Summary

Facebook and Messenger are the leading social media platforms in the Philippines. However, without a decentralized BCH or SLP tipping bot in these platforms, we cannot onboard millions of free mobile internet access users into BCH. As you all know, BCH or SLP tipping have been very popular nowadays in social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, GitHub, Twitch and WhatsApp but access to these platforms requires internet connection unlike Facebook and Messenger that you can access without internet.

Building a decentralized BCH or SLP tipping bot in Facebook and Messenger with awesome features will help BCH expand its reach to free mobile internet access users and non-crypto users in the Philippines. I expect that this step will also onboard merchants to accept BCH/SLP payments 500x faster than our current speed.

Background and Problems

Background

BCH community have been busy building applications, platforms and tools with different usecases that is surely beneficial to users. One of it is the creation of BCH and SLP tipping bots. Micro-tipping is one of the earliest ways Bitcoin users do to spread adoption on social media, in person, and in chats because it is one of the most fun ways to spread and share it. That is why we have so many BCH and SLP tipping bots on different social media platforms. However, only a few of us in the community has targeted users who only depend on free mobile internet access. Therefore we are losing the chance to boost adoption rate.

According to theguardian ,

"Southeast Asia is on of the most internet-addicted regions on the planet, with the Philippines topping the global list with an average of 10 hours and 2 minutes screen time every day."

But this doesn't mean that Filipino internet users have access to internet. In fact,

"The internet remains inaccessible to seven out of 10 Filipinos, despite the country's self-proclaimed status as the world's center to social media." -technology.inquirer.net

How did it happen that the Philippines topped the most internet-addicted region on the planet?

Thanks to Facebook and Messenger, Filipinos are now able to connect to their family, friends, classmates, strangers and loved ones, and post anything without data chargers or use of internet plans. In other words, Facebook and Messenger made this possible.

Problems

1. Fewer than few applications, bots, or tools accessible to free mobile internet access users

First of all, I just want to say honestly that I am totally blown away by how huge the BCH ecosystem is and I am really seeing a lot of useful and innovative projects. One of the best example is read.cash which has proven itself to be very effective on adoption.

The recent launch of noise.cash also gained a massive amount of users which led to a skyrocket on BCH transactions. See...

11,000 user accounts created...

195,297 posts...

163,360 tips given on Bitcoin Cash chain...

6 days 10 hours since launch...

memo.cash being a great experiment for uncensorable social media platform and Detoken for being the first DeFi app built on Bitcoin Cash. While it really feels great to see a lot of innovative projects, it is a bit sad that only a few focuses on targeting offline or free mobile access internet users. It is true that we have Cointext before and it expanded in the Philippines last January 3, 2018 helping Filipinos send and receive Bitcoin Cash but the downside of it is, it does not let you do SMS-based BCH transactions without load or balance for SMS.

I can send messages unlimitedly using SMS for one day and pay 10 PHP or $0.2 but I don't need to spend money because I can do that with Messenger or Facebook and for free.

Also, there may be paytaca and be.cash building a secure Bitcoin Cash wallet that works for offline payments but surely this isn't enough.

1. Few Bitcoin-Cash paying customers to BCH merchants

First, let's praise everyone who help merchants accept BCH payments. People like @AkaneYokoo helps foster value growth for BCH and it requires a lot of time and effort. Thanks to them, you can now pay with BCH to some stores. But,

I agree with @georgedonnelly . As one of the people doing it, the hardest part always is not onboarding these merchants but promising or helping them get Bitcoin-Cash-paying customers.

But the fact is undeniable: focusing primarily on merchants is not a winning strategy all on its own. A focus on merchant adoption is an important first step. It creates a supply of things you can buy with Bitcoin Cash.

But then we need demand. -georgedonelly

In order for us to keep these merchants accepting BCH payments, we need to give them customers and the only way to do that is build something that can onboard millions of users and encourages users to pay with $BCH.

Solutions and Approach

The plan is to create a decentralized BCH or SLP tipping bot on Facebook and Messenger that;

• Solves user's problem on unstable internet connection or no internet connection

• Solves merchant's needs

• Creates an introduction to Bitcoin Cash and SLP tokens. It can also be tutorials

• Creates a network effect

• Onboards merchants, users, developers and builders

To do this, the bot needs to have the following features;

• Learn Bitcoin Cash and SLP Tokens and Earn Rewards

This feature will provide a detailed BCH and SLP learning courses for users, merchants, and developers. A short quiz will be given afterwards and a reward will be sent to him if he passes the quiz. They can take a maximum of two courses per day and a $2 reward/course should be more than enough.

Problem it Solves

With this feature, it will help us save time in introducing Bitcoin Cash and SLP tokens to new users. Knowledge they earn here will become their foundation.

• BCH or SLP Tipping

Tipping have always been the easiest way to spread adoption and this is why tipping was added in platforms like read.cash, noise.cash and memo.cash and BCH and SLP bots in Twitter, Telegram, Reddit etc. It can also become a powerful feature to spread BCH and SLP to millions of people in just a month.

Imagine that each of us gives one tip per day to two new users. These new users in turn give to 2 new ones and so on. In 32 days we would have the entire planet onboarded. - telesfor

• Onboard a Merchant

For this feature, I would like to combine SatoshiAngels' Campaign and it should be unlocked after the user has completed the basic courses giving him enough knowledge to help a merchant accept BCH payments. We would also be very lucky if this user is a merchant!

There should be a command in the bot that will help them enter the merchant's details then it will be sent directly to map.bitcoin.com. Once approved, another command to submit their entry to SatoshiAngels.

Problem it Solves

With this feature, we can boost our merchant adoption rate by 500x and merchants will have plenty Bitcoin-Cash-paying customers because they have hundreds or thousands of BCH users in their area. We no longer need to worry losing merchants!

• Local Trading

Users of this bot should be able to open a trade with an existing buyer or seller if he found a listing that suits his budget. If not, create its own and publish it to the platform of local.bitcoin.com for other traders to see. I am seeing something like that or atleast create a fully non-custodial local trading with an encrypted blind escrow contract that acts as the decentralized go-between for trades.

• Task

I am seeing this "Task" to be something that notifies users when a new task is displayed on lazyfox.io and anyone who has internet connection can earn the chance to apply and solve. If this is not possible, atleast something in the bot that lets users create and solve a task inside their group or outside.

Example:

Steve creates a task in the bot in his group. The bot will ask Steve to deposit the rewards into the bot. Members of this group will be notified. John who saw Steve's task applied. The bot will ask John to send the solution in DM, once John sent it already the bot will notify Steve. Then Steve can choose to "Accept or Decline" John's solution. If approved, the bot will send the reward to John.

Expected Timeline

In this timeline, I assumed that the bot is already live!

First month - 100 000 users

In this Filipino Readers community, there are 2746 subscribers which means there are 2746 Filipinos but there might be multi-accounts so let's just say that there 1000 of them. These Filipinos will use this bot and each of them have atleast shared this to their 100 friends in Facebook and Messenger, that will give us 100 000 users then.

Second month - 500 000 users and atleast 1000 new merchants accepting BCH payments

Except from the continuous growth in users, during the second month, I expect to caught the attention of popular earn-crypto-vloggers in the Philippines. That includes Jhazel de Vera, Joseph's Blessings, Positive Chika, MissJenVlogs etc.,where each of them have atleast 200 000 subscribers. Their vlog about us could help increase growth in users. Since SatoshiAngels Global BCH Merchant Adoption Campaign is in the bots feature, it will encourage users and store owners to join the campaign. There will be atleast 1000 new merchants accepting BCH payments with consistent BCH-paying customers.

Third month - 3 million users and 10 000 merchants accepting Bitcoin Cash

The bot being shared everywhere by everyone, we probably can gain 3 million users or more and by this time the number of merchants will also grow.

If this rate continues, there's a big possibility that we can onboard the entire country in just a year. If that happens, you may call us a BCH Country then :)

Opportunities

The decentralized BCH or SLP Tipping Bot along with awesome features if built will become the new trend in the Philippines. We will have every free mobile internet access users keep talking, paying, using, and sharing BCH wherever they are.

So why do we need to build this?

• It could become the biggest crypto awareness project in the space

• 55 million potential users

• Let Bitcoin Cash work as cash that can be shared and used by people with or without internet connection

• Fewer than few focuses on this

• Boost adoption rate by 500x faster

• BCH to finally create its own network effect

• Save time and effort

Who will build this?

Anyone who is willing!

As for me, I can only offer help in graphics, English to Filipino translation, support, promote the bot and every little thing I can do. I am also hopeful that @MarcDeMesel would help in contributing to this idea or atleast making it happen.

Conclusion

Many of the Filipinos still haven't heard of Bitcoin Cash or have even heard of cryptocurrency and this is because they are experiencing unstable and bad internet connection or most of the times, cannot afford internet plans. Facebook and Messenger gave Filipinos an opportunity to talk and share anything to anyone we know via their platform.

Making Bitcoin Cash available in these platforms would be of a great help not only to the Filipinos but to BCH community as well. Building this bot may be too much or not for developers but whatever it may be, let's help in creating something like this and I encourage our developers to start building an application that can work offline. The major reason why cash is still preferred even though we have wallet apps and Bitcoin Cash is because cash can be used conveniently offline. Let's compete with cash by making Bitcoin Cash be used conveniently offline too.

Before I end this proposal, I would like to thank @AkaneYokoo . I was inspired by her words,

Finding out their [merchant] concerns is very important as well…Some of the concerns I hear more are basically losing money due to Bitcoin Cash’s volatility…or maybe they’re worried about if it’s legal to accept Bitcoin Cash…or what about tax. -AkaneYokoo

Seconds after I read this, I thought of Filipinos' concerns and it lead me to the problem with internet connection until I found a way to solve it. I am happy that I have finally found a solution and I hope someone will listen. Just as how Facebook and Messenger listens to the needs of their potential users.

Let's make BCH available to everyone 💚