The problem in legacy dating Apps
Have you used any online dating apps? Do you trust them? With gazillions of fake profiles, nobody does, to be honest. Also, there is a fear of your information shared with third party vendors for monetary gains. Yes, all this is no doubt scary!
However, the picture does not end here.
Online dating industry was worth $3 billion and $1.6 billion in US and China respectively in 2015. That is huge if you ask me. The results, however, are not so enlightening. A recent study points to the fact that 28% of relationships that are built through online dating are prone to break up in their first year than relationships where the couple met face-to-face.
In the bigger picture, you are sharing your data with some third party vendor which is prone to hack/theft as it is stored on a centralized machine. How this is possible is explained below:
1. Information Theft: When you are sharing your data on an online dating app you trust that vendor with your data. What if someone hacks into the server and steals all the personal data including yours? Online dating platforms are in particular favorite targets for hackers because of a significant amount of personal and intimate information held by them. Do you remember Ashley Madison hack where Gigabytes of user's data was stolen? It resulted in blackmails, broke relationships and even suicides.
2. Fraud: After sampling, millions of online dating profiles found that 10% were completely fake. A very prevalent form of fraud is known as "Romance Scam," where first victim’s emotions are manipulated through some pretentiously trustworthy profiles and then the victim is duped for money. According to FBI data, Romance Scam alone accounts for $100 million in losses.
3. Waste of Time, Money and Efforts: With a study claiming that around 30% of the men on dating sites lie about their riches and careers and a significant number of women about their height and weight. Someone who is seriously looking for a partner is likely to be disappointed when someone they had been talking to over the dating platform was opposite of what they portrayed. Some dating sites even engage dating bots and explicitly mention this in their terms & conditions.
4. Inefficient and Outdated System: A survey revealed that one-fourth of millennial feel that finding love over online dating has been difficult for them, while more than 57% things that they are lonely. However, dating sites claim otherwise. Why?
Hicky's Solution!
Hicky aims at solving all this by cutting the middlemen, incentivizing the process and bringing in people/users to resolve conflicts.
1. Face Verification:Hicky's cut bots and fake profiles by enabling face verification. Your photo is compared with an ID of yours which should be uploaded from the same device. You are confirmed as a user after a match providing a basic level of authentication hence assuring that the primary information about a user is genuine.
2. Incentive Structure: The excellent feature of incentivizing user activities helps to build a healthy ecosystem. You will need to stake some HKY tokens to do things in Hicky ecosystem. E.g.:
a. To get your profile verified by your peers or judges as they are called.
b. To go on a date, both dating parties will have to stake some HKY tokens which will be locked until the date has been completed.
c. If any of the parties turn up to be a no-show, either of the party which does not show up ends up receiving the staked token.
d. Any of the parties can choose to dispute the result in step c above. The "Conflict Jury" then gets this case and looks at the evidence furnished by both parties. A decision is taken in favor of either party and jury receives the staked HKY tokens of the losing party as a reward.
3. A Community of Users-as-Judges: If you want to update or create your profile as a 'YouTube Blogger' you would need to upload proof let's say your YouTube profile in this case. End decision of verifying or rejecting a profile will be however in the hands of a jury of his peers. You will have to stake some HKY tokens to get you confirmed by these judges - called DAD (Decentralized Autonomous Dating). Once you are verified on Hicky, these judges/peers will get HKY tokens staked by you as a reward. Imagine if any of the parties is rude with each other at the time of the date, this can be brought into the attention of the Conflict Jury and they can hear the case from both the parties and arrive at a conclusion.
4. Ranking: Hicky allows users profile to be ranked according to the matches, invites, profile completeness, response rate, and popularity. A person with a lower ranking will have to shell out more HKY to message someone with a higher ranking. Similarly, someone with lower ranking will find it easier and cheaper to message someone who is at par with them in ranking.
5. Voice Messaging Feature: As if the face verification was not enough, Hicky brings in another mechanism to eliminate bots or at the very least raise the bar for them too high. Before talking to a possible match, a user will have to answer one of the 36 questions that are designed to build relationships with people who have recently met. E.g.:
What is the greatest accomplishment of your life?
What do you value most in a friendship?
What is your most treasured memory?
What is your most terrible memory?
This established a trust factor necessary for starting a relationship while at the same time eliminating bots. Also, following a "Less is more" approach this might give you fewer matches to talk to but you be sure that those will be the one with whom you might end up in a stable relationship.
You see, what Hicky is doing here? They are building a platform where trusting relationships are nurtured. By bringing in token incentives in place and bringing in humans to solve unwanted mishaps they are creating a more humane environment. Where dating is not just a business but something that holds long-lasting value.
Why Blockchain?
Yeah, I know you will ask this question. What is the reason for a dating app to be on Blockchain? What is in it for them and us? Some of the major reasons are discussed below:
1. Trust – The information that you are sharing on Blockchain will remain private, and the information that you see on Blockchain is trustworthy. This bilateral trust powers the information shared on the Blockchain. Once the human verification of information about a user is complete, it cannot be edited or changed by anyone.
2. Security – Blockchain is less susceptible to hacking as the information on it is distributed across the network. To bring the whole network of Blockchain down which seems next to impossible keeping in mind enormous costs incurred in such n operation.
3. Democratization & Decentralization - Removing the 'owner' or 'middlemen' from the picture means the platform is maintained and run solely by users. The users of the network are the stakeholders literally and help in improving the platform in a way that benefits them.
Partnerships and tie-ins:
Having partnered with NAGA recently, HKY tokens will be integrated into their ecosystem. You will be able to exchange HKY with NGC (Naga Coin) as well as buy HKY tokens using their credit card.
Note: Alpha Version will be live by Q1, 2018 in iOS store. For more information, please refer to the Hicky’s Roadmap.
Closing Thoughts:
Who does not love an honest and competent dating app? With already experienced people (Hermione Way- Tinder’s Former Head as an advisor) on board and an efficient and more transparent ecosystem in place, the road ahead looks promising for Hicky. I would like to wish them all luck and success!
Hicky website: https://hicky.io
Blog: https://medium.com/hickynews
Telegram: https://t.me/getpicky
My Blog : https://medium.com/@cagar.bhardwaj