Distribution & Impact
Usability and Distribution: The GoodDollar Wallet
To increase adoption, demand and trust in the system, GoodDollar has built a simple digital wallet that can be accessed anywhere in the world with internet connection.
Accessibility and ease of use is critical to market adoption for GoodDollar. By distributing G$ globally and through an accessible process and interface, we increase the odds that the basic income economy is widely adopted and useful, and strengthen the case for G$ to become a preferred complementary currency.
The user experience focuses on the key action of claiming G$ coins as basic income and on the conduct of peer-to-peer transactions. Users can also earn rewards for inviting other contacts to GoodDollar, send and receive G$, review account transactions, and take part in other economic activities within the GoodDollar ecosystem.
The wallet is a mobile-friendly simple web application built on React with React Native. As with all GoodDollar code, it is also open-source. The wallet interacts with three main components:
GoodDollar smart contracts
Identity solutions for verifying unique identity
Distributed login solutions (initially through the Tor.us platform)
UBI Equilibrium and Proof of Need
While G$ is distributed as basic income every day, there is no way of knowing in advance how much a GoodDollar community member will receive on any given day when making a claim. The pool of basic income is divided equally among all users who log in within a 24-hour period to make a claim. This mechanism encourages the flow of G$ to those who exhibit the greatest appetite for it.
Those claiming G$ will also be asked to occasionally revalidate their identity, after initially establishing themselves as real and unique individuals. The enforced 24-hour gap between claims and the periodic requirement to re-validate 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 the time and effort required for regular G$ claims.
Hence, the UBI Equilibrium is the balance between the demand for G$ from those making claims and the supply of the token. It is reasonable to assume that as the value of pooled daily basic income rises, so would the number of users making claims. These users effectively “earn” G$ coins with his/her time and mental attention. We have made the assumption that no user would offer up either unless they believed the current – and future – value of G$ coin was worth the effort. Of course, “worth” is relative. Every one of us has an individual basic income threshold.
As an example, if US$16,000 worth of basic income is distributed on a given day and the global UBI Equilibrium is US$1 (assuming, for simplicity’s sake, that G$1 = US$1) then 16,000 people will receive basic income. If, however, the global UBI Equilibrium is US$0.01, then 1.6 million people will be served global basic income on that day.
Gini Index: Why Basic Income Reduces Inequality
The Gini coefficient is the most commonly used measurement of income inequality. 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 is a Gini coefficient of 0.27, or 27% [40]. 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 [41].
Importantly for the GoodDollar mission, modelling based on the Gini coefficient demonstrates that when you distribute a small amount of money across all levels of income in a society, regardless of means, inequality is reduced.
What evidence do we have that this is the case? Consider the following theoretical example: In the table below, the numbers in the income row represent the average monthly income of the different economic segments 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 see now that the ratio has significantly dropped -- to 25.75 -- whereas the Gini index stands at 0.437, marking a 7.2% improvement inequality.
[39] GoodDollar, April 2020 [40] International Monetary Fund, May 2017 [41] The World Bank, ongoing
Last updated
Was this helpful?