Finally, a Stabletoken You can Use at the Corner StoreIntroducing ROKS, a stabletoken with its own payment system, built using smart contracts in the Ethereum network.
Most stablecoins / stabletokens focus too much on coming up with a decentralized stability mechanism. We focus instead on building network effects, by establishing trust on the accept-side. Our payment system is also unique in that, unlike most crypto payment systems, our focus is in making it easy for vendors to accept ETH and ROKS. We call this the "accept-side" strategy rather than the usual "spend-side" strategy in which the crypto never gets in the hands of vendors (it is converted to fiat, and fiat is what the vendor receives).
Or course, we are not saying that we don't have a stability mechanism. We do. In the beginning, stability is guaranteed by backing every ROKS with a USD. Later, we will apply monetary economics principles to implement a centralized stability mechanism, largely based on tried and true free banking stability practices. (Banks used to be allowed to issue their own notes, which they kept stable for the most part, unless laws constrained their ability to do so.) We don't believe that it is currently possible to implement a completely automated or algorithmic stability mechanism. Pegging to USD is very simple and reliable. However, unlike Tethers, we do not promise that every ROKS will be backed by USD, all we promise is that we will keep ROKS stable because it is crucially in our interest to keep it stable. In order for you to trust us in this, we may entrust the backing USD to another entity, like Stably is doing. Unlike Stably, however, again we do not promise one-to-one backing with USD.
Are We Just Another Bank?No, we are not a bank. We are not licensed to be a bank. We believe in the technology of blockchains, distributed ledgers, and hashgraphs. Bitcoin has proven that a trustless system can work and in fact flourish. Bitcoin is truly decentralized and even its "monetary policy" is decentralized by being very simple: nobody controls issuance of bitcoins, instead bitcoins are released according to a strict schedule, with an absolute upper limit in quantity.
That's where the rub is, with Bitcoin: by being totally decentralized it has traded stability for a very simple monetary policy. This monetary policy removes the ability of Bitcoin to build network effects associated with a true medium of exchange. Our surveys indicate that small vendors are not willing to accept Bitcoin, or any cryptocurrency for that matter. The reason is precisely because Bitcoin is volatile. Small vendors are already in a risky business, and accepting volatile cryptos unnecessarily adds another layer of risk. If you are in doubt about this reasoning, just ask yourself why, after a decade now, Bitcoin has not become a popular medium of exchange, after so many attempts at making it popular.
Our First Target MarketOur go-to market area is the world remittance business. This is where cryptos really shine: cross-border remittance. However, we are currently a tiny startup and we can't afford a worldwide roll-out like Facebook can. We are therefore currently focused in the Philippines. There are more than ten million Filipinos who work outside of their beloved country. The money they regularly send home account for about a third of the Philippine GDP. We are excited to be able to help out by reducing the cost of sending money home.
How Can You Participate?Right now we have lined up a couple ways that you can participate:
- You can buy our EVAN tokens when it becomes available;
- You can buy our EVAN tokens and actively seek vendors who are willing to install our point-of-sale app called "MainSale".
We are currently applying to list our EVAN and ROKS tokens at exchanges. EVAN tokens are a territorial license to MainSale. Once listed, you can buy EVAN tokens as a passive participant or an active participant. You are a passive participant if you buy EVAN tokens and do nothing with these. You can sell them later, but once you sell and install our MainSale app to a vendor's device you become an active participant. As an active participant, the benefits are
- The vendor pays you for helping understand and install the MainSale app; and
- The payment system pays you 0.7% of the amount paid in ETH for every ETH payment received through that MainSale app.
More Details in Our WebsiteOur website:
https://rockstable.io has a listing of all our team members, our white paper, etc.