CyberMiles - the new blockchain for e-commerce applications
CyberMiles (CM) in brief:
A new blockchain for e-commerce applications.
While Ethereum is developed for transactions & commercial applications, it can be inefficient for specific commercial transaction contracts, CM is developed to build smart-contract modules for commercial applications such as building b2c trading platforms, community-based dispute resolution, structuring alternative payment & financing solutions for e-commerce, enabling businesses to run real-time promotions or to build a decentralized community based ride-sharing platform. As a first step, they will start with online marketplaces due to their collaboration with 5miles
What problem does it solve?
The technical whitepaper claims that it intends to address certain limitations of existing technologies. Instead of writing each application from scratch, CM’s smart business contract will have access to an integrated slack of business software middleware making it easy to develop and reuse. Think of it as pre-defined contracts that can be easily used and even altered by changing just the key terms saving a lot of time and cost in development of applications.
CM already has protocols for 12 key commercial applications for 300+ transaction types covering applications for online marketplaces and e-commerce.
Following the lead of Ethereum, CM is building a turing complete virtual machine attached to the blockchain that can be programmed via a JavaScript like language that can complete various tasks. To get a bit technical, CM will be built on the tendermint platform which is based on DPoS (Delegated Proof of Stake) consensus mechanism and can potentially support 10,000 transactions per second with a block generation time of less than 10 seconds.
CM is therefore designed to be highly efficient and scalable for running complex smart contracts especially designed for e-commerce transactions.
What else makes it interesting?
It is being developed in close collaboration with 5miles. 5miles is a leader in C2C e-commerce - it has a mobile application and digital marketplace (think Craigslist but with better listings, secure trading platform and an app). It is committed to migrate its existing 12 MN users in the US to CyberMiles. The total transaction value is currently ~$3 BN annually.
Already has a track record with its 5miles app over the past 3 years with its 12 MN+ users and funding of over $62 MN from top VC firms
I like the focus on e-commerce applications - this is a key differentiator for the project
Beyond 5Miles partnership which will kickstart this project, this project has the vision to cater to various applications such as a decentralized identify management platform, p2p small business loan marketplace, an efficient supply chain e-commerce ecosystem, addressing counterfeit problems on e-commerce, automatic escrow for sales transactions, providing an ICO platform for e-commerce - if done the right way, this can be big
CyberMiles Foundation will be an independent, not-for-profit entity that maintains and facilitates democratic governance for the members of the CM ecosystem and will be a community of partners (node operators, validators, service providers, marketplace operators, businesses, end-users)
Token Sale:
700 MN tokens will be offered for sale - the total of 1 BN will be in circulation of which 100 MN will be with CM team & partners (vesting period of 2.5 years), 5miles will keep 100 MN and 100 MN will be part of the reserve for end-users. The hard cap has been decided to be 10 BN CMT.
CyberMiles Token (CMT) will be used in 2 ways:
(1) Compensation: Network users who conduct transactions pay network validators small transaction fees in CMT to compensate their work in ensuring the data integrity
(2) Facilitation: To facilitate financial transactions on the network
Hence, like Ether, CM will reward validators for both creating new blocks and executing smart contracts on the block (via gas fees)
Team:
Dr. Lucas Lu, CEO was previously CTO / co-founder of Light in the box (a company that went public on NYSE), then later he was the GM of Alibaba’s Taobao mobile platform and GM of another Alibaba business unit. He founded 5Miles in 2014. The team in general has strong experience in e-commerce / marketplaces.
Development Roadmap
2017 Q4 - Token sale
2018 Q2 - 5miles app will begin accepting CMT to facilitate marketplace transactions
2018 Q4 - Launch of Cybermiles version 1.0
2019 Q1 - CM modules to be available for use on other platforms to facilitate further adoption
No further information is provided about the roadmap. I would have especially liked to know a bit more about what is planned in 2018 in a bit more detail. Nonetheless, I think the project has good potential and can be a strong platform for e-commerce DApps.
Sign up:
If you find this information valuable, you can use my affiliate link to register for the token sale:
https://cm.5miles.com/s/xGNYp4DAi8v79XT
In order to invest, you have to go through a quick verification process and sign up on their website. You can invest once you are verified.
As always, I suggest you read the whitepaper and join the telegram chat group before investing and make an informed decision.
Happy investing!