User Story
The Times 03/Jan/2029 Chancellor on brink of fifteenth bailout for banks. History never repeats itself, but it does often rhyme. The year is 2029, the financial aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic led to a steady decline in government backed currency, loans and economy. Money is now almost entirely digital, with the exception of grandfathering old currency. Entrepreneurs must now look to their peers, or Decentralized Autonomous Organizations, to generate funds for their startup. However, principal capital isn’t always so easy to come by. Sometimes an initial investment might include a service such as developing a product; where the return on said investment is a portion of future revenue. This system has thrived to fill the void the financial system has lost, and coined the name ‘Event Driven Payments’ in the process. Here is how it works -
In this story are four roles:
The Buyer, Mark, is someone with a great startup idea but lacks the capital to pay the developer upfront. The Seller, Carey, is a professional Web3 Developer and doesn’t mind making risky investments that can pay off big if their work is good enough. The Protocol is the tried and tested Event Driven Payments protocol that acts as the base-line logic for a plethora of decentralized applications. The App is a popular decentralized finance site that provides the interface for the Event Driven Payments protocol.
Mark came up with an idea to revolutionize the NFT market and bring together all types of NFTs into a reactive gallery that is not confined by a geographical border. However, he had one problem; he doesn’t know the art of computer programming, and doesn’t have enough money to pay someone to build it. This startup does not catch the eye of big player venture capitalists and going through the new financial institutions would just be too cumbersome.
Hearing about a recent explosion in event driven payments, Mark decided to give RhadaPay a try. This is an event driven payments protocol in which two parties sign a ‘smart contract’ to act as an escrow, guaranteeing the buyer gets their asset (in this case a website), and the seller receives payments based on the revenue that asset generates (in this case visits to Marks website). The funneling of the payments is done in the smart contract by connecting a payment stream to Superfluid, a payment stream protocol, and then logging the event information to IPFS with Textile. All Mark has to do is stake an initial amount to show he is a legit buyer, then create his job and wait for others to apply!
Using RhadaPay, Mark can begin creating his job. This requires him to enter the following fields into the application:
Initial Amount of funding that will need to be staked Refresh Rate: Number of events before triggering a payment refresh Event Stream: Connects a job to an event stream Percentage: Percentage increase after each payment refresh
But before going any further, Mark needs to create an event stream with a description of what particular events will increase the amount of money the developer who built his project is paid. For his event stream, Mark can give the description:
‘NFT Gallery event stream for website visits.’
Now that Mark has his event stream setup, he just needs to define the refresh rate of the number of events and the percentage increase after each payment refresh. For these numbers he determines that every 10,000 visits he will increase the payments 1.00%. Perfect, now he is all set to find a seller and begin his journey with this new idea. He submits the form and the smart contracts fire, triggering the start of future event driven payments.
Carey, an enthusiastic Web3 Developer, has been looking for ways she can generate new forms of passive income. Like Mark, she’s heard of the expanding event driven payments technology and has been intrigued by the concept. Loading up the RhadaPay application, Carey is able to view a list of posted jobs. With a history in NFTs, she’s able to find a very interesting and potentially lucrative job with the name “Digital NFT Gallery”. She selects it and formally applies, and waits to see if she is selected.
Mark, seeing Carey’s strong trust factor and proven history, decides that she is the right partner to work with and selects her as a seller. They both connect their digital wallet and use it to sign off on the terms of the contract.With both parties signed off, Carey can begin to develop the application for Mark. Based on the terms of the contract, Carey has a deadline to present her work to Mark and submit the CID to be reviewed.
A couple of months go by and Carey creates an outstanding product for Mark. She goes back to the RhadaPay application and submits her work. Mark, who has been patiently waiting, gets a notification that Carey has submitted her work and can go to view what she has done.
“Wow!”, says Mark, “I can’t believe she was able to do this so quickly and do such a fantastic job!”
Pleased with the product, Mark does a final sign to complete Carey’s work.
With the final signing now approved, the protocol connects to Superfluid to set up a payment stream. Within the protocol, an autonomous Ethereum wallet is set up to receive and split the revenue for Mark's new application. Mark will get billed for the amount negotiated between Carey and himself, and the amount will go to the protocol address, where it is then sent to Carey.
Mark’s application has a slow start and only sees < 5,000 users in the first two months. However, in his third month he signs a deal to display some big game NFTs and his traffic goes up tenfold. With now 50,000 visits in his third month, the payment to Carey has increased 5% and has reflected in the payments she receives. not Over time, Carey sees her revenue stream continue to come in. She’s now successfully built a product and sold it for passive income using events driven payments! Not only that, but Mark now has a thriving business and was able to launch his startup without paying a large amount up front!