With the world heading towards a 100%
digital landscape, new opportunities and
economies are popping up constantly
including one that you’ve probably heard
of a few times—The Sharing Economy.
While the exact definition of the sharing economy has changed over time, the foundation of it remains the same. The sharing economy is best described
as a system where assets or services are shared
between private individuals over the Internet in exchange for money. These shared assets and services are usually underused or not utilized enough in terms of efficiency. What makes the sharing economy great is that the act of sharing not only maximizes efficiency, it also spawns an economy that provides other benefits in terms of economic growth and employment opportunities etc. For instance, the prevalence of ride-sharing apps
like Uber and Lyft all over the world has seen many individuals make decent money on the side as drivers with a good portion being able to make a good living off driving alone.
Other platforms like Airbnb and Lending Club have also proved that the sharing economy model is extremely relevant in today’s landscape as estimates suggest that the industry could surpass the $500 billion mark in the coming years.
Unfortunately, there are several problems affecting
the sharing economy currently such as;
- A huge problem in
many applications or businesses is the transaction
fee which are often taken at the expense of
consumers and service providers. Not only do
users pay more, the people offering the services
also get their income taken away substantially
(businesses often take 5-20% of the revenue
generated as commissions). - Data leaks and massive scandals in recent times
have also cast doubts on the integrity and security
of the sharing economy as users are becoming
more concerned about their privacy. Data sharing,
however, is necessary due to the sharing-based
model of the economy and combined with
centralization, it is nearly inevitable that users will
have their data leaked or misused.
Thankfully, the rise of the blockchain has paved
ways for solutions in improving the sharing
economy and one of the companies making huge
waves in the industry is UChain, a next-generation blockchain technology for the sharing economy.
WHAT IS UCHAIN?
UChain presents itself as a public infrastructure
blockchain network for the global sharing economy. In simple terms, UChain is using the blockchain to
support and improve the global sharing economy
by overcoming weaknesses in the ecosystem such
as excessive costs and unnecessary intermediaries.
Uchain hopes to establish a network where users
from all over the world can participate hence
improving and growing the economy all at once.
Aside from benefiting end users, UChain provides companies the ability to build their own
decentralized applications (DApps) on the UChain
network which also allows them to create their own tokens.This is in line with the foundation’s goal to
create a mutually beneficial ecosystem for the
global sharing economy that is self-sustainable and autonomous.
HOW DOES UCHAIN WORK?
At its core, UChain focuses on three key aspects:
- Cutting excessive costs.
- Introducing a user credit
passport. - Improving data security and privacy .
In UChain, transaction fees that burden both end users and service providers are significantly
reduced thanks to the use of the blockchain.
Uchain platform aims to provide cost reductions of up to 20%
by introducing peer-to-peer transactions instead of
relying on intermediaries to settle transactions.
How this works is based on the use of smart
contracts and UCN, the network’s official utility
token. Smart contracts will be processing the fancy
stuff behind the scenes but UCN is used as a
means of transaction and verification each time a user engages with goods and services on the network. For instance,a user who books a room through the UChain network will use UCN as his or her payment
method along with a deposit (depending on the service or business). The network will then process everything automatically from the payment process
up to the release of the deposit. By using tokens,
transactions are processed much quicker and at lower costs compared to traditional payment methods.
UChain also provides a user credit passport mechanism that is accessible to all service
providers who participate in the network. Contained in this passport, which also works as an identity
authentication system, is an extensive record of
transactions and user behavior which are then
verified by service providers. Once the credit
passport is verified, the respective user can make transactions without requiring a deposit.
Not only will this make the process of verification and making purchases smoother, businesses will also be able to understand their customers more along with avoiding shady or unscrupulous customers.
Of course, a system that requires the sharing of
personal data would also require extremely tight
security practices and adequate user rights to make
it fair. UChain does just that by using a private KEY-
based distributed storage system instead of a
centralized database.
As data is shared and splited across multiple nodes, the risk of database failures is reduced by a sizable
amount.while security breaches
are not a problem as even if a node is
compromised, the information gained by the attacker is not complete hence preventing data leaks.
Another advantage of UChain is that the network’s system also grants complete control to users over their personal data as data cannot be changed
without user permission.
Private keys ensure that only owners have full
access to their personal data and even if they
decide to share their data, the transparency of the
blockchain and UChain’s decision to make all
actions traceable eliminates the possibility of service providers mishandling and illegally using user data.
THE UCHAIN TOKEN INFORMATION
Unlike most ICOs, UChain will be holding an airdrop
for the UCN token, the network’s official utility
token.
In a recent blog post, the team has decided to
cancel the public crowdsale, after the successful pre-sale, which will be replaced by a community airdrop.
The tokens will be airdropped for free to
the community as well as the network’s public pre-
sale contributors as a token of appreciation.
Below are the details of the UCN token:
Token name: UCN
Token base: ETH
Token supply: TBA
Token sale target: 35,000 ETH (hard cap)
Token exchange rate: 1 ETH = 7500 UCN (private
sale) 1 ETH = 5750 UCN (pre-sale)
ROADMAP
MEET TEAM
BOARD OF ADVISORS
PARTNERS
For more information, visit the links below:
Website: https://uchain.world
Whitepaper: https://uchain.world/css/img/pdf/uchain-whitepaper-dbe5656d6c.pdf
Twitter:
Telegram: https://twitter.com/UChainEcosystem https://t.me/UchainEcosystem
Author: Adaora
Bitcointalk username: Annexia
Bitcointalk profile: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2014957;sa=summary