impak Coin: the next generation of cryptocurrencies
Cryptocurrencies have existed for years now, their current total market cap recently topped US$100 billion, and yet, very few people have ever used them. Their usage till now has been limited to a small group of people driven by a desire for decentralization, control, censorship resistance, anonymity and speculation on profits. Most new cryptocurrencies continue to be designed to appeal to that same crowd, and thus no cryptocurrency has achieved widespread adoption.
impak Coin (MPK) is designed for a different crowd. This new generation cryptocurrency is rather an answer to a need for purpose, stability, positive social impact, ease of use and peace of mind for the user. The software and governance of the whole project is aligned to meet these requirements. Since MPK targets a different crowd and has a different purpose, it had to be fundamentally different to be able to properly address those differences. The major differences are compared with the current cryptocurrency model and the reasons behind the change is explained below.
Ease of use
There are many reasons why cryptocurrencies are not mainstream and ease of use is one of them. Just like most people do not want to see an engine or witness an explosion when they drive a car, most people won’t feel comfortable sending funds to random strings of text that look like nothing to them (public keys), or hearing about cryptographic private keys and how important they are.
At impak, we are aware of that, and so we wanted to provide supporters of the impak ecosystem the benefits of cryptocurrencies without leaving them with a rough user experience that only an expert would understand and appreciate. Our E-wallet will be the interface between end users and the blockchain plumbing. This means the end user will have a similar user experience as online banking where no cryptocurrencies are involved. What allows MPK to offer this smooth user experience when other cryptocurrencies do not lies in the way we manage private keys.
In our case, private keys will be secured and managed within impak’s infrastructure, and thus users will never interact with the blockchain or with their private keys, only their E-wallet. This is a compromise we identified as adequate for the purpose of our ecosystem; security, ease of use and peace of mind in exchange for central governance.
Peace of mind
The increased peace of mind associated with MPK is enabled by the strategic location of every private key. Instead of giving the burden and the risks associated with a private key to the users, like most cryptocurrency actually do, impak Finance assumes the responsibilities.
This means, just like using a credit card, a transaction can be contested if it is fraudulent/unauthorized. It also means that is one is to lose or forget their password, they have a way to recover access to their E-wallet, unlike other crypto where, if a mistake is made, no one can help you. Even if impak Coin gets hacked and loses every private key, we have a mechanism in place that will prevent the realization of any loss.
We believe that mistakes can occur and that features like these are crucial for widespread adoption but also for the impak ecosystem to thrive. It should not be a burden to be part of the ecosystem. Users should feel safe to use it, and not be afraid to do something wrong that will be irreversible.
Stability
The price of current cryptocurrencies fluctuate wildly from day to day, and thus are not deemed as “stable” and thus usable as a form of payment. This was an issue for us since we wanted MPK owners to use their MPK to transact with merchants that might need to convert their MPK into fiat to pay providers. To achieve this usability, the price must be stable, so we investigated why current cryptocurrencies are so volatile, to figure out how to change the current model to get rid of that problem.
Nowadays, most cryptocurrencies’ prices are driven and decided by the secondary markets (exchanges) they are listed on. By nature, this model leaves the door open to speculation, price manipulation and more volatility, three characteristics we didn’t want the MPK and its ecosystem to be exposed to. By offering the sole market for buying and selling MPKs to fiat, we believe we can offer a more stable currency for our ecosystem, including merchants, clients and investors. We will provide at all times a quote for buying and selling MPK.
With the mechanisms we’ve introduced to achieve stability, ease of use and peace of mind, we aim to provide the impak ecosystem with a long-lasting currency that won’t be dumped and will live beyond us all.
If you have any more questions, ask away either by email, on the slack channel or on the website live chat. Also follow our announcement closely since we will be doing reddit AMA soon.
Together, let’s give blockchain technology another great use case, supporting the growth of the impact economy.
Pascal Leblanc,
Blockchain Architect
Visit impakcoin.com to participate in the presale of MPK and make a difference!
