The global e-commerce market recorded US$ 2.29 trillion in sales for 2017 and is projected to exceed US$4 trillion by 2020. Meanwhile the rapid adoption of blockchain technology has the potential to propel growth rates to even higher levels.
Existing e-commerce platforms are built with a centralised model, requiring continuous investment in infrastructure, as well as dependence on costly third-party intermediaries and payment platforms. The emergence of Blockchain and "smart contracts" technologies cut out the middlemen and exposes two large interrelated problems with traditional e-commerce which are unnecessarily high fees and abuse of user information.
Plaza Systems occupies the intersection of lifestyle and technology. With a lifestyle-first focus, it concentrates on the needs and concerns of people accustomed to convenience and security and who are cognizant of the creeping invasion of corporations and governments into their digital lives. Plaza offers a state-of-the-art freedom lifestyle: the ability to quickly and conveniently browse and shop for the best deals across the whole Internet, anytime, and from anywhere; the convenience of AI; the privacy, savings, and security of cryptocurrency payments; and the sensible flexibility to help one continue to enjoy the products of their favourite neighbourhood vendors using a payment system everyone is familiar with.
Plaza strives to deliver the privacy, security, and savings of blockchain, the convenience of AI (Artificial Intelligence), and the whole world of consumer choice and freedom of movement in one seamless lifestyle solution.Plaza will successfully bring to market a next generation of e-commerce platform; a consumer-friendly bridge between the traditional fiat-based economy and the new crypto/blockchain economy. Plaza is designed for mass adoption; integrating several rewarding features, such as multiple blockchain protocols, chatbot assisted search, decentralised file storage and databases, distributed ledgers, and smart contracts.
Plaza aims to occupy the intersection of lifestyle and technology. Plaza will strip away the confusion and complexity of new technology to make savings, security, privacy, and consumer freedom accessible to everyone.Plaza vision is to bring emerging technologies to life by focusing on everyday utility, convenience, efficiency, and security.
E- COMMERCE MARKET CHALLENGES
- Higher costs are passed from seller to consumer: Seller transaction and payment fees equate to approximately 25% of each purchase on major e-commerce platforms. This inflationary pressure creates lower margins for sellers and higher prices for consumers, as the sellers attempt to transfer the cost on to the consumer.
- Costly infrastructure and shareholder demands keep prices high: Expensive infrastructure such as servers, data warehouses, employment requirements, real estate and advertising costs poses many challenges.
- Payment processors add to the costs of the transaction: Empires such as PayPal have been built on the backs of these consumers and the system in place.
- The concept of personal privacy is being lost in big data: Serious concerns about online privacy and security turn many people off e-commerce. Websites and apps persistently track and exploit personal browsing and navigation habits, while retaining personal and financial information.
CRYPTOCURRENCY MARKET CHALLENGES.
- Using Cryptocurrency for Payments is Neither Easy or Intuitive.
- Cryptocurrency payments require a steep learning curve: If someone has never purchased anything with crypto or set-up a wallet, the task can seem insurmountable. And as a simple mistake in a transaction can result in total loss, many are scared away.
- Traditional payments are easy, but result in higher prices: Users have been trained to use their credit cards or payment platforms, such as PayPal, to complete online transactions.
Unfortunately, those actions generate a lot of additional cost that is added to their purchase.
- Mainstream Adoption Depends on Real-World Utility.
- Early adopters will try anything while the average user needs a compelling reason: Cryptocurrency adoption has been driven by the early adopters who were willing to deal with the technological hurdles required to buy, sell, store
and even understand them. Without a simple and easy to understand use case, the average consumer lacks a desire to venture into the fray therefore the average business doesn't see much demand for a cryptocurrency payment method.
3)Crypto 'Currencies' Have Become Assets: The rapid appreciation in cryptocurrencies value incentivises "hodling" or trading rather than spending on goods and services. Most newcomers to crypto are chasing the "moon" and the "lambo". Therefore, blockchain applications that rely on transaction volume need to think differently about how it is applied.
- Mining Activities are Unavailable to Everyday People.
- Participating in cryptocurrency mining involves large investments of time and money: Not only does mining involve purchasing hardware specific to the activity, it requires that you understand how to administer that hardware and invest in the electricity required to run that hardware.
- Existing miners rely on an exclusive system to recoup past expenditures: Those that have made relatively large investments to build their mining operation want to recoup these expenses, as well as enjoy long-term profit. A system that allows everyday people to start mining cryptocurrency will not make a lot of these club members happy.
THE SOLUTION-PLAZA
Plaza believes that most important aspect of creating the best e-commerce platform revolves around the user's experience and hence focuses on providing the best-in-class user experience. It leverage technology that will allay fears and unleash the user's full online potential.To alleviate the friction that is experienced by the average new crypto user, all users will receive a free PlazaWallet, which will synchronise with the PlazaCard debit card. With the PlazaCard everyone can easily start using crypto in their day-to-day life, opening up a world of possibilities.
Also, Plaza is developing and deploying a cost-effective, knowledge-free mining device that can be used by anyone to start earning PLAZA while they sleep.Plaza systems are systems integration company focused on delivering the benefits of blockchain technology for business by solving these problems:
- For sellers and businesses it offers a next-generation blockchain commerce (bCommerce)
infrastructure — the fastest on Earth .
Plaza will help sellers bypass the costs associated with utilising centralised platforms, as well as enable them to sell directly to the consumer and cut out the unnecessary middlemen.
-For buyers and consumers it offer a user-friendly escape from high prices and "big data".Total bCommerce is a simplified, secure, and cost-effective means for both buyers and sellers to transact in the crypto/blockchain era. Plaza is a Total bCommerce solution integrating the fast and future-proof MerchantChain and the Freedom Lifestyle suite of search and payment tools.
MerchantChain: The MerchantChain is the fastest, most scaleable, most sustainable, most secure, and most future-proof distributed ledger for commerce. It has the following advantages:
- Incredible Speed
- Inherent Sustainability
- Enhanced Security
- Infinite Scaleability
- Future Proof
The Plaza Freedom Lifestyle: Plaza's Freedom Lifestyle suite of browsing, search, and payment tools are more convenient, more private, more liberating, more rewarding, less expensive, and just as secure as traditional tools. They all interact with the state-of-the-art multi-crypto PlazaWallet. The PlazaWallet implements a decentralised, secure, peer-to-peer, synchronised and backed up multi-currency wallet with a clean, easy-to-use interface. The digital PlazaWallet is fully encrypted on the client-side and creates, manages and encrypts private keys, public keys, and transactions on the client device.
PLAZA ECOSYSTEM
The Plaza ecosystem will be built to be scalable and decentralised to ensure stability and sustainability in the long term. The ecosystem will involve the following participants: foundation, platform, sellers, consumers, arbitrators, miners and chatbots. Each participant will interact with others as shown
The Plaza ecosystem is created through the intelligent integration of established and emerging technologies.
Dual Cryptocurrencies fuel the Plaza Ecosystem: The "master" PLAZA token will serve as the driver of the Plaza Ecosystem. It is a reusable ERC20 token that is freely transferable on the Ethereum blockchain and can be held within
the Plaza integrated wallet or any ERC20 compatible wallet, at the discretion of the user. However, to synchronise the Plaza Ecosystem globally, stabilise prices, and create cross-market e-commerce compatibility, Plaza will issue a stable, fiat-backed cryptocoin, the PlazaDollar (PL$), to be used exclusively for Plaza marketplace transactions.
The Plaza platform will provide debit card for everyday transaction via PlazaCard. The PlazaCard enables cryptocurrency owners to make everyday payments at any merchant. The process is the same as it would be with any other bank-issued debit or credit card. They can also withdraw local currency at any affiliated ATM. Also, The mobile and tablet app provides the ability for the merchant to accept fiat currencies in exchange for an instant transfer, or "top-up" of any other Plaza user's wallet. This feature allows for the frictionless ability of all Plaza users to reload their PlazaWallet. Plaza will introduce sophisticated, natural language, conversational chatbots for use across the
platform.
Plaza Lifestyle Rewards: This program is designed to keep more value in the form of PLAZA tokens within the ecosystem and in the hands of the participants, rather than the big advertisers, such as Facebook and Google. This is achieved by offering consumers and sellers financial incentives for completing actions. Each program and incentive is implemented using smart contracts for transparency and to minimise administrative overhead.
TECHNOLOGY APPLICATION LAYERS.
In addition to applying AI technology, Plaza will integrate the key emerging technology of the blockchain in layers.
- Public Payment Processing Layer: Debit card transactions are processed through the standard card processing network when a purchase is made. The amount of the transaction must be validated by Plaza payment gateway located within the MerchantChain Layer.
- Public Transaction Layer-Ethereum Blockchain: Plaza's Public Transaction Layer is how the Plaza Ecosystem interacts with the outside world via third-party exchanges. It utilises the Ethereum blockchain, which along with third-party Bexchanges, operates independently of the Plaza platform.
- Plaza MerChantChain Layer: MerchantChain is an internal Proof of Work (PoW), low-power blockchain developed in-house and live tested in the e-commerce markets. MerchantChain has been stress-tested in high-load environments
and has provided valuable insights into blockchain functionality and compatibility, with e-commerce data collection and settlement.
-Plaza Communication Blockchain Layer: Using a separate lightweight message layer, all communication between ecosystem participants are fully encrypted and distributed across the Plaza Protocol nodes. - Plaza Core Layer: The Plaza Core layer is the public smart contracts layer which provides a trusted, conflict-free environment and open-sourced implementation of the key components of the PLAZA Token Ecosystem.
TOKEN DETAILS
Token Name: PLAZA
PreSale: March 15, 2018 to September 12, 2018
Main Sale: October 4, 2018 to November 15, 2018
Payment methods accepted: ETH
Hard Cap: 100,000 ETH
TOKEN SALE PROCEEDS
Research and Development: 40%
Marketing & Community: 35%
Operational Cost: 20%
Platform Security: 5%
TOKEN DISTRIBUTION.
Public sale: 65%
Advisors and Early Investors: 4%
Reserve Fund: 15%
Team members: 15%
Bounties:1%
Read more about the project here
https://plaza.systems/
https://plaza.systems/whitepaper
Bounty0x username:boscoarinze