Lets start a Circles Forum Group currency

martin_koeppelmann · February 17, 2021, 11:44am

I have written about the idea of group currency here.

I thought it would be fun to create one - it is a bit hacky but it should work:
If you want to join the group - apply here - all you need is an active forum profile that looks like a real human and you need to name your Circles profile here.

What I did:
Created a Gnosis Safe that administers this group:
https://xdai.gnosis-safe.io/app/#/safes/0x51730C6f43D2E970f9587500e8B329C5F2e0ceB0/balances
Could also be a DAO:

I minted 1,000,000,000 “Circles Forum Group Tokens” (CFG)
https://blockscout.com/poa/xdai/tokens/0x3C72b19327B0280c17AB3CA52fB2Dcf263925F3D

I deposited those on an exchange: Mesa.eth.link

Now I added me to the group by simply placing 2 orders:
1: buy unlimited Martin Circles with CFG at price 1:1
2: sell unlimited Martin Circles for CFG at price 1:1

Given the unlimited supply of CFG this essentially means:
You can always convert Martin Circles into CFG, but you can only convert CFG into Martin Circles if the account still holds Martin Circles.

So the steps to add someone to this group are simple:
Create those 2 orders.

I already created some liquidity between the Group Currency and stable coins like USDC.
The system (mesa.eth.link) is smart enough to find “ring trades”. So basically when it sees: personal Circles can be traded for CFG - CFG can be traded for USDC then it will allow you to directly trade your Circles for USDC.

Once you are part of the group you can simply load your Circles account into a Gnosis Safe - and then use wallet connect (you find it in the Safe apps) to connect your Circles account to Mesa and trade some of your Circles. Alternatively you can just send your personal Circles (also via the Safe) to a fresh Metamask account and use that one to trade your Circles on Mesa.

Who wants to join first?

Ajmaq · February 17, 2021, 1:45pm

I would like to start playing with this.
My name is Julio - my username in circles.garden is @ajmaq

Q1: You say there is an unlimited supply. Do you mean the CFG you minted? so the 1,000,000,000? I would call this a limited supply, even though there’s a bunch of them.

Q2: Would it be possible to burn one’s personal credits for the group currency? I think allowing this might be nice because then people would have less chances of getting their tokens swapped away from them and also makes the group currencies more specific for certain usages.

MalthusJohn · February 17, 2021, 12:04pm

Ok, let’s test this

I’m MJ - username @malthusjohn

martin_koeppelmann · February 17, 2021, 12:24pm

Cool - I added both of you!

My tip: open your profile in the Safe and simply send some of your Circles token to your Metamask address. And then use Metamask directly to trade on Mesa.eth (that is easier then from the Safe)

Would love to hear if you will be able to convert some of your Circles to e.g. USDC.

alculexum · February 17, 2021, 2:15pm

Cool, thanks for this! I would like to participate,

I am Alex, username/profile is @alculexum

Not sure if I got it though, after you added me, I will have to place the two orders at mesa, correct?

martin_koeppelmann · February 17, 2021, 2:16pm

Finally - added all 3 of you. Previously I did a mistake - so far you were not able to do the trade but now it should work.

Here is a telegram channel that posts trades on mesa.eth

and here is a site to check latest settlements:
https://dfusion-logs.gnosis.io/

Let me know if you need any help.

alculexum · February 17, 2021, 5:42pm

Can you explain again what you did with our addresses? As I see it from the Gnosis Safe, there is just one owner?

martin_koeppelmann · February 17, 2021, 7:22pm

@alculexum
Ah - right - I could also add you as owners of this group currency.
Right now I am solely the “administrator” of the group.

What I did was basically just placing “orders” on Mesa to buy your Circles (e.g. this is your personal Circles token) with the Group token at a 1:1 rate.

So what you should now be able to do is the following:

This step is optional but makes things slightly simpler:
Use the regular token transfer functionality to send some of your personal Circles token to a metamask address (can be a fresh one or the one that is the owner of your Circles Safe
Go to Mesa.eth and past your token address (since your token is not by default listed)
Deposit some of your personal Circles
You can now trade/convert them to the group circles or (since I added liquidity between group-Circles and stable coins) directly for stablecoins.

alculexum · February 17, 2021, 9:36pm

Ok, I think I understand - no, I don’t have to be included as an owner. I will try the steps, however currently I am having problems with sending my Token via Nifty wallet. Will let you know once this is resolved.

alculexum · February 18, 2021, 6:59am

That works pretty cool, I am proud owner of 10 CFG Tokens now. But it takes quite some steps to get there. I am not sure if it makes sense to document them in more detail, the instructions are correct, but it took me some time to get into Mesa, Batch Processing etc.

What do the others think, does it make sense to describe the procedure more detailled or do we take this as a proof-of-concept, but not marketing it as the way to go for Group Currencies? Or should this be our “Group Currency” Feature implementation for now?

seven77 · February 18, 2021, 8:16am

It’s cool. I want to join. My user name is @ seven77…

martin_koeppelmann · February 18, 2021, 8:19am

Hey @seven77 - welcome to the Circles forum.
For such a group currency to work it is important to know people can not join twice. You joined the forum with this new account and also in the trustgraph you are only connected to people I don’t know/ look kind of suspicious. I will add you if you been around and active for longer and if you establish trust connections to people I know.

seven77 · February 18, 2021, 11:52am

I try to know more, but I have been following and trying to make an impact in my own community from the beginning of my circle, looking forward to participating more.

alculexum · February 24, 2021, 2:50pm

I know that there are currently issues with the system or the RPC endpoints, but did anybody try this? I succeeded and I think it’s an innovative way of creating group currencies with no additional implementation. If others think as well, I could do a small write-up of the steps necessary.

bogblock · February 24, 2021, 6:55pm

Is it too late to join this @martin_koeppelmann? My ID is @bogblock Thank you!

MatrixMan · February 28, 2021, 7:24pm

Very cool, thanks for setting this up. I would also like to play around with it. My ID is @MatrixMan

Thanks!

alculexum · March 3, 2021, 8:08pm

Though I really like the idea how this is a workaround for a missing Group Currency feature, there is this obvious missing link between the created Token and Circles itself:

How can someone decide to use the Group Currency (CFG) inside the Circles system?
How can someone trust the Token and what is the limit, who does she trust actually (ie. in Circles terminology)?
How can the process be automated or eased so much that people can reproduce it without deep technical knowledge?
Do we want to use this workaround for now or is being worked on a more Circles-like solution?

Are there opinions on this? This is a great chance of prototyping a Group Currency which is desperately needed, at least for more than only very localized usage of Circles.

ouie · March 12, 2021, 9:40am

Hi, if it’s not to late I’d like to try this too! I’m @ouie