So far this project looks good, particularly I like how the lead dev is handling things, and him being competent. All the answers are on topic, and absolutely no bullshit posted yet
@mandica:
I have few questions to you, probably others also could benefit from answers to them...
Q1: could you please give a live example of a transfer done using the proposed system? The OP gives an example, with reference to Hawala, and I have read the info you posted on that matter, but still its not 100% clear to me. Particularly it was not clear to me, who will be the main users of the app: the end users (un-banked ones) themselves, or it supposes there still will be the intermediaries who are comfortable with exchanging SPEC instead of real money..?
A good detailed real-life example often gives more than long theory and explanation
Could you please give one for people like me?
Also two more smaller questions:
Q2: how do you plan to deploy the system? Do you think you could offer it to some people currently using Hawala; or Hawala is just something served as inspiration to you, and you don't plan to interact with its current user-base? In such case, what do you have any means to make the system popular. As you know, there are many money transfer systems, including Bitcoin itself, so there should be something to make people use yours.
Q3: you distribute 19M out of 20M. What are the plans for the remaining 1M?
Thanks!
I will try, mind you some minor details are still being worked on. I will cite initial scenario we used as a base for discussion (Bob and Alice of course)
Q1:
Bob wants to send cash to Alice. Bob is speaking to his friend Alice who lives in rural China and they agree that Bob will send £100,- to Alice as she has been out of work for a while. They don’t have bank accounts and whilst trying to set up a bank account both Bob and Alice realize that an international money transfer is expensive and slow and they will have to provide ID documents and the whole thing will take a long time.
Bob searches Google for “cash transfer to China without a bank account” and find Spectre.Cash (SC) and decides to give it a go. Bob installs SC on his Android mobile phone and asks Alice to do the same. SC is a free to use app so it’s not a problem.
Bob activates SC and no registration is needed for cash transfer. Bob just needs to create a 'User ID' that is unique to him. Alice activates her SC app (creates a 'User ID' and enters a unique one-time “connection code” provided to her by Bob. They both “friend” each other in the SC app. Cryptographic functions makes it secure and they can both be confident that they are who they say they are. Bob and Alice can now also chat live inside the SC app in private as their communication is encrypted.
Bob configures the app to show him available SC brokers within a 2-mile radius. Bob finds that SC broker1 is available and can see that SC broker1 is able to facilitate a transfer of £100,- (using location services)
At the same time Alice has installed her SC app and set her proximity parameters for SC brokers within a 10-mile radius as she lives in rural China. (using location services)
When the proximity conditions / liquidity conditions are met, i.e. SC broker1 is within 2 miles of Bob and SC broker2 is within 10 miles of Alice and SC broker1 and SC broker2 are both able to facilitate a £100,- transfer (cash > SPEC and SPEC > cash), Bob can click “INITIATE TRANSFER”. This created a temporary secure connection between Bob and Alice and broadcast request to the brokers who have marked themselves available for trade.
This will alert all parties that Bob is looking to send £100,- and open a chat between Bob and SC Broker 1 and on the other side open a chat between Alice and SC broker 2 so they can all agree to meet up.
Alice will accept the transfer and Bob’s and Alice’s SC apps will exchange “secret” addresses that is unknown to the brokers.
SC broker1 and SC broker2 also accepts the transfer request.
Bob meets SC broker1 and gives him £100,-. Using the NFC or QR codes or other codes, SC broker1 accepts the trade and 100 SPEC is sent to Alice’s secret SPEC address in escrow.
Alice meets SC broker2 who gives Alice Yuan currency equivalent to £100,-. Alice accepts the trade and the 100 SPEC is sent to SC brokers2 SPEC account.
The thing is that Bob and Alice do not need to know anything about cryptocurrencies or SPEC. SC broker1 and SC broker2 are the "Hawala" intermediaries and they could be "roaming" or they could be based in a geographical location.
If you are familiar with Localbitcoin and Uber, this is sort of a combination of the two.
It may sound a bit convoluted bit the overall effect is the same as a classic "Hawala" transactions. Hawala intermediaries today advertise their services in local papers and through community links as this is a service normally used by poorer layers of society and people wishing to send money "back home" wherever that might be. This is a good short example here:
http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2015/10/economist-explains-12Then at the back of each successful transaction a "null" transaction is created that will rate the success of the main transaction based on some criteria. A decentralised trust model that doesn’t require knowing the identity of the participants, and doesn’t require the ability to correlate their transactions, but maintains a trust score for network participants. Some sort of fee structure will also have to be agreed upon, likely to be based on the exchange rates.
Q2
An Android app is being built first. This is imagined as a free app and there is no revenue stream from the app. Once its done, release it into the "wild" as it were to enable people to make such transactions and release the source code. PR is an essential part of the project past phase one to make people aware that the app exists. This is where we imagine spending funds, PR and also hire specialist programmers to solve any issues along the way. Shake things up a bit and release something that undermines traditional money transfer and protects privacy.
Q3
1 mill will be split in 5, so 200k to each of the four team members as a share (stake) to ensure an interest in staying together and taking the project to its final destination. 200k for some select bounties and incentives to get the system going in a time past the main distribution. No bounties will be paid out at all to anyone at this stage and not for a while. There is no intended revenue stream from app and funds raised is intended to get the system created and released. The 200k retained by the dev team is "pay" if you like. We obviously believe that if we have a moderately successful ICO that we can push the value of SPEC up and once the main exchanges can see what this is about they will want to list SPEC.
