Why crypto currencies?

The current financial system is broken.

• ~20% of people 25+ years old do not have access to the financial system, including bank accounts, loans and mortgages, online payment, savings and investments, etc.
• The current system relies on old and inefficient technologies
• The current system is opaque, expensive, and does not offer services to everyone equally.

Unless what most people think, cryptocurrencies and blockchain technologies are not only used for speculation and scams. The crypto ecosystem has many genuine projects dedicated to creating an inclusive, efficient, and fair financial system. Here are some examples of what has been built within the crypto world:

• Digital wallet: Wallets allow anyone to hold an asset on an account. They are similar to a physical wallet with cash in the sense that the wallet owner and only he owns and has access to the funds in that wallet. This is a fundamental difference from a bank account, where the bank uses the user's money and can close the user's account without notice for any reason.
• Stablecoins: cryptocurrencies pegged to an existing currency that can be sent or spent worldwide instantly, with a fraction of the fees charged by banks and financial providers.
• Decentralized exchanges Marketplace where anyone with a digital wallet can exchange a digital asset for another. For example, anyone could exchange a local currency pegged stablecoin with high inflation against a CHF or USD stablecoin to protect his buying power from the inflation of his country.

The Swapbox solution

The only censorship-resistant way to buy crypto is to buy with cash. But current crypto ATMs are not trustless nor censorship-resistant because they are connected to a centralized exchange, and operators need a bank account to buy crypto on CEX for users.

Swapbox does not require any exchange and definitely not a bank account.

If you are familiar with DeFi, you can think of a Swapbox machine as a liquidity pool for a stablecoins-cash pair and the Swapbox network as a decentralized on/off ramp exchange.

The first DIY kit DeFi-native crypto ATM

Decentralized assembly kit production Swapbox V1 will be produced in our factory, but we hope many factories will start to produce and sell their own Swapboxes. Swapbox is designed as an assembly kit for 3 reasons :

• Cheaper and easier to produce for small factories
• Cheaper to ship and low environmental impact
• Customizable Swapbox will be produced all around the world. We want to ensure even the smallest factories with the least sophisticated equipment will be able to produce Swapbox kits and sell them at affordable prices.

We don't want to lock operators and manufacturers into our chosen equipment. With the assembly kits, you can easily replace parts of the hardware.

Open hardware We believe that open source is the key to successful innovation. Swapbox is open hardware. Any factory can use the Swapbox enclosure plans to produce and sell their own Swapbox.

Swapbox software Swapbox will be the first DeFi experience for many people. We are focusing on building the best user experience for people to buy and sell crypto but also to use DeFi apps directly on the Swapbox interface. This is really powerful because it allows users to interact with DeFi much more easily than if they had to use apps by themselves.

To have a large number of apps available on the machines, the software will be designed to allow developers to easily build and deploy plugins. Plugin examples :

• Blockchains integration Swapbox V1 will only support the zkSync network, but developers could integrate other EVM-compatible networks over time.
• Aave integration Bob buy ETH with cash, deposit on AAVE, borrow USDT, and withdraw cash.
• KYC plugin To ensure Swapbox can be used in countries where the legislation is strict.
• Bitrefill integration Bob inserts cash and buys credit for his phone seamlessly.
• Pool together integration Bob stops spending his money on the lottery and opens a savings account, earns interest, and has a chance to win prizes every week. The plugin system will be the core value of Swapbox, allowing users to access complex financial products easily.

How does it all work?

The Swapbox act as a liquidity pool for stablecoins-cash pair. The operator of the machine sends stablecoins to the smart contract and deposit cash in the Swapbox. Users can then use this liquidity to swap cash for crypto and crypto for cash. As simple as that. No central entity. As long as the blockchain used is running and there is liquidity in the DEX, Swapbox can run.

Unlike traditional DeFi projects, there are key differences related to the fact that Swapbox is a physical link between fiat and crypto: In the DeFi ecosystem, there are generally 2 types of actors :

• Developers
• Users (traders, liquidity providers, lenders, insurers, etc.) Due to the nature of the project, Swapbox involves more actors :
• Developers
• Manufacturers
• Operators
• Users The main challenge of the project is to build trust between the different actors. Users need to trust operators and developers, and operators need to trust manufacturers.

This is where the Swapbox ecosystem comes in:

Swapbox ecosystem

To achieve decentralization, Swapbox needs to have several developers, manufacturers, and operators not connected to each other. We are building a complete ecosystem to decentralize every aspect of Swapbox, from software development to manufacturing. Swapbox DAO's mission is to build trust between all the actors of the ecosystem. To achieve that, we are building protocols to link developers, manufacturers, operators, and users and ensure all actors are incentivized to act honestly. These decentralized protocols are :

1. Operator registry with rating system Operators are ranked by a score, representing their involvement and honesty in the ecosystem. Operators with the best score are rewarded with governance tokens and high visibility on the Swapbox DAO, which results in higher voting power, higher volume, and higher revenues. This score includes
   • Number of unique users
   • Total volume
   • Percentage of unsuccessful transaction
   • Machine uptime
   • Percentage of earned fees returned to the DAO treasury
   • Users rating
2. Manufacturers registry with rating system Manufacturers will also be rated by a score in order to provide confidence to new operators that want to purchase a Swapbox kit. Trusted manufacturers will be able to mint certificates in the form of NFT. Each Swapbox will then be linked to this NFT, and everyone will be able to verify the origin of a Swapbox, verifiable on-chain.
3. Community-run Git repository Software hosting is an essential part of censorship resistance. Developers need a place to build software together without worrying about having their code censored or deleted because a centralized hosting provider no longer exists. Swapbox software will be managed by the community on a decentralized Git platform, probably Radicle.
   • Community development
   • Consensus-based software update
   • Censorship-resistant software As the project moves forward, we want to encourage developers around the world to build on Swapbox. We plan to implement a seamless reward system where plugin developers will be rewarded based on the usage of their product.
4. Decentralized software hosting Operators need frontends and apps to interact with swapbox, e.g., to check cash balance, change fees, etc. Frontends will be hosted on a decentralized storage platform, such as Swarm or zero net. Files will always be available on the decentralized Git repository, and operators can also host frontends locally.
5. Governance token fair distribution The governance token is secondary in the Swapbox DAO; the most important parts are the decentralized registries and Git repository. The token will exist to reward the most active actors with decision power in order to decentralize the governance of the Swapbox ecosystem. The token is not meant to have any financial value: There will be no pre-sale of tokens. All the tokens will be minted by manufacturers, developers, operators, and users. Tokenomics will be an important part of the success and resilience of the ecosystem. In order to maximize the decentralization of power, the governance token will be the last piece of the DAO.