Wednesday, August 18, 2021

#IndianDataDollar: A whitepaper (Version 1.0: Seventh Page)

 Contd from Page 6..

One person’s expenditure is someone’s income. Being digital, this UBI would create a high money velocity that can be even 10x of the initial amount given. With this kind of second legal tender reaching mass adoption in a direct manner, RBI won’t need to do money-printing in traditional manner that is not distributed efficiently.

4.4 Telecom Pool

..................This would also need changes in the billing and product pricing methods of the telecom players. However, the core issue is how the allocation would work. Since the idea is total tokenization of the telecom sector, it also means that equity of telecom companies would also be priced in IDD. That is where 40% of token supply will be made to the telecom company shareholders & debtors. This amount is not fresh money in M0 sense of the term rather it is exchange of their current holdings. Now, once the equity holders convert their equity into the new IDD token, they have two options. They can maintain their liquidity in IDD or they can convert it back to a security token. It means that all telecom companies will be asked to convert themselves into a blockchain-friendly governance system where equities should convert into security tokens issued by the respective companies like Airtel, Reliance JIO, Vodafone-Idea and BSNL/MTNL. This is also applicable to all the debt-holders of these companies. Most of the promoters hold the majority equity and prefer to take debt against equity. This creates a tendency to keep a company under loads of debt. Telecom players hold a massive debt to the tune of nearly INR 5 trillion. This debt is held against some sort of pledged equity. The telecom players would convert themselves into a zero-debt status by offloading their equity.

..................................................... For this, three economic parameters need to be used. First one is the respective user share that should get 50% weightage as this shows the long-term effort of a telecom player. The second parameter should be the market revenue share with 25% weight. The third parameter should be the market cap with 25% weight. Since a company’s equity is being converted into a national legal tender (IDD), it would expect a fair evaluation of its enterprise. How to evaluate it? Let us estimate the total market cap of the telecom sector. In a pessimistic scenario due to pandemic, it can be as low as INR 6-8 trillion. In an optimistic scenario, it can be as high as INR 12-15 trillion. What can be an all-time high value in the next 10 years? As data price would be fixed with a single unit of IDD, the telecom companies cannot increase data prices in next ten years. So, they need to be compensated also. The basic hypothesis is that telecom companies should be healthy & zero-debt. Only such a network can execute its fiduciary responsibilities. 40% Telecom token supply assumes a fair value @ INR 14.6 trillion of the sector. It can be both an under & over-estimate as there is no perfect way to do it. There is no fool-proof way of finding a true value. That is why the Parliament should seal this value. Once the final value is decided, 40% IDD tokens should be distributed to all the players based upon the weighted formula. A phased equity-to-token conversion should happen as per this distribution plan. First priority is to make the telecom sector into a zero-debt sector. Somebody may argue that telecom companies will object to this transition. Yes, it may happen but there is a hidden incentive for all the telecom players. If the telecom companies fulfill two conditions of distributing UBI to the users and converting themselves into zero-debt organizations, the second priority is to rechristen them as “IDD Banks”, a new banking category. .................................................................

4.5  Reserve Pool and Transaction tax

UBI Pool takes 26% and the Telecom Pool takes 40%. What is left is 34% of the IDD tokens. This is called the Reserve Pool. The sole objective of the Reserve Pool is to be the long tail of IDD money supply. It means that the best option is to release it in a gradual fashion by dividing it into 100 tranches across 120 months excluding the first 20 months needed for UBI and preparation of the



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