What is Toshi?
I 
using this App about
a week and I think the vision is huge
so let me share with The Steemian community some of the features that I find quite interesting.
Toshi is really simple
it's a messaging app but it has money
baked into it it has a few unique
properties number one those payments work in every country of the world from
day one number two it's not just people you're paying back and forth it's also
an app platform where They've made it dramatically easier to build digital currency application.
| DECENTRALIZE | SIMILAR LIKE A WEB BROWSER |
|---|---|
| OPEN SOURCE | Toshi allows you to access third party Ethereum applications |
| tOSHI DOES NOT HOST ANY APPS | you are always in control of your own funds. |
Why did we build Toshi?
Let's Hear
From
This is a talk he gave at Consensus 2017 about Toshi
Why did we build Toshi?
We believe that everyone in the world should have access to financial services, and with smartphones becoming ubiquitous, digital currency can make that happen.
The Gates Foundation writes…
Worldwide, more than 2.5 billion adults do not have an account at a financial institution…Women, in particular, are largely excluded from the formal financial system…A growing body of evidence suggests that access to the right financial tools at critical moments can determine whether a poor household is able to capture an opportunity to move out of poverty or absorb a shock without being pushed deeper into debt.
And the McKinsey Global Institute states that…
Delivering financial services by mobile phone could benefit billions of people by spurring inclusive growth that adds $3.7 trillion to the GDP of emerging economies within a decade.
With this app,
our long term goals are to:
- Provide financial services to the ~2B people in the developing world who have a cell phone, but don’t have access to a bank account.
- Make it dramatically easier for people to build and use Ethereum applications.
- Shift digital currency from being just a speculative investment to being a payment network for useful goods and services.
How does it work underneath?
Toshi speaks a number of protocols underneath which allow you to connect with other users and browse Ethereum applications:
• We use the Signal Protocol from WhisperSystems to end to end encrypt chat messages. This allows you to message other users and chat with apps.
• We use the Ethereum network as a global, open payment network.
• The apps you access use the SOFA protocol (an open standard we developed for chat bot style financial applications). In the future we plan to support Dapps via web3.js in an integrated webview.
• We plan to use uPort in the future as a decentralized identity system.
How can I try it out?
Toshi is available to Download on both Android and IOS. It is still early days, and you can expect some bugs (so please be kind in your reviews). They are using are using testnet Ethereum, so there is no real money to lose if you encounter an issue. We plan to continue shipping updates approximately every week, and move to mainnet in the coming months for a wider release.
You can install the Token app on andriod! and lIOS!
If you’re a developer you can read through our developer documentation.
You can also visit our main website.!
Live Fully and Prosper