Overview of Universal Basic Income Crypto Projects [24 Projects Listed]

[eternalgloom]

I've compiled a list with some interesting projects that want to implement a form of basic income through cryptocurrency and blockchains. For now, I've just added a link to their website and some basic publicly available information. In the future I'll add more information to this list, if people are interested.

I'm not that good in creating these extensive and visually appealing threads, so apologies for the not-so-compact layout. Definitely let me know in the comments if you know any other related projects that I could add!

What is Universal Basic Income?

A basic income (also called basic income guarantee, citizen's income, unconditional basic income, universal basic income (UBI), basic living stipend (BLS) or universal demogrant) is typically described as a new kind of welfare regime in which all citizens (or permanent residents) of a country receive a regular, liveable and unconditional sum of money, from the government. From that follows, among other things, that there is no state requirement to work or to look for work in such a society. The payment is also, in such a pure basic income, totally independent of any other income. An unconditional income that is sufficient to meet a person's basic needs (at or above the poverty line), is called full basic income, while if it is less than that amount, it is called partial. Basic income can be implemented nationally, regionally or locally. Some welfare systems are related to basic income but have certain conditions. For example, Bolsa Família in Brasil is restricted to poor families and the children are obligated to attend school. A related welfare system is negative income tax. Like basic income, it guarantees everyone (where everyone can mean, for example, all adult citizens of a country) a certain amount of regular income. But unlike a basic income with the same amount for all negative tax means that the amount is gradually reduced with higher labor income.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income

Legend
Green = UBI distribution has started
Red = Possible SCAM

Altrui.st
This project originates from the Techcrunch Disrupt European Hackathon 2017 (Berlin) and won third price. The Deutsche Bank and ESRI APIs were used just for the purpose of the hackathon sponsor prices. We are rethinking that part.

Dev Post
BIG Foundation
BIG (Basic Income Guarantee) is a concept of unconditional basic income implemented using blockchain technology.

Whitepaper
Bitnation
Johan Nygren, a basic income activist, is currently exploring if basic income can be implemented using cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrency are digital currencies whose value and number of units are regulated by encryption techniques, outside of any central banking system.

Explanatory Article
Circles
“Circles” will be a currency created from basic incomes only. In the system outlined in the following, new money is constantly distributed to every account participating in the system. The money in every individual account are uniquely identifiable and only gain in value if the account connects to other accounts and joins groups. This incentivizes every user to limit themselves to one account.

Whitepaper
C.UBI
C.UBI is an initiative that proposes a preliminary framework to finance a universal basic income out of global resource usage, within the context of a circular economy and enabled by technology.

Manifesto
Democracy Earth
With the rise of open source software and peer to peer networks, political intermediation is no longer necessary. We are building Sovereign, an open source and decentralized democratic governance protocol for any kind of organization. They have included Basic Income as part of their whitepaper.

Whitepaper
Duniter
Duniter is a cryptocurrency software, which means it is a software providing the ability to create currencies. Duniter is different from other cryptocurrency softwares you may know (Bitcoin, Litecoin, Peercoin, ...) for 2 main reasons : its currency code includes the concepts of a Universal Dividend and Web of Trust; but also its Blockchain code, which is far more energy efficient, getting rid of the massive waste of energy introduced by Bitcoin.

Whitepaper
Enumivo
The Enumivo Project envisions to provide a basic income (UBI) for all, on the premise that all citizens of earth have a right to an equal share of the planet's natural resources, a right as basic as the right to breathe air.

Whitepaper  |  Bitcointalk Thread
GoodDollar
GoodDollar is the brainchild of Yoni Assia, eToro Founder and ColoredCoins co-founder.
The idea was first described in The Visible Hand (Yoni Assia, 2008), as a new type of money that has 2 main features:
It is transparent as it is based on blockchain, and every transaction is connected to a person.
It has a universal basic income, or social interest, based on social mining.

Whitepaper
Greshm
Greshm is an independent basic income system backed by the US Dollar. You should be skeptical, but this is serious. We won't print money, but we'll be doing the digital equivalent. Project Greshm has developed a mechanism that allows us to continually create new currency without devaluing it against the dollar. This stream of new Greshm currency (XGD) will fund everyone's basic income.

We plan to organize the project as a nonprofit to manage the currency for the benefit of society.

Whitepaper
GroupIncome
Group Income (n) is an efficient, fair, decentralized Basic Income system for you and your friends.

FAQ  |  Youtube Channel  |  Subreddit
Horizon
Horizon NGO is the first decentralized platform for uniting universal basic income initiatives. We are an independent non-governmental organization offering a basic income token implemented on the Ethereum blockchain. This simply means that, through our crypto tokens, everyone can start building a basic income for him- or herself. Our job is to keep on gathering enough financial reserves to make regular payouts possible. For this, we largely depend on donations and partnerships both inside and outside the crypto world.

Executive Summary
Kuwa
We are developing a cryptocurrency "faucet" to deliver a universal basic income (UBI). As part of the project, we will implement the Kuwa identity sytem.

Whitepaper
Manna aka Grantcoin *
Manna is the world's first universally accessible, people-powered alternative currency.
No matter who you are or where you're from, we believe you have a basic human right to share in the money supply.

Whitepaper  |  CoinMarketCap  |  Bitcointalk Thread
Project UBU
We aim to create the world's first fully fledged decentralised currency that works to the benefit of everyone without relying on taxation.

Whitepaper
Purpose/DUBI
Purpose is a token built on the ERC-20 Token Standard that allows people to contribute to its altruistic objectives by holding it. Its primary feature is its ability to generate a second token called DUBI (Decentralized Universal Basic Income) that is supported by a large community of activists, as well as an independent group of volunteer developers who work together towards
increasing DUBI’s value, in preparation for eventually gradually distributing it among the world’s population.

Whitepaper  |  CoinMarketCap  |  SCAM ACCUSATION
Raha
Raha offers people around the world a basic income through their app. Snap a video to prove you're real, then start minting your basic income.

Raha Basic Income Explained  |  Google Play Store  |  IOS App Store
Solidar(WEBSITE DOWN)
Solidar is a decentralized, distributed, peer-to-peer demurrage based, electronic currency designed to create an economic system based on stability and well-being of all the people. Solidar is distributed monthly to all network members as crypto-vouchers' universal basic income, to provide the satisfaction of human basic needs.

Project Info
Steem Basic Income
Steem Basic Income is a social experiment to bring a basic income to as many Steemit members as possible. Members join by sponsoring others into the program. Steem Basic Income is delivered through providing regular upvotes to member content.

Steemit account  |  Discord
Swift
Swift Demand is an attempt at basic income. Each user who is signed up for the service receives 100 swifts each day. No additional swifts can be created with time or resources. No user can gain any other 'advantage' when it comes to acquiring swifts.

Whitepaper
Ubic
UBIC stands for Universal Basic Income Currency and is a blockchain -based platform that will distribute crypto currency under the form of an universal basic income.

Whitepaper  |  Reddit
Ubit
UBIT - Universal Basic Income Tokens are an experimental function of the Unibit Blockchain. Participants will receive a set amount of UBITs weekly based on a tier system: Registered, Verified, and Permissioned. Verification processes will act as extended transaction layers (email, sms, etc). This prevents users from running multiple instances, and allows for a more fair distribution.

Github  |  Bitcointalk Thread
Vialcoin
The First Cryptocurrency which strives to deploy a Universal Basic Income viable solution using the blockchain technology. Somebody still needs to work, but that somebody can be your computer. Deploy and earn using technology, while pursuing a career that truly fulfills you. We believe our world is in dire need of more people chasing dreams and purpose, and less people chasing money.

Whitepaper  |  Bitcointalk Thread
ZeroPoverty
We want to eradicate poverty forever. We will do it by creating a cryptocurrency (like Bitcoin) to deliver a Universal Basic Income (UBI) to everyone. We recently launched The Crypto UBI Project (TCUP). We will finish implementing TCUP during August 2018. We will publish all TCUP software as a free open source project.

More Info

Updated: 19/05/2019

* Important information about Manna:

According to the whitepaper, the vast majority of existing monetary base is held by the founders and close associates:

-19% directly by the founders

-36% donated to Mannabase, a company directly controlled by their foundation

-17% paid to "dozens" of developers and technical staff

Another 9% was mined into circulation, and there is a strong probability that the early miners and the founders are one and the same. A grand total of 6% was given away as UBI but they promise to give more away by a complex process that seems very centralized.

It's essentially a UBI-branded premine: if you make us filthy rich we promise to make the world a better place. Certainly a splash of color in a crypto space that seems to be dominated by those who exploit more basic human impulses.

Source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16515112

DISCLAIMER: Projects descriptions are copied from the respective websites, as to keep the information given as neutral as possible. The link in the project title will usually show you exactly where the text was taken from.

Sources + Interesting Links
https://cryptoubi.org/
https://cryptoubi.org/links
https://steemit.com/cryptocurrency/@daan/let-s-talk-about-universal-basic-income-list-of-ubi-coins (My own Steemit blog)
https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoUBI/comments/86k4ax/complete_list_of_active_basic_income_projects/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJqguQqIJp8 (MetaCert Exclusive: Roundtable Discussion on UBI with Scott Santens and Eric Stetson)

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[eternalgloom]

Thanks for the nice comments Emma! I'm still planning on improving it, so if anyone has any suggestions which information I could add to the OP, please reply.
I'm currently thinking of adding a link to the whitepaper and Bitcointalk thread if applicable. Can't really think of anything else to add.

Maybe I'll try and update some of the descriptions, some of these projects don't really have much information on their website.

[dogbackwards]

This is an excellent resource people. UBI in my opinion is what the world needs, there is a lot of disdain on the subject but you've really got nothing to lose here by giving it a shot and learning about it. Essentially it will help a huge problem with low income third world countries the most, in my opinion. Some people work for very little and even if they get x amount of dollars (usd value) each time they receive  their UBI, 5 usd goes a LONG way in some countries.

As for all the resources I haven't even heard of like over half of these and I've been with manna (grantcoin) for a long time now. And I've had swift since almost release. I appreciate you showing us all of these.

[eternalgloom]

I've added Purpose/Dubi to the list and also added a link to the whitepaper/equivalent.
Coinmarketcap page was added where applicable.

This is an excellent resource people. UBI in my opinion is what the world needs, there is a lot of disdain on the subject but you've really got nothing to lose here by giving it a shot and learning about it. Essentially it will help a huge problem with low income third world countries the most, in my opinion. Some people work for very little and even if they get x amount of dollars (usd value) each time they receive  their UBI, 5 usd goes a LONG way in some countries.

As for all the resources I haven't even heard of like over half of these and I've been with manna (grantcoin) for a long time now. And I've had swift since almost release. I appreciate you showing us all of these.

Yeah I really believe that UBI is something that the world is going to need very soon, but I agree that it's quite a heated topic with lots of opponents.
Manna is also my most favourite project, since they are the furthest along IMO. Most of these other projects don't even have a coin listed on exchanges.

[retlaw04]

This is a great and a very specific summary of projects. I can not not do the mosts dawn.

[paxmao]

These are all excellent initiatives, but it may be difficult to put them into practice as the coin or token economics need an incentive for the developers of the system and that is more difficult in these cases.

[eternalgloom]

These are all excellent initiatives, but it may be difficult to put them into practice as the coin or token economics need an incentive for the developers of the system and that is more difficult in these cases.

I think that most of these projects have other uses than just being a basic income. Most of these projects are run by philanthropists, so they have some form of investment to pay developers, I would assume.

Only 2 of all these projects are actually listed on Coinmarketcap, so it's kinda difficult to say how most of these initiatives will get valued in the future.

[ManaMan]

As long as others are willing to trade for these coins they should be interesting ones to keep an eye on. Simply to see where are they heading. I myself like the idea of basic income, because in future machines will take most of our jobs and then people will have to have basic income, this is really good to see in crypto space, first time I am exposed to such thing and that I personally hear about it in crypto world. Thanks for sharing! Will go through these projects, sound interesting now.

[eternalgloom]

As long as others are willing to trade for these coins they should be interesting ones to keep an eye on. Simply to see where are they heading. I myself like the idea of basic income, because in future machines will take most of our jobs and then people will have to have basic income, this is really good to see in crypto space, first time I am exposed to such thing and that I personally hear about it in crypto world. Thanks for sharing! Will go through these projects, sound interesting now.

Yeah I personally believe that this idea will definitely gain more traction in the future and that crypto is the perfect way to make it happen.
One main argument against Universal Basic Income is that it would be way too expensive to implement, through these projects society does not have to burden the costs for this through taxes.

The amounts you receive with Manna for example are pretty low atm, at least for people who live in first world countries, but I hope it will scale in the future. It might be worth it for people in poorer countries, for them every extra dollar they can receive per day/week counts.

[eternalgloom]

Update:

I've added UBIT to the list, a project I've found here on Bitcointalk. The project seems to be pretty new, but their Github seems active so I've added it.
Also added Bitcointalk thread to some of the other entries and scam warning for the Purpose/dubi project.

Again, let me know if you know something else that I could add

[eternalgloom]

Update:

I've added 'Steem Basic Income' to the list, while it's not really a standalone project, I still think it might be useful for people who are already a member of Steemit.
Let me know if someone wants certain information added to the overview or if you know of other basic income projects!

[user0000001]

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3052967.new#new
ARMR
https://armr.network/
security and anonimity
probably already everyone is tired of verifications. and I want to return the former anonymity

[UmerIdrees]

I don't Just get it  what is Meant by "Basic Income Projects"
Are you compiling the coins / tokens which have good potential or you are compiling the sites which can give good Income ?

Just a suggestion, you could have started a "Moderated thread" to keep the spam out of the way.

[kryptogunner]

With all due respect, I would like a start to this thread with a brief definition and description of UBI projects in laymen terms for people to understand coupled with dynamics of such projects and how people can benefit from it. This is an awesome compilation for those who understand but for people still new (which most of us are as crypto itself is new), this shall act as starter.

Also, the theme is based on redistribution of wealth. However, generally new tokens are created every year which are further redistributed to new members. But this increased supply shall fuel inflation and wont do much good in terms of wealth redistribution.

You may like to add Grant Coin (http://www.grantcoin.org/) and Circles (https://joincircles.net/).

PS: please review both of them independently.

[Parodium]

Watching this thread with interest.

Also, would NEO count? Due to the gas generation property all holders are provided a small income.

Edit: https://www.enumivo.org/ (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2903323.0)

Enumivo seems to meet your criteria directly, very little information available on it, particularly information about how the income is generated.

[Steamtyme]

I'm kinda amazed, I can honestly say I never even considered this as an application for blockchain technology. If these projects can show the benefit to their platform, there's a chance more progressive governments might adopt this. Either way in the end someone does have the burden of funding the basic income; but using a blockchain style ledger would greatly reduce the behind the scenes costs and potential errors involved in current social assistance programs.

I'm going to have to do some more reading on each but it's nice to see several developments out there focusing on distribution of wealth and not just decentralization. Thanks for putting this out there I definitely see the benefit to these platforms especially when dealing with less privileged members of society.

EDIT: I just did a quick search and turned up this project as well. Sorry noticed the post up top and realized that Manna was the re branding of this grantcoin.

http://www.grantcoin.org/

[eternalgloom]

With all due respect, I would like a start to this thread with a brief definition and description of UBI projects in laymen terms for people to understand coupled with dynamics of such projects and how people can benefit from it. This is an awesome compilation for those who understand but for people still new (which most of us are as crypto itself is new), this shall act as starter.

Also, the theme is based on redistribution of wealth. However, generally new tokens are created every year which are further redistributed to new members. But this increased supply shall fuel inflation and wont do much good in terms of wealth redistribution.

You may like to add Grant Coin (http://www.grantcoin.org/) and Circles (https://joincircles.net/).

PS: please review both of them independently.

Great feedback, I will update the thread with a better explanation. Both the coins you've mentioned were already on the list, grantcoin = manna

Watching this thread with interest.

Also, would NEO count? Due to the gas generation property all holders are provided a small income.

Edit: https://www.enumivo.org/ (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2903323.0)

Enumivo seems to meet your criteria directly, very little information available on it, particularly information about how the income is generated.

Neo doesn't seem to have basic income as it's goal, so that one I'll not include.

Enumivo was already on the list

I'm kinda amazed, I can honestly say I never even considered this as an application for blockchain technology. If these projects can show the benefit to their platform, there's a chance more progressive governments might adopt this. Either way in the end someone does have the burden of funding the basic income; but using a blockchain style ledger would greatly reduce the behind the scenes costs and potential errors involved in current social assistance programs.

I'm going to have to do some more reading on each but it's nice to see several developments out there focusing on distribution of wealth and not just decentralization. Thanks for putting this out there I definitely see the benefit to these platforms especially when dealing with less privileged members of society.

EDIT: I just did a quick search and turned up this project as well.

http://www.grantcoin.org/

Grantcoin is the same as manna, check out their recent posts on that website I'm personally really passionate about projects like these, because it's something that society will need sooner rather than later.
This could be a great implementation of Basic income at relatively low cost.

Thanks for the comment!

[Steamtyme]

Grantcoin is the same as manna, check out their recent posts on that website I'm personally really passionate about projects like these, because it's something that society will need sooner rather than later.
This could be a great implementation of Basic income at relatively low cost.

Thanks for the comment!

Not a problem, I edited my post as I did a little more reading.

Your right, although I would say this UBI is something that has been needed a long time. I've always been the sort you could consider a bleeding heart; but still live in reality. The first time I really understood the massive amounts of need were when I worked for a call center that handled calls for charities. Don't get me wrong it wasn't volunteer in any way and the company was greasy as far as I was concerned. One thing that made me good at those projects was instead of reading the scripts I looked into the charities so I could actually carry on a conversation with the donors(by the time I was done talking ) The tough part was realizing you couldn't help everyone with the current system.

I hope that governments adopt this; I know some Canadian provinces are talking about UBI and it would be great to get them on board in this manner.

Again thanks for the info I'll be doing a little more research on these and maybe even start spreading the word.

[Ganthet]

I'm kinda amazed, I can honestly say I never even considered this as an application for blockchain technology. If these projects can show the benefit to their platform, there's a chance more progressive governments might adopt this. Either way in the end someone does have the burden of funding the basic income; but using a blockchain style ledger would greatly reduce the behind the scenes costs and potential errors involved in current social assistance programs.

I'm going to have to do some more reading on each but it's nice to see several developments out there focusing on distribution of wealth and not just decentralization. Thanks for putting this out there I definitely see the benefit to these platforms especially when dealing with less privileged members of society.

EDIT: I just did a quick search and turned up this project as well.

http://www.grantcoin.org/

Grantcoin is the same as manna, check out their recent posts on that website I'm personally really passionate about projects like these, because it's something that society will need sooner rather than later.
This could be a great implementation of Basic income at relatively low cost.

Thanks for the comment!

In this respect, however, although an equal distribution of wealth is ideal, it still undermines the role of money as an incentive that pushes people to work harder, thus getting more income. Perhaps in a utopian society where the population is infused with the notion of hard work as a measure to maximize human potential and a sense of place in civilization which justifies this effort towards growth, such an implementation would work.

But given a society that is built on capitalist foundations and a craving for stratification, it is better off leaving mankind for to its own interests - a personal pursuit for meaning and purpose fueled by individual definitions of money.

And just to put it out there, an equal society tends to be a boring one. Suppose I'd have mustered enough cash to go on a vacation to a luxurious resort: once I arrive, it's empty. No one at the reception waiting for guests, no janitors keeping the establishment clean and no lifeguards securing the swimming area. Why? They've all saved enough money to go out at the same exact day that I did, earning and saving the same amount a year too. In the world today, this seems to be unreal, but in a society built on equal pay, a tale like this could be a narrative of daily life - a repetitive cycle of working and saving - towards what will always be a dead end job.

Just my two cents .

[emmybd]

JSEcoin is a very good web browser mining income project, please consider adding it.
http://jsecoin.com

Web Browser Mining:
Anyone with a web browser or website can now mine cryptocurrency. Either mine on your own device on our easy to use platform, or simply install a code snippet into your website which will earn you tokens whilst your visitors browse.

Platform Mining Overview:
You can register your JSECoin account and start mining in 60 seconds.

We have a dedicated mining page on the platform where you can put your devices CPU to use earning you some JSECoin tokens. Here your computer will be performing mathematical equations to secure our blockchain (basically a ledger of all of our transactions) and as a reward for doing this you will have the chance to earn JSECoin tokens.

You’re in complete control the whole time and are able to start and stop the process at any point, as well as change how much CPU power you dedicate to mining.