STORY
Project Idea: StackOrSpend
AUTHOR
ArvinArvin
Joined 2022.09.07
PROJECT
StackorSpendStackorSpend
DATE
VOTES
sats
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##shocktheweb

Project Idea: StackOrSpend

So this is a UX-based idea, but I've been thinking of ways to deal with communicating that price volatility is not a bad thing and low-time preference thinking is the way to approach bitcoin for newbies.

The Motivation

New folks joining bitcoin usually have a hard time dealing with the price swings and reasoning about how to buy/spend/hodl. I think one of the first barriers to get across is being able to put folks into a paradigm where bitcoin is already "a foregone conclusion" and then given that, how do you best navigate the day-to-day volatility of it.

The Idea

One solution I've been toying with is a way to position every possible price as a good price to do something.

If you think about it, current price is always relative to the price your stack was acquired at. If the current price is higher than your stack price, you're in the green. If it's lower than your stack price, then it's a great time to DCA down.

The point is that no matter what the price is, there's always some positive action you can take.

I think if the UX of communicating this can be figured out, it can be a great way to help new-coiners navigate the early days of getting into bitcoin.

The Solution: StackOrSpend

My punt on a solution to this is to create a UX focused solely around answering the question "stack or spend?".

The idea is that you hook up the StackOrSpend app to any existing (or new) wallets you have and it can immediately calculate an average price that you acquired your current stack at based on your past transactions.

  • A deposit is considered a "buy" at the price at time-of-txn

  • A spend is considered a "sell" at the price at time-of-txn

  • A move in is a deposit where you get to manually set the purchase price

  • A move out is a withdrawal where you remove a certain amount at the current price of your stack

These 4 transaction types can combine to give you an average overall acquisition price for your current stack.

Once the stack-price is calculated, the app can then tell you if it's currently a great time " to stack" for cheaper sats, or "to spend" for a discount on whatever you're purchasing. On each new action, the app can also tell you what the net positive effect of that action was e.g. "you saved 10% on this purchase", or "you got a 7% discount on these sats".

I think the key thing with this idea though, is finding fun visual ways to communicate these different states.

  • maybe the app takes on a green theme when prices are low (get cheap sats!), and a blue theme when prices are high (get cheaper stuff!)

  • maybe it pings you when the price goes outside your price range in either direction

I can also see some cool integrations coming into this app

  • maybe there's a DCA integration with folks like Swan to help you stack when prices are low

  • maybe there's spend integrations with fold/bitrefill to help you spend when prices are high

  • maybe there's a stablesats integration to help you lock in some fund for next month's bills if prices are good (a budgeting component)

The Build

There's many ways to tackle this problem, but I think the highest value place to start this project from would be to brainstorm a novel UI/UX for expressing this idea.

This can happen alongside a backend that can expose via an API:

  • connect to an existing wallet (Alby connectors for inspiration)

  • pull in a transactions list for past transactions

  • augment transactions with the additional features we'd like to tack on (price tagging mostly)

  • facilitate send/receive

  • calculate and expose the current state based on the stack acquisition price and current market price

I'm a backend dev myself (with Galoy) and can probably easily create a backend like this with our API. I'm not terribly attached to this idea though, and I'd like to see it built out either way whether I'm involved.

... so either hit me up in the comments if you're a designer/frontend person, or feel free to steal it as well if you'd like to add your own spin on this idea!

Conclusion

I think fun apps like this that communicate certain things about the current state of bitcoin and can suggest certain potential actions can be a great way to make the bitcoin onboarding/day-to-day-usage experience more engaging and intuitive. It's things like these that we'd need to help make bitcoin more practical for folks who may not have started their rabbithole journey as yet and are simply looking for solutions to make their day-to-day lives easier.

If this resonates with you too, shoot me a message on Discord and let's see if we can make this happen!