The Future of Stimulus: From Direct Deposits to Smart Contract Wallets

Traditional stimulus requires identity verification, bank accounts, and manual claims, excluding the underbanked and creating massive administrative overhead. ~30% of eligible recipients fail to claim benefits due to complexity.

• Key Benefit 1: Smart wallets enable gasless onboarding via social logins or MPC.
• Key Benefit 2: Programmable eligibility rules execute automatically, removing bureaucratic gates.

Direct deposits are a one-time blip. Smart contract wallets like Safe{Wallet} and Biconomy enable aid with built-in behavioral economics and local economic multipliers.

• Key Benefit 1: Funds can be time-locked or restricted to specific merchants (e.g., local groceries, utility payments).
• Key Benefit 2: Unspent funds can be automatically staked in AAVE or Compound to generate yield for the recipient or the treasury.

Citizens distrust how stimulus is allocated and spent. Deploying aid through public smart contracts on Ethereum or Solana creates an immutable, auditable ledger.

• Key Benefit 1: Every dollar's flow is publicly verifiable, killing corruption and means-testing fraud.
• Key Benefit 2: Real-time dashboards (e.g., Dune Analytics) allow anyone to audit economic impact and velocity.

Traditional stimulus is a high-friction, one-size-fits-all process. Funds are deposited into bank accounts with zero programmability, leading to inefficient allocation, high administrative overhead, and significant leakage outside the target economy.

• ~15-30% of stimulus can be lost to fraud or misallocation.
• Weeks to months of latency from legislation to distribution.
• No ability to target based on real-time on-chain behavior or needs.

Smart contract wallets like Safe{Wallet} and Argent become the distribution endpoint. Funds are not just stored but governed by logic: they can be spent-only-on specific goods, time-locked, or streamed conditionally.

• Enforce use-case restriction (e.g., funds only spendable at approved merchants).
• Implement vesting schedules and behavioral triggers (e.g., unlock upon completing a training course).
• Radically reduce leakage by embedding economic intent directly into the money.

Recipients express spending intents (e.g., "swap for groceries") which are fulfilled by off-chain solvers competing for optimal routing, similar to UniswapX or CowSwap. This abstracts away complexity and gas costs.

• User experience is a simple approval; the wallet handles token swaps, bridging, and payments.
• Solvers batch transactions, achieving ~20-40% better rates and subsidizing fees.
• Creates a competitive marketplace for efficient capital deployment.

Projects like Worldcoin, Gitcoin Passport, and zk-proofs of humanity enable sustainable identity without exposing personal data. This allows for permissioned, fraud-resistant distribution at scale.

• Prove unique personhood to prevent sybil attacks on airdrops.
• Selectively disclose credentials (e.g., residency, income bracket) via zero-knowledge proofs.
• Automated, real-time compliance layers replace manual KYC checks.

The stimulus itself can be tokenized as a yield-bearing RWA (e.g., a short-term treasury bill). This turns a static cash injection into productive capital that earns interest until spent, funded by entities like Ondo Finance or Maple Finance.

• Preserves purchasing power against inflation during disbursement period.
• Creates a new asset class for DeFi protocols to integrate.
• Transforms fiscal policy from cost center to capital-efficient program.

Smart wallets evolve into Autonomous Economic Agents that manage a user's financial position. They can automatically claim eligible benefits, optimize tax withholding, and rebalance portfolios based on policy changes signaled on-chain via oracles like Chainlink.

• Proactive participation in economic programs without user initiation.
• Continuous optimization of a user's fiscal footprint.
• Closes the loop between policy intent and individual economic outcome.