I think this is a great next step and will be excited to see how the community responds to the podcast!
I just wanted to remind everyone that the best thing about the CPS is decentralization, so just because I’m not in favor of the opportunity doesn’t mean it won’t get accepted by voting P-Reps. I’m not the sole decision maker (which can be a good thing at times) and am just providing my perspective.
Post IISS3.1 this is 15 days of cps funds. Yes, I understand the need to look at what it’s being spent on, but again we need to start doing these things without the thought of what if something better comes along. If something does then we have more funds in CPS every day and can be used there.
Our goal is to expand the community, so maybe the current community won’t use it- altho this logic is flawed as I present to you balanced and omm, many in our community had not dabbled in defi, but once given the option it was explored and now heavily utilised, anywho as we actually get these integrations up we will see new members arrive - this is the point. We are all trying to crack the how to bring new blood in, but sometimes it’s these simple things that bring people in.
In many chains, these things aren’t even debated it just happens. When it does it makes the community explore more options, Our community will be the same.
I do appreciate your perspective, I am worried tho as it should not make or break decisions for CPS funding.
???
This sentence makes me think the goal you’re trying to achieve from Travala integration is exposure rather than utility, and at that point wouldn’t the $50,000 be better spent on a targeted marketing campaign?
Sorry I was meant to delete that, got sidetracked and forgot I typed it. The point is you are part of the foundation and your views could swing sentiment.
Kinda this is what I mean by sentiment, I see it as Utility and exposure along with many other things I would rather not voice in public.
you know i love your work 
No worries - I provided my opinion because James had asked for it: https://twitter.com/NorskKiwi1/status/1464159843959427085?s=20
Sorry, I didn’t realise that. I am way out of line.
I’ve thought about this a bit more, and I agree with @theconnectooor now. I wouldn’t vote YES for an ICX integration. I would only vote yes for a bnUSD integration or an ICX + bnUSD integration (adding bnUSD support in the future is built-in to the cost of the proposal).
I have spent A LOT of time talking to people about ICX over the last 3-4 years. Something that sticks firmly in my mind is this: When talking with friends, family, and no coiners about ICX, what do we have to say in reply to this question “If I buy ICX, what can I do with it”?
Right now ICX can be used within our ecosystem on gambling, gaming, and DeFi. We don’t have a direct way to spend ICX on something as practical as tourism. Almost everyone uses hotels or travels at some point in their life. Direct spend on tourism could be one of the best use cases for cryptocurrency to date.
Before 2021, I think this question was much more difficult to answer because the utility of ICX was mostly speculation. Now with platforms like Balanced and Omm, there is a clear utility for ICX – you can use it as leverage. On Balanced, you can mint bnUSD. On Omm, you can borrow bnUSD, IUSDC, and USDS. In their current states, I think Balanced and Omm are too complex for the mainstream to use, but that’s a problem with blockchain UI/UX and not the underlying intrinsic value of ICX.
Regarding a direct way to spend ICX on tourism, I really don’t think it’s something most holders consider. I think it’s safe to assume that most people who buy ICX are buying it as an investment to compound via staking OR to stake and get leverage on via sICX/Balanced/Omm. I’m certain that close to 0% of ICX buyers are buying it to spend on something else. I think we have some data on this thanks to Balanced actually. Think about all the complaints about rebalancing. If people don’t want their ICX spend to capture a PROFIT (that’s what rebalancing is), I don’t think they would spend it on flights/hotels.
I wouldn’t be comfortable with spending $50,000 on something that won’t be used. I get the exposure angle though, but from that perspective what would it say if we spend a bunch of money to get ICX integrated, and then it’s later revealed that no one is spending ICX → that could be easily twisted to “See! No one cares about ICX.” even though the reality is more like “ICX holders don’t want to spend their ICX”.
I would vote YES, if this proposal could include a future bnUSD integration. Like if the total was $60,000 and included both ICX and bnUSD, that would be cool. I understand that bnUSD is still in early stages, but it’s just an IRC-2 token. Travala could do the technical implementation for IRC-2 now (and this would also support other IRC-2 tokens in the future), they could just enable bnUSD later when the time is right. I don’t think building out support for IRC-2 needs to be a completely separate proposal in the future.
Some great points there @bwhli, but I don’t fully agree with you on one aspect.
Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other coins were not used for payment, until they were. Use cases have to be created, and users have to join an ecosystem before organic use happens. Bit of a chicken and egg situation.
Perhaps Travala isn’t worth 50k to our network, that’s really what we are here to assess. I think it is myself. It’s not worth 50k to a few dozen people, but to a million people the cost of the utility per user is 5 cents.
I also really want bnUSD integration, but the product is just not ready yet for them unfortunately.
Just wanted to jump in to say that while the idea of using our ICX (or even better bnUSD) to travel sounds great, I do think that paying for a usecase is not ideal.
I also doubt that the volume of adoption will be good to compensate the investment. Vechain did this a year ago and I check Vechain’s subreddit on a daily basis and haven’t come across any user reporting having a nice trip and paying for it with VET.
This narrative is supported by the fact that Travala actually charges for this, if Travala thinked that the volume of ICX buyers would be a lot they would be offering this for free.
Edit:
After reading all comments I can say that it’s a good point that this integration cuts the CEX as a middlemen for those who want to spend some of their ICX (or like Fez says, even our stablecoins need to be converted to ICX in some cases, adding fees and operational time.
BUT let’s remember we are early and BTP will reduce this frictions over time. So NorskKiwi is right, it all comes tothe point to asses if 50.000 USD is a fair price to pay. I think it’s not and I would consider fair 20k for a bnUSD integration (that is not possible at the moment given bnUSD infancy).
It is a good project. “50k (+ conversion fee to their desired stable coin)” seems expensive if considering integration time as three weeks?
There are not enough details about the resources needed?