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Bill Payments and Bank Transfers to 45,000 billers in Australia

Living Room of Satoshi

Living Room of Satoshi

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Summary:
Enable seamless, anonymous Dash bill payments to over 45,000 billers on the Australian BPAY bill payment network, as well as instant Dash to Fiat conversion to all Australian Bank accounts; by integrating Dash with Living Room of Satoshi.

Purpose:
Paying bills is a very accessible and natural use-case for Dash. It's something almost everybody does every week, and is a great answer to the newcomer question "What can I do with Dash?". Allowing direct bill payments and bank transfers with Dash is a sure way to increase its real-world utility, raise its profile as a useful currency and increase its value.

Background:
Since 2013, Living Room of Satoshi has been connected to the Australian BPAY payments network, the largest bill payments network in the country. It is used by virtually all medium to large business, and allows bitcoin holders to pay over 45,000 billers instantly without registering, and even without creating a login on the Living Room of Satoshi website.

In 2014, Living Room of Satoshi added direct bitcoin-fiat conversions, with payment available to any Australian bank account, quickly and without any registration required.

We experimented with adding a few altcoins in 2016 (Litecoin, Dogecoin and Ethereum), but it soon became clear that adoption wasn't there, because these coins were never designed to function as useful currencies in real world payment scenarios.
Dash is different. We feel strongly that removing support for these altcoins, and baking in Dash support as a first class alternative to Bitcoin is the perfect use-case for a currency focused on being digital cash.

About Daniel Alexiuc:
Hi! I'm Daniel Alexiuc, a veteran Australian software developer, successful multi-entrepreneur and CEO of Living Room of Satoshi. Check out my LinkedIn profile to see my extensive development experience in banking, credit card payments, treasury and other industries and a bonus cheesy photo.

In addition, I've also built from scratch a number of successful startup companies (and a few unsuccessful ones :) ) including Australia's largest aquarium fish retailer, a factory floor scheduling software company for manufacturing behemoths in Thailand and China, and have made waves with Australia's national bitcoin bill payment service.

I have a track record of getting stuff done, doing it right, and making people take notice of it.

About Living Room of Satoshi:
Living Room of Satoshi launched in May 2014 as a service that enables payment of any Australian bill using bitcoin; including phone bills, electricity bills, school fees, credit card and tax payments, and fiat bank transfers.

Its simplicity, anonymity and ease of use saw it quickly become a favourite of cryptocurrency users, and it was awarded "Best New Startup" in all of Australia in 2015.

It has a high profile and excellent reputation among bitcoin users.

Some statistics:

  • We process over $65,000 per week in everyday bill payments using bitcoin
  • We've paid over $3 million in bills and growing rapidly
  • Users pay a diverse range of bills including Credit Cards, Electricity, Rent. Insurance, Tax payments, Phone bills etc.
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Key Deliverables (Summary):

  • Full InstantSend Dash integration on the website Living Room of Satoshi
  • Complete RESTful API functionality for Dash
  • Cross platform mobile app (Android, iOS, WM10)
  • Removal of alt-currencies Ether, Doge, Litecoin
  • Media releases and interviews


Key Deliverables (Detail):

1. Full Dash integration on the website Living Room of Satoshi.
Allow bill payments, bank transfers, bill history, bill statistics and rewards with Dash.
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Support InstantSend payments - allowing instant bill confirmations.

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2. Complete API functionality for Dash
Our API is currently used by several international wallets and payment services to facilitate international payments to Australia from other countries. Integrate Dash to the existing API including:

Exchange Rate
  • Dash-AUD Exchange Rate updated every 30 seconds
Bank Transfers
  • Create a Dash Bank transfer
  • List all Dash bank transfers
  • Retrieve a single Dash bank transfer
BPay Bills
  • Create a BPay bill
  • List BPay bills
  • Retrieve a single Dash Bpay bill

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3. Cross platform mobile app (Android, iOS, WM10)
We have a mobile app in development, with a working bitcoin-only version already available on the Android app store. We'll complete development, add full support for Dash as a first class currency.

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4. Removal of alt-currencies Ether, Doge, Litecoin
We'll remove all the other alt-currencies we support, and make a big deal about it :) I predict this will make some waves in alt-coin communities, as well as make for an interesting talking point for both crypto news sites and traditional finance journals.

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5. Media releases and interviews
We have a long history of media coverage for any changes we make to our service, and can leverage our contacts to make sure the Dash integration gets news coverage.

For example, here are some of the places we've appeared:


We've found that to get good media traction, you need to present a compelling story. We really think that this is a story the media will be interested in. InstantPay is a compelling feature for bill payments and bank transfers.

Adding alt-coin support is something lots of crypto sites do every day, but deciding to remove support for existing alt-coins in favour of Dash presents an interesting narrative, and will present lots of opportunity to explain why Dash is much more suitable for use in real world payments than the myriad of alt-coins available.

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Schedule:
4 weeks to integrate Dash to the Living Room of Satoshi website, and remove other alt currencies.
This will then be followed by press releases and media interviews.
2 weeks to integrate Dash to existing API.
4-6 weeks to complete mobile app.

Budget:
1000 Dash - to setup a new master node.

As an already operational cryptocurrency payment service, we have a clear path of how to make this all work, and so are not interested in liquidating Dash from the budget to Fiat to fund development.

The 1000 Dash will be solely used to setup and run a new master node, which will allow us to participate in voting and have a genuine stake in the Dash network.

Conclusion:
We're genuinely excited by the possibilities of Dash for real-world bill payments, and look forward to seeing how much media exposure we can generate, as well as how much real world adoption of Dash we can drive.
 
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Make sure you include the biggest feature Dash has, InstantSend. Then you can instantly confirm transactions in a little over a second and not worry about a double spends.

You don't need a masternode to get "close to the metal". The core wallet with a 0 balance will also be able to detect InstantSend transactions. I would separate out your desire to run a masternode with the real expenses to update your system.

Check out code.dashndrink.com for how we did an InstantSend detecting Soda Machine.
 
Love your site and cannot wait for you to provide this Dash service to Australians! For other people globally, BPAY is the MAIN payment network in Australia for pretty much all billing from major service providers....electricity, gas, insurance, phones, internet, healthcare etc you name it. Being integrated with Dash straight into this network is MUCH bigger than most people realise!

As above please integrate Instant Send as part of this proposal and you have a big yes from me!
 
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Wow! This is a very well presented proposal - and doesn't seem too pricey or complicated.
You got the goods, and it should contribute to Dash adoption... I hope it passes.
 
Hi Daniel,

Great proposal. I would have to say one of the best proposals I have seen and paves the way for other proposals to be of this standard.
Definitely a game changer for us Aussies down under.
You have my votes!
 
Hey Daniel
Interesting proposal - well presented )

Sorry for the immature comment above -
the more people try to get us on iTunes - the better the chances !
(so far we have been rejected , that is correct)

good luck with this
 
I don't understand why you would remove support for other crypto currencies? Does that streamline the site or reduce overhead? I don't think it's necessary to "prove" anything to us. And if you have users that came to you to pay with their favorite coin, it would only give Dash more exposure to users of other systems. But if it's a matter of overhead, I totally can understand (fer sure, totally)

Oh, and one more thing. Can you verify (maybe with a known bitcoin wallet) your identity? I think we need to start seriously ID'ing people :)

Thanks so much!
 
First off, thanks for your interest in Dash and your initiative to add Dash to your business :)

I am undecided at this time about how to vote on this proposal -- my decision will depend on the continuation of this thread as well as the other proposals that are yet to be submitted.

A few questions/comments for you:

- In the future, I would recommend that you start a thread here to have a "pre-proposal" discussion with the Dash community before actually submitting it to the network. This process can give you a feel for where the masternode operators (MNOs) are at, and the proposal can have a period where it is modified/refined prior to submission. Of course, since you submitted this very early in the budget cycle I don't think it is necessarily too late to make some adjustments, to nearly anything except for the amount requested.

- According to the website, 97.6% of the transaction volume in your business is in BTC, compared to the other three supported altcoins. Therefore it is understandable that removing support for these currencies will not have too drastic a negative impact on your business. Will this altcoin removal be permanent, or for a minimum amount of time? Does it mean you will not be adding any other altcoins either, either permanently or for at least x amount of time?

- You mentioned you have processed over $3million in transaction volume total. Would it be possible to get a year-by-year breakdown of that? How much of that is from this year?

- As has been mentioned by others, your mobile app currently has pretty much no usage. All, or nearly all, of your transaction volume is happening through your website. You already have a good thing going on the website (profit! right?) , and have not demonstrated that there is a good reason to believe that the mobile app initiative will be successful. Do Australians even want to download a mobile app for paying bills or are they content with using an already-easy-to-use website? I feel that the mobile app part of this proposal would be contributing towards your general business development and does not necessarily have a direct benefit to Dash. If you were to develop the mobile app for BTC-only and prove that it is a successful thing for your business, then I might be more inclined to support spending a little to add Dash. I'm interested to hear your thoughts on this and rationale for the mobile app piece, or if you would consider removing/replacing this with something else.

- Do you intend to add Dash support to your business even if this proposal does not pass? If so, in what ways would your action steps be different than if this proposal were to pass?

Thanks for your time!
 
TanteStefana said:
I don't understand why you would remove support for other crypto currencies? Does that streamline the site or reduce overhead? I don't think it's necessary to "prove" anything to us. And if you have users that came to you to pay with their favorite coin, it would only give Dash more exposure to users of other systems. But if it's a matter of overhead, I totally can understand (fer sure, totally)
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Probably two reasons:
1. We've been running them for a while as a "test the waters" approach. This is how I do most things - try it and see! I have learned, and it has become clear from the usage that while it is kind of useful to some of our customers as a way to cash out their altcoins, that's not the business we are ultimately in. We have no intention of becoming a "Shapeshift for Fiat", and don't want to spend our energy on that. We're much more interested in bill payment solutions, and these coins are not designed for this purpose. (In my opinion only) Ethereum is a fuel for smart contracts, Litecoin is a Bitcoin testbed, and Dogecoin is for fun. They will never be truly useful for bill payments by normal people.

2. I believe that Dash IS designed for this purpose - and it suits the direction we are going. While we could easily leave the altcoin support as it is - I think the media attention it generates will be more beneficial for our business than any small profit we currently get from those coins. And it's not just to impress you - if we're going to go full into Dash then I want it to increase in adoption and value too!
 
Thanks for the questions! Great to see the interest in this.

TroyDASH said:
- According to the website, 97.6% of the transaction volume in your business is in BTC, compared to the other three supported altcoins. Therefore it is understandable that removing support for these currencies will not have too drastic a negative impact on your business. Will this altcoin removal be permanent, or for a minimum amount of time? Does it mean you will not be adding any other altcoins either, either permanently or for at least x amount of time?
Click to expand...
Yes, you're right - I talked about some of the reasons for removing altcoin support a few posts up. I don't have any plans to re-introduce those, and I guess the thing that might provide reassurance is the motivation behind it. As I mentioned, we have no intention of becoming a "Shapeshift for Fiat", and don't want to spend our energy on that. We're much more interested in bill payment solutions, and in my opinion these coins are not designed for this purpose. Our focus after Dash integration will not be to support other coins, but to make our bill payment platform better for billers and Bitcoin and Dash users. We do get contacted and asked to support other coins, and had considered that earlier this year. But I am excited about this Dash strategy, it has potential to become a real-world usable bill payment option, and that's our motivation. That fact is evident from the community too.


TroyDASH said:
- You mentioned you have processed over $3million in transaction volume total. Would it be possible to get a year-by-year breakdown of that? How much of that is from this year?
Click to expand...

2014: $304 K
2015: $817 K
2016 (so far): $1,916 K

TroyDASH said:
- As has been mentioned by others, your mobile app currently has pretty much no usage. All, or nearly all, of your transaction volume is happening through your website. You already have a good thing going on the website (profit! right?) , and have not demonstrated that there is a good reason to believe that the mobile app initiative will be successful. Do Australians even want to download a mobile app for paying bills or are they content with using an already-easy-to-use website? I feel that the mobile app part of this proposal would be contributing towards your general business development and does not necessarily have a direct benefit to Dash. If you were to develop the mobile app for BTC-only and prove that it is a successful thing for your business, then I might be more inclined to support spending a little to add Dash. I'm interested to hear your thoughts on this and rationale for the mobile app piece, or if you would consider removing/replacing this with something else.
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I see what you mean - and I guess this is where a pre-proposal discussion would have clarified this in my mind and yours. :) The most bang for buck will absolutely come from the website integration and associated exposure and marketing - which is why they are first in the schedule. This is what I'm mainly asking the Dash community to get behind and contribute to, and where I anticipate immediate results and benefits for the community. The API integration will be the next step, opening up Dash for international transfers to our existing partners, but will probably take a bit longer to see results, as it will require implementation by our API users as well. I understand the skepticism for the mobile app, but it was really only included in the roadmap because we plan to do more development on it and including Dash is a no-brainer for us.

TroyDASH said:
- Do you intend to add Dash support to your business even if this proposal does not pass? If so, in what ways would your action steps be different than if this proposal were to pass?
Click to expand...
Our plan is to do this with the support of the Dash community... we'll need each other to get this moving. You can rely on us to get this implemented and working, and get people using it and talking about it; but regardless of the Budget amount, we'll need the current Dash community to get behind it by using it and promoting it. However, the 1000 Dash budget will give us a tangible stake in the success of the Dash network, and the associated incentive to succeed that that brings. And the opportunity to run a masternode, for a crypto bill payments company like us, is definitely going to open up other possibilities for future development efforts. It is a vital part of this proposal.

TroyDASH said:
I am undecided at this time about how to vote on this proposal -- my decision will depend on the continuation of this thread as well as the other proposals that are yet to be submitted.
Click to expand...
That's ok. I hope I conveyed the benefits to the Dash community well enough in this proposal - I am confident this will drive adoption and spur interest in Dash. Observing how Dash performs on our site in the coming months on a genuine bill payment network with real everyday bills will surely make Dash's utility self-evident :)
 
Somebody suggested that - if this proposal is successful - some kind of weekly update showing progress against the schedule would be good.

To me, this seems like a reasonable request for anybody making use of public Dash budget funds. Where would you all like to see this happen? I'm thinking maybe in this thread or another one on the Dash forum might be a good place.
 
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