In 2013–’14, I was convinced BTC would be used as an in-app, censorship-resistant, API-driven new currency.
I even tried to build a complex, API-based payment network for it. It didn’t work. Finally, I accepted Bitcoin’s limitations as “p2p e-cash.”
Then I met Vitalik Buterin, Anthony Di Orio and the Ethereum Foundation.
Didn't quite understand how you could "print new money" on top of new, speculative money. I was a contrarian here as my SV "platform" friends ❤️'d it.
— Chris McCoy (@chrisamccoy) August 27, 2018
Instead of building on Ethereum, I took a bet and put some BTC into the pre-sale. Then, left the crypto space (out of frustration with Bitcoin).
— Chris McCoy (@chrisamccoy) August 27, 2018
Jumped back in when I realized zero-fee, in-app, API-based, and censorship resistant payments still was a problem needing a solution.
At the time, was building a newco:
— Chris McCoy (@chrisamccoy) August 27, 2018
HQ-to-Location chat for franchise and chain stores.
Saw two things:
1) Stores hated the 2.5%-3.5% transaction fee from traditional payment rails
2) The ~4% fee that locations pay HQ as part of the franchise agreement could be a smart contract
* that's ~4% of every single transaction at the cash register.
— Chris McCoy (@chrisamccoy) August 27, 2018
Studied the Ethereum dApp ecosystem. Realized that "gas" was an economic primitive for gamified banks -- not a world computer.
Bitcoin was on its way to becoming joule-backed digital gold.
As I went deeper into research, it was clear "the smart contract wars" were about to start.
— Chris McCoy (@chrisamccoy) August 27, 2018
Still didn't buy into new money being created on top of new, speculative money.
And there were no plausible zero-fee models for the merchant (or app developer).
After coming out of a 3-month research cave, realized that Inflationary rewards could incentivize a p2p consensus to not only validate transactions but secure, govern, and scale them as well.
— Chris McCoy (@chrisamccoy) August 27, 2018
Along the way, we spun out @storecoin as a new blockchain for franchise _ chain stores.
As our research evolved, we realized that we were solving a much larger problem than zero-fee payments for the franchise and chain store vertical.
— Chris McCoy (@chrisamccoy) August 27, 2018
We were building zero-fee, p2p, highly programmable payments infrastructure for the centralized internet (apps not dApps).
We're making progress 24/7 with a team spread around the world. Still early but we're shipping on the technology, security, community, treasury management, legal, and ecosystem fronts daily. https://t.co/8lB4cG21Bl
— Chris McCoy (@chrisamccoy) August 27, 2018
More on WebC -- or the zero-fee crypto-powered web https://t.co/IRfevUBBKC
— Chris McCoy (@chrisamccoy) August 27, 2018
Here's a look at the WebC Stack currently being researched and built @storecoin. pic.twitter.com/jyGBFhGv9E
— Chris McCoy (@chrisamccoy) August 29, 2018