MTL （Metal）白皮书.pdf

1 A Payments-Based Cryptocurency and Incentivization Network Marshal Hayner marshalmetalpay.co Abstract Metal is a blockchain-based system utilizing Proof-of-Procesed-Payments to identify users, rewarding them for converting legacy fiat currency into cryptocurrency. It is a system similar to bitcoin but with a user-friendly interface and front-end that is similar to Venmo, Square or PayPal. Metal can act as a bridge to bitcoin or any cryptocurency available. Many smal businesses across the world prefer to only accept cash. However, in an increasingly cashless society, refusing to accept digital and card payments can be problematic. Put simply, Metal believes cash only businesses can benefit by adopting cryptocurrency as a new new of cash, as cryptocurencies possess many of the same properties particularly around privacy, censorship resistance and fungibility. In order to bring digital payments into a world that utilizes blockchain-based technology over some traditional banking rails, Metal expects to save consumers 4-5 on all purchases. Introduction Eight years after the release of bitcoin, cryptocurrency has stil yet to go mainstream and achieve widespread adoption. The reasons for this can be attributed to these major problems 1 User experience and dificult learning curve 2 Lack of incentive for the layperson to get involved 3 Volatility in price 4 Many view bitcoin with suspicion due to sensational reporting from edia 5 Questions around privacy 6 Lack of setlement finality 7 Legal uncertainty in the case of forks and hacks. 2 Bitcoin has shown curency can exist outside of the curent financial system. It is technologicaly resistant to counterfeiting via blockchain technology. However, this by itself is not inherently strong enough to spark a technological payments revolution. Rather, bitcoin is exciting and motivating entrepreneurs to build a better mousetrap. One challenge is that bitcoin is extremely volatile and scares away many would-be users due to the fact it is accepted almost nowhere, including brick and mortar businesses and online. Financial institutions, for the most part, avoid bitcoin. They are creating private blockchains to identify sources of funds as well as users on these systems. Using a centralized of Know-Your-Customer KYC identification and a payments plat, Metal proposes to fairly distribute cryptocurency via Prof-of-Procesed-Payments PoPP on top of the ethereum blockchain. Satoshi’s original vision for bitcoin was to distribute miner rewards fairly through Proof-of-Work PoW. However, we have seen mining become highly centralized in China. With a centralized group of miners, distribution of the cryptocurency becomes highly skewed and becomes near impossible for the layperson to earn, instead forcing them to purchase through an exchange. Without an incentive to purchase, cryptocurency may never reach mas adoption. Metal proposes a system utilizing provable payments attached to verified identities to distribute curency. Anyone can participate to earn MTL as a reward for converting fiat to cryptocurency. The goal is to provide al of the financial services smal to medium sized busineses SMB might ned, but can’t aces curently. Typicaly, cash-based businesses find it hard to get credit because they have no credit history. This has led to seeking alternative financing which comes with exorbitant fes and loan financing charges. The initial target market wil be high risk merchants, cash intensive merchants, and merchants who already acept or want to acept more cryptocurency. At a later stage, it wil be to acquire traditional merchants like Square, Venmo and PayPal. 3 Transactions Metal wil ofer services through software to make transactions acesible for regular users. This strategy wil prove valuable as per-to-peer payments are incentivized to leave traditional rails, opting for an open network of cryptocurrency payments. These transactions wil settle faster and provide real world value beyond traditional cash-based payments. The size of transactional volume from the traditional incumbents is stagering. For General purpose payment cards with global brands such as American Express, Diners Club/Discover, JCB, Mastercard, UnionPay, and Visa colectively generated purchase volume of 20.42 trilion in 2015. They are projected to generate 54.891 trillion by 2025. These card-present and card-not-present payments for gods and services are generated by credit, debit, and prepaid cards. Cards isued in the United States held a 23.4 share of global brand purchase volume in 2015. That share wil fall to 17.69 by 2025, even as card spending reaches 9.711 trilion, up from 4.786 trilion in 2015 [1]. The dolar volumes are masive as wel. For general purpose payment cards with global brands such as Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover, JCB, Diners Club, and UnionPay had colectively generated 27.05 bilion purchase transactions in 2015. They are projected to generate 604.10 bilion purchase transactions in 2025. These card-present and card-not-present payments for goods and services are generated by credit, debit, and prepaid cards. Cards issued in the United States generated 36.35 of the global brand purchase transaction total in 2015. The U.S. market share is projected to fall to 27.63 by 2025, even as the region is expected to see transactions grow by 8.44 bilion annually to reach 166.94 bilion in 2025 [2]. 4 With market capitalizations in cryptocurency in the tens of bilions today, as the industry scales and grows it wil capture some of this market. Reward vs. Penalty The curent state of cryptocurency is a penalty over a reward. In order to enter cryptocurency one must have a fundamental understanding of the software that it runs on, the best security practices, ability to get in and out, avoid fluctuation and find the lowest possible fees. In addition, even armed with these skils, many users are forced to wait days for their payments to clear before they have coins on-chain. In the case of Metal, payments are aproved or declined immediately and displayed as spendable of-chain credit until they setle on chain. This makes the entire experience unusable for the layman. Prof of Procesed Payments PoP changes the experience from an unpleasant penalty, to a simple reward. Earn crypto when you spend money, earn crypto when you receive money. Through PoPP and the Metal plat we are incentivizing usage and adoption of cryptocurency and building an ecosystem for users and merchants. Incentives Metal does everything traditional payment aps can do. This includes per-to-peer transfer and real-time invoicing. With cryptocurency integration and PoP, Metal users wil earn cryptocurency for making normal payments. PoP is a mechanism to incentivize people to leave fiat money for crypto curency. It gives people an oportunity to be a part of the financial system by giving them a financial history, which can enable them to open bank accounts and access other services. Merchants may purchase plat credit with MTL which wil entitle them to a discount on al associated payment processing fees and a discount on merchant services. The use of the MTL token by merchants and individuals wil drive adoption and thus usage beyond plat-based services provided by Metalicus Limited, the parent company of Metal. Merchants may also receive an aditional 5 of payment procesing fes for ofering a discount when paying with MTL. Many merchants wil find it advantageous to ofer the MTL discount to save on traditional credit and debit card processing fees. Due to the ability to save merchants on processing fees, consumers utilizing the plat wil receive significant discounts when making purchases. Owners of Metal wil receive significant benefits in the of discounts 1 Discounts for Metal merchants 2 Discounts for customers paying with MTL 5 3 Discounts for consumers in the of heavy discounts on pay features Underlying Technology To implement a provably fair distribution model, Metal uses the public ethereum blockchain [10]. It uses Ethash as its Prof-of-Work for security. In an atempt to keep cryptocurency distributed, the Ethereum Foundation chose an ASIC-resistant scheme [1], however this stil does not make mining accessible to the layman. Proof-of-Work merely slows down the inevitable centralization and the inability to participate with consumer hardware. Metal aims to be blockchain agnostic and recognizes the ned for multiple cryptocurencies. If cryptocurency adoption is to take of it must utilize multiple blockchains. For example, many users wish to se the curency in terms of United States Dolars or Euros. For this reason Metal is using financial instruments that will ofer stability. Metal recognized the ned for Interoperability and Metal wil use inter-blockchain exchanges to transfer betwen multiple cryptocurencies and cryptoassets. Meanwhile, loyalty-based tokens that merchants can create wil be on the ethereum network as wel as MTL the token. Metal also recognizes the ned for privacy-based tokens like DASH, Monero and Zcash, which wil also be supported. Bitcoin is the underlying currency powering all transactions and purchases. However, this may change at a later time with sufficient volume to switch to MTL, ethereum or something diferent entirely. Prof-of-Procesed-Payments Prof-of-Procesed-Payments PoPP acts as a provable way of identifying users and distributing new currency into the system. At the same time, it rewards users who convert fiat curency into cryptocurency. For this identity-based, volume-dependent distribution network, Metal first identifies a user through a social security number or pasport ID with identification software. Second, Metal gets a photograph on file, either a selfie or picture of identifying documents. Third, Metal can link a credit or debit card number in preparation for procesing a payment. If no credit/debit card is available, a user can sign up with only an email address and invoice credit/debit/ach accounts into cryptocurency. Provided al data points check out and the registered name on the identification matches the name on the credit or debit card, Metal initiates a payment using proprietary anti-money-laundering AML and anti-fraud technology. The payment typicaly declines or accepts in under one minute. The pending payment notification shows on the transaction list for the receiver of funds. When the payment is completely setled and the bank transfer or cryptocurency isued, a portion of the gross amount of the payment is returned in METAL tokens. This is 5 of the 6 volume of the transaction at trading value for MTL in either direction sender/receiver. As an example, 100 in MTL is sent. It is trading 1/MTL. Both sender and receiver would both get 5 MTL. In order for the receiver to claim the aditional MTL, they must go through the KYC proces and be identified as a separate person receiving the payment. If a user wishes to simply top-up their account with a crypto balance, they are eligible for a discount of the purchase price of the transaction in MTL, the parent company of Metal, colects fees for procesing payments. Aditional Features Plugins Plat like Wordpres and Drupal plugins to ad Metal functions to websites and aps. Loyalty Loyalty isuance in the of blockchain and closed loop tokens for merchants. Split Payments Paying with friends is always beter. Create an event and start a split payment, invoice the group and watch as you approach the goal. Escrow Escrow-based multisignature wallet used for marketplace or auction purposes. Ecomerce plat Shopify-style ecomerce with Metal rewards as the key market diferentiator. Loan product Lending plat tied to escrow offering. Borrowers can be rated based on Metal rewards. Microtransactions Sending very smal amounts of money, which curent payment procesors do not suport. Branded payment card Metal merchants wil be able to cultivate loyalty with specific branded payment options. Blockchain identity management Prof-of-Procesed-Payments PoPP ID system. Discourages money laundering practices. Hardware NFC payment terminal Raspbery Pi hardware terminals and NFC cards that make tap to pay posible anywhere Metal is acepted. In addition, NFC integrated wearables such as FitBit bracelets and phone cases. 7 These features wil be unlocked with MTL micropayments for consumers. Once a customer in the ap is earning MTL these features are unlocked like a game. This can be done by achieving certain milestones eg. transactional volume using PoP or by simply paying for them. Network A total of 66,588,888 MTL tokens wil be created at the genesis. The Metal token wil be ERC20 compliant which means that a stakeholders adreses can be linked to a name or tag, or fetched by an identity security provider [128]. A 31 initial amount of MTL tokens wil be saved from the cap of 6,58,88 MTL, which is 21,088,888 MTL. This wil be deducted from the total amount available for distribution through PoPP 26,341,12 and locked up for 12 months, leaving 21,08,88 MTL for the token sale. A portion of the company reserve wil be set aside 3,378,00 MTL wil be broken down to 1,000,000 MTL each for the initial two co-founders; whereas 20,00 METAL wil be distributed among each of the first five employees and 40,000 MTL wil be distributed each for nine advisors 3,378,000 total. MTL tokens wil vest every month for twelve months until fuly vested with co-founders, first employees and advisors. If for any reason a founder, employee or advisor ceases to be with the company during their vesting period, al vesting wil cease and be returned to the Metalicus Limited operational pool. This leaves an aditional 13,378,88 MTL in Metal operational pool to be used at the company’s discretion. The operational pool may not be drawn from by Metal for up to twelve months from the completion of the token sale. The Metal operational pol may be used for such efforts but not limited to Atracting top talent to the company, marketing purposes and perance-based bonuses for employees. Equity investors in Metal are entitled to the average token sale price of MTL at 0.18, for their equity investment to be matched in MTL tokens. This financing of 556,000 in private equity takes exactly 3,08,88 MTL from the initial token sale amount, reducing it to 18,00,00 MTL available at the start of the token sale. The token sale wil be distributed over the course of six months until al of the coins are sold 18,00,00 MTL. Any coins that are not sold during the three tiers of the token sale wil be disolved into a proof of burn address via ethereum contract in Solidity. 8 Metal wil list what cryptocurency wil be acepted in the sale based on coins meeting particular liquidity thresholds. The coins wil be sold in the folowing order with aditional bonuses for payment in ethereum E