Zebec Protocol (ZBC): Redefining Payments and Finance

Have you ever dreamed of getting paid for your work by the second? As Zebec Protocol works to revolutionize the world of payment streams, empowering employees around the world through instant payrolls, this will no longer be a dream.

Curious how Zebec does it? Scroll on as we cover what makes Zebec so special among other Solana-based projects, and how investing in ZBC tokens gives you the opportunity to take advantage of Zebec's future growth.

Key Takeaways:

• Zebec Protocol is a Solana-based DeFi platform that facilitates continuous money streams for all kinds of financial transactions.

• Its flagship product is Zebec Pay (payment streams), a revolutionary and frictionless payment system that enables employees to be paid by the second in stablecoins like USDC.

• Beyond Zebec Pay, Zebec offers a range of products such as Zebec Card, Zebec Safes, Web3 Banking and Zebec Labs.

What Is Zebec?

Zebec Protocol is a Solana-based DeFi platform that empowers a real-time, frictionless constant stream of payments and other financial transactions. The continuous money streams made possible through Zebec seek to disrupt the traditional financial system, as businesses, employees and consumers completely reimagine how they’re paid, and how they invest and buy products or services.

As compared to other DeFi projects that may borrow from metaverse and GameFi ideas, Zebec differentiates itself by addressing a crucial real-world issue that most salary earners face: wages. The founder of Zebec Protocol, Sam Thapaliya, has been inspired to improve the efficiency of the financial payment system through his personal journey as a self-made entrepreneur of two successful companies in the realm of e-commerce and AI algorithms.

Zebec’s payment streams, also known as Zebec Payroll or Zebec Pay, is the protocol’s first application, a tax-compliant on-chain processing system making use of low fees and instant transactions to transform payroll by allowing employees to be paid by the second. 

Zebec has also launched four other products following its flagship product: Zebec Card, Zebec Safes, Web3 Banking and Zebec Labs. 

Zebec Card, Zebec Safes and Web3 Banking work in tandem with Zebec Payroll to form an exclusive financial ecosystem within Zebec Protocol, whereby businesses and employees can earn, spend and store their money securely. The Zebec team also continues to showcase its innovation through Zebec Labs, aiming to find more ways to transform the finance industry.

Zebec is fully governed by its community. ZBC token holders become members of the Zebec DAO, and can participate in voting on the platform’s future while enjoying rewards and discounted Zebec services.

Payment Streams (Zebec Pay)

From administrative mishaps to malicious mismanagement, an employee’s access to their due salary can sometimes be delayed. This is because there isn’t any existing infrastructure to support instantaneous access to wages. That’s where the low-fee, crypto-native payroll solution of payment streams comes in handy, as employees are instantly paid in stablecoins such as USDC.

Source: Zebec Docs

Through Zebec Pay, businesses and individuals will have access to the following financial services:

Automated Dollar-Cost Averaging

Zebec is the only real-time, by-the-second dollar-cost averaging investing mechanism available anywhere. By taking advantage of this unique strength, users can automatically convert a percentage of their paycheck into top cryptocurrencies. This automation greatly reduces the inconvenience of fiat on-ramps, and grants investors greater liquidity when investing in their favorite coins and tokens.

Investments and Yield-Farming

On top of automated dollar-cost averaging, employees also have complete control over how they use their money, with easy-to-program smart contracts. This grants them easy access to DeFi applications in order to earn yield or to swap for lesser-known small-cap tokens.

Crypto IRA and 401K Accounts

With Zebec, employees no longer need to deal with the hassle of investing in crypto using IRA and 401K accounts. Since the process is automated, investors can effortlessly allocate a portion of their paycheck to compliant crypto IRA and 401K accounts.

Free Fiat On-Ramp and Off-Ramp

By adopting Zebec, users can swap their cryptocurrencies into USD and transfer their money to their regular bank accounts without paying the usual fee associated with fiat on-ramps and off-ramps.

Advantages of Payment Streams

Although the industry is still in the early stages of a fully-fledged cryptocurrency payroll, Zebec’s unique technology certainly helps nudge things in the right direction. As the crypto is transferred directly from employers to employees, middlemen such as banks are cut out of the picture, and wages are safely stored in Zebec’s MultiSig Treasury Vaults. This improves overall security and speed, as transactions are stored on the secure Solana network and no third-party authentications are required, which slows transactions. Additionally, employers with a global workforce get to save on over-the-border fees and benefit from lower costs in the long run.

Moreover, Zebec's MultiSig Treasury vaults further bolster transaction security as more than one signature is required to make payment, thereby preventing payrolls from being compromised. This treasury fund security feature is particularly vital for companies managing hundreds of payrolls.

Besides the aforementioned benefits of greater convenience, security and instant access to your wages, Zebec Pay also solves the common problem of payment disputes in the gig economy. Problems like unfair docking of payment and ambiguous freelancer contracts have long plagued the gig economy and prevented it from becoming more widespread. With the enforcement of Zebec’s smart contracts in place, such disputes can easily be resolved.

More Zebec Protocol Features

Zebec Card 

Zebec Card is a Solana-based debit card that can be used in the U.K. and 26 other European countries including Germany, France, Denmark and Italy. Since it’s powered by Mastercard, you can use it to easily off-ramp your crypto at over 60 million participating merchant stores. 

It comes in both physical and virtual versions, with only a simple Know Your Customer (KYC) verification required for sign-up. With zero annual fees and 1% transaction fees, Zebec Card is one of the lowest fee cards, alongside Bybit Card. Additionally, you receive automatic cashback of up to 10% with every use.

To use the Zebec Card, you’re required to store SOL, ZBC and/or USDC in your Zebec wallet. Moreover, if you store ZBC in your Zebec wallet you stand to gain up to 7% in monthly rewards. The more ZBC you store, the greater the bonuses you can expect to receive.

Source: Zebec

Zebec Safes

From its MultiSig Treasury Vaults, Zebec takes a step further in treasury management by introducing Zebec Safes, ensuring 24/7 security through multisignature safes that comply with major web3 auditors like CertiK and Trail of Bits. Zebec Safes allows businesses, investors and individuals to manage their funds, as they can choose to save, spend and invest. Zebec Safes can be connected to DApps, and is multi-chain supported, working on both Solana and BNB Chain.

Web3 Banking

Zebec Protocol has also created its own web3 bank for users. Their USDC can be stored securely and used in multiple ways, such as spending it with the Zebec Card, off-ramping it to their personal bank accounts, transferring it across borders without delays or surcharges incurred, or sending it to their preferred crypto wallets, such as MetaMask and Ledger. 

Zebec Labs

The Zebec team have demonstrated their commitment to innovation by developing Zebec Labs, an innovation hub and incubator ecosystem for aspiring DeFi projects. Two projects have been initiated thus far with Zebec Labs: Operation Horizon and Nautilus Chain.

Operation Horizon is a community-driven campaign with the aim of launching the Zebec Chain, a payment-centric Layer 1 blockchain set to be unveiled in 2023. Zebec Chain will replace Solana as the foundation blockchain for Zebec Protocol, given Solana's tendency to outages, which could otherwise pose long-term challenges for Zebec users. Zebec Chain will leverage ZK-rollup technology to achieve 700,000 transactions per second (TPS) to facilitate instantaneous payment transactions. 

During the building phase, users who purchase Zepoch Node NFTs will be able to operate a validator node on the Zebec Chain when it goes live. This NFT ownership also entitles participants to a share of 20% of Zebec's revenue, and the chance to get USDT and ZBC airdrops for each Zepoch Node NFT sold. If you decide to purchase a Zepoch Node NFT, note that it cannot be transferred or traded until all of the Zepoch Node NFTs are sold.

Created to act as a staging chain for users to transition smoothly to the upcoming Zebec Chain, Nautilus Chain is the first streaming payment blockchain with Ethereum virtual machine (EVM) compatibility. Nautilus uses sovereign rollups to attain an initial TPS rate of 2,000 that will continue to grow over time. While primarily tailored for DeFi DApps, Nautilus Chain can also be utilized for web3 projects, such as GameFi DApps, due to its high throughput.

What Are ZBC Tokens?

ZBC is the native token of Zebec Protocol and has multiple roles as a utility and governance token. Some functions of ZBC tokens include:

• Governance Influence: ZBC token holders also serve as members of the Zebec DAO and can vote on all aspects related to the management and administration of the Zebec Protocol.

• Staking: Zebec DAO members can stake their ZBC tokens to predict whether a proposal will pass or fail. Those who’ve made the correct prediction will receive their staked tokens back, plus rewards from those who’ve made incorrect predictions.

• Discounts and Rewards: ZBC token holders get up to 25% in discounts on Zebec Protocol’s services, such as its payment streaming and vault management systems, as well as incremental rewards on their Zebec Cards, depending upon the amount of ZBC tokens they hold. 

• Mode of Payment: ZBC is used to pay for gas fees on Zebec Chain and Nautilus Chain, and as a means of remuneration for validators.

ZBC Tokenomics

ZBC’s maximum supply is 10 billion tokens. As a deflationary token, ZBC has a burn function that’s activated when gas fees are paid on both the Zebec Chain and Nautilus Chain. In February 2023, Zebec Protocol announced its intention to use 50% of its revenue to buy back ZBC tokens every month and send them for burning.

ZBC is allocated as follows:

Source: Zebec Medium

With the conception of the Nautilus Chain, ZBC now has two sets of token fee mechanics, one for Zebec Protocol and another for Nautilus Chain. 

The fees for Zebec Protocol and Nautilus Chain are distributed differently. For the Zebec Protocol, 50% of the ZBC fees collected are burned to curtail its supply and preserve its value, while 15% is allotted to developers, 10% to the ecosystem vault and the remaining portion to ecosystem incentives and various grants. In contrast, the Nautilus Chain designates 25% of ZBC for burning and 25% for research, with the remaining 50% set aside as compensation for validators.

Zebec Protocol Price Prediction

ZBC is currently valued at $0.011 (as of Sep 6, 2023), marking a decline of 78.29% from its highest price of $0.053 on Apr 13, 2022, while reflecting an increase of 38.38% from its historical low of $0.008 on Nov 14, 2022.

Despite the ongoing bear market exerting downward pressure on cryptocurrency prices, analysts remain optimistic about Zebec's outlook. PricePrediction projects a rise to $0.045 in 2025, with ZBC’s price crossing the 10-cent threshold in 2018 to reach $0.26 by 2030. DigitalCoinPrice echoes a similar forecast for 2025 with ZBC hitting $0.042, but with a slower ascent to $0.12 in 2030.

Is Zebec Protocol a Good Investment?

Zebec isn’t simply a continuous settlement protocol for instantaneous payment of employee wages. It has the potential to revolutionize how the world thinks about wages and access to payroll, as it effectively removes the middleman in the financial transaction process and allows for direct and efficient payment between employers and employees.

To answer if ZBC tokens are a good investment for the future, we can simply refer to the team’s future plans to expand the Zebec Protocol. Previously mentioned is that the team is releasing its own Layer 1 blockchain in 2023, the Zebec Chain. Once Zebec Protocol launches Zebec Chain, more users are expected to be drawn to the Zebec platform as it increases its reliability while maintaining high throughput. Zebec has also revealed its plans to expand across chains to enable cross-chain transactions, starting from its integration with the BNB Chain. 

All of these plans suggest that Zebec is poised to broaden its reach and solidify its standing in the blockchain landscape. Given its strategy of expansion and numerous innovative developments, you might find ZBC a promising addition to your investment portfolio. Nevertheless, it’s crucial to note that our perspective on the Zebec Protocol shouldn’t be interpreted as financial advice. Always do your own research before investing in cryptocurrencies, which are known for their volatility. 

The Bottom Line

With a strong focus on growing beyond its core payment streaming Zebec Pay service, we’re confident that ZBC tokens are a good investment, especially if you’re bullish on the future of crypto payment services. With future plans for its own blockchain in the works, Zebec’s goal of disrupting the world of traditional finance seems more and more likely with each milestone the team accomplishes.

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