I saw the above tweet a few days ago and it got me even more excited about SureRemit. We think it’s probably the grandest attempt to marry cryptocurrency with the real world. Based on our early efforts alone, at least a third of the population of the world will be able to use SureRemit to purchase something they use every day — from mobile airtime to household utilities, electronics and clothes. The RMT was designed to be a pretty powerful utility token from day 1.

We’re not under the illusion that this will be an easy experiment. There is good reason that a lot of structured companies are not accepting cryptocurrencies as payments (exclusively). The risks of doing so are profound, and our ability to manage the platform economics in the short term will be a test for the future viability of the project. However, if the industry is to survive and thrive — and if we want to see fewer tweets like that of Jason’s — a lot of players have to take the bold step.

INSIDE THE APP

Users of SureRemit app will need the RMT. Upon sign-up, a Stellar wallet will be created for the account. This wallet (public) address can be accessed on the “Wallet” page, and users can move their RMT from external sources or exchanges to that wallet without need to create a trustline.

The critical next step and the big picture is to ensure that ordinary people who don’t already have the RMT or any other cryptocurrency can also use the app. This means that we need to create a method for seamless acquisition of RMT using traditional debit/credit cards, via bank accounts or even via cash outlets globally. This is a very tough and gradual piece, but we’re working on it and we’ll succeed at figuring it out very quickly. We’re already making good progress.

Once users are able to acquire the RMT, we’ve built the app in a way that it’s very simple to use. We’re not a money transfer service, so the app is stripped of all the complications users would ordinarily expect from international money transfer services.

The app user will be able to do four basic things: Send Airtime, Pay Bills, Send Digital Vouchers, and Make Charitable Donations.

We need a few testers before we open it up to the general public. We’ve enabled the Send Airtime and Send Digital Vouchers options in a limited form. Testers can purchase airtime for their mobile phones and send real digital vouchers at a $20 maximum. We’ll close the test at 500-1,000 transactions, then implement your feedback over the next two weeks.