







Universal Basic Income (UBI) is having a moment. Officials in Stockton, California, for example, have announced that the city will launch a trial UBI program in November that will award some families a no-strings-attached $500 monthly supplement to their incomes.





Universal basic income is the collective term for policies that provide citizens with no-strings-attached monthly income, often from the government. The amount varies based on program and proposal, but generally it isn’t enough to replace a working person’s income. The idea is to enable people to improve their quality of life by increasing their economic security and providing some measure of financial freedom and flexibility.





Many UBI advocates believe that some form of a universal income supplement will be essential as more workers are displaced by robots and automation. Entrepreneur Andrew Yang, founder of Venture for America and author of "The War on Normal People: The Truth About America’s Disappearing Jobs and Why Universal Basic Income Is Our Future" argues that UBI is critical for not only sustaining but revitalizing the economy. He’s so convinced of the need that he’s running for the U.S. presidency in 2020, and UBI is at the core of his platform.





“For most people, there is a bit of an awakening where they realize [UBI] is possible,” Yang says. “There’s nothing stopping citizens of a country from voting ourselves a dividend, and there would be so many positive economic and social effects from putting cash in people’s hands.”





Yang, who is running as a Democrat, proposes a monthly stipend of $1,000 a month to all Americans above the age of 18. He notes that there is a precedent for such a program, pointing to Alaska’s Permanent Fund dividend, under which every person in the state receives a yearly cash payment. As president, Richard Nixon introduced legislation for a negative income tax, or supplemental benefit for low-income families, but it never became law. Other countries, such as Canada and Finland, have experimented with UBI-type programs as well.





UBI, Technology, and the Blockchain





Although it’s not a new concept, interest in universal basic income is on the rise as rapid technological changes upend the workforce. Millions of American jobs could be lost or reconfigured through automation. Even if some new positions are created in response to new technologies, the impact of automation, robotics, and artificial intelligence will be radical, particularly for lower-skilled or under-educated workers.





But there are also plenty of questions to be asked about UBI. Where will the funds come from? How will they be distributed, and how can people be prevented from gaming the system if the only qualification required for receiving money is being a human? Some people think the answers to those and other questions about UBI lie on the blockchain.





Martin Kirk and Andy Milenius suggested the possibility of a cryptocurrency version of UBI in a 2017 piece for Fast Company, and a number of companies are already working on it. Kirk and Milenius, along with several other partners, have begun developing Circles, which “proposes to be the blockchain's native UBI money system,” according to the company’s white paper. The platform purportedly uses smart contracts and blockchain technology to enable users to create personal cryptocurrencies. Once a personal cryptocurrency is created, the platform automatically “mints” more of it on a regular basis and sends the currency to the user’s account. Users can then choose to trust one another’s currencies and use them for value exchanges.





Manna is another company using blockchain to develop a UBI solution. Its white paper states that it is “the first publicly traded, blockchain-based currency to be distributed as a Universal Basic Income subsidy to anyone in the world who applies and is verified as a unique human being.” Manna’s Co-Founder and Director of Marketing Jon Frechin explains that Manna increases its currency supply by 3.5 percent per year, then distributes that evenly among verified recipients.





The platform currently has 95,000 UBI recipients and 175,000 registered users, according to Frechin. Participants in the UBI program must be over 18, though Frechin says the company is developing a children’s savings program through which parents and guardians can establish UBI accounts their children can access when they come of age. At present, participants receive roughly $5 a year but Frechin says that number will grow as the company expands the Manna ecosystem, particularly enabling businesses, online marketplaces, and charities to use the cryptocurrency.





Frechin says that using blockchain technology makes the most sense for Manna’s mission. “The efficiency and near zero marginal cost of using blockchain allows for global distribution of value in a way that is otherwise not possible,” he says. “Because of the economic nature of how Manna is created and distributed, the creation of a transparent, secure, and decentralized currency could not be done without the use of blockchain.”





That’s not the case for all UBI programs, however. Yang’s proposed program would utilize existing government infrastructure for distributing social benefits and tax refunds to disseminate monthly UBI installments. Frechin sees room for different approaches to UBI and says he is a “strong supporter of government-distributed UBI as well.” But because programs like Yang’s would be limited to those within a particular country, he sees a need for globally-focused platforms too.





“Ultimately, I see government UBI as a synergistic and complementary solution to a global UBI program such as Manna,” he says.





Frechin acknowledged that other UBI programs, such as Yang’s, might not benefit as directly from blockchain and that in some cases, the technology wouldn’t really serve the initiative. Still, he sees it as an integral part of the UBI space overall. “As for a true global UBI solution, I really see no effective solution that wouldn't utilize blockchain technology in some form,” he says.







Casey Hynes is an Iowa-based writer who covers fintech, AI and blockchain technology.