The sharing economy or collaborative economy is an economic system in which assets or services are shared between private individuals, either free or for a fee, typically by means of the Internet (online). But humans are well known for not trusting another man easily with their funds and because of this problem of trust, various (online and offline) sharing economy intermediaries were establish to be a medium by which transaction between parties can be carried out seamlessly.
The only problem to this approach is that instead of eradicating every problem, it came with problems of its own. Problems such as increase in operational cost, leakage and possibly theft of sensitive data. Now, instead of solving one problem, we have three problems at hand because even the intermediaries go through excess verifications (remember problem of trust? Yea) before any transaction can take place.
According to reports, the market size of the global sharing economy is expected to hit $520b USD in 2018. Sadly, we might never get to see this figure attained as all sharing economy companies are still in generation 1.0. Communication between users is not P2P (peer to peer); a centralized platform is still needed to obtain matchmaking services and all services and value are managed and distributed by third parties, which poses problems such as:
HIGH COST OF TRANSACTION (COT)
In a centralized matchmaking business, high cost of transaction is inevitable due to the involvement of third parties; this is no different in the sharing economy industry. A proper example is the Udemy (shared education) platform which operates in a commission based system. Udemy charges as high as 50% of whatever revenue an instructor makes on his courses posted on its website. The cost of transaction further increases when certain government charges are considered. Udemy removes those charges from the instructor’s revenue and whatever remains is split equally between Udemy and the instructor.
THE PROBLEM OF TRUST
Without trust, it is impossible for transaction between parties to be completed. So, the third party platform vouches for both sides to facilitate such transaction. Sometimes, collaterals are collected so as to reduce financial risk. Ironically, this is an increase in barrier and cost of transaction right? Yea, I know.
DATA LEAKAGE AND ABUSE
It’s no longer news that every information we input on websites are stored in their databases. So, while the sharing economy companies have brought us lots of comfort and easy lifestyle that does not in any way translate to security of sensitive data we upload on their websites during registration. These websites can be hacked and every information inputted can be stolen and used for malicious reasons. We have had previous cases where websites have been hacked and so many information such as, email addresses, driver’s name and license number, mobile phone numbers and to extent money (fiat and cryptocurrency) have been stolen.
Even recently there is the data abuse of Facebook-Cambridge Analytical data. A scandal which involved the collection of personal identifiable information of up to 87 million Facebook users that Cambridge Analytical began collecting in 2014. The data was used to influence voter opinion on behalf of politicians who hire them. Not only do users not have control over their own data, they sometimes will also be troubled by all kinds of harassment.
INTRODUCING UCHAIN - THE NEXT GENERATION DISTRIBUTED SMART NETWORK BLOCKCHAIN FOR THE SHARING ECONOMY
UChain is the first public infrastructure blockchain specifically designed for the global sharing economy. Along with other sharing economy enterprises, UChain aims to build its underlying blockchain network to solve the current problems of trust and data abuse.
Uchain aims at solving the industrial problem of the sharing economy through two methods:
_ Blockchain Solutions
_ Value Recreation: Sharing Economy 2.0
BLOCKCHAIN SOLUTIONS
_ HIGH COST OF TRANSACTION
UChain aims to reduce the cost of transaction by nearly 20% by cutting off intermediaries during peer to peer transaction between the buyer and the service provider through their their decentralized blockchain network.
UChain’s token will be used as a transaction certificate when the user buys a service. Every transaction process will be handled by smart contracts and cross-chain hosting technology to ensure the authenticity, legality, and compliance. UCN (UChain’s token) will be used by the buyer and seller for transacting; UChain will be able to achieve a real-time settlement and eliminate the risk and cost involved with the usual way of payment on existing platforms.
_ USER CREDIT PASSPORT
To promote trust, every transaction will be recorded on the blockchain (an incorruptible digital ledger of economic transactions that can be programmed to record not just financial transactions but virtually everything of value) creating a decentralized and unbreakable "chain of trust.”
UChain will achieve this by establishing a credit passport mechanism open to all sharing services providers. With this they can keep track of all participants’ behavior and once the user’s credit passport is verified by the service provider, it will be used as an identity authentication to directly transact without having to pay any deposit.
_ USERS’ DATA SECURITY
Users’ and services provider’s data such as identity information, property information, transaction records and reviews on different services are recorded on the blockchain. Data is stored and extracted through a distributed storage scheme with a private key (users’ personal login access to their account).
Data will be encrypted, split, shredded and scattered on different nodes with the distributed storage scheme. If a single node is compromised, full information will not be revealed.
VALUE RECREATION: SHARING ECONOMY 2.0
_ THE NEW SHARING ECONOMY MODEL
Basically, what UChain aims at doing in the new model is to eliminate the role of intermediaries (third parties) in transactions between buyers and service providers, connecting buyers and services providers directly to each other (peer to peer) so as to eliminate the huge payment of commission (usually fiat) paid to them. With the sharing economy 2.0 payment can be made in local token (UCN).
_ DEPENDENT DIGITAL ASSETS DISTRIBUTION
UChain will develop a peer to peer transaction network which will take out the role of intermediaries and give benefits back to users and service providers.
Furthermore, service providers can issue their own digital assets and tokenize their own sharing services.
As more and more sub-ecosystems issue their own tokens, UChain will also build a DEX (decentralized exchange) to provide liquidity options for these tokens.
For more information about UChain, visit the following useful links:
Website: https://uchain.world/
Whitepaper: https://uchain.world/css/img/pdf/uchain-whitepaper-dbe5656d6c.pdf
Telegram: https://t.me/UchainEcosystem
Twitter: https://twitter.com/UChainEcosystem
Medium: https://medium.com/@uchain
Author's Telegram: https://t.me/ayomi555