The 0xcert ecosystem is made up of a variety of open-source tools, such as the widely used ERC721 specification and the 0xcert Framework, designed to make the process of building dapps as quick, painless, and streamlined as possible. You all know our ZXC token, but today for the first time, we would like to introduce a new addition in our ecosystem, the dapp token. Let’s have a look at their roles:

ZXC tokens are general-purpose, tradable utility tokens that play a critical role in 0xcert products and services where they're used to process meta transactions (no-eth) and other decentralized behind-the-scene operations on the Ethereum blockchain.

Dapp tokens are credits users spend to buy products and services offered by individual dapps built on 0xcert. Each dapp usually has its own dapp token that it uses for its own purposes.

Exploring the ZXC token economy

The first product built on the 0xcert infrastructure is Evidenspace, a platform built by the 0xcert team for issuing and managing non-fungible tokens, credentials, contracts, agreements, and more that is already being used by over fifty pilot projects. Evidenspace will be our model for exploring the 0xcert token economy.

The introduction of dapp tokens allows us to update our products and services in a much more dynamic way than using ZXC directly. In turn, this allows us to streamline certain processes, offer a more dynamic infrastructure overall, and help dapp developers provide cutting-edge user experiences. Using dapp tokens instead of ZXC tokens also hides the complexity of blockchain for end users, vastly improving ease of use. One of the most important ways it achieves this is through the fiat gateway. From a legal perspective, we can’t facilitate fiat-to-crypto or crypto-to-fiat payments directly without becoming an exchange, a complicated legal situation. Using dapp tokens as a common denominator makes it possible for us to provide a fiat gateway without becoming an exchange.

How does it work?

To illustrate, let’s say Alice wants to use Evidenspace to create and manage credentials in the form of non-fungible tokens on the Ethereum network, without dealing with cryptocurrency directly. Just as in traditional credential issuance, the operations associated with credentialing have a cost. On the Ethereum network, costs are usually denominated in gas; in Evidenspace and other dapps built on 0xcert, they are paid for with dapp tokens. Thanks to the fiat gateway, Alice can simply use her credit card to pay for the services she wants to use, such as issuing and signing a new credential or verifying an existing one. Behind the scenes, her euros are exchanged for ZXC tokens, which are then swapped for credits—dapp tokens—that show up in her account.

Making the use of dapps frictionless in this way is key to achieving greater adoption. Of course, ZXC is freely available on exchanges, so more knowledgeable users familiar with blockchain are free to deposit ZXC directly, which will then be swapped for dapp tokens. In both cases, the ZXC-to-dapp-token swap is performed in a decentralized way with an atomic operation, with the ZXC sent to a smart contract that then issues dapp tokens to the user. The ZXC is used to pay for the processes that power dapps under the hood, such as creating non-fungible tokens, transferring them, and so on. No ETH is required to perform these transactions.

Technically, dapp tokens are modified ERC20 tokens. They can only be used to pay for dapp services, cannot be cashed out, and are non-transferable. The total number of dapp tokens is dynamic and relative to the total amount of locked ZXC tokens into dapp tokens. The conversion rate between ZXC and dapp tokens is 1:1. Because of this, all calculations done in ZXC are also valid for dapp tokens, and vice versa.

Based on the ICO numbers and because we strongly believe in the future of 0xcert technology, we decided to currently fix the price of one ZXC token at 0.042 EUR throughout all 0xcert services. For example, if an operation in Evidenspace is priced at 1 EUR, the cost will come out to 1 EUR/0.042 EUR = ~23.8 ZXC. Bonuses given out during the ICO serve as discounts on services payable using ZXC tokens. In general, the amount of transactions and usage should have a positive impact on ZXC and the entire 0xcert ecosystem.

What's next?

Over the next year, new use cases for ZXC will be introduced, and we will have more opportunities to integrate different token mechanics into dapps and services. In the short term, the ZXC economy will be kick-started by the 50+ pilot projects using Evidenspace. This will give the ecosystem a tangible use case and introduce basic token mechanics.

Buy ZXC on the following exchanges: