Since several weeks an idea has been circulating in my mind: Basically it would be a new kind of "stablecoin", but not really a coin but a set of (smart) contracts. It would have a strong link to the "real" economy, but without any peg to a fiat currency, but to real goods and services.
Basically, the system would have two "layers".
Layer 1 would be
smart-property tokens based on real goods. The idea is: Any entity that produces or sells something, can issue tokens to "pre-sell" them, and these can be traded on a DEX. All tokens would have a deadline when they have to be redeemed for real products.
For example, a business selling apples can issue a token for 1 kg apples, which will be delivered 1 year after the token issuance. Before this deadline, these tokens can be sold and traded.
It would be kind of a "poor man's futures market". The token issuers should be legally responsible for their pre-sales, so if they don't deliver the goods, customers should be able to sue them. So it's in their interest, if they want to sell their tokens, to provide measures to increase trust (e.g. a website with their address, informations about their business and other data). If well-known businesses would participate, the trust behind that could be even increased.
Layer 2 would be
meta-tokens or
basket tokens based on Layer 1 tokens. The idea is that the market participants could aggregate different Layer 1 tokens to a single one, which represents a basket of goods. For example, a token could include 100 kg apples from different providers, 500 kg of flour, 1 gallon of gasoline and 5 iPhones 12.
The reason behind that: As the system is basically trust-based - you must trust each token issuer - if you diversify, then your risk will be typically lower. So you can build "your own stablecoin" using a basket of goods, buying the different tokens and aggregate it. This task would typically be done by specialized people or businesses which know about the risks of the different token issuers.
Advantages-
For the token buyers: They can buy stable tokens deeply rooted in the local "real" economy. This could be, above all, an issue in countries with high inflation, like Venezuela or Argentina.
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For the token issuers: They would get access to capital in a cheap way, being able to sell their goods well in advance, with low interest rates. Even businesses which have normally no access to bank loans, or a very limited one, could rise funds this way, with a system which could lead to greater trust than regular ICOs.
Technical aspectsIf it could be realized, I would prefer Lightning-based technology instead of Ethereum-style on-chain tokens, because it could be a very massive size which would overwhelm any blockchain, so I'm looking at the Bitcoin-based OmniBOLT technology for it.
Obviously one could ask: do we need a blockchain/Lightning for that? This could obviously also be realized in the form of a centralized platform. But a LN-based approach would reduce costs of the system, because otherwise there would have to be an operator responsible for the market/database's security, which would mean normally that fees would have been charged for the service.
I'm really interested in thoughts. Does this economically make sense? Is it total bullshit or could this be a good idea?