Winding Tree's Líf Travel Token Sale is Starting on Feb. 1,2018
The travel industry is notorious for having middlemen cut into profits. Winding Tree aims to bypass the middlemen; allowing consumers to use Líf tokens to book hotels, vacations packages, flights and other modes of transportation directly with the travel / vacation company. They plan on selling you 1000 Líf (ERC20 tokens) for 1 ETH during the first week and 900 Líf / ETH during the second week of the token sale. Since the token sale is uncapped, the total number of tokens generated will be decided by the market. The distribution breakdown is:
- 75% to the public sale
- 20% to founders, advisors, employee pool, etc.
- 5% to long-term foundation budget
I've been very weary of ICOs for a while now, but I'm drawn to this one. I'll list off some of the things I like (from www.windingtree.com):
Big interested "partners"
Several popular airlines have partnered with Winding Tree to test out the token including: Lufstansa, Swiss Air, Air New Zealand, Austrian Air, Brussel Airlines and Eurowings. Nodic choice hotels is also a partner.
Great Potential - entire travel industry can benefit (startups, small and big businesses)
In this video from the Blockchain Summit in Barcelona the CEO of Winding Tree, Max Izmaylov, draws attention to the pitfalls of the travel industry: high transaction fees, unfair business practices / abuse of power, lack of innovation / data, among other things. It sounds like many travel companies are trapped using an outdated system run by some powerful middlemen. Izmaylov explains that there are a number of "providers" (middlemen between the destination businesses and the consumer) that take fees with very little added value. He explains that in the United States there is only one company that reconciles all of the airline transactions. According to the Winding Tree's whitepaper: Expedia Inc. and Priceline Group control 95% of the online travel agency market while Amadeus, Sabre and Travelport have a 99% market share in non-direct inventory in the air market. Perhaps decentralization will better distrubute that wealth.
Travel is Close to the Heart
Traveling and "seeing the world" is very special to many people. Travel is often my largest single purchase of the year. It's also one of the most researched purchases I make (everything from the destination to where I can get the best price).
Disclaimer
Investing in an ICO / token sale is risky for many reasons. Please don't mistake my interest for investment advice.
What do you think?
I look forward to hearing your opinion, especially if there are things you don't like about this token.
No one is talking about this token (and the sale is over in two weeks) so Re-steem!
