The genesis of the Siglo protocol began with me in the backseat of a 1960’s cab. I was out of cash.

A few years ago, I was in Cuba consulting for a telecommunications firm. I had to bring cash to support my sejour because American credit cards weren’t accepted at the time. But I knew, the moment I ran out of cash, I’d be in a predicament.

And there I was, sitting in the backseat of a taxi cab, unable to pay for the fare — it was $5 CUC (approximately $5 USD).

Venmo, PayPal, VISA, AMEX, and Mastercard were no good here, so out of desperation, I asked the taxi driver if I could send him a $5 CUC airtime recharge using Cubacel (the first telecommunications provider to deploy mobile coverage in the Republic of Cuba).

He immediately accepted the recharge as payment.

This moment made it clear to me that mobile airtime was a unit of value. By tokenizing this basic digital commodity, we can provide a way for the next billion people to transfer value digitally and participate in the global marketplace — without a bank account.

Connecting The Next Billion

In June 2016, we launched Pig.gi, an Android app that lets consumers earn in-app (and off-chain) coins by interacting with brand sponsored content on their lock screen. In exchange for performing various online and offline tasks for brands, Pig.gi’s 1.2 million users in Mexico and Colombia receive free mobile airtime top-ups.

Airtime credit is a commodity that 72% of the world’s phones use to stay connected. Pig.gi has already processed millions of transactions to date, awarding its users with more than 45 million coins over the last year — and, more than 95% of these coins have been exchanged for mobile airtime.

So if this system is already working, why do we need a blockchain protocol?

Siglo Protocol for the Right to Internet Access

The Siglo protocol serves as the rails for any app, developer, or service to leverage mobile airtime as a unit of value that can be directly transferred to the end user. The Siglo token will be the unit of exchange between various DApp coins and mobile airtime.

As a protocol, Siglo allows brands, enterprises, and other entities to sponsor internet connectivity on mobile. Compared to a traditional web service and APIs, a well documented, open-source protocol is more cost-efficient and can be more easily integrated by brands and providers without high onboarding cost. More importantly, the transparency of the decentralized network brings trustless transactions between consumers, and institutions like brands, telcos, enterprises, and governments. Note that in emerging markets, consumers often don’t trust these institutions.

To address this, Siglo’s blockchain protocol defines a set of rules by which brands can sponsor the connectivity in exchange for engagement and data from the end-user. These rules protect the brands from fraud, and allows them to access the consumer data and insights they need to serve their users. It also protects users, giving them ownership and monetization rights to their own data and privacy from brands with whom they don’t want to interact.

Simultaneously, the Siglo Token will allow for frictionless transfers between the ecosystem of apps using the protocol. As the network of both local and international users grow, the ecosystem can integrate with the digital economy, allowing unbanked people in the future to transfer value between peers and to service providers, store value, access credit, and even invest into the crypto economy. Enabling DApps to provide digital access and thus facilitate financial inclusion in emerging economies.)

Siglo DApps

Brands that used Pig.gi to connect with young consumers asked about connecting with other stakeholders. Could the app be used to sponsor connectivity of employees, sales forces, and work forces? What about sponsoring connectivity for a bank or a government entity?

The answer is undoubtedly, yes.

With the growth of the Siglo ecosystem and its community, we expect hundreds of new use cases leveraging connectivity being created.

Here are a just a few examples of DApps that can be powered by the Siglo protocol:

Apps for airlines: Low cost airlines have expensive overhead for call-centers, physical customer service centers, and collections. By incentivizing the use of their apps for reservations with airtime, they can drive down operational cost.

Banking apps: Incentivizing account holders to use use a bank’s app might cost $1 USD of airtime, but visiting a bank branch to talk with a teller could cost $2 USD for the teller and the operational overhead.

Mom & Pop Shop apps: Large consumer brands sell between 50–60% of groceries and staple goods in mom & pop shops, but they usually don’t have wifi or points-of-sale. However, the 300,000 tellers do have a prepaid plan and brands are willing to incentivize the cashiers $0.50 to a $1.00 to see their marketing material in the store.

Enterprise apps: Enterprises with large work forces need to communicate with employees. Some bottlers have thousands of employees. They want to incentivize surveys about employee engagement, employee morale, and performance or photos of workplace conditions.

We’ve validated that airtime as a unit of value provides liquidity for consumers around the world. As protocol, Siglo allows a network effect to be created in the ecosystem that is bigger than the sum of its component parts. Now, any app or entity interested in digital inclusion can use the decentralized protocol to connect with their audience.