to treat ICOs, and the tokens created by them, like any other security. Last month, the SEC cracked down on ICO pump-and-dump schemes, a tactic previously associated with the penny stock market by which scammers artificially inflate the price of an asset.

Promotion of ICOs by celebrities from Paris Hilton to boxer Floyd Mayweather have added to regulators' concerns.Now, Buterin is attempting to address some of those issues. In a 15-page white paper published this week, Buterin and his co-author Jason Teutsch, the founder of blockchain verification project TrueBit, outline a different kind of ICO that they call an "interactive coin offering.

"Essentially, the authors are proposing a way to bring fundamental principles of market value to ICOs, which have so far suffered from a lack of rational free-market economics, allowing hype and promotion to wield outsized influence.

Here's what they mean by a lack of rational economics: When a new company prepares to offer stock through an initial public offering or IPO, as Snapchat maker Snap (SNAP, +1.01%) did earlier this year, it releases its financial data and shops the deal to investors to arrive at a stock price.

But nothing like that exists with cryptocurrency. For one thing, ICOs sell tokens that have never existed before, and which have unproven functionality, so there is no way to come up with an appropriate valuation—or as Buterin and Teutsch put it in the paper, "traditional analysis fails.

"The duo recommends solving this in two key ways. First, ICOs—which the authors call "token crowdsales"—would have no upfront cap on the amount of money raised, as is common among current offerings. That stipulation aims to avoid the stampede mentality that has overpowered rational buying behavior in certain capped ICOs, such as one in June that raised its maximum $35 million in just 30 seconds, with only 130 people able to buy tokens.

"Capped sales can reach tens of millions of dollars and sell out in a matter of minutes, leaving buyers unable to participate, disappointed, and frustrated," the authors write.

Secondly, the authors' proposal would allow ICO investors to do something which has so far not been possible in token sales: cancel their purchase.

The ability to withdraw offers in an ICO should help ensure that the law of supply and demand plays a healthy role in the process. That's where the "interactive" component comes in, the authors write:

"Potential buyers may enter and exit the crowdsale based on behaviors of other buyers, and in doing so tend the valuation towards a market equilibrium."To make this happen, Buterin and Teutsch's new system introduces the concept of a "limit order," something that has long existed in stock trading, to the ICO market.

Instead of asking investors to buy tokens at an arbitrarily set price, the new method would allow buyers to enter bids for how many tokens they would be willing to purchase at different valuations.

The buyers could also set a maximum price, or limit, at which they are comfortable participating. In effect, the system is not wholly unlike the one used at auction site eBay (EBAY, +0.53%).

Practically speaking...continue reading on Fortune here: http://fortune.com/2017/09/27/ethereum-ico-vitalik-buterin/