Distribution & Impact
Accessibility and ease of use are critical to market adoption. By widely distributing G$ through an accessible process and interface, we increase the odds that the basic income economy is widely adopted and strengthens the case for G$ to become a preferred complementary currency among holders.
To increase adoption and trust in the system, GoodDollar has built a simple digital wallet that can be accessed anywhere in the world with an internet connection. The user experience focuses on the key action of “claiming” G$ coins as basic income and conducting peer-to-peer transactions. Users can additionally invite other contacts to GoodDollar (and be rewarded for doing so initially), send and receive G$, review account transactions, and explore the amount of activity within the GoodDollar economy.
The wallet is a mobile-friendly web application built on React with React Native and is open-source, as is all GoodDollar code. The wallet interacts with three main components:
The GoodDollar smart contracts
Identity solutions for verifying unique identity
Distributed login solutions (initially through the Tor.us platform)
We plan to release native applications for iOS and Android mobile operating systems, and in time hope to develop a system accessible on simple feature phones. For more on data storage, please view our privacy policy.
While there are a certain number of G$ coins distributed as basic income every day, there is no way of knowing in advance the amount a Claimer will receive on any given day. The pool of basic income is divided equally between all of the Claimers that log-in within a 24-hour period. This mechanism encourages the flow of G$ to those who exhibit the greatest demand for it. Additionally, Claimers will be asked to occasionally revalidate their identity. The requirement for Claimers to wait 24 hours between claim periods and occasionally re-validate their identity creates a natural filtering method, which we refer to as Proof of Need. We assume that those with greater amounts of wealth are less likely to exert time and effort claiming G$ coins regularly.
Hence, the UBI Equilibrium is the balance between the “demand” for G$ displayed by Claimers, and the yield of the supply of G$. It is reasonable to assume that as the value of pooled daily basic income rises, so would the number of Claimers. A Claimer effectively earns G$ with their time and mental attention if the person believes that the current and future value of G$ is worth the effort, which will be determined by the individual’s basic income threshold.
As an example, if $16,000 worth of basic income is distributed on a given day and the global UBI Equilibrium is $1 (assuming, for simplicity’s sake, that G$1 = US$1) then 16,000 people will receive a basic income. If, however, the global UBI Equilibrium is $0.01, then 1.6 million people will be served global basic income on that day.
The Gini coefficient is the most commonly used measurement of inequality and shows that when you distribute a small amount of money across all levels of income in a society, inequality is reduced. It is a measure of statistical dispersion that represents the income or wealth distribution of a nation’s residents. The Gini coefficient ranges from 0 to 1, where 0 means perfect equality and 1 is when one person possesses all the wealth.
A 2017 International Monetary Fund report calculated that the optimal level for a country's economic inequality has a Gini coefficient of 0.27, or 27% [43]. According to The World Bank Data, only a few countries around the world have a lower level of inequality. The vast majority – approximately 94% – of nations suffer inequality above the optimal level [44].
What proves that providing regular payments to all people reduces inequality? Consider the following theoretical example. In the table below, the numbers in the income row represent the average monthly income of the different incomes of a society where the poorest decile earns $1 a month and the richest group takes home $100. What happens when $3 a month of basic income is added?
Deciles | D1 | D2 | D3 | D4 | D5 | D6 | D7 | D8 | D9 | D10 | D10/D1 | Gini |
Income | 1 | 4 | 9 | 16 | 25 | 36 | 49 | 64 | 81 | 100 | 100 | 0.471 |
Inc + UBI | 4 | 7 | 12 | 19 | 28 | 39 | 52 | 67 | 84 | 103 | 25.75 | 0.437 |
Income by Deciles
For the income figures, the ratio D10/D1 is 100 and the calculation of Gini revealed is 0.471. Assuming the income levels stay the same together, with the added $3 of basic income we now see that the ratio has significantly dropped to 25.75 whereas the Gini index is set at 0.437, marking an improvement towards inequality of 7.2%.
[43] GoodDollar, April 2020 [44] International Monetary Fund, May 2017
