In the spirit of collaboration and transparency, the Swarm City Business Hive offers updates in the same way as Swarm City Dev and Swarm City Comm.

By Bernd Lapp, Business Hive Lead

Each day brings new momentum to Swarm City (SC) as new people become Swarm Citizens, and other projects are taking notice. In particular, during the last month influential outside organizations have begun to integrate SC into their long term plans. I will discuss this in more detail next, as well as what the Support Hive has been doing to prepare for the upcoming Boardwalk release.

Changelly adds SWT, buy Tokens with a Credit Card

On April 19th, Changelly began offering Swarm City Tokens (SWT). Changelly is an online exchange that allows users to easily swap between cryptocurrencies, or from fiat to cryptocurrencies. SC users may use Changelly.com to quickly convert their local currency into Swarm City Tokens using their credit card.

Changelly allows SWT pairs with many currencies and tokens.

In the next phase of the Swarm City project, this service will be offered to Swarm City users from within the site (https://swarm.city). In the meantime, you may use Changelly and manually choose how you want to buy SWT by going to their website here.

TokenCard adds SWT, making Personal Finance Management for SWT simple and easy

Following the announcement in April that Changelly added SWT, we are happy to see that TokenCard is also integrating SWT into their service. TokenCard looks and acts like a debit card, and allows users to spend ERC20 tokens including SWT at VISA terminals around the world. This will benefit Swarm City users greatly, as they will not have to exchange SWT into their local currency in order to interact with goods and services outside of the SC ecosystem.

“I am personally very excited that the Ethereum ecosystem is growing and will have one card to reflect the value of all services combined.” — Bernd Lapp

Having the Swarm City Token integrated in Changelly and TokenCard allows anyone to seamlessly use and make a living from a service on Swarm City. Imagine you are a driver accepting SWT for rides and you want to spend your tokens. Right now many people will not know what Swarm City is and no vendor is currently accepting SWT payments for rent, gas, utility bills, etc.

It’s great news that this provider is creating a debit card that truly reflects the opportunities that the Ethereum blockchain and Smart Contract Systems have to offer. Read more about TokenCard here.

Bittrex provides SWT/BTC trading pair

In March Bittrex became the first major exchange to add the Swarm City Token. This gave investors who weren’t able to participate in the token sale a welcome entrance point into SWT. Since then we have seen increasing trading volumes as more people are learning about our project.

Business Hive is shaping up for Boardwalk release

In tandem with the release of Boardwalk, we will see hashtag maintainers coming into play.

The business hive is currently experimenting with business models to maintain hashtags to create an example for future hashtag maintainers. We will operate the first hashtag called #pioneer. In #pioneer support and communications will be integrated as a service. Both receive funding from any transaction on #pioneer. The Business Hive will explain these Business models in their next Blog post.

Financials

The Business Hive is also responsible for bookkeeping and keeps track of all payments that are done through the multisig wallet. This is actually very easy in the blockchain world, as every transaction is transparent and can be followed by anyone.

We currently have 51,208.10 ether available to continue the development of the platform. This will allow us to finalize the creation of the Swarm City Platform as described in the whitepaper and ensure that Business can be created on top of it. With the release of boardwalk, revenue (SWT) will be generated to compensate costs for the Comm Hive and the Support Hive. In addition the Trelleth solution that the Dev Hive and the Comm Hive is working on will also provide funding for different tasks. Together this creates a basis for future funding, far beyond the amount of ether held in the multisig wallet.

Support Hive is focused on the community

Creating a community support structure in a decentralized global project requires unique considerations. While the main function of the Support Hive is to assist the community in resolving issues and providing technical support, there also lies a responsibility to educate users in using the tools necessary to navigate the ecosystem.

In this early stage of the project it’s difficult to conceptualize the full scope of what the Swarm City ecosystem is and will be, but through our Support network community members can figure it out together.

“We have an active, open-minded community that realizes success comes with both independence and cooperation. Because of this, personalized support is provided by the thriving community, in which members often find solutions for one another. It’s so lovely.” — Jenn Williams

The Support Hive currently uses the #support Slack channel as a forum type gathering place; inviting members to interact, help each other resolve issues and answer questions in real time. This decentralized approach allows for anyone to contribute.

They also use GitHub pages to publish self-help knowledge base articles and FAQ to make facts easier to find without assistance, and again they welcome all contributors.

The Support Hive also oversees the beta tester group that tests the app prior to each new release. New testers join by invitation and work as a group in a private Slack channel. In this setting Support techs and developers resist the urge to help, and instead watch intently as users navigate without guidance. Swarm City Support and Dev then uses tester feedback to improve the user experience on the next release.

In the future, hashtag maintainers will have the option to integrate the Support Hive into their service, making Support available to anyone participating in the Swarm City ecosystem.

If you’re interested in participating in the Business Hive or Support Hive join us in Swarm City Slack.

We’ll be in touch soon!