Why “Small Casual Transactions”

“Small casual transactions” is an expression Satoshi Nakamoto used to describe the purpose of Bitcoin in the original Bitcoin white paper. Famously, Bitcoin is not useful for small casual transactions today. Hence, EarthBucks is designed specifically to solve all of the problems necessary to enable small casual transactions today. Other possible use-cases of the blockchain such as payment channels, tokens, and smart contracts, all take a back seat to small casual transactions at launch so that EarthBucks can focus on this foremost use-case.

Small casual transactions are transactions in the range of 1 US cent (1¢) to 5 US dollars ($5). This range is chosen because traditional payment systems based on credit cards usually charge fees of about 3% plus 30¢, making this range too expensive. But this is the very range that happens to be most useful on the internet, where content and computation is often worth exactly this amount.

Additionally, true small casual transactions should have zero fees and be non-reversible, exactly like cash in the real world. They should also have exactly the same amount of privacy as cash, which is no identity is shared by default, but can be if needed.

At this time, using AI to generate images costs somewhere in the range of 1¢ to 20¢ per image, depending on the model chosen. If the internet had a small casual transaction system where fees are zero, it would be possible to make small casual transactions to pay for image generation. Users would not need to sign up for a monthly fee. Instead, users could use any app that adopted such a standard, and pay for exactly what they use.

Small casual transactions and micropayments are technically two different things. “Micro” means one millionth, indicating than a micropayment is one millionth of a dollar, or so. However, that is far smaller than what is actually needed for computation on the internet. Although it would be possible to use payment channels to make micropayments, that is not a use-case that will be supported at launch. After the primary use case of small casual transactions has been proven, if there is demand for payment channels, support can be added.

Tokens are also theoretically possible on EarthBucks, but no supporting protocols or software to support them will be written at launch. Although the cryptocurrency industry has used tokens extensively, this use-case requires a different set of protocols and software to support it. EarthBucks is focused on small casual transactions for now, and as with micropayments, if demand for tokens is high after the small casual transaction use-case has been proven, support can be added.

Smart contracts and other advanced use-cases will also be explored and added eventually if there is demand after the small casual transaction use-case has been proven.

Small casual transactions, in the range of 1¢ to $5, is the primary use-case for EarthBucks because it is the most useful use-case on the internet today. EarthBucks is designed specifically to be useful for this use-case, and all other use-cases take a back seat to this one at launch. Other use-cases, such as micropayments, tokens, and more, can all be added later depending on demand.