Yoni Assia, Co-Founder and Chief Executive of eToro, launched the GoodDollar experiment in November 2018 – here is his vision

I’m incredibly excited to announce the GoodDollar experiment to the world, finally. It is a series of tests with the ultimate purpose of reducing wealth inequality through blockchain technology. The mission of the not-for-profit blockchain-based project is to forge a new, global, open-source cryptocurrency (called GoodDollar) to distribute money using the principles of universal basic income (UBI).

The issue of wealth inequality has been at the forefront of my mind for most of my adult life. It is a critical economic challenge of our time. However, I’ve long felt a solution is conceivable when all the elements are aligned. I first wrote about this idea in 2008, in an article entitled The Visible Hand. The original concept has significantly evolved since then.

Progress In Work

Now, with the evolution of blockchain technologies, GoodDollar’s implementation is feasible, thanks to the convergence of recent technology trends. Momentum has been building over the last few months. We have been making good headway regarding in-depth discussions, team recruitment, product design, economic modelling, technological trials, strategic collaborations and much more.

The GoodDollar experiment is determined to make universal basic income work on a global scale, thus reducing wealth inequality and enabling more people to pursue their purpose. Join today and help engineer solutions to the three key challenges - or research areas - outlined here:

1. Social identity. Develop a technological solution to defend against Sybil attacks while still keeping the system self-sovereign - a KYC procedure even for “unbankables”.

2. Social Interest. Embrace UBI principles, and firm up a non-speculative crypto where its inflation is geared towards helping the underprivileged via distribution mechanisms that deploy smart contracts.

3. Social Governance. Design the governance of GoodDollar’s future, where communities of any size can be a part of the economic framework within a Decentralised Autonomous Organisation (GoodDAO).

GoodDollar is still at the experimenting stage with our global crypto UBI system. Engineers, product designers and economists are currently developing the prototype and model. After almost a year of research, we already have advanced formulas built, and are trialling smart contracts and other exciting stuff.

Nurturing the GoodDollar Ecosystem: Join us

We are promoting the concept via “Open UBI” groups (Telegram & Facebook) as well as GoodDollar’s Twitter handle. Feel free to go over our GitHub and join our experiments. Please join us today if you would like to be an early adopter. Also, we’re looking for experts in the fields of identity and privacy, governance, local and global adoption of financial products, and wealth distribution.

If you could contribute to our research or design, please don’t hesitate to reach out. We are also on the hunt for ambassadors to spread the word about the GoodDollar project, plus philanthropists, NGO partners, and GoodDoers. Visit the GoodDollar website for more details. If you’re passionate about using technology for social good, please get in touch, and help us shape the future.