The beverage industry's renewed interest in refillable bottles offers a unique opportunity to test the idea of "sats inside."
Our small team here at 7evr has been discussing the application of bitcoin infused goods for incentivizing closed-loop manufacturing for some time. We recently turned our attention to potential scenarios that could serve as a test case to build out a proof-of-concept illustrating our vision for the future.
In looking at the qualities of a scenario that would illustrate our use case effectively, these key goals emerged:
Community based application – The 7evr long-term model is based on the advantages of composable, decentralized, building blocks for assigning and redeeming value across a wide range of interested parties and locations. In the short-term, we propose administration of such a system would occur at the community level to ensure the recaptured value could be shared by the collector and producer alike.
Motivated parties – In a small-scale scenario like this test-case, there must be incentives for all parties baked into the system. In the initial implementation, these incentives need not be limited to the value of the embedded digital currency. In the case of the producers involved, media exposure aligned with brand values could provide adequate incentive for participation. Collection of returnables would be attractive to collectors given the ease of participation and the novelty and token value of the “sats inside” concept.
Low level of technical complexity – To reduce friction in the onboarding process and to make the system as inclusive as possible, attention must be placed on reducing barriers to access, including cost and technological knowledge required. The advantage of using an application like Fedi on the Lightning network include the reduced cost of transactions and the relatively low complexity of onboarding users to a federation.
Future scalability – While the initial scenario may be limited in geographic extent and number of participants, the potential for application of the social and technological model to a large-scale industry and social system should be feasible.
With these properties in mind, we considered a range of scenarios before landing on the following products and other items we felt most suitable for testing our protocol:
The use of refillable bottles by the beverage industry is still widely practiced in some global regions including Africa, Asia, and Central and South America, but it has largely been abandoned in the US. Over the past few years, some local breweries and craft beverage producers are adopting the practice again.
In some regions of the US, collectives of producers are taking advantage of implementing refillable bottle systems at scale, but in regions where the collection infrastructure is absent, a locally run system using a protocol like 7evr could provide the needed incentives to participation.
For a test-case, we propose to form a partnership with a small craft beverage company to issue redeemable tokens identified by a visual marker in the form of a QR code and accompanying slogan, "sats inside" attached to the producer’s refillable bottles. This marker would either be printed directly on the bottle or as a sticker applied to the bottle. Consumers who purchase the refillable bottles could redeem the empty bottles at the producer’s plant, retail, or other location for a redemption amount in the form of Fedi tokens applied to the consumer’s Fedi account.
To participate in the program, consumers would set up an account on the Fedi mobile app and join the 7evr federation. This would give consumers access to an account that would be custodied by trusted parties governing the federation. At any time, a user could assume custody of the account, redeem the Fedi tokens for BTC and transfer them to a private wallet.
Producers would also be members of the federation, providing some individuals to serve as governors. Any redemption centers not operated by the producer could also participate as a Fedi member and provide representatives to serve as governors of the federation.
The advantage of partnering with a producer that is already operating a refillable bottle program would be the relatively low level of infrastructure build out needed to get the program going, since it would initially only involve applying the redemption stickers, embedded value, and underlying smart contracts to operate the system.
We have also discussed the potential to promote the 7evr concept at one of the yearly BTC conferences. A test case at such an event would put the vision on display for the community most likely to be early adopters of the protocol. The use of redeemable tokens embedded into products or items used at a conference would give an easily accessible and physical example much like the refillable bottle use case, but in the specific context of the event where discussions of BTC applications are vibrant and forward-looking.
We are eager to move forward with a test-case scenario. We welcome ideas from anyone interested in becoming involved with our mission to incentivize closed-loop economies.
The 7evr team