Thread by @_iotaarchive

Imagine being a German EV driver, not having to register with several of the 400+ EV charging operators just to get energy on the road, but paying with a “Watts” token accepted by any of them.

What would that mean to users and operators?
Thread 1/12👇

2/12 Based on IOTA “coloured coins”, “Watts” could be coupled to fiat currency or energy units (e.g. kW)

If "minted" by a consortium of EV charging operators, drivers would only have to register with ONE of them to get "Watts" but be able to use them to pay on ALL charging poles

3/12 "Watts" could additionally be sold in "gas" stations or supermarkets like todays' vouchers (cellphone credits, Google Play Store, PSN, Steam, etc).

Sold as vouchers for cash, buying "Watts" would even be (nearly) anonymous.

4/12 If “1 Watts” would be equivalent to 1 cent, minting tokens worth 5 billion € would cost the operators just ~1,500 €.

That’s "dirt cheap" in terms of infrastructure cost, especially when considering that “Watts” could be transferred infinitely w/o ever incurring any fees

5/12 A major headache when it comes to digital (cc) payments usually is "control".

With IOTA-based "coloured tokens", the operator consortium would stay in full control of their "Watts" token. In case they need more than 5 bn worth of them, they could create "Watts" v2 any time

6/12 All 400+ operators currently need to settle with customers individually, incl fees, with payments bouncing, sometimes even defaulting

With “Watts”, operators would only settle among themselves, reducing their overhead of conducting business by 99% + have no risk of defaults

7/12 Without the need to have customers pre-register in order to pre-approve their payment details, operators could ditch large parts of their IT infrastructure, have no payment processor fees and less headaches about security and GDPR - but greatly extend their customer base.

8/12 If “Watts” would be transferable, charging operators could extend their business model by becoming "markets" in allowing EV owners to sell energy to each other through their infrastructure - while retaining a small fee of course.

A “profit only”-opportunity for them.

9/12 EV owners could charge cheaply at night, while power plants produce excess energy, and sell for a small profit during the day, thus level peak energy consumption (& production), resulting in less waste, less cost and wear on the infrastructure.

Literally everybody would win

10/12 The benefits of interoperability aren't limited to EV charging. The Powerwall e.g. already enables transfers between EV and house.

How long until energy can be sold to neighbour houses or even strangers? Impossible based on paper-contracts, but easily enabled by “Watts”.

11/12 Here’s the kicker:

A “Watts” token, if created as "voucher for a redeemable unit", would not be different to any voucher topping up a cellphone, PSN credits, Steam, iTunes, etc.

So, “Watts” would most likely be perfectly legal - already under current legislation.

12/12 The opportunities posed by cheaply "minted", feelessly transferable, secure, „coloured tokens“ seem infinite.

They are only available as "alpha" version yet. But it seems not a question whether a use-case for them can be found, but rather 'when' the first one will emerge.