This week in crypto. July 12-18: Blockchain for online platforms, Damien Hirst NFT and more
Blockchain for platform business
The blockchain is an incredible invention that can eliminate the need for trust, and thus – somewhat ironically - create more trustworthy and efficient systems. This is promising for every sector, from industry to commerce to services… and to online platforms. For the latter, the blockchain can solve the paramount issue of data ownership and use (are you sure you know how Facebook uses your data?), as well as make payment system more transparent (are you sure Booking.com discounts are real?)
The technology is still young, however, and many solutions it proposes are still in experimental stage. Thus, despite a promising use case for social media, websites like Steem/Hive or Voice are yet to find a model that would gain them the necessary traction. Companies using blockchain for other use cases, such as ride hailing and travel, are starting to take shape though.
Ride hailing
TADA is a Singaporan company aiming at decentralizing ride hailing business, and potentially to “uberize the Uber”. It uses a mix of private (Hyperledger Fabric) and public (Tezos) blockchains to remedy the problems of data ownership (vehicles’ data is stored on a blockchain, where only its owner has authority over it), cost-efficiency (drivers don’t pay commission), right incentives (the native MLV token is used to encourage drivers’ good behavour: drive safely, maintain the vehicle etc). In its 3 years of existence TADA has extended its presence to Cambodia, Vietnam, and most recently Ethiopia, with estimated 100k drivers and 900k users overall.
Travel
In the sector of travel the most prominent company is undoubtedly Binance-backed Travala. It uses IPFS (InterPlanetary File system, a peer-to-peer storage) to store data, with a corresponding hash inscribed into Binance Chain, assuring its protection. Customers book their vacations directly with the hotels, enjoying full visibility on the true cost of travel services (which also means no false discouts). Travala’s native AVA token is used, among other, to incentivize users to write thoughtful reviews. And of course, users can pay in crypto (they now account for around70% of purchases within the platform).
Covid hit Travala as much as everyone else in travel business, but things are starting to get better, with exceptional +141% result registered in Q2 2021 and the average of 163k monthly active users.
Crypto-powered online platforms are in their infancy, with many a hurdle to overcome. However, when they do, we could use their services while being true owners of our data, enjoying transparency and efficiency that are simply not possible with centralized platforms.
Art and NFT
This week the traditional art world got sucked a little bit more into the NFTs. Damien Hirst decided to tokenize his artwork called “The Currency” – a series of 10’000 hand-painted cards he created back in 2016, intending to explore the boundaries of art and currency (when art changes and becomes a currency? when currency becomes art?).
Each “currency” costs $2k and has a related NFT. Successful applicants for their purchase will have to decide between the NFT or the physical artwork, both of which are artworks in their own right. Whichever is picked, the other gets burned.
The buyers’ choices would give a very interesting insight into the modern art trends – could NFT of a painting be more valuable than its physical form? We’ll see quite soon.
Markets
Bitcoin
Bitcoin price fell 7% more this week, stabilizing around $31’700 and bringing the crypto Fear & Greed index to 19, or Extreme fear.
In the meantime, on-chain data by Glassnode shows that bitcoins continue to outflow from exchanges, accelerating in particular for the last two weeks, to a rate of around 2’000 BTC/day. This means that more people intend to store their crypto and not sell it shortly.
The average age of coins that exchange hands is decreasing, meaning that long-term HODLers grab bitcoins from short-term ones (also called paper hands in the milieu).
On the technical side, the hashrate that declined brutally following the Chinese crackdown on mining, has recovered from the bottom of -55% to around -39% decrease, which could mean that around 29% of miners who went off-line are now back.
Ethereum
Ethereum price lost 9% this week in a similar move to Bitcoin’s, ending at around $1940 level.
Quote of the week
“I just saw [NFTs] as a really amazing thing, I saw it like the invention of paper”,
Damien Hirst, contemporary artist