The remittance industry is facing structural challenges around inefficiencies, high cost and financial inclusion. Bitspark is solving these problems with a global remittance platform designed to completely redefine the game benefitting senders and receivers of money worldwide. Our native Zephyr Token is an integral part of the service and a critical piece in fuelling global scale. It’s much more than just another cryptocurrency. It’s an incentive token. It’s a utility token. It’s a social impact token. You can trade Zephyr on the BitShares DEX and join the global ZEPH community that believes in the transformational change we are introducing worldwide.

Why does the remittance world need Zephyr?

The remittance world is incredibly important for the 250 million migrants worldwide sending money back home. It is a giant market worth an estimated $440bn in 2017, yet it is in desperate need for a change. The current system is highly fragmented with unnecessary intermediaries that incur additional fees making remittances inefficient and expensive.

You might think it sounds straightforward enough to send money from one place to another, but the reality is far more complicated than that. If you take your hard-earned cash and transfer it from your bank account to another, it will move between local, national and intermediary banks changing hands and fiat currencies along the way. The process is slow and fees are added every step of the way. Going through retail remittance channels might be faster, but still too expensive. The World Bank found that the average cost of sending $200 was around 7.09 percent. To put that in perspective, of the $440bn sent in 2017, $32bn was lost in transaction costs.

As you may know, there are plans and initiatives around the globe in the financial and technology space to address these issues. But they often overlook a critical piece in the remittance world: almost 2 billion people in the developing world do not have access to banks. That means that none of the finance back-office innovation actually reaches the people that need it most. What good is a streamlined bank process if you live in a rural area and need cash in hand?

How Bitspark solves these issues

We do not believe increasing financial inclusion in the remittance game requires banks. In fact, with Zephyr we are doing the exact opposite and removing the reliance on banks altogether. Our remittance network is built with real users in mind and sensitive to their needs and situation. All you need is a phone with an internet connection to send money to your relatives back home in a way that is faster, cheaper and much more reliable than any other option available.

The Bitspark service builds on the existing remittance network of Money Transfer Operators (MTOs) worldwide and uses fiat-pegged cryptocurrencies as the connecting thread to send fiat cash across borders in a much cheaper, faster and reliable way. Our mobile app Sendy connects remitters to send and receive money using familiar and easy to understand processes. It’s a global cash in, cash out remittance system that builds on all the benefits of cryptocurrencies but does not require users to have an in-depth understanding of cryptos. The only thing they will see, is that their families back home receive the money quicker at a lower cost.

Naturally, this will upset the current power structures in the remittance industry in favour of everyday users as the incumbent players lose their grip on the market. But besides upsetting the status quo and “unbanking the banked”, our redefined remittance network will have a lasting positive impact in parts of the world where it’s needed most. The World Bank recently said that lower transaction fees could spur an increase in remittances and lift another 30 million people out of poverty.

That’s a compelling reason for you to invest in Zephyr, the token designed to increase financial inclusion worldwide.

Zephyr fuels Bitspark growth as an incentive and reward token

During the first phase of circulating Zephyr, we held an ICO in 2017 where we distributed 125 million ZEPH of the total 2 billion ZEPH supply. Now, ZEPH circulation is directly tied to the growth of our remittance network and user activity. This makes the Zephyr token integral to our system as an incentive and reward token.

Next to all the user benefits of our system that we’ve outlined above, there’s another reason for new members to sign up to our network: they are all given Zephyr tokens. A financial incentive that is guaranteed to accelerate growth beyond the eight markets we currently operate in. Zephyr is worth real money, and who would turn down free money? To encourage stable activity and usage of our service over time, ZEPH is rewarded to users for undertaking certain actions which are beneficial to the remittance network. This includes things like topping up or redeeming Sendy balances and sending through transactions. For each action, a user gets rewarded Zephyr. Together, this directly ties ZEPH circulation and supply to the growth and usage of the network.

As a token holder, there is another element you might be interested in: the 25% buy back mechanism.

Zephyr was designed to increase in value

As the network grows, more and more Zephyr tokens will circulate among the global users. To maintain the long-term value and utility of ZEPH, we have designed a rather unique 25% buy back mechanism. Bitspark commits 25% of the fees earned on transactions to buy back ZEPH from the BitShares Decentralised Exchange. In doing so, we ensure that the token holds a certain value over time which is to the benefit of you as a token holder as well as for everyday users considering they get Zephyr for performing certain activities.

Effectively, it places Zephyr at the centre of a positive feedback loop between network growth, usage, activity and value. A true win-win situation, which is a first for the remittance game.

Trading Zephyr on BitShares

We recently switched over from the Bitcoin Blockchain to the BitShares Blockchain. Next to far superior transaction speeds currently at 3300 per second with scalability up to 100,000, the ability to create fiat-pegged cryptocurrencies made BitShares the optimal choice. Fiat-pegged cryptos allow us to accommodate pretty much every currency pairing and offer the lowest fees possible in any remittance corridor.

Next to the Blockchain, we have also plugged into the BitShares Decentralised Exchange which is where you can trade ZEPH. While we do plan to list Zephyr on additional exchanges in the future, BitSdecentralizednitely one of the better exchanges available, especially considering the improved security it offers as a decentralised exchange.

If you don’t already have one, opening a wallet takes a couple of minutes after which you will immediately be able to buy and sell ZEPH using their intuitive interface, sophisticated trading instructions and even connect to their system through a number of gateways.

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