Popcoin – Let's get you paid | Hacker News Reader

Popcoin – Let's get you paid

popcoin.ws

6 pointstyvdh7 comments

I’m so excited and proud to announce the launch of my latest side project Popcoin, a usage based billing service built to be the best way to get paid for just about anything It’s built on top of the Stellar SDK and utilizes Stripe Connect. It was built as part of this year’s 3rd Stellar Build Challenge.

== What does it do? == At it’s core Popcoin is a usage based billing service. You identify users within your product and then create micro charges within that product to slowly (or quickly) use up individual user’s credits. Things like, “view this page, charge 1 credit”, “call this API endpoint, bill 0.17 credits”, “download this song, spend 13 credits”, “every month, burn 100 credits”, “read this article, expense 7.65 credits”. It’s completely up to you how, when and why credits are burned for users as it’s just API charge calls to the Popcoin network. As soon as a user attempts to take an action that would put them below a threshold you’ve set within Popcoin we’ll send out a customizable refill email. Once that invoice is filled we’ll reload the user’s credit, slip out our fees and pass the rest on to you.

== What does it cost? == Popcoin has a fixed fee of 5% per invoice. This added on top of Stripe’s already low fees of 2.9% + 30¢ per transaction will leave you with loads of cash for the piggy. As an example if a user were to clear a $10 invoice, Stripe would take 59¢ and Popcoin would take 50¢, leaving you with $8.91.

== How does it work? == Popcoin operates on three core services. Stellar, Stripe and the Popcoin API.

Stellar acts as the financial undergirding for Popcoin. Providing a tokenization engine much like Bitcoin or Ethereum. Within their network Popcoin creates and maintains a network of accounts which give and receive a token unique to Popcoin. Stellar acts as the financial ledger keeping track of who has what and how much.

Stripe acts as the currency platform allowing Popcoin to move from tokens, cryptocurrencies and computers to cold hard cash in your bank account. Their service Stripe Connect is a top notch tool allowing Popcoin to safely, securely and in a controlled, maintained environment move money from your users to you. All without you ever having to really do much of anything beyond creating an initial connection.

The Popcoin API is the last piece of the puzzle and while it might sound tricky or feel like black magic at times. It’s actually just simple, smart and straightforward. You give us a user and then begin spending their credit balance.

Seems like there should be a threshold so the end user doesn't lose service.

It's up to the developer to decide what it means when an user's account has been overspent. The API will just return a 402. They don't have to disable service for that 402.

why convert to coins ? why not just use stellar directly ?

It does use Stellar directly. The real question is why use Stripe at all, and the reason being because for now Stellar doesn't have enough connected Federation servers that can translate coins directly to native fiat currencies. Or in other words I can't get the Stellar currencies out of Stellar and into your bank accounts without Stripe. This is hopefully only temporary though. Once more banks become federation endpoints and are issuing native fiat currencies on the platform the need for Stripe will go away.

It was my understanding that Stripe would be used primarily for credit cards payments to convert to this coin.

Sure, that happens, but not because of Stripe or through Stripe. Stripe just acts as a means of transferring a user's coin balance into a fiat currency that can move into a devs bank account from a users bank account. Stellar acts as the ledger for the coin or token system. Stripe facilitates a means to do something with that system that actually moves real money around.

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