Everyone has questions. Here are some common ones and Gidah.com's answer to them.
EditWhat problems does the Gidah.com Token Network solve?
MICRO-PAYMENTS
Gidah.com finally implemented micro-payments in a way that are affordable to everyone using them, and extremely easy to use and to automate.
Many micro-payment systems have come and gone without use by anyone because they were too complex, or too expensive. With Gidah's technology a newspaper can request a $0.25 token from you by providing a simple hyperlink. You click the hyperlink, log in at the gidah.com site, and then depending on your auto-token settings you will either be prompted to approve the token, or the token will be returned automatically to the requesting site. There is very little work to do by the person providing the $0.25!
The best part: you provide your login credentials only to gidah.com, NEVER TO ANYONE ELSE, so you know your account information is safe at all times.
Plus, using the Token Framework API, most of this can be automated. In the near future, you may pre-approve a site to take $0.50 per visit from you and you will have to do no work at all.
The Gidah.com system is so affordable that depending on the vendor's withdrawal plan, he can receive up to 98% of the $0.25 payments (on average.) There are no transaction fees! When someone offers you a quarter, you get a quarter. It only costs a little bit to move money from your Gidah.com account to your personal or business banking account.
Goodbye annual and monthly subscriptions! Now vendors can charge per visit, or per article, or ... the sky is the limit. To the consumer, that means you won't have to pay $20 / month for something you only use 3 days a month! Now, maybe your vendor will charge $1 / day ... saving you $17 / month.
SPAM
Another problem we solve is
SPAM. As soon as all forums, news sites, blogs, and email providers integrate the Gidah.com Token Network, ALL SPAM WILL END FOREVER.
This happens because everyone who doesn't have a trusted connection with someone will have to insure the information they provide. And the receivers of information will be the ones determining the value of the information received, which transfers power into the hands of the person who may be inconvenienced.
An easy example: Perhaps someone walks up to you and says, "here's a business plan. It's 45 pages. Read it. It will have value to you." If you know this person well (a trusted connection) you'll take his word and read it. If you don't know this person you probably won't want to risk your time to read through a 45 page business plan provided by someone you've never met. However, if this person gives you a a $100 token, you lock it to guarantee your ability to redeem it later, you're now guaranteed at least $100 of value from the transaction. You'll probably read the business plan. When you're done reading it you either redeem the token because the information was valueless to you (or worth less than $100.) But if the business plan looks awesome and you think you'll make zillions of dollars with it you'll let the token expire! That transaction is a perfect example of Information Insurance--THE END OF SPAM.
Identity Theft
Identity theft is a growing problem. Much of the identity theft problems stem from credit card theft. Credit cards are inherently dangerous because you have to provide everything someone needs to know to take money from you in order to use them. Credit Card companies work very hard to make sure you are safe--THEY HAVE TO!
We don't have to work hard to protect your identity during a transaction because there is no identifying information inside a token. Once you provide the token there is nothing inside the token that will identify you, and providing a token worth $1 grants the redeemer access to $1 and $1 only. They cannot extract more money--it's impossible.
Tokens are a lot like cash. Once it leaves your hands there is nothing on it that can point back to you. It's an anonymous transaction (in one direction.) Even more exciting, you can see who has redeemed your tokens, but they can't see that the token came from you.
Transaction Fees
Credit cards are expensive. It's understandable that they are expensive. They have their own networks, and they are constantly moving funds around the globe from bank to bank. All of that adds up to lots of dough.
The Gidah.com network is very inexpensive to use. In fact, as long as you keep your funds in your
Network Balance there is no fee to create or redeem tokens! You can exchange a million dollars and pay no fees. There's a reason we're so inexpensive, though. That's because we're a clearinghouse. That means we hold all the funds for all of our accounts, and when a token is created and redeemed, the actual money doesn't move from one bank to another. Your accounts are updated, but the actual funds behind the numbers stay put. This greatly reduces the expenses of financial transactions.
Once you want to move the money from one bank to another, there are fees. The banks have to get paid, you know. And so do we. So when you pull money out of your Network Balance there's a small fee (see the website for the amount.) This fee is likely to be much less than typical credit card transaction fees, though. And it's a one-time fee so you could process 1,000 tokens and then transfer the funds and pay the one-time fee. If these were credit cards you would have paid a percentage and a per-transaction fee for each of the 1,000 transactions!
Credit Cards are useful, safe tools thanks to all the extra effort they put into it (and make you pay for.) They have their place. But in this modern world there are better tools. And you're reading about the best tool right now.
EditHow does Gidah.com work?
There are two perspectives to consider when wondering how this works. Because the Gidah.com Token Network requires two parties for each transaction, we'll look at each party's perspective for our answer.
The Token Creator
As a consumer of goods and services, or as an information provider, users create Gidah.com tokens through the Gidah.com website (or through the Token Framework API.) The tokens you create have a specified face value which you can use to purchase goods and services. When someone redeems one of your tokens, the face value is transferred from your account to theirs.
But the Gidah.com Token Network is not a glorified checking account or credit card company. We provide a unique experience that allows for other scenarios of use--things you can't do with cash, checks or credit cards.
Tokens you create can be used as Information Insurance. Other Gidah.com users can use your tokens to guarantee that you are providing valuable information to them. When you post to a forum or comment on a news article the site may ask you to insure that the information you are providing has value to them. To do this, Gidah.com has an expiration date on the token, and provides a mechanism for a potential redeemer to Lock a token. This lock combined with the expiration date gives them time to review the information you provided to determine its value. And this expiration date lets you know that a potential redeemer cannot indefinitely lock your funds--they will be released when the token expires.
Read more about Information Insurance by following the link.
The Token Redeemer
The other side of the transaction is the locker/redeemer. Retail stores will use the Lock/Redeem feature of the tokens to fulfill their orders. When an order is placed the total amount will be presented to you. You can then create a token (like writing a check) for the amount of the order and submit the token to the retailer. The retailer will then lock the token to ensure that the funds are available for redemption, and then redeem the token when your item ships.
When you insure your information by posting to a forum or comment on a news article, the system will lock your token, review your information and then redeem your token only if the information you provided lacks intrinsic value. If you provide valuable information the token will be allowed to expire, and the funds released from the lock.
Effectively, this is the end of SPAM. If all information exchanged has value, then there will be no more valueless information!
EditCould you explain token locking some more?
When you create a token it has a specific face value. When another user locks that token that exact value will be transferred from your Network Balance, to your Locked Balance. The lock will last until either the token is redeemed, or until the token expires, whichever happens first. If the token expires the funds are transferred back into your Network Balance from your Locked Balance. If the token is redeemed, funds from your Locked Balance are transferred to the token redeemer's account.
EditHow come I have to create a token for every transaction? Why can't I give my information to the vendor and let them take what they want?
That's exactly how credit cards work. You give everything a person needs to know to take money from you every time you make a credit card purchase. You are relying on their integrity not to run additional charges! Are you really comfortable doing that? With the Gidah.com Token Network you hand someone the exact amount you authorize and it is impossible for them to take more. You don't need to trust them at all because they can only take what you offer.
EditWhat does Gidah.com think about privacy?
We think a lot about privacy. That's why we designed the Gidah.com Token Network to be extremely private. When someone redeems a token the only reason they know it came from you is because you gave it to them. If you leave the payer information blank they cannot glean any information about you from the token itself.
We will never share any personally identifying information about you or your token use to anyone outside of Gidah.com unless we are required to by U.S. law enforcement. We use state of the art security practices and never dispose of any personal information. We take privacy seriously. So seriously we built our technology around it.
EditHow can people break into Gidah.com?
That's a scary question, but we're glad you asked it. The tokens are impossible to hack. They cannot be forged or counterfeited. They can't be duplicated or redeemed more than once. And, the best part, all token exchanges can occur over clear-text communication. There is no need for security for exchanges. The Token Network is inherently safe.
What is at risk, and this is true for all online activity, is your login and password. You should
never give your username or password to anyone, ever. The only place you should type in your login and password is at the Gidah.com website or when you are making requests through the secure gidah.net API. Remember, the URL in your address bar should always read https://www.gidah.com. If it doesn't, it's not Gidah.com.
So the only way in is through the front door: your username and password. Protect it.