I wanted to start a conversation on what the community thinks about grin needing a mobile app. I have been thinking much about this, long before Ironbelly sadly left. I always assumed that the reason for grin’s low mobile usage was due to challenges with the user experience. However, I’m now wondering whether there are more fundamental questions that need to be asked.
Firstly, I must say that I am very grateful for the work that Ivan did for the Ironbelly project and I don’t want to take anything away from that. I know that the grin community were very satisfied with it and as I understand, it was especially important as a tool for those mining. However, I always had ideas of new features and UX that I’d like to see implemented in a mobile app. My thoughts now though are focusing on the actual use case of an app. Even if an app had an innovative UX that allowed non-geeky people to pick it up and use it with ease, what would the application be?
I had a vision that a new grin app could spark a P2P network effect where the everyday person could pay a stranger without needing to carry cash or change or having to get a person’s name, account and sort numbers and create new payees, etc. I saw a way that local shop owners could be paid for their goods without having to pay a chunk in fees to large corporations. Although I still hold on to this vision, I’m struggling with something more practical.
It seems that crypto has been trying to do P2P since forever. I’ve seen plenty of BCH videos of Caribbean transactions where a QR code is scanned and payment verified instantly (more or less). So what could grin do differently? One thing I considered was a marketing strategy. Perhaps focusing on the next generation of crypto users who are looking for something fresh and untapped and utilising platforms like Snapchat and TikTok could help. Or perhaps focusing on grin’s lightweight and private aspects. But I think I’ve found the fundamental problem which is price volatility. For cryptos being used as investment vehicles this is great but it’s a nightmare for anyone trying to price items with it. Number-go-up feels great but a $40 wallet being worth $20 next week, not so. Even with grin’s current relatively low volatility, any large shift in momentum would likely shake it up significantly.
So at this point, the questions are; does grin need a mobile app? Does the community want grin on their phones? Does grin want to attract new users? Does grin want to be a peer to peer money network? If so, how does it deal with price volatility?
Sorry for almost writing a book. I’d love to hear your thoughts though.
Not really. However, having a Grin wallet app or an existing app that supports Grin is pretty convenient. More people have smartphones than computers/laptops and thus Grin will have more reach.
I do! Then I don’t have to keep my wallet open on desktop when I’m not home and can keep it open on my phone for slatepack transactions.
Yeah, of course. More developers at this time because Grin utility is the most important factor to drive its growth and use.
Thanks to @ardocrat you can already install Grim mobile wallet. It has integrated local node and the possibility to connect the wallet to external (public) node, so you can use as lite mobile wallet.
First it is important to think what price volatility is. One grin is one grin every day for now and forever. But I guess you mean volatility when expressing grins value in another currency like USD or EUR.
Integration of a wallet APP with an exchange would allow automatic or frequent conversion of grin to for example a stable coin. The downside is that if you do that automatically, either when sending or when receiving, you lose the privacy from spending your grin to some extend since an exchange can couple these conversions to on chain action.
That is a problem not unique for grin but for all currencies. Even when using fiat, you have to deal with price fluctuations that can make import or export more expensive at times. Personally I think it is not a big deal since all (crypto-)currencies have this “problem”. Users can decide for themselves if they find it important enough to each time buy or sell grin on the fly.
I am thinking about source of liquidity, if only it could be integrated into some PriFi (like BEAM), so we can automate process when user pay with GRIN, exchange to some stable coin and send this coin to receiver (it can be p2p fiat exchange or Lightning Network with BTC).
In the future with CBDC we can try to automate this process more accurate.
For now the best case is just accept GRIN (and use mwixnet for the best privacy), exchange is separate process
Thanks for the responses. I did some more thinking and concluded that I don’t think grin needs a mobile app now. I used to have mobile apps on my phone in 2017 with bits of crypto on but I have barely opened one since. Unless P2Ping, I can’t see much gain. I think it’s more of a nicety. Perhaps when there is a demand for P2P, a mobile app can be made pretty quickly with perhaps more options in terms of NFC technologies. I don’t actually see a demand for P2P as long as cash and contactless payments exist in there current form. Merchants seem onboard with contactless even if a little bitter about fees and disclosure.
I do think CBDCs could be the thing to initiate change. Their success IMO will be based on how much of an incentive there is for governments to eradicate cash. That would depend on how much could be gained in recovered taxes, transaction fees, crime control, etc.
Regarding price volatility, I don’t think that there’s a way around it. I could see though, if grin was to become larger and speculation lessened, that its linear emission could lead to it becoming the most stable crypto.
