By year 2050, the Earth’s human population will reach over 9.7 billion and it is estimated that 66 percent, that is, close to 6.4 billion people will live in cities across the world. Cities will need to improve radically the way they function and evolve if they are about to offer their citizens sustainable environments for life, work and general wellbeing and happiness (i.e., true human development). A great deal of innovation will be required as has already been acknowledged by the key theme of Smart Cities. In particular, the convergence of many information technologies such as powerful processors, smart sensors, increasing bandwidth, cloud computing, IoT and IoE, and Artificial Intelligence are leading to a spread of ‘systemic smartness’ in the form of smart factories, smart hospitals and, of course, smart cities. Along with technological smartness, however, there will be a need for ‘smart citizens,’ capable of recognizing and using the power of the new technologies for the benefit of their communities and territories in a much more people-centered sustainable development that we have known so far.
A key role in the coming transformations will fall onto the elected local governments administering the cities or municipalities. Cities’ local governments have the power, authority and mission to care and promote local and community development for the benefit of all citizens and, particularly, to care for the most disadvantaged citizens. In times of rapid evolution of science and technology and global challenges, local governments have a unique responsibility to explore, identify and pursue new opportunities to enrich its performance and services to citizens. But they cannot do this alone (top down), they must also stimulate and support the emergence of many citizens’ initiatives aiming at blending technological, social and civic innovation. This partnership is essential for the most effective and efficient results of the long road of changes leading to greater local development and human empowerment.
One immediate challenge is to take advantage of the opportunities opened up by new technological developments to find imaginative solutions that also include finding the resources for their development and implementation. One of these opportunities is offered by the recent developments of crypto/money-making wallet technologies, that is, a digital wallet conceived not only for information storage but, most fundamentally, to generate wealth for the citizens adopting and using it. The interest already manifested on cryptos by various leading-edge local governments in the world, including Seoul, the top ‘smart city’ capital in the world, is indicative of things to come. The next section discusses the strategic benefits local governments and citizens can gain from a pioneering role in adopting crypto/money-making wallet technologies.
Local Governments and Citizens in the Pioneering Role of Cities
This section synthesizes, first, a series of important benefits for local governments associated to the adoption and use of new the emerging crypto/money-making wallet technologies and, second, the fundamental involvement of individual citizens and local organizations as a pre-condition for the success of the systemic innovations implied in the development and implementation of a local crypto/money-making wallet capacity. Local governments and citizens and local organizations together are the key to generating the necessary top-down and bottom-up virtuous process.
Benefits of Pioneering Role of Cities’ Local Governments
Multiple e-government benefits have been identified from the use of blockchain technology, amongst them, digital tamper-proof records due to immutability, enhanced security due to cryptography, automated processes due to computers verifying and carrying out actions, transparency and traceability due to end-to-end visibility of actions in real time, simplified systems for citizens through streamlined interaction, and others. Here, however, the concern is with the systemic and strategic benefits cities’ local governments can gain from crypto/money-making wallet technologies in terms of local development, human empowerment and poverty-reduction. They can be synthesized as follows:
Local digital currencies for full value reinvestment (shared economy and zero-kilometre economy.- Cities and communities can benefit from fully local digital payment modalities through the use of crypto tokens and money-making wallet technology. The advantage of a local crypto is that all the value of local financial transactions remains inside the community, with no outside leakages generated, for instance, by charges applied to transactions through large banks or credit cards. Cryptos can be used as local currencies for payments of municipalities’ services such as museums, theatres, transport cards, taxes, etc. Municipalities could also promote the adoption of local cryptos by shops and citizens, stimulating discounts, to help both the diffusion and valorization of the municipality-driven crypto. Another benefit is that the greater trust and transparency inherent in blockchain-based app-to-app transactions facilitate new forms of credit through pre-payments and pre-deliveries that help optimise flows of money and other resources directly benefitting both suppliers and costumers and, consequently, the better functioning of the local economies. The adoption of cryptos as local currencies by municipalities requires (i) political and normative decisions, (ii) a sound crypto/money-making wallet capacity, and (iii) a sound innovation strategy to secure its successful implementation in the local community. All in all, this process should not prove very difficult, since a culture of digital payments already exist everywhere, and will serve as a base to introduce more gradually the concept and mechanisms of local cryptos.
Local technological business capacity.- Cities can support the development and promotion of a local crypto/money-making wallet technological and business capacity involving expertise and organizations across the entire value chain of economic-financial transactions from payers to beneficiaries. This local capacity amounts to the generation of a rich ecosystem of organizations that do both: (i) developing, producing, implementing and maintaining the technological infrastructure for the entire transactional value chain, and (ii) use the infrastructure to conduct all sorts of peer-to-peer transactions benefitting local businesses and customers through an stimulus to zero-kilometre business and loyalty schemes.
Improved municipalities’ services and communities’ wellbeing. The development of the ecosystem just mentioned has important consequences for the economic development of cities. First, it will help create jobs and growth and, second, because the widespread use of the crypto will increase its market value, thus bringing financial benefits to the municipalities possessing and/or creating them. The greater the number of people and organizations using the cryptos, the greater their value; hence, the greater the resources available to improve the municipalities’ services and wellbeing of local communities.
Innovative poverty-reduction models.- When Victorians engaged in human charity, they practiced a philanthropic approach to human solidarity that persists even today. About a century and a half later, the use of cryptos is enabling the implementation of innovative schemes for direct poverty reduction of citizens in dire need, as hinted in the introduction to this document. The creation of a crypto token could allocate from the start 20 percent of the total amount of created cryptos to be directed allocated to poor people, i.e., directed deposited in their digital wallets. The municipalities’ social services will be entrusted with identifying the poorest segments of the local population and directly allocating the cryptos into their wallets. If the value of the crypto successfully increases thought its wide use, the amount received by poor people can be significant.
Self-sovereign identity and citizens’ empowerment.- A final strategic opportunity of the use of crypto/money-making wallet concerns virtual personality and self-sovereign identity, i.e., digital identity information autonomously and securely controlled and managed by the individuals owner. The individual decides what information give access and to whom, when, and through which means. Today, our virtual personalities are fragmented across the databases of multiple organizations, which sometimes use our data for manipulative purposes, as happened for example in the case of Cambridge Analytica and other instances. Today, there is much greater awareness of the importance of the control citizens must have of their own data. The European GDPR has signalled an important step in the necessity of each citizen having a self-sovereign identity. It is central to citizens’ empowerment and a vital service that municipalities can give to their citizens. There are two aspects where crypto/money-making wallet technology can play critical roles. First, a combination of wallet and apps in people’s smart devices can offer citizens the possibility of controlling their data in the securest possible ways, deciding which data to have in the wallets, which data to share and who and when can have access to them. Second, this direct control over their own data enables citizens to monetize their data for their own benefit and not, as happens today, where the benefits of data are reaped by others who control them without much say on the citizens’ part. This ability to control and monetize data is another element of citizens’ empowerment with positive economic implications for people and, above all, with positive implications for the realization of self-sovereign identities and the freedom to be physically and virtually.
First movers’ political capital.- Although not related directly to a crypto/money-making wallet capacity, those local governments that become first-movers in the implementation of a major new technological opportunity are not just first into the learning curve, they are also likely to gain substantial political capital by attracting international attention and media reporting. These local governments will be perceived as pioneering and therefore leaders of what will eventually become a widespread innovation in cities across the world.
Fundamental Role of Citizens and Local Organizations
The involvement and empowerment of individual citizens and local organizations is an absolute pre-condition for the success of large-scale systemic innovations as those implied in the implementation and wide use of crypto/money-making wallet local capacity. Citizens and local organizations stand much to gain from all the points identified above. They are the ultimate beneficiaries of (i) local currencies, (ii) potential growth and jobs associated with local technological capacity, (iii) improved local governments’ services, (iv) poverty-reduction initiatives, and (v) self-sovereign identity and empowerment through the control and potential monetization of personal data. It should therefore not be unduly difficult to stimulate their active participation in supporting the local governments’ initiatives and, above all, in creating their own initiatives to strengthen the overall development of the necessary ecosystem. In particular, citizens and local organizations can be:
Adopters and promoters of the local currency.- The success of a local currency is only secured if people adopt it and use it widely. This will generate the benefits of real shared economy and zero kilometre economy with the full value of transactions and credit remaining inside the local territory. Most importantly, wide crypto use helps increase its value with consequent availability of greater resources for the economy and local government’s services and social programmes such as the innovative poverty reduction model mentioned earlier.
Adopters of innovative poverty-reduction initiatives. The success of any poverty reduction initiative is only secured if citizens belonging to the poorest sectors of the community fully join the initiative, adopting its governance and mechanisms. The incentives for poor poverty-stricken citizens and organizations combatting poverty are high and this should facilitate their willingness to join the learning curve of the initiative.
Adopters of self-sovereign identity and wallet’s monetization potential. Today our identities in the virtual world tend to be fragmented and controlled by organizations that reap direct economic benefit from the use of our data. More worryingly, technological progress is enabling an increasingly deeper reading of our behaviour and even intentions at cognitive and affective levels. Citizens stand to gain a lot from self-sovereign digital identities not just in terms of the freedom to decide who they want to be in the digital world but, also, in economic terms given that the ownership and control of their information carries the possibility of monetization, i.e., the individuals’ sale of their own selected information for their own benefit.
Creators and promoters of grass-roots initiatives to reinforce local and community development.- Today many individual and organizations are creating grass-root initiatives aimed at improving the environmental, social and cultural capital of their cities and communities. Crypto/money-making wallet offers an important opportunity to help raise the resources needed to support these initiatives. In practice, these citizens’ initiatives can be in direct partnership with local governments or simply sponsored by local governments. They can also be autonomous citizens’ initiatives of social and civic innovation with benefits for all the community and its most disadvantaged sectors. A local crypto promoted by a local government could allocate a portion of its total to funding citizens’ initiatives, or, alternatively, a local crypto could be created completely dedicated to support citizens’ initiative. Either way, local cryptos could be designed and used to encourage and support citizens’ mobilization for the good of their communities and cities.
All the possibilities just listed presuppose the existence of two other basic roles for local citizens and organizations: (i) developers of the local crypto/money-making wallet capacity and (ii) adopted and user of this capacity:
Developers of the local crypto/money-making wallet technological capacity. The development of a local crypto/money-making wallet capacity is essential to create, provide and maintain the services necessary to take advantages of all the opportunities opened up by the new technology. This capacity is itself associated to potential job-creation and socio-economic benefits for the localities developing it.
Adopters and users of the local crypto/money-making wallet capacity. The realization of the benefits of the local crypto/money-making wallet capacity passes through a collective learning process of the local community. This process can be stimulated and supported through the systematic pursuit of initiatives such as those identified above.
Putting it all together, the ultimate goal is the generation of a local crypto/money-making wallet ecosystem in which local governments play a leading role together with citizens and organizations. The force resulting from this unity is the best guarantee to take advantage of the opportunities and potential benefits offered by the new emergent technology.
Realizing the Opportunities of Emerging Crypto/Money-making Wallet for Cities and Communities – The Vision and Strategy of IDMoney
IDMoney’s Overall Vision
IDMoney is an organization created in Costa Rica with the goal of creating a distributed (free software) money-making wallet to integrate crypto and self–sovereign virtual personality for local development, human empowerment and poverty reduction. In short, IDMoney pursues realization of all the benefits described above for the short and long-term development of cities and their communities. Uniquely, the model and technology proposed by IDMoney is public, social and global:
public because municipalities and local governments in direct relationship with citizens can be, and are encouraged to be, implementors and owners of the model and new (free software) money-making wallet.
Social for four reasons: (1) local governments will be able to use the model and money-making wallet software for socio-economic development and citizens’ empowerment; (2) citizens and local organizations can create and implement grass-roots initiatives taking themselves ownership of the model and money-making wallet technology for socio-economic purposes; (3) the money-making wallet gives everyone the opportunity to have a self-sovereign identity and hence, the possibility to create wealth for themselves; (4) the model envisages that a substantial 20% of the total value of IDMoney’s crypto tokens will reach directly the ID wallets of people in conditions of poverty;
global for two reasons: (1) the ultimate goal is to set the foundations to facilitate the emergence of a wider global government community offering a decentralized multi government currency (a sort of world-wide distributed world bank) with self-sovereign virtual personality for citizens; and (2) the development of the global crypto/money-making wallet model and technology will be the result of the collaborative work of many people around the world through the Drupal platform and other social platforms.
IDMoney’s Strategy
The development and implementation of crypto/money-making wallet technology is at the early stages of processes of social learning with much experimentation in terms of governance and business models and areas of application, including a great deal of regulatory uncertainty. Flexible and fast-responsiveness strategies are essential in such conditions and this translates into multi-pronged approaches that produce a variety of alternatives to move forward.
The first element of this strategy is the IDMoney company and the total of 35 million IDM crypto tokens attached to the Ethereum platform that this company has created. The 35 million IDM tokens include 7 million (20% of the total) to be given directly to citizens in poverty and other 7 million tokens (another 20%) for the support of citizens’ initiatives. The remainder of the tokens (21 million) are used for the global build up of the IDMoney vision through the implementation of a game app (IDMoney Game App) that will provide token incentives (i.e., airdrops) to scores of people who will act as ambassadors or promoters of the IDMoney experience in cities around the world. It will also offer the possibility to earn a one-week holiday, the Costa Rica Paradise Training (details below).
Important warning: IDMoney is not a token that can be converted directly into fiat money (e.g., dollars, euro, etc). It is attached to Ethereum (ETH) and its value will be completely decided by the market. The selling price of IDMoney has been fixed at 0.00075 ETH, but this is not its market value that can fluctuate heavily.
Owners of IDM tokens, however, can sell their tokens in direct negotiation and exchange with buyers. The exchange can be for product/services (in kind), for fiat money (dollars, euros, etc.) and even for other digital currencies. In short, the owner of IDM tokens need not convert the tokens into ETH to use it as a means of transaction.
The second element of the strategy is the direct involvement and strategic roles played by local governments and/or citizens and local organizations. Anyone of the two, or a combination of the two, can play the leading role. For instance:
Local governments play leading strategic role. In this alternative, the local government is the force driving and controlling the implementation of crypto/money-making wallet for the short and long-term benefit of the city and communities. The local government may involve citizens and local organizations but remain the ultimate decision maker and implementor of the initiatives. A particular case concerns the acquisition of crypto/money-making wallet capacity that may require the participation of non-local organizations;
Local government in partnership with citizens’ initiatives play leading role. In this alternative, the local government is still the driver, decision-maker and implementor of crypto/money-making wallet, but it does so in formal partnerships with citizens and local organizations. They work together in projects and initiatives to improve the short and long-term development of cities and their communities. Again, the acquisition of crypto/money-making wallet capacity may require the participation of non-local organizations;
Citizens’ initiatives in partnership with local government play the leading role. Here, the situation shifts towards citizens and local organizations as the drivers, decision-makers and implementors of crypto/money-making wallet for the development of their cities and communities, but they do so in formal support and partnership with local governments. Once again, the acquisition of crypto/money-making wallet capacity may require the participation of non-local organizations.
Citizens’ initiatives play the leading role. In this possibility, citizens and local organizations are the force driving and controlling the implementation of crypto/money-making wallet to improve the development of their cities and communities. They may involve local governments but remain the ultimate decision maker and implementor of the initiatives. The acquisition of crypto/money-making wallet capacity may require the participation of non-local organizations;
Any of these four alternatives can provide a way forward for the implementation of the IDMoney vision. At this early stage, however, the leading involvement of a local government of a pioneering city is likely to have an immediate highly visible impact.
The Special Case of the First Pioneering Implementation of the IDMoney Crypto/Money-making Wallet Capacity
Without doubt the first pioneering implementation of the IDMoney crypto/money-making wallet capacity has a critical value for the entire experience. This means the participation of a local government and/or citizens’ initiatives with the potential to attract worldwide attention and become emblematic of the benefits that are possible through the innovative use of crypto/money-making wallet technology.
In recognition of the crucial value of the first pioneering implementation, the strategy of IDMoney envisages the provision of very high incentives to the organization/s first embracing the IDMoney vision. These incentives include the ownership of the company IDMoney and a substantial proportion of the total of 35 million IDM tokens created by IDMoney. In fact, IDMoney will transfer the ownership of the company to the pioneering local government or organization committing to the implementation of the crypto/money-making wallet (with the backing of the IDM team). This pioneering local government or organization will also receive 20% of the total value of IDMoney’s crypto tokens (7 million IDM tokens) to be given directly to local citizens living in poverty and an additional 7 million tokens (another 20%) for the support of citizens’ initiatives.
Moreover, by validating and improving the new model and crypto/money-making wallet software, the pioneering local government and citizens’ initiatives will have the opportunity to become de facto leader of the emerging wider global government community offering a decentralized multi government currency with self-sovereign virtual personality for citizens. Certainly, this local government will not be tasked with the creation of the wider global government community but its pioneering experience will be a strong stimulus for others to follow. The responsibility for stimulating the emergence of the global government community will fall to another organization: Global Money.
The Selection of the Pioneering Local Government and Citizens’ Initiatives
IDMoney is pursuing an innovative pathway for the search and selection of the local government and/or citizens’ initiative pioneering the implementation of the IDMoney crypto/money-making wallet capacity. This pathway is the IDMoney Game App that will award IDM tokens to participants who will act as ambassadors for IDMoney in finding and introducing local governments and citizens initiatives with the potential and interest to pursue the opportunity of the IDMoney vision.
The IDMoney Game is simple and offers two levels:
(1) the simplest level is the Nerd Academy, a quiz game that equip players with information and concepts that allows them to become effective IDMoney ambassadors for the second level of the game. For each question correctly answered, the players win 1 IDM token. All the information used in the questions is found in the IDMoney website (https://idmoney.io/)
(2) the second level is Mission Possible where players go out into the world in a Pokemon-Go style to engage relevant senior officers of specific local governments and/or citizens’ initiatives that satisfy the following minimum conditions:
Local governments must (1) represent territories with more than 30,000 inhabitants; (2) have a website with a minimum of e-government service; and (3) provide email address where the Local Council can receive proposals for consideration.
Citizens’ Initiative must (1) clearly contribute to the development of the territory and communities; (2) show clear relevance of crypto/money-making wallet technology for the realization of this contribution; (3) have website and digital capacity to adopt crypto/money-making wallet technology, (4) provide coordinates for direst communication with IDMoney.
For each local government and/or citizens’ initiative effectively engaged and put in direct contact with IDMoney, the players win 1000 IDM tokens. Mission Possible aims to get hundreds of local government and/or citizens’ initiative with IDMoney.
Along with Nerd Academy and Mission Possible, the IDMoney Game App offers the possibility to apply to the Costa Rica Paradise Training, 1 week of holidays in Costa Rica, a country with one of the highest quality of life in the world and the home of IDMoney. This all-paid holiday will include specialised training and a visit to the interplanetary travel venture created by NASA astronaut Franklin Chan-Diaz to produce a plasma-powered rocket engine that will take a spaceship to Mars faster and cheaper than conventional fuels. To earn the Costa Rica Paradise Training, participants must accumulate a payment of the equivalent of $US100,000 in Ethereum (ETH). This can happen through a single payment or through the sum of partial payments.
Selection of the Pioneering Organization and Opportunities for all Others
The selection of the winning pioneering local government and/or citizens’ initiative is the sole responsibility of IDMoney that may select this organization at any point during the process. As said, this pioneering organization will receive the ownership of the company IDMoney and 20% of the total 7 million IDM tokens to be given directly to local citizens living in poverty, along with the additional 7 million tokens for the support of citizens’ initiatives. Simultaneously, this organization will de facto become a leader of the emerging global community since its pioneering experience will serve to stimulate others to pursue similar crypto/money-making wallet processes for the benefit of their own cities and communities.
In fact, all ambassadors and organizations in contact through the IDMoney Game App will have the possibility to pursue the creation and implementation of their own customized crypto/money-making wallet capacity, given that the wallet is free software. Ambassadors who get deeply involved in the creation of the new local crypto stand to gain large benefits that may be, for instance, a significant percentage (say 1%) of the total number of tokens created. As the value of the new token increases with its successful use, the value of this percentage can reach into millions of dollars for large initiatives and municipalities.
Support for Customized Token Design and Global Money
Local governments and citizens’ initiatives that choose to pursue the creation of their own new local cryptos/money-making wallet initiatives will have the support of the Crypto Social Consortium, through its Legal Labs operation. Legal Labs will use the free-software money-making wallet capacity developed under IDMoney to offer the creation of new crypto tokens specifically customized to the requirements of the local governments and/or citizens’ initiatives. These customized tokens will follow the same model and vision at the foundation of IDMoney.
Simultaneously, the Crypto Social Consortium will promote the formation of Global Money, a distributed global community open to the participation of any local government and/or citizens’ initiatives wishing to engage in a collaborative process of development and implementation of crypto/money making wallet for local development, citizens’ empowerment and poverty-reduction. Such collaboration will be useful to speed up the learning curve of all participants.
A key revolutionary aspect of Global Money is that, ultimately, it will operate as a Global Central Bank managed automatically by smart contracts and not by any intermediary organization. The financial stability of the crypto from such a global central bank demands the creation of trillions of crypto units that will act as a reserve to back people’s buying-and-selling transactions through the automatic buying-and-selling operation of the smart contract.
Facilitating the Implementation of IDMoney and New Cryptos/Money-making Wallets
In practical terms, the implementation of IDMoney and new cryptos/money-making wallet capacities is a process of systemic innovation, that is, a process that involves the creation of a complex eco-system of organizations and technologies. The chances of success of such systemic processes is facilitated if they are able to combine rapid benefits through changes that are easier to implement (i.e., incremental innovation), while gradually taking steps for changes that represent a bigger technological and cultural challenge (i.e., complex innovation). The chances of success are also facilitated by effective educational programmes and mechanisms that help citizens understand the concept and, above all, the benefits to be gained from the systemic innovation (in this case the crypto/money-making capacity). The three steps are part of a single short- and long-term innovation strategy being pursued by IDMoney, as shown now:
Combination of incremental and complex steps (first two steps).- To enable the combination of incremental and complex steps, IDMoney has introduced two separate functions in the money-making wallet app. The first enables the immediate application of the local crypto as a payment system and the second offers access to the wallet capacities for wealth-creating self-sovereign identity and poverty reduction. Strategically, the first process should prove more incremental, since a culture of digital payments already exist everywhere, and will serve as a base to introduce more gradually the concept and mechanisms of local cryptos. For greater incentive, the payment system has no external charges, meaning that all the value of local financial transactions remains inside the community. This is an important advantage compared with the outside leakages generated, for instance, by charges applied to transactions through large banks or credit cards. By introducing a local crypto with these characteristics all the potential benefits identified in the first section of this document apply. For the full process of systemic innovation, the faster visible benefits generated by the local payment system will help pave the way for the successful implementation of the more complex self-sovereign identity aspects.
Educational programme - Cryptoland and Cryptoland.TV
To support the widespread process of collective learning and cultural transformation implied in successful realization of the IDMoney and Global Money, the Crypto Social Consortium has created Cryptoland, an educational series born out of the imagination of IDMoney Manga designers. Cryptoland is a uniquely inviting virtual world where people learn about the extraordinary importance of cryptos, money-making wallet, virtual personality and other terms of increasing importance for work and life in the 21st century. But Cryptoland is much more. It is also a deeply human cultural setting where story telling, values, love, and battles for a better world unfold taking advantage of the power of the new technologies. At heart, Cryptoland’s narrative reflects the technological developments as well as the history, values and purposes of IDMoney and Global Money.
The different episodes of the series are available through the IDMoney Game App at no cost. They will also become available in Cryptoland.TV a website specifically dedicated to Cryptoland. To reach the widest population, the Manga storytelling comes in two versions: one for kids, one for adults: and users who wish to star in their very own personalized manga episode can do so for a convenient fee.
The Organizations Behind IDMoney and Global Money
The diagram below illustrates the set of organizations currently operating to advance the vision of IDMoney and Global Money under the umbrella of the Crypto Social Consortium.
In synthesis, under the umbrella organization of Crypto Global Consortium, IDMoney, Legal Labs and Cryptoland are offering and beginning to implement a marvellous dream leading to Global Money and change for a better world. They are doing so taking advantage of the opportunity opened up by new crypto, and money-making wallets technologies for payment system and self-sovereign identity. The technology however can only offer the opportunity and it is up to people to transform the dream into reality. This is what the Crypto Global Consortium is committed to achieve, sharing the journey with people across the world.
Team - Information about the team, including a general introduction to the expertise and history, for example, Scotia Bank, etc.
RoadMap: expected dates of completion of the technology and other key milestones.