In the widely reported development, Coinbase is working with charity Give to provide 160 New Yorkers with six months of Stablecoin USDC to Stablecoin USDC worth $12,000.
The initial payment is worth $8,000, and then the recipient is set to receive $800 per month.
Coinbase and Givedirectly call this the pilot program for what is called the Universal Basic Income (UBI), or the sum of the amounts offered to everyone, so they can afford shelters, food and other essentials as work begins to decline in advances in artificial intelligence and robotics.
But is this actually a UBI pilot program? The short answer is no.
The UBI has been tested and experimented many times before. In fact, negative income taxes were tested in the US and Canada in the 60s and 70s, with mixed results.
Pilot programs have since been launched in many countries. Iran fully adopted the concept in 2010, but mixed results were seen (subsidized revenues had mostly beneficial results, while Iran’s sanctions, war and runaway inflation due to civil unrest offset those benefits).
Corporate AI executives, venture capitalists and other billionaires suggest that not only should consider UBI, they should have a full grasp within a few years. This suggests that we need to have a full grasp within a few years as a society relies on from garbage collectors, doctors, therapists, programmers, writers and artists.
Of course, the fear of super rich and powerful people is not that people cannot afford shelter and cannot care for their families, but that “the hands of idols are demonic workshops”, and the majority of the unemployed population may revolt very well against the ruling class.
It is impossible to know whether this is a dream to accumulate more government contracts and personal wealth for individuals living within the Upper Echelon of Western civilization, or whether there are actual, tragic concerns behind UBI’s hopeless call.
Nevertheless, the 160 experiment offering $12,000 to poverty-stricken New Yorkers is not the answer.
Read more: Coinbase spends $17,000 a day to protect Brian Armstrong from tequila
Universal Basic Income: The problem lies in the name
The term “universal basic income” means that most basic costs, such as renting, food, and transportation, are eligible for subsidies.
The reality is that $12,000 in six months doesn’t provide enough money to cover median rents in New York City (this is $1,600 even for rent stabilization and public housing policy).
Using the remaining cash, the USDC $12,000 recipient wanted only partially to pay for food and transportation over the next six months. A proper UBI experiment offers New Yorkers well over $12,000 in six months, but it is difficult to determine the exact number.
Combining median rent, average food costs and cost of riding the subway, that number could be around $16,000. It’s probably more when you consider other costs, such as utility, mobile phone charges, and home internet prices.
If this figure is more accurate, Coinbase’s UBI program looks to be at least 30% short of the proper UBI in New York City, likely falling by up to 50%.
If it’s not a UBI pilot program, what is it?
What Coinbase offers is more like a $2 million marketing campaign than any kind of UBI pilot program.
The company actually works directly with very realistic and noble charities, but the requirement to have a Coinbase account, in contrast to cash, incentives to accept payments on Stablecoin and maintain stable payments to Coinbase instead of removing the platform suggest an altruistic reason for the program.
Recipients of Stablecoin payments have few, if any, restrictions placed on them when they received assistance.
Certainly, it quickly allows them to fritter and gamble their free money with Shitcoins, NFTs, or other speculative investments that often go to zero through the very Coinbase accounts they need.
Alternatively, you can choose to keep your USDC in the form of a Stablecoin and lend it to Coinbase. Coinbase offers an interest rate of 10.8%, but extraordinary risk with extraordinary interest may not be familiar to poverty-stricken New Yorkers.
With just these two spendings, Coinbase offers a great opportunity to regain the much of the money it offers to these individuals in the first place. But that’s just the beginning.
Since launching the pilot program, dozens of positive articles have been written about Coinbase and new plans to help the poor in New York. Even many of the more skeptical articles focus on recipients fascinated by the prospect of receiving $12,000 on string-friendly stubcoins.
These people certainly tell their family and friends about this incredible gift from the US crypto exchange. It’s an exchange that Americans should sign up to help under-exist New Yorkers.
Read more: Fartcoin won’t help you buy a home unless it’s on Coinbase
However, the program is also a less subtle attempt by erasing Coinbase’s past sin memories.
These include maintaining customer funds in Bitfinex when hacked, gaining uncoupled security for a controversial Israeli security company, and Brian Armstrong is very open about corporate decisions based on his own personal politics, while not allowing employees to discuss politics.
This is not a government-run programme designed simply to provide those in need.
It is a corporate marketing and propaganda campaign specifically tailored to the fast-moving news cycle, designed to cover previous mistakes for Coinbase.
Protos will contact Coinbase for comment and update the article if it responds.
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