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Can modularization and DID make UBI benefit everyone?

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In Silicon Valley, AI is rapidly acquiring new skills, while factories in China and Germany are heavily automating production. Despite technological advancements intended to benefit humanity, the wealth gap is widening, with many workers losing jobs to automation, particularly in developing countries. The rise of AI and large language models is reshaping the labor market, threatening millions of traditional jobs, including those of white-collar professionals. In response to potential mass unemployment, Universal Basic Income (UBI) is proposed as a solution, providing a fixed income to all citizens. Pilot programs in countries like Finland and Kenya show promise in improving social stability and encouraging entrepreneurship, but UBI faces significant financial sustainability challenges. At the recent Token2049 Dubai, the Meta Earth team introduced a decentralized, self-driven global UBI model. They aim to leverage Web3 technology to create a fairer economic system by breaking the monopolies of traditional banks and tech giants. However, early Web3 developments have seen wealth concentrated among a few early investors, raising concerns about repeating existing inequalities. Meta Earth seeks to establish a modular blockchain infrastructure, the ME Network, which promises high scalability, low transaction costs, and cross-chain compatibility. Their ME ID system allows users to obtain a unique digital identity while ensuring privacy through advanced encryption techniques. Users receive a permanently staked MEC token, generating daily income as a new UBI model. Meta Earth envisions a fair digital economy driven by real applications and participant engagement, aiming for a self-sustaining ecosystem. The success of such initiatives will depend on collective efforts from policymakers, communities, and users, ultimately determining whether technology serves as a catalyst for fairness or an accelerator of inequality. The coming years will be crucial in assessing the impact of these developments on global income distribution and overall happiness.

In the laboratories of Silicon Valley, artificial intelligence is learning new skills at an astonishing speed; in factories in China and Germany, robots are tirelessly assembling cars and electronic products. Technological advancements should benefit all of humanity; however, the dividends of this revolution have not reached everyone. On the contrary, the global wealth gap is widening, with many ordinary workers losing their jobs due to automation, and the survival pressure in developing countries is increasing.

The rapid development of artificial intelligence, especially the popularity of large language models, is reshaping the global labor market. Experts predict that in the next five years, hundreds of millions of people may lose traditional jobs due to automation. The impact is not limited to manual laborers; professions once considered "safe," such as lawyers, accountants, and data analysts, are also facing competition from intelligent systems.

Unconditional Basic Income: The Latest Path to Alleviate the Crisis

In the face of potential mass unemployment, Unconditional Basic Income (UBI) is seen as a possible solution. UBI advocates for providing a fixed income to every citizen, regardless of whether they work. Recent small-scale pilot programs in places like Finland, Canada, and Kenya have shown that this policy can indeed improve social stability and encourage people to explore new career options. In the Kenyan experiment, those receiving UBI funding not only experienced reduced financial pressure but were also more willing to try entrepreneurship.

However, UBI still faces an unavoidable issue: it requires massive financial expenditure, and existing pilots mostly rely on government budgets or charitable funds, making it difficult to scale globally. Harvard economist Amartya Sen pointed out, "UBI is an attractive ideal, but the realities of resource allocation and political considerations make it difficult to implement on a large scale."

To address the financial sustainability issues of traditional UBI, the technical team from the modular blockchain Meta Earth proposed a new idea at the recently concluded Token2049 Dubai: a decentralized, self-driven global UBI model.

Can the Next Generation Internet Bring Fairness?

We often think that the transformation of Web3 is not just a technological upgrade but a rethinking of power and control. The core promise of Web3 is to break the monopoly of traditional banks and tech giants over wealth and data, allowing users to regain control.

However, this vision is not without flaws. Blockchain networks currently face issues of slow speeds and high costs. More concerning is that the early stages of Web3 seem to be replaying old inequalities: a few early investors hold a large number of tokens, making it difficult for ordinary users to enter this new world, with wealth still concentrated in the hands of a few "whales." Supporters argue that Web3 is a correction to internet monopolies; critics warn that it may simply be a capital game in a different form. Regardless, this transformation has begun, and its success will depend on how technology is implemented and who can benefit from it.

In the current contentious Web3 world, Meta Earth is attempting to take a different path. Its founder, Patrick Oerer, has held senior management positions at top investment banks such as UBS and served as the European Managing Director at Boston Merchant Financial Network (BMFN), with 21 years of experience in traditional finance, deeply understanding the rules and limitations of traditional finance. Now, he is turning his attention to blockchain, hoping to use technology to break down barriers to wealth distribution. Meta Earth's goal is to build a modular public chain and a complete set of infrastructure and ecosystem, including blockchain wallets, decentralized communities, decentralized exchanges, decentralized identities, and cryptocurrency-based payment systems, even including a brand new virtual world capable of supporting various application scenarios such as social media, entertainment, consumption, and financial services in the migration to Web 3.

Meta Earth: Achieving Sustainable Global UBI through Modularity and DID

Meta Earth aims to inject fairness and sustainability into Web3 through innovative technology and economic models. The ME Network is the core infrastructure of Meta Earth, utilizing a modular design to decouple blockchain functions into independent modules, achieving high scalability and flexibility. Compared to traditional public chains like Ethereum, the ME Network has significant advantages:

  • High TPS: Through parallel processing and optimized consensus mechanisms, the ME Network achieves TPS far exceeding that of Ethereum, sufficient to meet large-scale application demands.

  • Low gas fees: The modular design optimizes resource allocation, significantly reducing transaction costs, allowing users to participate in network interactions at very low costs.

  • Cross-chain compatibility: Supports seamless interoperability with other mainstream public chains, providing users with a broader range of application scenarios and liquidity.

These features make the ME Network an ideal platform for supporting large-scale Web3 applications, laying the technical foundation for Meta Earth's decentralized, self-driven global UBI vision.

Another unique aspect of Meta Earth is its ME ID system. Users complete KYC verification through the ME Pass application and obtain a unique digital identity using Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE) and Zero-Knowledge Proof (ZK) technologies:

  • FHE: Allows direct computation on encrypted data without decryption, achieving efficient data utilization while protecting privacy.

  • ZK: Users can prove their identity or the validity of transactions without revealing specific information, enhancing security, preventing fraud, and improving efficiency.

With ME ID, everyone has an equal opportunity to participate. After certification through ME ID, users receive 1 permanently staked MEC token, which cannot be withdrawn but will generate daily income for the holder, becoming a new model of UBI. This design is referred to by Oerer as "on-chain permanent basic income." This design ensures equal participation for global users, freeing them from the reliance on central funding in traditional UBI.

The total supply of MEC tokens is 20 billion, half of which is permanently staked in global regional nodes (Zones), while the other half is gradually produced through a staking mechanism, with the production halving each year to ensure long-term sustainability of the system. Users can also earn additional rewards by participating in ecological interactions and share in the benefits as the ecosystem gradually flourishes. Oerer stated in an interview, "We hope to create a fair global economic system that allows all users to enjoy the economic dividends brought by Web3 and the current technological revolution, not just a few investors."

Meta Earth's vision is not just to distribute tokens to everyone. It aims to establish a fair digital economy, which requires real applications and genuine participants to drive it. In this regard, their core advantages lie in modular design, fair participation, and economic self-circulation. The high performance and seamless scalability of the modular public chain support the implementation of large-scale Web3 applications. Meanwhile, ME ID ensures that every user has a unique digital identity, allowing everyone globally to participate in the economic system with equal status, truly achieving inclusivity. Most importantly, the issuance and distribution mechanism of MEC tokens is designed for long-term sustainability, with users earning rewards through participation in ecological interactions, while the prosperity of the ecosystem in turn enhances token value and user income, forming a self-sustaining circular economic system. Only when a sufficient number of real applications run on Meta Earth will the MEC token have actual value, and the income earned by users can be converted into real income.

The Future of Technology: A Catalyst for Fairness or an Accelerator of Inequality?

Technological progress is always accompanied by hope and concern. On one hand, it brings productivity improvements and creates unprecedented wealth for humanity; on the other hand, it is also reshaping the global economic structure and exacerbating the imbalance in wealth distribution. Attempts like Meta Earth may bring new possibilities for fair distribution, but their success depends not only on the technology itself but also on the collective efforts of policymakers, communities, and users.

At this critical moment, we need to ponder a question: Is technology a driving force for social progress or an amplifier of wealth disparity? The answer does not depend on technology itself but on how we choose to use it.

This leads us to hope that Meta Earth can truly provide unconditional basic income for all users globally. When more ordinary people can automatically receive income every day, they will experience a higher sense of happiness.

The next few years will be a crucial period for testing this question. It is time for us to collectively focus on and participate in this dialogue.

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