GUBI: General Use Basic Income

"To own nothing and fear nothing. To use freely and live fully."

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The Premise

GUBI is a prototype for a post-scarcity economic framework built on trust, presence, and freedom, not compliance, debt, or work-for-survival conditioning.

In a world where digital identity is weaponized and autonomy is eroded, GUBI offers a parallel track: a basic income system untethered from labor metrics, surveillance scoring, or centralized ownership models.

This is not charity. This is not conditional welfare. This is the re-activation of dignity as the basis for participation.

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Core Principles

• Presence over Productivity

  • You earn by existing within the system, not by "performing value" in externally defined ways.

• Trust before Control

  • GUBI assumes good faith by default. Reputation is emergent, not imposed.

• Use over Ownership

  • Property hoarding is unnecessary. Tools, goods, and services circulate based on need and proximity, not accumulation.

• Spontaneity over Prevention

  • We design for self-healing through motivation and emergence, not brittle rulesets or anticipatory policing.

• Scaling by Resonance

  • GUBI does not seek mass adoption through marketing or mandates. It grows when it is found and chosen.

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How It Works

1. Proof-of-Presence:

• Users connect to the system through voluntary attestation mechanisms.
• Currency is emitted periodically simply by being "alive" in the network.

2. Dynamic Emission Control:

• GUBI supply flexes organically based on human presence — not through centralized levers or policy edicts.
• Inflation and scarcity reflect social balance, not market manipulation.

3. Peer-to-Peer Commons:

• Goods and services are offered freely or for GUBI within autonomous micro-networks.
• Reciprocity emerges socially, not contractually.

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Why Now

The so-called "Fourth Industrial Revolution" seeks to shackle human agency to digital ledgers, carbon credits, programmable money, social compliance wallets. Under the banner of "convenience," sovereignty is being atomized into permissions granted by unseen hands.

GUBI exists to preemptively seed an alternative. A way out, already waiting.

We are small. We are agile. We are human.

They need coordination. We need only connection.

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Goals

• Short-Term:

  • Build and deploy a minimal viable GUBI infrastructure outside traditional ID verification systems.
  • Foster initial micro-economies based on real use and trust.

• Medium-Term:

  • Create bridges to physical goods and services without ownership locks.
  • Enable self-repair, federation, and forkability by design.

• Long-Term:

  • Cultivate parallel societies that operate on dignity-first economics.
  • Serve as living proof that autonomy was, and is always possible.

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Next Steps

1. Complete initial GUBI emission and attestation protocols.
2. Launch limited pilot communities.
3. Document failures and iterate openly.
4. Spread only through resonance and invitation, not advertising.

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Expect anything. Fear nothing. Build anyway.

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(Work in progress. We grow through action.)

Important

• Cyber-gubi is fully GDPR compliant - the collected biometrics data is hashed via locality-sensitive hashing and stored in a public p2p database. The hash is irreversable to original data.
• To receive your basic income you need to login in the span of the last 3 days of each month, see "How to use" for more details

What is it

• A guaranteed unconditional basic income global digital currency
• Natural supply cap - the amount of tokens is limited to the amount of living people receiving them + inflation indexed
• Natural burn rate - when a beneficiary dies the tokens belonging to that person are out of circulation
• Inflation indexer - real-time analysis of price fluctuations and adjustment of income

What it is not

• Not a crypto currency - not based on blockchain
• No transfer - tokens can only be used for purchases of products and services
• No inheritance - tokens can not be inherited
• No exchange - tokens are not listed on exchanges and can not be traded or speculated with

How to use

• Authenticate with your face ID
• You get redirected to your wallet
• You can see your payment ID and do payments
• To pay someone you need their payment ID
• Each month you will automatically get your basic income debited
• Important: you can only receive your basic income in the span of the last 3 days of each month
• This is in order to make sure there are online peers to run the inflation indexer

Installation

The app runs on the public IPFS network. In order to use it follow the steps below:

1. Install Linux
2. Install IPFS Companion http://docs.ipfs.io/install/ipfs-companion/
3. Install golang 1.20 or later version - https://go.dev/doc/install
4. Clone https://github.com/stateless-minds/kubo to your local machine git clone https://github.com/stateless-minds/kubo.git
5. Build IPFS make build
6. Init IPFS ./cmd/ipfs/ipfs init
7. Follow the instructions here to open your config file: https://github.com/ipfs/kubo/blob/master/docs/config.md. Usually it's ~/.ipfs/config on Linux. Add the following snippet to the HTTPHeaders:

  "API": {
    "HTTPHeaders": {
      "Access-Control-Allow-Origin": ["webui://-", "http://k51qzi5uqu5djbxska9ryliqt6rik7gfy44wb46xub92gbhnsy3c0n5g66phsq.ipns.localhost:8080", "http://127.0.0.1:5001", "https://webui.ipfs.io"],
      "Access-Control-Allow-Credentials": ["true"],
      "Access-Control-Allow-Methods": ["PUT", "POST"]
    }
  },

8. Run the daemon:

• .cmd/ipfs/ipfs daemon --enable-pubsub-experiment

9. Navigate to Cyber Gubi
10. Pin it to your local node so that you cohost it every time your IPFS daemon is running

10.1. Open your IPFS dashboard

http://127.0.0.1:5001/webui

10.1 In your CLI with a running daemon run:

./cmd/ipfs/ipfs ipns name resolve k51qzi5uqu5djbxska9ryliqt6rik7gfy44wb46xub92gbhnsy3c0n5g66phsq

Expected result for example:
/ipfs/QmRtJemJxaPS1MoCcHJGgQT8Wv7e4L7PTMjxaJU3ZaBDHC

10.2. In the search bar of the web UI search for QmHash by pasting: QmRtJemJxaPS1MoCcHJGgQT8Wv7e4L7PTMjxaJU3ZaBDHC
10.3 Click on More
10.4 Click Set Pinning
10.5 Mark local node and hit Apply

Path to mainstream adoption

• Map it to your local currency - as a starting point consider cyber-gubi pegged to your local currency with a 1:1 ratio - this is purely for initial pricing reference since it can not be exchanged for other currencies.
• Spread the word - when you go shopping mention this new currency, how much of it you already have and whether the retailer would accept it. If they express interest tell them to visit cyber-gubi to register in the company waiting list.
• Once a big enough commercial network registers and wants to use it due to the amount of potential customers having it this creates a push towards nation states to accept it as a form of currency to collect taxes in. They might ask to convert it to local cucrency but cyber-gubi is non-exchangeable so they have to accept it if they want to make money out of it.
• Wages paid in cyber-gubi are adjusted based on arbitrage between product prices and profit - for example you can sell apples at a rate of 5 to 1 compared to your local currency but pay salaries at a rate of 4 to 1 thus making profit.
• A free-market economy kicks in and starts regulating internal pricing independently of other currencies - at this point the initial mapping to local currency is no longer needed. The currency starts to live its own life creating own pricing system.
• The value of cyber-gubi is defined independently by each retailer setting price on own products
• Subscription based all-in-one businesses emerge as a business model - businesses registered on cyber-gubi appear as list of merchants to all receivers of basic income where you can subscribe for a monthly fee and use what you want
• All-in-one depots emerge where you pay a monthly fee and use and return instead of own
• Economy changes from ownership model to usage model
• Businesses simplify their business models, get predictable profits and reduce costs
• People no longer need storage
• Circular economy generates less waste
• Governments have accounts where they can view all transactions and collect tax

Simplified

• Businesses register on the platform in a waitlist
• When there are enough merchants it goes live
• A critical mass of businesses means the governments should accept the basic income currency as a valid tax payment method
• Users get a list of merchants to choose from
• Users subscribe for a monthly fee and get access to stores
• Businesses plan accordingly the budget for stocking
• Businesses save on - pricing, marketing, cashiers, advertising, accounting
• Governments collect more tax and invest in better services and infrastructure

FAQ

• Why not list it on exchanges and pay taxes in the accepted local currency?
  • It will immediately be speculated with and inflated/deflated.
• Can I create multiple wallets?
  • No, your account is linked to your face which will get recognized on any new device.
• What happens with inflation?
  • There is an inflation indexer which tracks price fluctuations in real-time and adjusts the basic income accordingly
• Why is there no mobile version?
  • App stores are centralized and can take down the app anytime. You can use a mini laptop with Linux instead.
• How does closing an account influence the economy?
  • Closing an account means all money of the person are destroyed. This will cause deflation as the money supply gets lower.

ROADMAP

• Add Presentation Attack Detection model to prevent malicious attempts to abuse facial recognition
• Introduce registration for businesses via waiting list
• Introduce governments to collect tax - they can view all transactions and collect for their own country. Governments have no control over the system and can only collect if they have an account
• Update kubo to latest version
• Add search functionality for finer grain filtering

Acknowledgments

1. go-app
2. IPFS
3. Berty
4. All the rest of the authors who worked on the dependencies used! Thanks a lot!

Contributing

Open an issue

License

Stateless Minds (c) 2025 and contributors

MIT License

Credits

• Modified Wallet Layout

Copyright (c) 2025 by Surendhar Nagarajan (https://codepen.io/surendharnagarajan/pen/eoKOLL)

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

• Copyright (c) 2025 by Sanket Bodake 🇮🇳 (https://codepen.io/sanketbodke/pen/qBXBOgb)

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

Copyright (c) 2025 by Vitalii (https://codepen.io/nevadskiy/pen/YYGbao)

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.