Making ETH and ERC20 tokens spendable with the Token and TokenCard Platform Monolith Follow Mar 16, 2017 · 4 min read

Over the years, many have attempted to bring cryptocurrency to the masses, yet adoption is still slow. It is clear that projects have failed to identify and address the main issues present in making mass adoption of digital assets possible, and so the core issues remain:

Security, storing assets is cumbersome and inevitably people choose to hold their assets with a third party, such as an exchange. This defeats one of the greatest properties of cryptocurrency, control of one’s assets, and exposes people to risks that have historically proven to be catastrophic. Usability, numerous steps are involved in seeing real world use of one’s digital assets. A user needs to manage wallets and exchange accounts, withdraw, deposit, go through KYC and even become an amateur trader. Asset Freedom, asking regular people to use a volatile asset like Bitcoin is a no-go. The people have spoken, and it deters more than it attracts leaving only a risk-taking fringe. People shouldn’t be limited to a single currency, they should have access to an entire economy of assets, from speculative ones like ETH to stable tangible commodities like DGX.

The Token platform plans to solve these issues and position itself at the heart of the effort to facilitate mainstream adoption of assets and platforms within the compelling Ethereum Ecosystem.

How do we solve these issues?

Well, there are three components to our project. The Contract Wallet, TokenCard and Token App. The Contract Wallet is a smart contract wallet that is directly controlled by you, there is no depositing of funds into a fractional reserve — it’s your money and you control it. The TokenCard is a debit card that can be given customizable access, set by you, to withdraw funds and make payments with. Payments are made in ERC20 tokens which means you could spend ETH, REP, DAI or the gold backed DGX on your morning coffee. With the Token App, we are unifying the former two and providing a seamless next-gen banking experience on Ethereum.

How would this all work in reality? Let’s go through two simple step-by-step processes that go over spending and security.

Spending

A TokenCard user wants to buy a $3 dollar beer. His name is James. James has customized his contract wallet so that only 0.1% of his assets can be spent daily. He has also enabled multi-asset spending, which allows him to make transactions in multiple assets — in this case ETH and DGX. Once James swipes his card, our system gets a payment network API call detailing his request. We evaluate an order book for the price of both ETH and DGX on an exchange and attempt a withdrawal. If successful, we OK the transaction and his payment will go through seamlessly, and a push notification will appear on his phone. James can then review the transaction on his Token app, seeing exactly how much ETH and DGX he spent on the beer.

Security

One of our users is worried about hackers, he has experienced significant losses in the past because of poor security. His name is Stephen. Despite his losses, Stephan has made a lot of money through investing in ETH and ICOs and wants to secure his funds as best as possible. Through the Token app he sets up multiple security provisions, enforced by smart contracts, to protect his assets. Firstly, he makes it so that withdrawals can only be authorized by Stephen on an hourly basis, he does this because he doesn’t like anyone having access to his funds. Secondly, Stephan is concerned about losing his key, so he’s allowed us the ability to drain funds to a separate prespecified backup contract wallet, controlled by him, in the case of emergency. Finally, Stephan is worried about someone gaining access to his account and stealing his funds. He sets a daily withdrawal limit on his own side, as he knows he or us can drain his funds to the backup address in an emergency. Stephen can now sleep peacefully at night knowing his massive holdings are safe!

Ecosystem Integration

Aside from providing a payment solution for the underlying community, the most exciting prospects for Token are within the many different markets that are being tapped into by other projects in the space. Integrating with these native Ethereum platforms will give Token direct access to diversified markets, in exchange for providing a payment channel for the platform’s user-base. We believe that this is where Token’s true role in the ecosystem lies.

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For people interested in how Monolith is creating a banking replacement for the general public powered by Ethereum please visit our website and subscribe to our newsletter.

http://monolith.ventures/

Our recent partnership announcement with Digix to bring gold back as a global means of transaction can be found here: IBTimes

An interview with the Token project leader Mel Gelderman can be found here.

Stay tuned for when we formally announce the Token platform. However you can read all about the TokenCard here.