Samecoin: Can cryptocurrency payments lead innovation in the European mobile payment market?

This article is sourced from Rhythm

The early applications of cryptocurrency mainly served trading speculation activities, while stablecoins, as a neutral asset with potential losses of zero and potential gains of zero, play an extremely important role in cryptocurrency trading.

With the development of the cryptocurrency ecosystem, regulatory systems in various countries have become stricter, making it more difficult to deposit and withdraw fiat currency. At the same time, the crypto market presents more investment opportunities, leading investors to often choose to hold stablecoin assets directly instead of fiat currency when they are ready to exit a trade for profit, further increasing the usage of stablecoins.

Since last year, the investment themes in the crypto industry have undergone significant changes. From being primarily speculative in nature, it has gradually transitioned to on-chain economic activities that can generate greater actual value. For example, DeFi, which became popular last year, and the NFT games and art investments that have been hot this year, have led to more trading activities, causing the demand for stablecoins to continue to rise.

At the same time, in this process, stablecoins have also moved beyond their basic function as a medium of exchange. With the development of various on-chain activities such as lending and liquidity mining, the potential returns of stablecoins have also become increasingly high. All of this has raised higher demands for the development of stablecoins.

Currently, mainstream stablecoins in the market include various categories such as USDC, USDT, and Dai. The first two stablecoins rely on centralized institutions to custody the underlying US dollar fiat currency, thus possessing a high degree of centralized credit risk. If the custodian fails to redeem, it could cause the stablecoin to lose its peg and value. On the other hand, Dai, as a decentralized stablecoin, eliminates centralized risk but heavily relies on the security of smart contracts and algorithms. If the contract is attacked, the coin's price could potentially drop to zero overnight.

Therefore, the market has been continuously exploring new stablecoin solutions to make the foundation of the crypto economy more solid. Samecoin has innovated the stablecoin mechanism from a unique perspective.

Samecoin's New Stablecoin Solution

Samecoin's stablecoin includes a US dollar stablecoin and a Euro stablecoin. The US dollar stablecoin is called SameUSD, while the Euro stablecoin is SameEuro. Since both have the same anchoring mechanism, we will only introduce the US dollar stablecoin SameUSD.

SameUSD adopts a fully collateralized model to ensure the stability of its value. Unlike other US dollar stablecoins, SameUSD does not use real-world US dollars as reserves but directly uses other stablecoin assets on-chain. Currently, the supported underlying assets include USDC, USDT, and BUSD.

Users can directly use the stablecoins in their addresses to exchange for SameUSD at a 1:1 ratio on the Samecoin Protocol's Dapp, and they can also redeem the staked stablecoins at any time using SameUSD. By using various stablecoins as underlying assets, Samecoin further diversifies the risk of centralized custody. At the same time, this mechanism reduces the degree of value fluctuation, making SameUSD more closely pegged to the US dollar.

The mechanism of SameEuro is the same as that of SameUSD, but the SameEuro product is still in development and is expected to be completed and launched by the end of this year. It is worth noting that SameEuro is currently applying for a license from the Malta Financial Services Authority in Malta, where the project is located. Once formal approval is obtained, SameEuro is expected to become the first digital stablecoin widely adopted in the online gaming industry in the EU region.

Of course, the development of stablecoins is aimed at better applications, and one of the biggest applications of currency is payments. Samecoin has also innovated in the payment field and launched products specifically for the payment market.

A New Payment and Account System

Samecoin's payment product has a simple and memorable name: SamePay. Additionally, to facilitate users in using SamePay, the Samecoin team has developed mobile apps for both Android and iOS.

We know that most current cryptocurrency applications still mainly rely on browsers and browser-based wallet plugins, and the user experience of mobile software has been difficult to improve, which has a significant negative impact on the payment experience and convenience for ordinary users. The development of a mobile application specifically for mobile users by Samecoin will help push cryptocurrency payments into a broader market.

At the same time, SamePay also has lower transaction costs; users can receive a 50% reduction in transaction fees simply by staking Samecoin tokens. In addition to supporting the native stablecoins of the Samecoin ecosystem, SamePay can also support BTC, ETH, BNB, and tokens issued on Ethereum and BSC. Furthermore, SamePay integrates cryptocurrency trading functions, allowing users to exchange their assets at any time.

SameID is a new decentralized user identity system launched by Samecoin, developed with the intention of improving user experience.

Currently, many DeFi applications require users to connect their wallet addresses to operate normally. However, common addresses are often complex and irregular, making them difficult for ordinary users to remember, and they can easily lead to operational errors and security issues. SameID connects users' SamePay wallets through a special signature signed by the user's private key, allowing one-click participation in the entire ecosystem's applications.

It should be noted that due to the personal data privacy protection policies and regulations in the EU region, SameID adopts a zero-knowledge proof format, allowing KYC processes to be completed without sending users' personal information to merchants, providing unique innovations in protecting personal data privacy. This product feature has the potential to carve out a niche market in the European payment market.

Same Finance: Creating New Application Scenarios for Stablecoins

Stablecoins can be used not only for simple payment applications but also combined with mature DeFi practices to engage in on-chain yield farming for financial returns or participate in liquidity mining activities to obtain newly issued tokens from other projects. Samecoin also provides good support for users to earn additional income using stablecoins.

Same Finance is an investment protocol that offers leveraged financial management for users, helping them earn more returns through non-destructive deposits. At the same time, Same Finance provides liquidity miners with up to 11 times leverage, making it easier for miners to achieve higher mining returns.

In Same Finance, users can also earn incentives in the form of Samecoin's native tokens through various activities. These include minting stablecoins, depositing SameUSD stablecoins into the protocol, staking LPs of the Samecoin-SameUSD trading pair, and participating in the protocol's DAO governance process. These activities not only enhance the activity level of the Samecoin ecosystem but also provide more opportunities for Samecoin holders to earn returns.

As DeFi yield aggregation platforms like Aave and Compound enter the B-end market, Same Finance will also gradually develop interface products for B-end market operators such as gaming industry operators. Samecoin will directly integrate a series of out-of-the-box DeFi products from Same Finance into its core products to bridge its proprietary core payment platform with a decentralized open platform, thereby forming a transparent, fair, and complete financial service closed loop.

Deepening Payment in the Online Gaming Industry

The Samecoin project is incubated by the European gaming aggregation issuance platform company iGaminggroup. We can also see from the LinkedIn profiles of the Samecoin core team that their personnel relationships are still with iGaminggroup. Through online searches for iGaminggroup's relevant corporate information, we find that it is a gaming aggregator that integrates upstream game providers and other service modules, including payment channels, to provide one-stop technical service solutions for downstream game operators. Its payment partners include over 30 payment providers, including Coinspaid and Bitpay, which focus on digital currency business processing in the EU region.

Based on the parent company's strong business relationships in the online gaming industry and years of industry experience, Samecoin has the opportunity to further extend its products into other online payment fields by deeply engaging in online gaming payments. In the still blue ocean of the EU mobile payment market, SamePay has the opportunity to become an emerging force leading mobile payment innovation in Europe by providing innovative products based on blockchain and digital currency.

Samecoin's Token Mechanism

Samecoin is the platform's namesake native application token, deeply integrated with various components of the Samecoin platform. In addition to the 50% reduction in transfer fees mentioned earlier through staking Samecoin, Samecoin is also used to incentivize stablecoin generation activities within the ecosystem, similar to transaction mining. Users can stake other stablecoins in Samecoin's DApp to generate SameUSD and receive Samecoin incentives simultaneously.

The total issuance of Samecoin tokens is 100 million, with 32% allocated to liquidity providers, 32% to community members providing governance, 18% granted to team members and future employees, with a four-year release period for unlocking tokens. The remaining 13% will be released through IDO and IEO activities, along with 3% allocated to early investors and 2% to project advisors and promoters. The specific allocation amounts are detailed in the table below.

Product Roadmap

Samecoin includes a rich set of protocol components, making the overall development work a massive project. The following screenshot shows Samecoin's product development roadmap from 2021 to 2022.

As of now, Samecoin has completed the development of the basic product architecture and will begin developing the mobile app in the second half of this year. At the same time, more promotional activities will also be launched, and enterprise-level applications of SameID and SamePay will gradually be realized next year. Building on the foundation of DeFi basic products this year, Samecoin will focus on business compliance and large-scale application promotion in the online gaming industry in 2022.

Currently, Samecoin has been deployed on several mainstream public chains, including Binance Smart Chain, Hoo Smart Chain, and Huobi Eco Chain, and users can experience it on the official website. Additionally, Samecoin has completed the audit of its protocol smart contracts by Certik, and the audit report can be viewed by clicking here.