CENTUS 白皮书

Universal basic income (UBI) is a state or other institutional material support for community members. Universal (guaranteed) income consists in the absence of additional (along with belonging to the society) requirements for receiving assistance. It is believed that such a support system can reduce financial anxiety and improve mental and physical health, increase motivation to work. Typical arguments against a decrease in the desire to work and a corresponding decrease in productivity.

This is a social concept that involves regular payments of a certain amount of money to each member of the community by the state or other institution (such institution is represented by CENTUS seigniorage network in this document).

Universal basic (unconditional) income is regular payments, which are sufficient to cover basic expenses: rent, food, and clothing. They are provided regularly, free of charge, without any counter obligations, and do not depend on age, marital status or income level.

Initially, this method of interaction between the state and the individual was considered from the point of view of eliminating excessive social inequality. This was a key goal. And as an economic background, they used such a concept as “social dividends”. It was introduced by Clifford Douglas, British major, who was convinced that every citizen is entitled to a part of the national wealth.

Everything looks quite logical: if you are a citizen of the country, then you also own part of the national wealth. It is like being a shareowner and receiving a part of the company’s profit in the form of dividends.

Attempts to introduce cyclical payments of UBI in different countries are accompanied by discussions and contradictions of opponents and supporters of this measure of socio-economic support of the population.

Taking into account different approaches, states are trying to replace social payments with monthly accruals of UBI, thereby giving to the society the right to dispose its income based on its needs. However, it was calculated that, if Switzerland had introduced such kind of social benefits, the expenditure for the introduction of this measure would have been about 200 billion dollars per year. Given the financial condition and small population of this country, this figure is significant even for them.

So far, the main sources for payments of universal income have been named as follows:

1. Universal basic income should replace all existing social benefits.
2. Higher taxes. This is nothing new, and now all social programs are implemented by the state at the expense of taxes. Nevertheless, at present, social benefits and taxes are not symmetrical, that is, taxes are paid by some people, and benefits are received by others. The progressive tax rate is designed to redistribute money from the richest to the poorest.
   We can often hear reproaches such as why those who work should support those who do not work, or who, in the opinion of society, do not work enough. What can we reply? It is in the interests of society as a whole. At least, this is how economists and sociologists explain this fact.
   In addition, the redistribution of funds between social strata by other means is becoming more difficult.
3. Another source of payment of universal basic income are funds saved on reducing the bureaucracy. After all, officials dealing with social payments will no longer be needed. Every citizen will simply receive the amount due to him or her on a monthly basis.
4. One of the options for obtaining funds for the payment of universal basic income is seigniorage (income received from the issue of money and assigned by the issuer on the property rights).

A number of countries have successfully implemented UBI accrual policy.

Canada

One of the very first experiments on the payment of a universal basic income took place back in the 70s in the city of Dauphin (Canada). The project is called Mincome. According to the project, each resident of the city received monthly payments for 5 years. We must admit that this was one of the longest experiments organized at the state expense.

Evelyn Forget, an economist at the University of Manitoba, studied the results of this experiment. She noted in her report that the level of employment has not decreased at all. At the same time, the number of volunteers has increased, and the social activity of the population has increased.

The rate of hospitalization in the city decreased by 8.5%. During the experiment, a larger number of teenagers graduated from schools, rather than leaving school study unfinished.

Namibia

A coalition of organizations launched a pilot project in Ochivero village, Namibia, with a population of about 1,000 people. For a year, each resident of the village had received 100 Namibian dollars per month. As a result, men stopped illegal hunting, children were not starving, and many children improved their school performance. Employment increased by 11% as people opened pastry shops, hair-dressing salons and brick-making workshops. Additionally, crime rates dropped by 42%.

India

In 2011, the Association of women entrepreneurs, supported by UNICEF, conducted an experiment that lasted a year and a half. Each adult in 10 villages was paid 200 rupees and a child was paid 100 rupees monthly. Economic activity has increased, and food and school attendance have improved. The government of India took into account the results of the experiment, replacing 29 different social programs with direct payments to citizens.

In addition, this year, Arvind Subramanian, an economic adviser to the government of India, suggested that the introduction of unconditional income at the national level should be considered. In the annual report for the government, the estimated amount was also named – 7620 rupees or $113 per year. Even such a small amount, according to many, could significantly reduce the level of poverty in the country.

Germany

In 2014, the German entrepreneur Michael Bohmeyer started implementation of the pilot programme “Mein Grundeinkommen” (my basic income). Several dozen randomly selected people had been receiving 1,000 euros each month for a year.

All participants of the project note that their sleep has become much calmer. However, not much has changed in their lives in general as students continued to study, workers continued to work.

The author of the project noted that the idea of basic payments is based on four principles: it is universal, it solves individual problems, it does not depend on any conditions and creates a high minimum standard of living for citizens.

Many countries are in the middle of an “experiment” now. We will be able to evaluate the results only after some time. You can find few examples of these countries below.

Finland

The Finnish national insurance authority has proposed replacing social benefits with a fixed payment for all adult citizens of the country, regardless of income level. It is expected to set payments at 550 euros per month, and later raise to 800 euros.

Kenya

In October 2016, Givedirect, the New York based charity organization which fights poverty in East Africa, launched the largest project thus far for paying an universal basic income in Kenya. Residents of 40 villages will receive about $ 22.5 per month for 12 years. This is not just a charity event, but a scientific experiment aimed at collecting and analysing data on the effectiveness of universal basic income.

USA

Participants of the Economic Security Project, launched at the end of 2016, are researching the potential benefits of universal basic income in developed economies. The initiators of the project with a budget of 10 million dollars are more than 100 organizations and individuals, including Chris Hughes, Facebook cofounder, and Sam Altman, Y Combinator Foundation President.

Spain

As part of measures to mitigate the social and economic consequences of the coronavirus pandemic, the Spanish government is going to introduce a universal basic income in the near future. Nadia Calvino, Minister of Economic Affairs, announced this on April 5, 2020. The Spanish government wants to maintain a universal basic income even after the epidemic. The Minister of Economic Affairs expressed hope that the universal basic income will remain a “permanent structural tool”.

Any member of the CENTUS seigniorage network, a coin owner, is entitled to receive basic income in the form of interest accrued on the amount of coins in his wallet. The basic income rate is determined by network participants – owners of DBC tokens intended for project management. This is done to prevent CENTUS coin owners from indefinitely inflating the interest paid, thus no excessive supply of coins is created on the market.

In the CENTUS seigniorage network, not only participants who bought coins can receive basic income. It is also possible for those members of the community who do not have the opportunity to purchase tokens to receive such income. To do this, participants can promote the project at a certain stage by earning and accumulating special bonuses, which they can convert to CENTUS and receive basic income. Of course, they can sell these coins at any convenient moment.

In the future, as the project develops and the capitalization of CENTUS increases, in addition to interest charges, it is planned to add a payment of a minimum fixed amount in absolute terms, for example, from $50-100 to several hundred US dollars, to each CENTUS participant.

At the initial stage, we reserve the right to use any combination of seigniorage (basic income) payments, including dividing accruals depending on how CENTUS was received: for example, those who purchased tokens at their own expense can count on the maximum payout, while those who received them through bonus and other exchanges, as well as various incentive programs can receive accruals par- tially.

People living in developed countries take for granted the availability of a stable currency. If you are in the US with unlimited access to dollars or in the EU with access to euros, you may wonder why the world needs a digital currency with a stable price. However, in countries with weak financial institutions and unstable currencies, high rates of inflation and currency devaluation are common. We expect CENTUS with its stable price and integral seigniorage to be in high demand in these markets.

At the time of publication in the second quarter of 2020, annual inflation in Egypt was 6.8%, in Argentina – 50.3%, and in Nigeria – 12.2%. These are only those countries whose governments are relatively more stable. Let us look at Venezuela, which currently has an annual inflation rate of 9586%. What would you do if your savings were disappearing at a rate of 9586% a year? Faced with a rapidly depreciating local currency, people are looking for other ways to survive, often leaning towards the dollar. This effect is known as dollarization.

It usually takes three forms:

• First, the population may prefer to use the dollar instead of the local currency without any coordination from the local government. The US dollar is used as a de facto currency in a number of countries in Central Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, and its adoption rate can be extremely high, despite the lack of official coordination. For example, for 2 years from 2006 to 2008, dollarization in the Seychelles jumped from 20% to 60%.
• Secondly, citizens of a country can demand the dollar, despite state capital controls that prevent the movement of the dollar across its borders. It is no secret that there was a black dollar market in Argentina, known as dollar blue, during the period of capital control from 2011 to 2015. Over those years, between $ 10 and $ 40 million per day changed hands at rates that were 25-30% higher than the official rate. These bets were even published daily in national newspapers, despite being officially illegal.
• Third, currency devaluation can become so severe that governments can officially switch to US dollars, as happened in Zimbabwe in 2009. Today the entire country requires regular deliveries of physical paper dollars and coins.

The prospects are obvious. Regardless of whether dollarization is officially approved, citizens, banks, and governments incur significant costs when importing physical US dollars. CENTUS, which allows millions of dollars to be transported by making the phone call and generates regular income, seems to be a significantly better alternative to paper dollars in all dollarization scenarios.

In conclusion: existing digital currencies have found an appeal in some countries with hyperinflation, for example, the use of bitcoins in Venezuela is growing as the country has faced a currency crisis. However, Bitcoin can never truly free people from their unstable local currency due to the lack of quote stability. For example, if bitcoin goes through a devaluation cycle, users do not see the difference between devaluing bitcoin and devaluing the local currency. Even if bitcoin only crashes once, people will want to switch to an alternative that is stable in price – if such option exists. Thus, the CENTUS seigniorage stablecent, which allows you to receive regular income, will be an excellent solution for developing countries experiencing rapid currency devaluation.

Today, many participants of the crypto market traders convert their cryptocurrency into stable coins pegged to the US dollar when there is turbulence in the cryptocurrency markets. To meet this need, a centralized solution, known as USD Tether, has been generated, but for reasons to be discussed later, a centralized solution such as Tether is unlikely to work in the long term, and as a result, Tether has faced significant negative sentiment. In addition, when the market falls and the trader keeps their assets in a regular stable coin, such as USD Tether, he does not get any profit, unlike CENTUS, which also has a stable price and at the same time brings income (seigniorage) to its owner.

A seigniorage digital currency with a stable price can meet the needs of digital traders. Therefore, cryptocurrency traders can naturally be enthusiastic about the new protocols, and here we expect initial demand for CENTUS Stable Cent.

CENTUS combines a digital currency that brings its owner a profit in the form of a seigniorage at the growth stage, and a stable coin pegged to the US dollar.

Due to instability, today’s cryptocurrencies are not suitable for even the most basic financial contracts that our economy relies on. Can you imagine a job for which you get one bitcoin per month, but you pay all your monthly bills in US dollars – what will happen to you and your family if the price of BTC falls? How about buying a home with a 30-year mortgage denominated in bitcoin, in a world where you probably still get paid in dollars? It is impossible to predict the development of events in such cases, because the credit and debt markets, and in fact the markets for any financial contract over time depend on price stability.

When entering a mortgage agreement, the greatest risk that you take as a lender is the risk of default. However, if this mortgage was denominated in an unstable asset such as Bitcoin, you are also exposed to a very high price risk. For example, the cost of a 30-year bitcoin-denominated mortgage may suddenly be very low if the price of Bitcoin falls by 90% on any given day over the next 30 years. To make deals, you must be prepared to either speculate on the price of Bitcoin for each loan you provide or find a specialist who will do this. In any case, the borrower will have to pay for your willingness to hedge price risks. This adds aspects, which are difficult to negotiate, to the simplest financial contracts.

A number of visionaries in the blockchain industry believe that we will soon see an ecosystem of “blockchain applications” that implement existing services with decentralized tools. For example, one day we may see “Uber blockchain” 或 “Airbnb blockchain”, each using its own tokens. In fact, this is already happening with Filecoin, a service for decentralized file storage on the Internet.

Of course, if each blockchain application will create its own token, then there must be a conversion system between “a universal token that during its holding brings a constant income and has 100% liquidity” and the tokens of any of these applications. We assume that each person will become a owner of a universal token and will pay with it when using any blockchain application. Then, after payment, the universal token will be immediately converted into an app token at the market rate. This will be similar to your bank account in US dollars and using your debit card in another country, such as Spain, in which case your bank converts your US dollars to euros at the market rate every time you make a purchase, without having to think about it. At the same time, you also get a regular basic in- come in the form of a seigniorage for tokens.

If there were this ecosystem of blockchain applications that would require the use of a universal token, it would be very strange if this universal token were not stable in price with the condition of regularly received income. In other words, if you believe in the future of blockchain applications, you not only have to believe that a stable price coin will be required for exchange, but also hope that a stable price coin will be successful.