Something crop up in my mind and it is important now that we are nearing the launch and nearing a new phase in the life of NEM.
Perhaps we should start doing a reality check and see how we can make NEM a better value proposition than all other crypto initiatives in the land.
The question is :
Why and what would anyone want to use NEM for?
Can we come out with something great to make people want to use NEM as a platform rather than just a pure speculation of the coin?
I would line to buy electronics, do some PC upgrades on next years all paying using nem. I also would love to buy things necessaries for month, like food, cloths and a lot more. [emoji4]
Enviado de meu Nexus 4 usando Tapatalk
As for myself, I would be interested in buying airplane tickets, land, food, outdoors equipment/used army gear.
I would use it because I have it of course, but also it could be simple and cool to have in paper wallet and phone. Also, I would use it on the internet if it was easy enough, it could very well be easier than using a credit card - like after collecting the items you want to buy there would be a button "pay with nem" and then you would just insert password.
I know this has been mentioned before, but if we can capture the remittance market then we are golden. As you know, I live in Japan and there are many expats here who have to send money back home. Many Brazilians are sending money back to their families, many Americans are sending money back to America to pay for student loans, the list goes on.
A friend of mine sends his money back for student loan payments every month, and the bank charges him something like 3000 yen every time (more than $30 USD). It should be a crime to charge that much for absolutely nothing more than an electronic transfer of funds.
If cryptocurrencies were more mainstream and it was easier to use them to move money between countries, this could be a huge market.
I know this has been mentioned before, but if we can capture the remittance market then we are golden. As you know, I live in Japan and there are many expats here who have to send money back home. Many Brazilians are sending money back to their families, many Americans are sending money back to America to pay for student loans, the list goes on.
A friend of mine sends his money back for student loan payments every month, and the bank charges him something like 3000 yen every time (more than $30 USD). It should be a crime to charge that much for absolutely nothing more than an electronic transfer of funds.
If cryptocurrencies were more mainstream and it was easier to use them to move money between countries, this could be a huge market.
For NEM to actually capture this market (before it can be used in close to every shop) NEM needs it's own circle.com, that is to say, a really easy way to get hold of NEM and a really easy way to convert NEM back to fiat.
[li]International payments (my bank charges equiv of $40 for international bank transfers in Japan; recently paid this $40 fee to pay a conference fee of only $350 to Germany...)[/li]
[li]Online shopping. No reason to use a credit card. Just use NEM for any online purchases (better security, don't have to worry about scheduling payment, etc).[/li]
[li]Creating a new economy. Current economy is broken and structurally flawed. By using NEM you can help the world switch to a better system.[/li]
Thanks for your feedback. Most of you have answered what it can be used for. I will ask again, why NEM? Why not use Bitcoin to buy, do remittance and do all the great stuffs? After all, Bitcoin is more recognised. Why NEM? What is so great about NEM that one should use it to do all the great stuffs that Bitcoin is already doing?
Please understand that I am asking these question because we need to establish a desired outcome - to make NEM No. 1.
I need to pick your brains so that we all can come together and give a very powerful value proposition. I have my own set of answers but I hope you can also elucidate something great so that we can put them together for a great conclusion. It is important that we have more participants to really make NEM great!
Thanks for your feedback. Most of you have answered what it can be used for. I will ask again, why NEM? Why not use Bitcoin to buy, do remittance and do all the great stuffs? After all, Bitcoin is more recognised. Why NEM? What is so great about NEM that one should use it to do all the great stuffs that Bitcoin is already doing?
Please understand that I am asking these question because we need to establish a desired outcome - to make NEM No. 1.
I need to pick your brains so that we all can come together and give a very powerful value proposition. I have my own set of answers but I hope you can also elucidate something great so that we can put them together for a great conclusion. It is important that we have more participants to really make NEM great!
Bitcoin does not yet have the infrastructure to operate on a Nokia one, a phone model used by billions around the world. NEM as far as I know is the first digital currency aimed at the simple user.
I want to be able to send money to my friends and in-laws overseas who do not have access to their own computer or smartphone. Many households I do know have a communal computer but this isn't very practical for individual finances.
Then there is the off topic issue being the maintenance of the Bitcoin network. The projected cost for 2014 is said to be $680 million for something only used by 500K-2M persons. That's me and you paying up to a statistical average of $425-$1200 each a year for the courtesy of maintaining this decentralized blockchain and this money to a few mining corporations.
Thanks for your feedback. Most of you have answered what it can be used for. I will ask again, why NEM? Why not use Bitcoin to buy, do remittance and do all the great stuffs? After all, Bitcoin is more recognised. Why NEM? What is so great about NEM that one should use it to do all the great stuffs that Bitcoin is already doing?
Please understand that I am asking these question because we need to establish a desired outcome - to make NEM No. 1.
I need to pick your brains so that we all can come together and give a very powerful value proposition. I have my own set of answers but I hope you can also elucidate something great so that we can put them together for a great conclusion. It is important that we have more participants to really make NEM great!
Bitcoin does not yet have the infrastructure to operate on a Nokia one, a phone model used by billions around the world. NEM as far as I know is the first digital currency aimed at the simple user.
I want to be able to send money to my friends and in-laws overseas who do not have access to their own computer or smartphone. Many households I do know have a communal computer but this isn't very practical for individual finances.
Then there is the off topic issue being the maintenance of the Bitcoin network. The projected cost for 2014 is said to be $680 million for something only used by 500K-2M persons. That's me and you paying up to a statistical average of $425-$1200 each a year for the courtesy of maintaining this decentralized blockchain and this money to a few mining corporations.
OK. So we are addressing the underbanked and unbanked on an old "not so smart" Nokia phone which is predominant in the third world.
How would they transact? SMS? How can they be verified? Send a code through SMS? Code will stay in the message history and some people can make use of it to do the same if the phone is stolen. How else can we verify?
Can the 60 year old grandmother from a third world country be comfortable with using SMS when she is hardly literate?
Online shopping, money transfer for start
and then living with NEM
I want to use digital currencies to make travel easier. I've been to 42 countries since age 18, many being repeats, and often the biggest expense is transportation.
I was one of the first to use innovations like hostel world & couch surf and for this past year I have been using newer innovations like a air bnb and uber.
I would like use NEM as an additional cost saver to book rooms or packages and as well to bypass the fees on foreign ATM transaction.
Then for safety. I had an embarassing story in Sweden where my bank and also the Swedish banks blacklisted my credit card and left me financially destitute without being able to access any money - probably would have had to sleep under the bridge had this occurred on a sunday.
What NEM can bring me is something called an ease of mind, travelling with no worries.
[li]International payments (my bank charges equiv of $40 for international bank transfers in Japan; recently paid this $40 fee to pay a conference fee of only $350 to Germany...)[/li]
[li]Online shopping. No reason to use a credit card. Just use NEM for any online purchases (better security, don't have to worry about scheduling payment, etc).[/li]
[li]Creating a new economy. Current economy is broken and structurally flawed. By using NEM you can help the world switch to a better system.[/li]
There are more than 200,000,000 people living abroad. The majority of them are doing so for financial reasons. (Make more money in a rich country and send it home, or move to a poor country and spend less). Most of them are also doing cross currency transfers.
Right now there is no very cheap, easy, and fast method to get money across the globe. If NEM got a piece of this market, it would be huge. The problem is the competition is getting tough. Coinbase now has the US and has expanded to 20 European countries. Dollar <--> Euro transfers just became cheap and easy.
The countries that expats are from or going to include Germany, Belgium, France, Spain, Russia, Canada, USA, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Philippines, China.
If NEM could get proper fiat to NEM exchanges in these counties, it would be huge. It is soooooo hard for me to see Citcle, Bitpay, Coinbase, Coinjar, and a dozen other legitimate exchanges backed by big VC money and think how little bitty NEM could challenge them. But at the same time I know that a 2.0 will eventually challenge and overtake Bitcoin. I'd love for it to be NEM.
I'm a firm believer that international remittance and international purchases will be the first place that crypto legitimately gains a proper and stable foothold (other than the black markets).
It's the most clear case of how crypto can easily and quickly do something much better in a manner that is substantially better in almost every way. Using it in shops as an everyday currency and getting paid in it is of course the end game but difficult to bootstrap.
I want to use digital currencies to make travel easier. I've been to 42 countries since age 18, many being repeats, and often the biggest expense is transportation.
I was one of the first to use innovations like hostel world & couch surf and for this past year I have been using newer innovations like a air bnb and uber.
I would like use NEM as an additional cost saver to book rooms or packages and as well to bypass the fees on foreign ATM transaction.
Then for safety. I had an embarassing story in Sweden where my bank and also the Swedish banks blacklisted my credit card and left me financially destitute without being able to access any money - probably would have had to sleep under the bridge had this occurred on a sunday.
What NEM can bring me is something called an ease of mind, travelling with no worries.
Bitcoin can also give you the same peace of mind. ;-)
Imagine for a moment that you are not a NEMster but a bitcoiner. How can I win you over?
Thanks for your feedback. Most of you have answered what it can be used for. I will ask again, why NEM? Why not use Bitcoin to buy, do remittance and do all the great stuffs? After all, Bitcoin is more recognised. Why NEM? What is so great about NEM that one should use it to do all the great stuffs that Bitcoin is already doing?
Please understand that I am asking these question because we need to establish a desired outcome - to make NEM No. 1.
I need to pick your brains so that we all can come together and give a very powerful value proposition. I have my own set of answers but I hope you can also elucidate something great so that we can put them together for a great conclusion. It is important that we have more participants to really make NEM great!
Bitcoin does not yet have the infrastructure to operate on a Nokia one, a phone model used by billions around the world. NEM as far as I know is the first digital currency aimed at the simple user.
I want to be able to send money to my friends and in-laws overseas who do not have access to their own computer or smartphone. Many households I do know have a communal computer but this isn't very practical for individual finances.
Then there is the off topic issue being the maintenance of the Bitcoin network. The projected cost for 2014 is said to be $680 million for something only used by 500K-2M persons. That's me and you paying up to a statistical average of $425-$1200 each a year for the courtesy of maintaining this decentralized blockchain and this money to a few mining corporations.
OK. So we are addressing the underbanked and unbanked on an old "not so smart" Nokia phone which is predominant in the third world.
How would they transact? SMS? How can they be verified? Send a code through SMS? Code will stay in the message history and some people can make use of it to do the same if the phone is stolen. How else can we verify?
Can the 60 year old grandmother from a third world country be comfortable with using SMS when she is hardly literate?
I'm not sure if a pure Nokia route is possible. Not even Mpesa is pure.
As I said most people have access to a communal computer, e.g. an extended generational household where there is 1 computer shared by 9 people but each has their own phone.
There has to be a hybrid model where people can operate through these communal computers or entrepreneurs can fill the gap through crypto micro banks.
There is these 500K-2M Bitcoin users and we are also part of that demographic. How did we come to NEM? Why are current newcomers nembers coming to NEM?
Even Andreas A of Bitcoin has implied before that he could move over to a newer crypto.
NEM isn't competing for these 500K-2M users but the eventual realization of a digital currency industry with 100s of millions and later billions of users. This expansion of userbase is inevitable but it was a challenge for search engines and social media websites and they were able to displace predecessors.
At 500K-2M users Bitcoin doesn't really have any holding strength and we have to ask why it isn't more successful in userbase expansion despite venture capitalist money and nods & winks from tech celebrities.
There is these 500K-2M Bitcoin users and we are also part of that demographic. How did we come to NEM? Why are current newcomers nembers coming to NEM?
Even Andreas A of Bitcoin has implied before that he could move over to a newer crypto.
NEM isn't competing for these 500K-2M users but the eventual realization of a digital currency industry with 100s of millions and later billions of users. This expansion of userbase is inevitable but it was a challenge for search engines and social media websites and they were able to displace predecessors.
At 500K-2M users Bitcoin doesn't really have any holding strength and we have to ask why it isn't more successful in userbase expansion despite venture capitalist money and nods & winks from tech celebrities.
The sad part is the whole Crypto industry is still in the innovator stage in the adoption curve. Hence we need to fight for market share in this small confined space so that we can get them to help us to bring in the early adopters.
To answer your question why it isn't successful, apart from all the barriers to entry created by mainstream, I think the VCs are barking at the wrong tree. Hence we need to come out with a very good reason why NEM is the best tree.
And to do that, we must have a very solid value proposition. The approach is multi-prong actually. First we need to "wow" the innovators to be onboard.
Second, like it or not, we need to bring the mainstream institutions in to support us. Then early adopters will come in. When they come in, the easy and natural progression will be the early majority that will buy the idea. Rest will be come naturally thereafter.
Hence, we still need 100K innovators to look at NEM in order to make an impact. Outside the crypto sphere, it would be hard for now.
Well, the reason why I say NEM over BTC is for a few reasons.
First, BTC is not sustainable. Mining is the #1 negative point about BTC for me. It's costly, wastes energy, and can easily be used to take over the network by anyone with enough money (and there are plenty of organizations and even individuals in the world with the money to completely take over BTC and destroy it right now if they felt like it).
Second, BTC is still way too hard to use for the average person. Transactions are slow, there is no messaging, the client is very dated, the list goes on. BTC is also slow to change these things because there is a lot of bureaucracy involved and a lot of "big money" is tied up in BTC now which makes it slow to adapt.
Third, NEM is supposed to be built as an ecosystem more than a simple "fiat replacement". NEM can be much more than just another currency, we just have to be creative and think of ways to make that a reality.
Wasn't it news that Bitcoin was vulnerable to 51% attacks and that gash.io actually accumulated the majority of hashing power and the only assurance was a statement from the CEO stating that they would never allow that to happen. Personally Im not comfortable with knowing that an attack such as this is possible by a few individual. Don't get me wrong I have no dislike for bitcoins but there's a lot that needs to be addressed and improved. There's still a huge awareness for crypt currency that needs to take place.
Here's something I haven't come across yet- a new banking system for NEM coins where fiat is non existent. I'm not really knowledgeable in this regard but I sure would like to find a way I can lend some Coins in exchange for interest. If anyone can carry forth and input your thoughts it would be great.
One very important point for me is the fact that the complete NEM code will be open source. And it is probably even more important to have some really detailed and reputable security audits on the crypto parts of the code, because 99,9 % of the people cannot tell if the code is safe or not and have to trust others who can.
One very important point for me is the fact that the complete NEM code will be open source. And it is probably even more important to have some really detailed and reputable security audits on the crypto parts of the code, because 99,9 % of the people cannot tell if the code is safe or not and have to trust others who can.
Good point and I believe that will be done after V1. This must be released. There is the copying that is what all of us are concerned with. So, it is a chicken and the egg problem.