We at Shopin officially demonstrated Proof of Concept (POC) this week, hitting a major milestone in our rapid trajectory from inception in February 2017 to being able to prove the utility of the Shopin Token.
Founded as a universal shopper profile designed to improve conversions, revitalize the shopper and retailer experience, and put the ownership and control of personal data back in the hands of consumers, Shopin’s Token came to life this week when the company’s engineers and technologists were able to prove its function as an accountable and attestable utility that can move between a retailer and a Shopin user as intended. This will enable the company to grow considerably at this point, according to Jeremy Harkness, the company’s Blockchain Officer and CoFounder.
“We have now proved that Shopin can move tokens on and off the Ethereum network through an Atomic swap,” said Harkness. “By establishing this critical POC, we are showing the rest of the world that we can move something that functions fully as a utility into a tech stack that allows retailers and consumers to transact with those tokens with much higher throughput. There is no waiting time for the retailer or the shopper, who is instantly rewarded for engaging with a retailer’s advertising, engaging in loyalty incentives, and redeeming tokens against recommended product purchases. This confirms the Shopin model and will enable us to scale very quickly at this point.”
Typically, when a blockchain company wants to run a scalable, distributed application with a real-world use, it needs to be able to move tokens off the Ethereum network, or any other blockchain network, in an extremely efficient manner and still maintain the utility of those tokens as they were generated in the crypto universe. Most crypto business models to date have demonstrated the transfer of value between individuals. But Shopin is now officially able to demonstrate token utility physicality that can be leveraged in a way that is monetizable by not only retaining value in the form of tokens, but also the data that is securely housed on a non-hackable, decentralized database.
“We have officially created an asset that fully functions as a utility between retailers and shoppers,” said Harkness. “A lot of tokens out there consider themselves a utility but they don’t have any way to implement the actual utility of that token.”
One of Shopin’s major marketplace advantages is its high transaction speed capabilities that enable it to handle significantly higher retailer activity than the Ethereum network. For all ERC20-standard tokens that move between the Ethereum blockchain network and the Shopin blockchain, the company will have a smart contract that allows them to lock in the value of those tokens and distribute them to retailers as a means of rewards for their shoppers.
“One of the problems with Ethereum is the limited speed capabilities,” Harkness continued. “If we were to run a serious business where we try and transact with hundreds of thousands of people per day, we would run into big problems by not being able to handle that amount of transactional data between retailers and consumers.”
According to Harkness, one of the most important aspects of Atomic swaps in general is the ability to only use the token or the value of that token in one blockchain at a time, not in both, hence the concept of the atomic one-to-one swap.
Among the details of the POC, the team demonstrated live how a Shopin user can:
Register for and build their Shopin Shopper Profile
- Set their preferences to accept advertising
- Accept a notification that a customized ad is waiting for them
- Watch the ad and get rewarded for watching the ad
- See their wallet increase with crypto rewards for watching the ad
- Shop for the product that was just advertised to them
- Purchase the product with Shopin tokens in their wallet
And how the Retailer can:
- Create an advertising campaign
- Set targeting parameters
- Receive visibility on users that are open to accepting their message
- Launch the ad campaign
- Monitor their supply of Shopin tokens as more Shopin users watch their ad
- See which customers purchased the advertised product with Shopin Tokens
Shopin is close to concluding its Public Token sale. For information on participating, please visit https://t.me/shopineverywhere, or join the conversation on with us on Telegram here.