IDW README

IDWPay

( name open to change )

This is going to be a payment solution that offers a very simple Browser extension to send payments. It will also implement features that will mimic Patreon-style micropayments / subscriptions and can easily be integrated into any form of online store, subscription website, decentralized video/podcast platform etc.

Motivation

I find this is needed after the recent Patreon story where a Youtube user called "Sargon of Akkad" was "removed" from this platform for hate speech.

See more here: https://www.reddit.com/r/patreon/comments/a78l8b/sargon_of_akkad_ban_etc_megathread/

I don’t think that what Sargon of Akkad wrote/said is hate speech by any reasonable definition of the term, regardless, I do think that no platform or payment processor should be able to prohibit their own users from doing legal things with their own money

Crypto can solve some of these issues to some extent, this is the best solution I could come up with.

There are projects like this out there, but the challenge of the fiat to crypto exchange is too challenging for an average user.

I am not trying to build some censorship-resistant youtube, or Patreon 2.0, I plan to make a tool that allows for payments, is super easy to use, and that can be integrated into platforms like this. This is the first step towards such platforms.

Solution

IDWPay will provide its Users with a very simple Interface to make payments based on the Ethereum blockchain, however no knowledge or understanding of anything blockchain-related will be required, also users will make Transactions denoted in USD and not in any cryptocurrency, while still working on top of cryptocurrency (ETH) to provide interoperability and censorship-resistance.

User Wallets will have a Balance shown in US Dollar, however IDWpay will internally work with DAI, a stablecoin on top of Ethereum that always approaches the value of 1 USD, see more here: https://medium.com/@james_3093/the-dai-stablecoin-is-a-game-changer-for-ethereum-and-the-entire-cryptocurrency-ecosystem-13fb412d1e75

No centralized entity is required to send Payments from one IDWPay wallet to another IDWPay wallet. As users want to exchange their DAI ( USD) for real USD ( or other fiat-currency ), they will have to go through some sort of broker, this is probably the biggest hurdle for mass adoption, and also a provide the possibility of censorship, since all fiat-brokers will have to be centralized, we cant do USD <-> crypto only on chain.

IDWpay will ease these pain points by providing a open source reference implementation of a very simple "IDWPay Broker" where users can:

    * payout their IDWPay balance to their bank account / PayPal, etc
    
    * fund their IDWPay wallet using credit card, PayPal, etc

Since all balances and transactions happen on the blockchain, every single IDWPay wallet will work with any IDWPay Broker, based in any country, run by any company, this will encourage competition between Brokers,

so for example:

User A funds his IDWPay account via broker1. ( centralized, censorship  possible )
User A sends Money to User B    ( decentralized, no censorship possible )
User B transfers his balance to his bank account using broker2 ( centralized, censorship possible )

and this will be possible even if broker1 and broker2 don’t know of each others existence. Even tough censorship done by brokers is a possibility, I don’t think this will be a problem, If broker2 refuses to facilitate payouts for User B, User B can just change to any other Broker ( with no financial loss ), I expect competition amongst brokers to solve this problem, and the open source version of a reference Implementation of a fully functional broker will make it as easy as possible for anyone to start a company and act as broker, each broker would have to deal with law/regulations based on what country they are in and payment options they support, but brokers can charge a small fee so there is financial incentive for this.

Another pain point for mainstream adoption is that for DAI transactions on Ethereum, it is required to pay the transaction fee in ethereum, the interface of IDWPay will abstract away this fact by showing the user "Credits" ( or something ) , then all the user needs to know is:

"Credits are the things that allow me to make Transactions"

So 1 Credit represents some amount of Ethereum, where 1 Credit = roughly one ETH transaction fee.

To better illustrate these Processes here are Images that show the simplest implementation possible:

Funding / Payouts:

Send Transfers: