BitGreen –Cryptoverse AMA
29th May 2020
Guest — Gilard Goren, COO
Q: Gilard Goren Please briefly introduce yourself and #BitGreen to our community?
A: My passion and background (over a decade) has been in social entrepreneurship — focusing on creating triple-bottom line business models that internalize all potential impacts of everyday business decisions. I joined the BitGreen team as COO back in January, to help steer the ship towards its ambitious goal. Of being the engine for millions of everyday impactful actions taken by millions of individuals around the world.
Some of you may have been following our project since 2017. When it first launched, really as an academic exercise, out of Penn State University here in the States.
At the time, the goal was to prove that all the benefits of blockchain, and cryptocurrency, can be realized without all the environmental harm created in POW.
That milestone was achieved by a global community of impact-driven…nerds (Smiley) in 2018.
That same year, we incorporated the BitGreen foundation as a nonprofit organization, and began navigating towards this much grander aim I mentioned.
Q: Which area does #BITG focus on at the moment? (DeFi, Dapps,..) and which products/projects are you developing to support it? “What is the leading Utility of $BITG? And what is tokenomics of it?”
A: the original focus for BitGreen was to provide an impactful alternative to BTC. Same rules and set up, only without the environmental harm. Store of Value was definitely a use-case since inception.
Yet as the community group, largely do to our impact vision, it steered the foundation to expand its mission. We are a decentralized project after all. So, our main utility value props, and the reason we believe we will continue to maintain growth in the long-term (excited to share our roadmap with you) is in our main utility as a catalyst for positive impact. Essentially, BITG is emerging as a currency based on good.
In terms of products: as you can see from our most recent posts on medium, as well as our newly relaunched website, our audience focus is very much the ‘mass consumer’ if you will — everyday folks who may not know the difference between POS and POW, or much about crypto at all, but do care about the world, and can be incentivized through exchange of value for good work.
As such, we’ll be rolling out a v.1 version of our light wallet mobile app in the next month or so — a user-friendly app which will serve the following purposes:
· Send/receive BITG
· Store, buy and view value of BITG
· Discover a growing ecosystem of opportunities to earn on impactful actions you can take
· And discover an ecosystem of sustainable vendors, vetted charities, carbon-offset options and corporate partners who accept your BITG as payment, and reward you for your actions and purchases with even more BITG.
In essence, we’re building a full commercial loop, needed for our currency to thrive.
Q: If you summarize BITG project in one word, what would it be? What are the core features that create the value of BITG? Can you share some highlights from them? What is the ecosystem of Bitgreen? What is the role of BITG in the ecosystem?
A: Well, it may feel churned to death at this point but in a word BitGreen = Impact.
From a more philosophical standpoint, money as we know it now is basically a debt instrument. You owe me = I’m above you
If we take a moment, shake that all out (like an etch-a-sketch, for those who know it) and draw the lines of what money is again, why not redefine money as a token of appreciation? As a gift? as a sign that you earned good will?
BitGreen is building the ecosystem through partnerships with aligned vendors, charities, companies, and communities. Our currency is essentially the lifeblood that flows to make sure good work and collaboration happens.
As to how it actually works — well I explained the ecosystem in brief above, and the two-pager I’ll shoot over after this session should give more detail.
But I would like to stress — if you own BITG, and we hope you consider us, you are part of our community. Your voice will be heard, and you can help shape our future.
In fact, our first impact initiative in these Covid-19 days was nominated by a member of the community.
Folding@Home is a decentralized network of volunteer computers that calculate, or ‘fold’ protein dynamics for some of the world’s toughest maladies. In other words, it maps out Cancer, Covid, Parkinson’s, etc. for labs who are rushing to find cures but do not have access to supercomputers.
Just by downloading the software and signing up, you can volunteer your computing power, at no cost nor real effort on your part, and help fight the good fight.
So, as a community, we decided to allocate 10,000 BITG (part of the monthly governance % of mined BITG the foundation gets every month for these types of projects) to rewarding members of the community who join the BitGreen team within the folding network.
In about a month, we’ve made it to the top 1% of all folding teams on Earth, and are quickly getting to the top.
Also, one of our community members volunteered to develop a novel, automated rewarding mechanism which is now available for any other project to use on our github.
Q: As BitGreen Blockchain is Designed for Sustainability & Energy-Efficient transactions, Do you guys have Collaboration with Any Govt or Local Organizations?
A: While I can get into details on this yet (partnerships take time…) we are currently negotiating having our wallet and currency be used as the rewarding mechanism that an allied tech company will be using as part of their partnership with a major US city that has recently set forth the most ambitious climate action plan in the country.
The way it’ll work:
The city sets a massive macro-level goal. To reach it, it’ll need its millions of citizens to take ‘micro-actions’ such as substituting local plants for the grass on their lawn, or capturing rainwater. The company we’re in talks with has created the app where citizens can learn of actions to tae and prove their actions. They’ll be incorporating BITG as the rewards these citizens can take.
Once with BITG, those rewardees will discover a whole world of other impactful actions to take, and avenues to spend good.
As for local communities, especially now that some many have been hard-hit by the pandemic, we’re working on a model in which the community leaders can choose specific impactful actions relevant to the community’s wellbeing. Their members can take those actions for BITG rewards, which then can be used to buy products and access to events put forth by their community.
In this case, BITG becomes a supplement to whatever local fiat currency is often used, which is likely currently in greater scarcity due to the pandemic.
You may be asking how this system survives if people are rewarded in BITG all the time.
Money is only worth something if :
1) People believe it’s worth something
2) People use it, AKA volume.
By on boarding partners and seeding their ability to earn and spend BITG with regularity, we achieve both, which means demonstrated utility and far greater awareness (mass appeal) which will drive up the value of the currency.
Q: As I see 65% of total supply of BitGreen is staking, Can you tell me the main benefits of this?
A: utilizing staking we nullify almost every bit of the negative environmental impact of POW.
In going the staking route, we literally bind our members to the value and the success of the project, in every positive sense of the term. we also give them a lot more power to help us shape the project. While democratizing the ability to earn from it. No need to spend $$$$$$$$ on GPUs, etc.
I think a main reason the BitGreen protocol is unique, is that we’re very much modeled around BTC even the number of coins that will exist, at 21 million, So the model is quite simple really, taking the best of BTC, while using POS . The benefits of staking is that you can earn BITG for doing little more than supporting a community and cause you believe in. Otherwise, why own the coin, right?
Q: It’s Great to see Merchants are able to accept $BITG as payment for product and Services on Shopify, BigCommerce, Wordpress etc. Can you talk about the main Positives of it & what’s the plan to Add more Merchants?
A: So I’m happy to say that as of last week we set up our connection with Shopify. And a few other similar platforms. Which means any vendor can now accept BITG. We’re also building a mechanism in which the vendors could reward purchases with a ‘cash-back’ type loyalty program using BITG, further incentivizing sustainable purchases, while also sending BITG back into the ecosystem.
Q: What’s Your Goal to Increase Liquidity & Spread the Token for Worldwide Use?
A: Aside from adding BITG to more well-known exchanges, and pushing on the usual press/buzz channels, I believe that in on boarding relevant charities, brands and communities with existing followings would expand our footprint in a way that is both scalable, and honestly, not just speculative.
Would love your thoughts on that one, and any potential partnerships you have in mind!
Folding@Home is our first impact action partnership. We’re in the process of on boarding 2 well-known global nonprofits as charity partners, as well as a minimum of 1 carbon-offset partner, 1 ‘community’ (a record label with a rabid following in NYC and Berlin) and 10 vendors — this is meant to be a pilot, of course.
I mentioned the talks with the city government. We’re also in conversation with an innovative recycling company focused on electronics and clothing, who is looking to use BITG to reward people for their recycling.
As for reducing energy usage — besides getting everyone off POW and onto POS, our focus has been more on offsetting one’s energy usage, and nudging them towards more energy-efficient actions, such as using bike share programs.
I’ll be the first to say, this is all very early-stage, but we see some great early traction and the entire community is ready to double-down on our thesis of change.
Please join #BITGREEN online communities: Twitter, Discord, Telegram, and Reddit
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