![Screenshot_20180222-145756.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/hpiynhbhq/image/upload/v1519329559/yawm030yhpy2adhr7psl.png)


After a period of time of not paying attention, I found that Byteball, one of the cryptos that I hold and am interested in, now has a referral program, and I want to spread awareness about it and why I think people should pay attention to it.

# The Referral

But first: tl/dr/don't care/just give me the coin section.

**12 USD worth of byteball for free, read on for details.**

Byteball is paying from its distribution fund for referrals, and the way they are fighting abuse is to link it to an ID verification platform. 

1. Pay 8$ worth of byte (coin) and perform verification steps involving photo of a government issued ID and a photo of the face. You will get 20$ worth of bytes into your verified wallet.
1. If a previously attested (verified) wallet sent bytes to an address that gets verified, that wallet will get sent 20$ work of bytes as referral.

The referral can even be sent to an email address as a "textcoin", and facilitate the sign up and verification of a wallet, for those that do not have one.

If you already have a byteball wallet, keep in mind this verification procedure can only be done with a single address wallet.

If you have concerns over anonymity, keep in mind that you can create a separate wallet that is not tied to the identity to keep any of the funds you get.

**Procedure**. Here's my proposed procedure:

1. Send me a private memo with a single address byteball address or an email. (This means sending 0.001 SBD or STEEM with the memo as #(bb address/email), the "#" makes it so only I will be able to read it)
1. I will send 8.10$ worth of bytes to the address, after some small checks.
1. Will be trusting you to carry out verification. Because of this trust factor I may not be willing to proceed, and in that case I will refund the memo cost.

If you are on discord, we can arrange on private chat instead.

Read below for a link about what is involved in the ID verification procedure.

# Give Them My ID? Are You Crazy?

A question I anticipate from some folks. *Well wait a minute,* you ask. *I thought the point was so that it can be anonymous. Why would I want my real identity tied to a wallet?*

The main motivator is easy KYC (Know your customer laws) compliance, so that the benefits of regulation can be realized. For instance, limited protection to scams...

Love or hate it, government regulation gives more credibility to the whole space. 

Okay maybe you don't care about it. But, you can always keep a separate unverified wallet to hold your funds, and use this just for the bonus.

# What is Byteball?

At a glance:

* Smart contracts, user issued assets.
* Directed acyclic graph (dag), each transaction is a node confirming other transactions, like in Iota. Promises better scalability than blockchain. (Funny to say this coming from Steem which has really proven itself with scalability relative to the rest of the space, but anyway...)
* Has witnesses to establish consensus. Votes are with transactions. Each transaction specifies 12 witnesses, and transactions will be blocked unless 11 of the 12 witnesses match the referred/confirmed transactions.
* Transactions have fees. Goes to witnesses for performing consensus: agreement on linearizing the dag in a clever way I do not yet understand.
* Sleek and functional wallet, many setups possible e.g. multisig.
* Bots for various integrations to ICOs, games, oracles,  delayed flight insurance or chat based exchanges. It has very nice integration with the wallet, clickable actions that can trigger wallet transfers or pasting wallet addresses.

I've been impressed with what I've seen so far, and there's plenty of outreach happening in terms of the distribution, talks with merchants for cash back programs, and all sorts of fun applications. I don't know if this is the future, but I think it has a chance.

<center>
![Screenshot_20180222-145456.png](https://steemitimages.com/DQmdSFwfJviE4TFBPofGR98s8b5TTCkKK3CWPkE24NzmEqn/Screenshot_20180222-145456.png)
*List of Bots*</center>


# Real Name Attestation Bot

Here is a screenshot of my interaction as well as the chat interface, with some parts scrubbed out.

![20180222_201522_0001.png](https://steemitimages.com/DQmVuQBFRiEuVFpYkGo9Mj6McQUZLDMbRMwerD723uJywc7/20180222_201522_0001.png)

It also shows the links in the chat that show the seamless integration with the wallet. You can easily paste in your wallet address from the menu in the 3 dots icon, and the payment link sends you directly to the right wallet page with details filled in, which you then just need to approve.

![Screenshot_20180222-200322.png](https://steemitimages.com/DQmboCKbRwPpb15HfA6MZFXFArjeyuykDckxGhPVnQwZaAX/Screenshot_20180222-200322.png)

Above is the proof of received funds after this procedure.

# Textcoin Referral
The textcoin feature allows you to send funds to folks that do not yet have an address, with methods to claim the funds. Here's a sample transaction I sent to someone who I am referring by email.

![20180222_203627_0001.png](https://steemitimages.com/DQmcHWAagrq7x2R4eeZqFqi1vEP1PMdBVsmEmXqZBuxBpod/20180222_203627_0001.png)

This is a great feature that I believe should spur adoption in addition to the referral incentives.

# Summary and References

I'd say it's worth exploring what is currently available in the app. Let me know if you want to try it out and even receive free funds!

* On Medium, the official blog has the [Byteball Referral Details](https://medium.com/byteball/distribution-to-verified-users-and-referrals-ed00b9b2a30e).
* @wekkel made a nice [Comprehensive tutorial on how to tie identification to the wallet](https://steemit.com/byteball/@wekkel/byteball-unleash-the-wave).



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