Home / Markets News & Opinions / Bitnation Announces a Decentralized Application for Basic Income Based on Bitcoin 2.0 Technology and Voluntary Fees

Bitnation Announces a Decentralized Application for Basic Income Based on Bitcoin 2.0 Technology and Voluntary Fees

Last Updated March 4, 2021 4:42 PM
Giulio Prisco
Last Updated March 4, 2021 4:42 PM

Struggling with billsThe Decentralized Application (DApp) basicincome.co will be hosted on the Bitnation core platform – Bitnation Pangea – after its release in 2015. Basicincome.co will be a first experimental attempt to provide a system for a crypto based Universal Basic Income (UBI), entirely based on voluntary ‘taxes’ (e.g. transaction fees).

Basicincome.co is the brainchild of Swedish student Johan Nygren, who invites the crypto community to engaged in the project and visit the basicincome.co GitHub repository .

Bitnation leader Susanne Tarkowski Tempelhof said to CCN.com:

“As an entrepreneur, I know money is something that comes and goes in life. I’ve been very wealthy and dirt poor — both with regular intervals throughout the years. To be able to create what is the beginning of a decentralised financial security – basic income – but without relying on a government, instead relying solely on technology and your own personal network, feels incredible. I know I’ll be the first one to sign up! What Johan Nygren has come up with is truly amazing!”

First suggested by Thomas Paine in 1795, UBI has gained more widespread popularity over the last few decades because some imagine a world where computers do most of the work, and few people have actual jobs despite an overall wealth surplus in society. Whether you agree or disagree with that vision, it’s undeniably a pleasant thought to have an unconditional minimum guaranteed income to live on. Furthermore, recent studies indicate that UBI improves both quality of life and economic growth.

Several governments are contemplating the introduction of basic income schemes for all citizens. Such schemes, however, are often opposed by Libertarians because they are based on additional taxation. This scheme, however, is based only on voluntary contributions and could arguably achieve the same results without coercion.

A Swarm Redistribution Model for Basic Income

The backbone of basicincome.co is the swarm redistribution model. Everyone who participates in a network and partakes in its culture, consumption, and functional creative output, adds a voluntary fee to the price of goods and services purchased from the network, and the fees contribute to a basic income scheme for the temporarily struggling members of the network. “Swarm” is used as in Falkvinge’s “Swarmwise” – a semi autonomous network. Tarkowski Tempelhof clarifies:

“Imagine if Facebook was eBay, and a tiny voluntary transfer fee was added to what everyone pays for objects/services purchased.”

She also emphasizes that the UBI scheme is not charity, but something that everyone needs at some point in life, because there are always ups and downs.

Bitnation is a collaborative platform for DIY Governance, providing borderless, decentralized and voluntary type of blockchain-based governance applications. The Bitnation platform is set-up to host an ID system based on verification and reputation, a dispute resolution system, a Governance App and DApp library, and the ability to execute and store all your blockchain based contracts, such as land deeds, wills, child care contracts, marriage contracts, corporate incorporations, and more. Basicincome.co solve a problem people would normally think only a government could solve, but it solves it in a peaceful voluntary free market manner, which fits perfectly into Bitnation’s vision of a voluntary Governance 2.0 future.

Also read: Governance 2.0 – Evolution of the System or Revolution Against the System?

Images from ChameleonsEye and Shutterstock.