Introduction

A new hobby of mine is researching lesser-known crypto currencies (aka “cryptos”). I find it exciting to dive into the depths of coinmarketcap or bitcointalk and see what weird stuff I can find. Usually it’s someone’s half-abandoned hobby project that doesn’t really have anything to offer. But every now and then I stumble upon…a coin with strong fundamentals!

SmartCash (SMART)

My first clue was a nice and clean website. Then I saw wallets for Windows, Mac, Linux and I got quite excited. Wait, they even have a webwallet? What is going on here? In case you don’t know, even top 100 cryptos sometimes don’t have wallets for certain platforms (I mean, they are “in development” ;), let alone webwallets.

SMART was somewhere around 350 position on coinmarketcap when I found it and clearly had some serious development going on. I knew I had to look into this project more, and so I did.

Can we find something good in this pile of shitco..I mean altcoins?

Let’s see what SmartCash is all about. In brief,

SMART is a coin with a strong focus on community.

SMART is a coin that pays rewards to its users.

SMART is a coin with built-in privacy features.

SMART is a coin that offers instant transactions.

The social coin

To me this feels like the strongest point of SMART, let me explain why I think so.

Many coins and projects in crypto-space talk a lot about decentralization. Rightly so, because decentralization is the cornerstone of crypto currencies. But what happens after a certain level of decentralization is achieved? All kinds of questions arise, like who controls the development, the forking and protocol changes. And other less technical questions as well, like who should deal with marketing (yes, it’s important!), new proposals and ideas.

Historically, cryptos have ignored these questions altogether, focusing only on the tech. Communities tend to grow naturally around projects but they are given a role of spectators watching from the sidelines.

The bitcoin fork drama(s) this year and all the fighting that went with it shows very clearly what happens when small groups decide between themselves where the project should go. Many people left the community simply because they didn’t want to be a part of it anymore. It feels toxic. If only the community had some kind of way to steer its project in the direction it feels is the right one. Not everyone will be happy, of course, but at least the mechanism would be transparent and people wouldn’t call each other names…

I would argue that as of 2017, the recipe of success for any new coin includes both decentralization and governance. Don’t make the community a voiceless attachment to the project, but have it built into the project from the get go and give it power to decide.

Community is the biggest asset of any project

And that is exactly what SMART did.

SMART has SmartHives and Hive Structuring Teams.

Smart Structuring teams are like departments in a company that deal with development, marketing and the other important tasks. They are by no means fixed, in fact the current ones are called “Initial” teams and will change in the future.

A quote from the website:

“SmartCash belongs to the people, as every crypto currency should. The teams below are simply getting things started. After SmartCash starts to require more teams they will be created and these will be splintered into smaller teams.”

SmartHives are even more interesting: community driven proposals and voting.

Want to fund crypto currency awareness program in South East Asia? Sure, if you can convince the SMART community.

Want to distribute food in Latin America? Why not, if the SMART coin holders vote for your proposal.

Want to use your artistic skills to promote SmartCash? Sounds good, but lets decide if we really want it first.

(What if bitcoin had that kind of project funding mechanism? How much bigger could it be right now?)

The funds come from the special community fund (this address, containing over 55% of all SMART). With every block 80% of the new coins go to the Hive Teams and the SmartHive community fund. It sounds incredible that 80% would go to the community but it’s true, and that’s a really powerful statement by SMART.

If you think about it, giving coins to the community is simply a way of re-investing back into SMART. Those coins will go to a project, the project will get done, the results will raise awareness and attract new attention. The loop closes, SMART continues its growth, the community wins.

A literal smart hive — “Automatically Extracts Honey without Disturbing Bees” :) Source: http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2015/02/honey-on-tap/

The giving coin

Okay, so 80% of all new coins go to the community projects and development. What about the remaining 20%?

5% is the mining reward, it’s a proof-of-work coin after all. (Personally, I prefer proof-of-stake coins, as a more eco-friendly alternative. With Ethereum moving to PoS soon it seems like the future. But oh well…)

The last 15% is the juicy part — SmartRewards! From the website:

“Each wallet address holding at least 1000 SmartCash will get paid each 30 days on the 25th and the snapshot for the next month will happen at the same time”.

So if you get some SMART on the 24th, you will get your first payout in about a month (25th next month). But if you get it on the 26th, your would need to wait almost 2 months for your first payout.

If there’s one thing people really like it’s the payouts from their holdings. In my own portfolio I tend to prefer coins that produce some kind of dividends. Why? Because not only can the coin appreciate in price over time, but multiply itself while sitting happily in my wallet. The perfect passive income.

Obligatory Lambo

SmartCash calculator reports impressive returns.

To be continued…

This article is getting kind of long already, so I will follow up with Part II where I will discuss SMART’s privacy features, instant transactions, as well as some risks — it’s still in a very stage after all. I might get into some price speculations as well, but that’s always a dangerous thing to do with crypto currencies.

Hopefully, by now you share some of my enthusiasm about this worthy project. However, please do your own research and see if it all makes sense to you.

Let me know if you’ve enjoyed the article as much as I’ve enjoyed writing about this yet very little known community driven crypto. And if you feel extra generous, you can tip me some SMARTies: SNg865wP4Yu81JirZtS2Cjpd1H2oT7ahSG

If you would like to learn more about SmartCash please visit https://www.SmartCash.cc