Funding Solar Energy with Bitcoin - a solid state & silicon based economy?

[franky1]

So it is good for Africa. What is in it for The Sun Exchange to use Bitcoin? By accepting enabling Bitcoin as the payment rail for The Sun Exchange: 1) It enables nano-investing (<$10 per unit) with payouts over 20 years on such as small investment, only Bitcoin allow such tiny increments to be sent back to the solar cell owners. 2) It gives transparency to The Sun Exchange Users or prospective customers, you can check the wallet addresses and payment flow into and out of our projects so that you can validate that there is no 'fibs' about revenue production. 3) Smart contracts between the solar plant and the Bitcoin exchanges so that revenue created from selling electricity is automatically distributed back to solar asset owners automatically. This reduces our running costs and also gives our Users confidence that ongoing income is not dependent on The Sun Exchange.

1) bitcoin tx fee's are more than an hours labour.. so no 'nano fees.
2) if you were to use LN then LN transactions(smart contracts) of nano fee's are NOT transparent as they are offchain. plus they require permissioned contracts which would require 20 year LOCKS on the funds..
   if you were to publicise the private LN payments. thats the same as just showing a mysql database trade history, so not real transparence just a vail of transparency.
3) smart contracts are permissioned payments. meaning the investors funds are locked in where the luna exchange becomes the bank manager (LN hub)

separate issue:

ok.. so. bitcoin is $950 in africa today.

so a $1k 1kw solar panel is 1.05btc~ (rough number for easy display)

so some investor hands you 1.05btc~ to buy a solar sell ..
you convert it to fiat and buy a solar panel for $1k

it gets installed at lets say some Tyre ltd company in africa..
and then Tyre ltd then pays back $100 a year for the lease (your website says 10% returns(8% initial after fees))

so imagine its 2018. bitcoin is then $2k.. Tyre hands luna $100 or 0.05btc..
so imagine its 2019. bitcoin is then $2.5k.. Tyre hands luna $100 or 0.04btc..
so imagine its 2018. bitcoin is then $3k.. Tyre hands luna $100 or 0.033btc..

as you can see. after 10 years the investor will not get his 1.05btc back(10x10%=100% return).. although technically he gets $1000 of 'value back' in btc form its not the same as 1.05btc.
hense my first comment about why would an investor hand over a good asset .. when the obvious conclusion is its better to burn fiat..

secondly.
this still does not explain why lets say the american investor paying in btc.. is then helping africa become BTC friendly.

after all those wanting to move Zar from one african country to another, are just going to deposit Zar into your 'Luna' exchange and the family else where will receive the wages in Zar. the bit in the middle is just your internal gimmick of taking zar from one person and handing it to another, but mascaraded in the middle to look like bitcoin is involved in the blind hope that by making it appear that you are playing with bitcoin it will absolve you of any financial conduct regulations.. (it wont)

your exchange in the middle 'pretending' to be a rail. is not actually a rail as the deposits and withdrawals and swaps would be in zar in the end. because both sides are just physically touching Zar.

you have yet to show where the BITCOIN utility is.(reason for african citizens to keep bitcoins.. or even able to hold bitcoins without an LN smart contract)

i say that not as a naive learner but as someone that has seen dozens of projects in the past and as someone who loves to run real life scenarios to see where the actually utility of business plans/niches are.

you really are just playing gimmicks with how your business is structured. so either you need to reword your business plan. or you need to just go burn some fiat investors instead.

[Gleb Gamow]

I'm just gonna leave the following two links here:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1409515.0

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-sun-exchange-a-solar-powered-financial-system-bitcoin#/

[franky1]

gleb, i like them to atleast dig a hole for themself first.

let them back track and change their story to see how desparate they are to sell utopia.
well ice to eskimo's
well i mean sand to people in the desert.
oops
i mean silica to africans.

its like a bad episode of "the shark tank" or "dragons den" seeing people with a bad and obvious shady business plans, still invited to the tv show to talk about the shady business purely to get to see the business plan get ripped apart

i know i jumped the gun on the other topic. so i guess you deserve to jump the gun here.
but sometimes people need to learn from these unethical utopian hypes. so that people are aware of what they are being fed

[maku]

So all fiat of the world couldn't fix African problem of poverty and lack of electricity and now suddenly bitcoin will help it?I know that even without advanced calculation this is not something we can achieve.
I know for a fact that if we put solar panels on 1/18th of the land area of the Sahara, it would make enough power for all of Europe and Northern Africa. So tell me why why no one did it already?

http://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2014/07/02/why-dont-we-put-solar-panels-in-the-sahara-desert-as-a-source-of-electricity/#5eafa2b613d7

[franky1]

So tell me why why no one did it already?

the reason..
me and gleb have alluded to but not yet bluntly pointed out.

is that when a middle man holds the bags of funds. not much of it ends up actually doing anything in reality but being handled by the middleman.

the middle man will show lots of pictures they googled and lots of sob stories of needs for funding. and they will happily send you mass produced volumes of paperwork showing gratitude.

but when it comes to questioning the end goal and investigating the end goal........ silence begins to be the middlemans answer.
.. followed by anger, insults and threats as they realise the last year of preparing their mony raising starts falling apart

[Gleb Gamow]

So all fiat of the world couldn't fix African problem of poverty and lack of electricity and now suddenly bitcoin will help it?I know that even without advanced calculation this is not something we can achieve.
I know for a fact that if we put solar panels on 1/18th of the land area of the Sahara, it would make enough power for all of Europe and Northern Africa. So tell me why why no one did it already?

http://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2014/07/02/why-dont-we-put-solar-panels-in-the-sahara-desert-as-a-source-of-electricity/#5eafa2b613d7

Because prior to the advent of Bitcoin, nobody was willing to throw fiat at such a project, but now that Investards have proven themselves to throw crypto at projects in spite of demonstrations of their nefarious intent, the moon's the limit, especially since we have trade periodicals publishing paid-for articles advancing their respective concerns (see my sig) if not outright penning sensationalized articles themselves as fodder in garnering advertisement revenue while also linking to other ventures under periodicals' auspices on the same page as said articles.

[DangerZ]

gleb, i like them to atleast dig a hole for themself first.

let them back track and change their story to see how desparate they are to sell utopia.
well ice to eskimo's
well i mean sand to people in the desert.
oops
i mean silica to africans.

its like a bad episode of "the shark tank" or "dragons den" seeing people with a bad and obvious shady business plans, still invited to the tv show to talk about the shady business purely to get to see the business plan get ripped apart

i know i jumped the gun on the other topic. so i guess you deserve to jump the gun here.
but sometimes people need to learn from these unethical utopian hypes. so that people are aware of what they are being fed

Oh Franky you do make me chuckle! The point is that there are 650 million people looking for the utopia you live in. You have electricity. They don't. How are they going to get it? Corrupt African governments siphon off aid money intended for building infrastructure by the hundreds of millions a year to cost of tax payers around the world. They are the middle men walking away with the sacks of cash. We have built a system that gets funds direct to infrastructure and we take a fair share for arranging and technically vetting the solar projects. Value added.

It costs us less to send and receive Bitcoin than any other form of currency, that is why we use it. Although we see it can be a store of value we are using it is a remittance system and people are buying Bitcoin for the first time to send payments too us for buying solar cells which we then convert to fiat again. Only Bitcoin for a few minutes between the buyer and the seller and the Bitcoin is now liquid in the South African digital currency exchanges.

[DangerZ]

So all fiat of the world couldn't fix African problem of poverty and lack of electricity and now suddenly bitcoin will help it?I know that even without advanced calculation this is not something we can achieve.
I know for a fact that if we put solar panels on 1/18th of the land area of the Sahara, it would make enough power for all of Europe and Northern Africa. So tell me why why no one did it already?

http://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2014/07/02/why-dont-we-put-solar-panels-in-the-sahara-desert-as-a-source-of-electricity/#5eafa2b613d7

Because prior to the advent of Bitcoin, nobody was willing to throw fiat at such a project, but now that Investards have proven themselves to throw crypto at projects in spite of demonstrations of their nefarious intent, the moon's the limit, especially since we have trade periodicals publishing paid-for articles advancing their respective concerns (see my sig) if not outright penning sensationalized articles themselves as fodder in garnering advertisement revenue while also linking to other ventures under periodicals' auspices on the same page as said articles.

No one willing to throw money at such a project huh? What about $9 bilion on just one plant in the sahara which is the first of many? https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/feb/04/morocco-to-switch-on-first-phase-of-worlds-largest-solar-plant

[DangerZ]

Today, over 620 million people live without access to electricity in sub-Saharan Africa; that's twice the population of the United States without access to the modern day electrical conveniences and necessities that facilitate our lives and work each day.

This is genius! I can easily envision the world's cheapest-built largest solar power array smack-dab in the middle of the hottest and driest part of Africa supplying virtually free electricity to factories and households populated with millions of upright mammals not dependant on a readily supply of water or food. How many shares am I able to buy during the upcoming ICO? Further, is the venerable Larry Christopher Master Bates involved in this venture overseeing his Amazon women management team?

Hmmm... if your understanding of African socio-economics came from viewing The Lion King then I can understand why you may think that. Back on planet Earth, the population of Africa is 1.2 billion and they do have power hungry buildings that accommodate solar panel installations quite nicely.

You can see who is involved in the project here (no Master Bates involved): https://thesunexchange.com/the-core-team#36

Hmmm... if your understanding were of my understanding, then I can't understand how you came to the conclusion that I was alluding to existing power hungry buildings when I clearly expressed building such in the middle of nowhere where hardly any water could be had, let alone food for the multitudes already living there, the very folks your envision's designed to help.

Surely, you weren't first playing the sensational card so to illicit emotions, then jump ship from the truly poor to the quasi-poor white-collar workers in Africa, were you? I may or may not be versed in African socio-economics, but I sure as hell can recognize ... okay, I'm not sure what I recognize here, but I'm willing to bet it's something.

https://i.imgur.com/TpwQEgq.png

^^^ First use of the Szabo clasped hands facepalm. Know your meme: Szabo facepalmed after the panel moderator introduced all her friends, excited to be in their presence (perhaps cumming in her panties), but when Craig Steven Wright starting blabbering out his accolades, the moderator stopped him mid-stride and demanded of him, "Who are you" immediately resulting in the captured image above. ref. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdvQTwjVmrE (just view first couple minutes is all)

"okay, I'm not sure what I recognize here, but I'm willing to bet it's something."

I think the term you are looking for is neo-colonialism. A romantic notion that modern day capitalists shouldn't interfere with tribal societies living in mud huts and pushing our technological wares onto them.

I live here in Africa, and the rapidly developing population want access to the same services and technology and electricity as you have.

[Gleb Gamow]

Today, over 620 million people live without access to electricity in sub-Saharan Africa; that's twice the population of the United States without access to the modern day electrical conveniences and necessities that facilitate our lives and work each day.

This is genius! I can easily envision the world's cheapest-built largest solar power array smack-dab in the middle of the hottest and driest part of Africa supplying virtually free electricity to factories and households populated with millions of upright mammals not dependant on a readily supply of water or food. How many shares am I able to buy during the upcoming ICO? Further, is the venerable Larry Christopher Master Bates involved in this venture overseeing his Amazon women management team?

Hmmm... if your understanding of African socio-economics came from viewing The Lion King then I can understand why you may think that. Back on planet Earth, the population of Africa is 1.2 billion and they do have power hungry buildings that accommodate solar panel installations quite nicely.

You can see who is involved in the project here (no Master Bates involved): https://thesunexchange.com/the-core-team#36

Hmmm... if your understanding were of my understanding, then I can't understand how you came to the conclusion that I was alluding to existing power hungry buildings when I clearly expressed building such in the middle of nowhere where hardly any water could be had, let alone food for the multitudes already living there, the very folks your envision's designed to help.

Surely, you weren't first playing the sensational card so to illicit emotions, then jump ship from the truly poor to the quasi-poor white-collar workers in Africa, were you? I may or may not be versed in African socio-economics, but I sure as hell can recognize ... okay, I'm not sure what I recognize here, but I'm willing to bet it's something.



^^^ First use of the Szabo clasped hands facepalm. Know your meme: Szabo facepalmed after the panel moderator introduced all her friends, excited to be in their presence (perhaps cumming in her panties), but when Craig Steven Wright starting blabbering out his accolades, the moderator stopped him mid-stride and demanded of him, "Who are you" immediately resulting in the captured image above. ref. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdvQTwjVmrE (just view first couple minutes is all)

"okay, I'm not sure what I recognize here, but I'm willing to bet it's something."

I think the term you are looking for is neo-colonialism. A romantic notion that modern day capitalists shouldn't interfere with tribal societies living in mud huts and pushing our technological wares onto them.

I live here in Africa, and the rapidly developing population want access to the same services and technology and electricity as you have.

Not being a scholar myself, so if neo-colonialism equals "I know something's afoot"or similar, then you nailed it. TBC, when I think outside the box, I'm usually outside the box while thinking it.

Look, dude, all that said, I can't remember why I'm even commenting here, for the vision is great and the dude, perhaps you, there in [South] Africa seems okay upon a cursory review.

Later, bud.

Bruno

[franky1]

and so it begins

a middle man holds the bags of funds. not much of it ends up actually doing anything in reality but being handled by the middleman.

the middle man will show lots of pictures they googled and lots of sob stories of needs for funding.

No one willing to throw money at such a project huh? What about $9 bilion on just one plant in the sahara which is the first of many? https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/feb/04/morocco-to-switch-on-first-phase-of-worlds-largest-solar-plant

the morocco project is not a "sun exchange" project, its just a google search he found.
for a guy living in africa, seems he is quoting a UK media source

Dangerz
yes countries are getting into solar.. thats not a doubt.
but it doesnt legitimize your business.

nor does your proposal explain why bitcoiners should get involved as you fail to explain(beyond the gimmick of your internal switcheroo pretend) how bitcoin would actually become part of africans daily lives.

[Victorycoin]

I think  op is actually asking everyone to support him in this project. he is inviting everyone to become partners of his project. He can buy solar panels with fiat money. May be he doesnt have that much fund in fiat to spend . Thats why he is proposing this idea. Collecting bitcoins is easy than transfering fiat money . Thats why I think he is asking to fund in bitcoins. Anyway it is a good project if  executed properly. But I dont think anyone will invest bitcoins just like that. Who knows the op will pay the income generated from the shares.It will be better if you post this in your local forum .There you may get some investors who can actually physically see the progress of the mining site.

You got it. I have actually been running this project since 2014 and in June 2016we financed a 15kW solar plant to power a school using Bitcoin. we chose to focus on Bitcoin as it is much easier to deal with accross borders than fiat. Those Bitcoiners are now getting BTC income. We have raised 14BTC for our latest project to solar power a tyre recycling factory in South Africa. Invitation on this post is for people to visit our website www.thesunexchange.com and see what they think they would be willing, if anything, to put into electrifying Africa on the basis that they will receive a BTC revenue stream at an IRR of 10% pegged to the South African Rand.

I am looking at your proposal from an entrepreneur point of view and being versatile with Africa, can say it has got some prospect and business model that is adoptable elsewhere. But bulk of what I feel should be a would-be-investor's concerns are:
1. the sunexchange, I see it's a SA company, they are middlemen here, what tells that one can trust them with one's Bitcoins, not just for a year but decades;
2. where exactly is your market, Africa is a vast land and you can't do business in some areas;
3. is there a standing agreement and contract with any solar company;
4. what is thesunexchange to you?

[_nur]

if your really into solar

join https://solarcoin.org/en/front-page/

save you headaches

[boybugs18]

According to what I've read so far there is a hidden agenda into this company still they are benefiting for the bitcoin price increase per year but the idea of their project is good but I think it would not benefit those very poor people on Africa those benefiting would be in the middle class people because they will put the solar on buildings not at homes of those people who will need it most.

[Gleb Gamow]

According to what I've read so far there is a hidden agenda into this company still they are benefiting for the bitcoin price increase per year but the idea of their project is good but I think it would not benefit those very poor people on Africa those benefiting would be in the middle class people because they will put the solar on buildings not at homes of those people who will need it most.

Getting started with home wind energy projects can set you back a pretty penny if you buy a finished product, but if you're a little bit handy and don't mind scrounging for materials and getting creative in the garage or backyard, you can try your hand at building one of these DIY wind turbines for about $30 in materials.

If I remember my Weather 101 studies correctly, wind is capable of blowing at night, whereas the sun goes to bed passing the torch, so to speak, to the cold-hearted orb that rules the night till the brave helios wakes, bringing the warmth the countryside needs.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2014/07/02/why-dont-we-put-solar-panels-in-the-sahara-desert-as-a-source-of-electricity/#42e5e8ab13d7

Yes, everything. This would mean making hydrogen or other fuels where electricity as an input would be the key. Yes, this glosses over the fact that there isn't yet a global scale storage mechanism for holding solar power overnight.

[DangerZ]

if your really into solar

join https://solarcoin.org/en/front-page/

save you headaches

We are about to integrate SolarCoin wallets into our user dashboard so that people buying solar cells also get allocated their Solar Coin.

You can see on SolarCoin.org's home page that The Sun Exchange is listed as one of their supporters.

[DangerZ]

According to what I've read so far there is a hidden agenda into this company still they are benefiting for the bitcoin price increase per year but the idea of their project is good but I think it would not benefit those very poor people on Africa those benefiting would be in the middle class people because they will put the solar on buildings not at homes of those people who will need it most.

No hidden agenda. The Sun Exchange is using Bitcoin as a low cost global payment rail. Not all Bitcoiners use it as a store of value. It benefits the very poor. The Sun Exchange's Users can democratically decide if a solar project for a poor community should get financed, where as traditional finance options would ignore such projects as the end-users of the electricity are unbanked. This gets rural communities electrified helping with education and prevents biomass depletion.

[DangerZ]

According to what I've read so far there is a hidden agenda into this company still they are benefiting for the bitcoin price increase per year but the idea of their project is good but I think it would not benefit those very poor people on Africa those benefiting would be in the middle class people because they will put the solar on buildings not at homes of those people who will need it most.

Getting started with home wind energy projects can set you back a pretty penny if you buy a finished product, but if you're a little bit handy and don't mind scrounging for materials and getting creative in the garage or backyard, you can try your hand at building one of these DIY wind turbines for about $30 in materials.

If I remember my Weather 101 studies correctly, wind is capable of blowing at night, whereas the sun goes to bed passing the torch, so to speak, to the cold-hearted orb that rules the night till the brave helios wakes, bringing the warmth the countryside needs.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2014/07/02/why-dont-we-put-solar-panels-in-the-sahara-desert-as-a-source-of-electricity/#42e5e8ab13d7

Yes, everything. This would mean making hydrogen or other fuels where electricity as an input would be the key. Yes, this glosses over the fact that there isn't yet a global scale storage mechanism for holding solar power overnight.

When there is no grid present for back-up, one would implement maintenance free salt-water batteries: http://aquionenergy.com/

[Yakamoto]

If I remember some old calculations I did a few years ago, I don't think it is possible at all to maintain the Bitcoin network and have it run in an efficient manner, AND make your money back on the entire system. I don't think that's even possible with the recent advancements in SP tech.

I'm going to go over franky1's calculations and compare them to what I've written down, but they seem to be similar.

[franky1]

If I remember some old calculations I did a few years ago, I don't think it is possible at all to maintain the Bitcoin network and have it run in an efficient manner, AND make your money back on the entire system. I don't think that's even possible with the recent advancements in SP tech.

I'm going to go over franky1's calculations and compare them to what I've written down, but they seem to be similar.

dont worry, the OP's proposal was never about using solar to maintain the network (mining)
dont worry, the OP's proposal was never about bitcoin to bring it into the circulation of african people
dont worry, the OP's proposal was never about bitcoin used as remittance.

the reality is that the remittance is done inhouse by solar exchanges luna exchange.. with the 'gimmick' that its using bitcoin as a 'rail' simply by showing the remittance as a bitcoin balance on luna's MySQL database for minutes