It’s common these days to walk into a shopping center or similar establishment and discover that the available WiFi networks are exclusive to a certain company for its customers, or directly request personal data before granting access.
The team behind Wificoin wants to change that with a new cryptocurrency that you can use to purchase a fixed amount of megabytes, and earn them as a reward when you decide to share your own WiFi.
If you visit places like Starbucks, McDonald’s, or Burger King, you’ll likely find an open and free WiFi network. Sometimes they ask you to watch a video or visit the chain’s official website, but I’ve also seen cases where they impose a time limit on the connection (between 45 minutes and an hour). Other networks go so far as to request an email address, and then there are those that deny access completely unless you’re a customer of a specific service (mobile telephony, for example). That said, there must be a way for everyone to benefit from sharing a WiFi connection, and that’s where Wificoin comes in.
How Wificoin Works
As its name suggests, Wificoin is a cryptocurrency, but the plan isn’t to throw hardware at it to mine it. On one hand, Wificoin has an operating system (basically OpenWRT) that installs on compatible routers. When a user connects to that router, they receive 100 Wificoins for free, equivalent to 100 megabytes of data. Once they’ve spent those coins, they can buy more using Bitcoin or Ethereum, while the router owner receives Wificoins every time someone connects to their shared network. The official site mentions a proportional sum, but no further details are given.
Challenges Ahead
Of course, the technical challenge behind Wificoin is enormous. The first thing its creators need to do is improve the security of the entire platform, but even if they manage to solve that, they then have to deal with issues associated with OpenWRT. During their tests they ruined a router and had to get another one, which is acceptable only in the prototype phase. Wificoin needs ease of use and installation, because otherwise its growth will be very limited.
