Introducing Cahrenheit

Cahrenheit
18 min readJul 19, 2018

A Note From Our Founder

Joe Lee, Founder and Project Leader of Cahrenheit, co-founder of Kuaidi (Uber of China)

Ever since I was a little kid, cars of all sorts fascinated me, and they always brought me joy. I was raised in an auto shop where my dad is an auto mechanic. All of my toys were different types of automobiles, fire trucks, police cars, ambulances, race cars, flying cars, you name it, I had to have it.

I remember fondly as a child that every time I was able to ride in a car, I demanded to sit in the front. It was a mission to press every button there was throughout the ride. However, I learned not to touch the lever the hard way.

My love for cars only grew with age and when I went to Canada, I was finally able to save up and afford my own first car, a Honda Civic. Stick shift! I can still remember how it felt to sit behind the steering wheel for the first time; it was exhilarating, and I dare say the car smelled like freedom. For me this was the first step into adulthood and it set the scene for many great memories; my first date, my first road trip, my first job, my first race, my first auto club gathering, and of course my first accident.

My love for cars never ceased and it drove me to co-found Kuaidi and establish a team of like-minded people aiming to create a network that serves both the drivers and riders. Kuaidi was a simple concept in developing an app where drivers could make more money than current market opportunities without sacrificing the riders’ desire to conveniently reach their destinations.

After a few years of sleepless nights, endless wrangling with regulators and competitors such as Uber and Didi, we were able to create the largest car hailing app in China, connecting over 200 million passengers and 20 million drivers. In 2015, I negotiated and closed the merger with Didi to form Didi-Kuaidi, the deal was valued at US$6 billion; and the next year, acquired Uber China, with post acquisition valuation of US$35 billion. Although Kuaidi brought immense benefits to the people, but due to the limitations in technology and correlating business models, a lot of value was left untapped at the platform level; and our work only solved one aspect of the auto-industry, convenience of transportation.

Furthermore, over the years developing Kuaidi, I saw even deeper issues/inefficiencies within auto-ownership and related services. Drivers’ hard-earned cash was sucked into a completely opaque auto aftermarket industry and with the power in the hands of the largest brands, car owners are subjugated to receiving unsatisfactory car services. Currently, these owners have no other choice but to settle for unjust aftermarket and car services. The public seems to believe things will not change even if they change service providers, it became the norm. However, I have always clung to the basic understanding that “if there is a will, there’s a way”. So I left Didi-Kuaidi and continued fighting and searching for a solution to the market plaguing the freedom that car ownership brings, until I came across blockchain technology.

Blockchain in my eyes is a revolutionary technology that is perfect for the auto related industries. A decentralized auto-related services ecosystem based on blockchain technology, best mirrors the decentralized natural state of the auto-related industries, as the products and services are proximity based, people are usually limited to a 5-mile radius. Furthermore, transparency and fairness can be established, completely eliminating the root of all evil: information asymmetry; trust can be quantified and recorded based on real transactions. This allows trusted auto servicers to better manage their capacity and retain customers, insurance companies and auto lenders can access reliable driver related data for better pricing, auto makers can access cross brand data to better serve auto owner needs, and auto owners can finally feel satisfied with the services they receive, pay less, and form local communities around reliable service shops. Through blockchain technology, power can slowly move into the hands of the consumer.

In a blockchain enabled Cahrenheit world, people will be able to break-free from the shackles of the old economy, a zero sum game where one’s gain is another one’s loss. With Cahrenheit, all ecosystem participants such as auto owners, service providers, insurance companies, auto-loan providers, second-hand car dealers, car rental companies, parts suppliers, automakers will all be able to enjoy the benefits of the paradigm shifts that blockchain technology is bringing forth. This is the future I see and with you being a member of the community, Cahrenheit’s only goal is for you to enjoy the benefits of owning a car.

Joe Lee

A car lover and an activist for our community

Our Vision

The trillion dollar auto related industries have long been plagued with information asymmetry resulting in unhappy customers and significant economic inefficiencies. There are countless stories where auto owners are dissatisfied with auto related services in terms of pricing, quality, and experience. However, it is not the cars’ fault; cars bring immense benefits to better people’s lives and set the scene for many great memories. Who is at fault? Centralized businesses who aim to monopolize by introducing different kind of information asymmetry in their products or services offered, or the middlemen who gain advantage over others and focusing only on short-term gains, whilst others settle for what is given.

Cahrenheit aims to bring the fundamental change that is needed within the auto related industries, ending all zero sum games, eliminating information asymmetry, and establishing data ownership and value which create billions of dollars of real economic benefits to all ecosystem participants including auto owners, service shops, insurance companies, auto lenders, second-hand auto dealers, auto makers, etc. This product is specifically designed for value creation in a industry poorly built on trust. Through the use of the platform, new markets are formed facilitating the auto-aftermarket shareholders. It is estimated that Cahrenheit will be able to bring a total of US$45 billion of economic benefits to all ecosystem providers within the currently understood auto-aftermarket in China alone.

By ending information asymmetry protecting data flow and enhancing transparency through a decentralized platform, Cahrenheit adds new markets, information channels, user experiences and services that will exponentially grow the projected $45B in benefits to the existing market through these newly added values. By building an untapped scope with a world class management team, we can not only disrupt but fundamentally evolve one of the largest longstanding industries in a way that shifts the power back to the car owner.

Overview

Cahrenheit Foundation (“Foundation”) aims to create the world’s first blockchain-based ecosystem for the automotive aftermarket economy, a US$940.6bn (Marketline) market globally; as well as the world’s largest blockchain-based use case, with the potential to serve 1) over 1 billion passenger vehicles (“PVs”) and their owners/users (“Consumers”), and 2) approximately 5 million small and medium sized auto service providers and their employees (“SMEs ”), and 3) thousands of Enterprise Data Users (“EDUs ”). Cahrenheit ecosystem is designed to establish data transparency for trust building, in turn encouraging information and transaction flow amongst Consumers, SMEs and EDUs, all on a decentralized network. Klover Insuratech (http://www.1234ye.com) will be the first Channel Partner of Cahrenheit providing access to 30,000 plus SMEs, over 1,000,000 Consumers and 30+ insurance companies.

Benefits to the Real Economy

Through blockchain technology, Cahrenheit is able to effectively address structural issues of the auto aftermarket industry and provide tangible economic benefit to Consumers, SMEs, and EDUs. Consumers will enjoy lower cost of car ownership; SMEs will reach higher capacity utilization and additional income; and EDUs will, through higher quality and more holistic data, more accurately price product risk (such as insurance or loans). The Cahrenheit Foundation believes that with the wide adoption of its ecosystem, economic benefits of more than US$45bn could be realized in China alone.

Game Changing Data Collection

Cahrenheit will be able to create a unique and ubiquitous network of data collection network for the auto industry, unlike any other. In the first stage, Cahrenheit will utilize its existing network of SMEs to collect automobile related data, which has the lowest barrier to adoption and data on-chain costs while enhancing data breath without compromising quality. SMEs are ideal data collection agents as they are decentralized in existing state, have the widest reach of local customers and provide multiple access points to ensure data accuracy. In the second stage, upon establishing the SMEs network, we will launch IoT devices that will fill in the gaps within our data collection network, adding cross brand car performance data, real-time driver behavior information and also seamless mining of CAH tokens for the community. With the team’s background in creating China’s biggest car hailing app, Cahrenheit will be able to reach millions of Consumers and SMEs.

Comprehensive Incentive Schemes with Fiat Support

Cahrenheit ecosystem implements comprehensive and dynamic token incentive schemes to continuously motivate key ecosystem stake-holders. In addition to conventional rewards for uploading data and transacting, ecosystem participants can selectively sell their data processed by Data Servicers to EDUs; a service that individual owner deserves to have and would not able to do without Cahrenheit. At the same time, EDUs will now have access to living, robust, and an accurate dataset, which will be monetized with significant fiat generation and value distribution to the entire Cahrenheit ecosystem.

World-class Team Ensuring Success

The founder of Cahrenheit, Joe Lee, is a co-founder of Kuaidi, which merged with DiDi in 2015 and absorbed Uber China operation. He started and grew the operation of private car service segment to over 10 million orders per day. After crowning Didi-Kuaidi to be the number one player in China, the Cahrenheit team left and successfully built a network serving 20,000 plus SMEs, over 150,000 Consumers and 30+ insurance companies with the goal to bring transparency and eliminate information symmetry in car use data, thereby lowering costs for Consumers and insurance companies, while increasing revenue and service quality for SMEs.

What does Cahrenheit offer?

CAHtrust is a fully decentralized search, listing, ratings, and review system for both SMEs and Consumers, based on real transactions with data contribution and transparency secured through the blockchain. Compared to centralized platforms, CAHtrust:

  1. offers lowest search/switch cost generating organic traffic;
  2. quantifies service ratings by token tipping in addition to reviews;
  3. only charges minimal listing fees to meet operational costs instead of charging “take rate” on transactions.

CAHmart is a frictionless and optimizing marketplace for SMEs and Consumers. Compared to centralized platforms, CAHmart:

  1. allows dynamic pricing by SMEs to broadcast off-peak capacity discounts
  2. allows SMEs to refer business to other SMEs for token rewards or future referrals
  3. only charges minimal servicing fees instead of charging “take rate” on transactions

CAHnalytics is a data analytics hub utilizing extensive, live, cross-referenced, and accurate datasets. Compared to centralized platforms, CAHnalytics:

  1. enables aligned data origination directly from Consumer and SMEs, and data monetization through EDUs via token payments, without intermediation cost and risks
  2. upgrades to live and big data analytics to enable better risk pricing and opportunity for new product developments
  3. allows highly customized data and payment solution for EDUs to pay exactly as needed, effectively lowering overall system costs and make purchase decision easier

CAHmine is suite of IoT devices jointly developed with IoT Channel Partners that can be installed on cars and at SMEs. Accurate real-time data of car performance across brands and real-time driver behavioral data can be collected through CAHmine. Besides data collection, CAHmine will also be able to “mine” for CAH tokens for the Consumers and SMEs. With the wealth of additional data collected AI and big-data enabled algorithms will be developed through CAHnalytics to better serve ecosystem participants

CAHnode is a community based honor program created for the true believers of Cahrenheit. To be eligible as a CAHnode member, a person or an entity will need to demonstrate to the community that the CAH vision is a calling that they truly believe in, and to commit in actively helping CAH foundation and CAH ecosystem to grow from the beginning. CAHnode program members will be the pillar of the community of CAH.

Who will benefit?

Cahrenheit will provide real economic benefits together with comprehensive incentive schemes to all ecosystem stakeholders expediting adoption.

Value to Consumers — Lowering cost of car ownership:

  1. Lower search and switch cost. Through CAHtrust, consumers are able to find the most reliable and service specific SME within their neighborhood by reviewing trustworthy ratings that are backed by transactions.
  2. Lower maintenance and repair cost. Based on established trust, consumers will be comfortable and much prefer to purchase from SMEs rather than OEs (4S stores in China), which on average are 50%+ more expensive; for the first time ever, they can now also access and purchase SMEs’ off-peak capacity service at discounted prices on CAHmart using CAH tokens.
  3. Lower insurance cost. With live, comprehensive, and accurate dataset about car conditions as well as driver behavior collected throughout the Cahrenheit ecosystem, insurance companies are able to more efficiently price a specific Consumer’s risk premium; good drivers will no longer need to compensate the bad ones.
  4. Higher resale value. transparent, comprehensive and accurate automobile dataset stored using blockchain technology removes information asymmetry, leading to more willingness to transact and to pay more;
  5. Token income. Consumers can earn tokens by a) creating car/user ID and uploading identification information; b) selling their data to EDUs through CAHnalytics; c) simply continue using their vehicles to generate additional data; Consumers can then spend these tokens on CAHmart for products, services, and tips to SMEs; premium services are also available for token purchase.

Value to SMEs — Improve daily operational efficiency:

  1. Improved customer acquisition and retention. Through CAHtrust, SMEs gain a highly cost effective platform to establish reputation and attract Consumers; furthermore, CAH tokens can now be used in tailored promotional activities to attract and retain Consumers, replacing existing costly and inefficient marketing campaigns.
  2. Capacity optimization and resource planning: Significant fluctuation of capacity utilization exists within the SMEs network; SME forfeit businesses during peak hours while sit on idle excess capacity during off-peak hours. With CAHmart, SMEs now have the ability to market price discounted services to Consumers to attract business during off-peak hours; in addition, they can now refer business to other SMEs to earn tokens or exchange referrals for future businesses.
  3. Token mining by data vending: SMEs will be able to earn tokens by a) helping Consumers to collect and maintain their data; b) providing better service improving customer satisfaction, and c) referring business to other SMEs; SMEs can then use these tokens to attract and retain Consumers, pay for referrals, and many other tools to enhance its reputation, operation, and economics.

Value to EDUs — A trustworthy data depository for risk selection and pricing:

  1. Lower data cost: Instead of bulk purchasing data that contain significant irrelevant information and is difficult to use, through CAHnalytics service/data products, EDUs can now selectively purchase region specific tailored datasets that are cleansed for customized usage.
  2. Improved data quality and knowledge of customer base: Datasets provided by Consumer and intermediaries are potentially plagued by integrity and bias issues. Through Cahrenheit, EDUs can now utilize robust live-datasets that are immutable and cross-referenced for accurate risk pricing and gain deeper knowledge of its customers.
  3. Fraud detection: Cahrenheit powered SMEs can now help EDUs to detect fraudulent activities in insurance claims, auto appraisals, etc., with a network capable of cross-referencing and verifying data validity.
  4. Value reciprocation: EDUs will directly reward good customers with competitive pricing, and through CAHnalytics purchases, share data monetization values with data contributors across the ecosystem, all while improving their own operating efficiency.

Why would CAH token have value?

The CAH token will have value for the following reasons:

  1. Significant real economic benefits to Consumers, SMEs and EDUs; the Cahrenheit Foundation believes that with the wide adoption of its ecosystem, economic benefits of more than US$45bn could be realized in China alone.
  2. Total CAH tokens supply is fixed at 10 billion
  3. EDUs will be required to hold a predetermined amount of CAH tokens in order to utilize custom-designed services and co-develop data products within CAHnalytics, further restricting token supply
  4. IoT Channel Partners will be required to hold a predetermined amount of CAH tokens in order to co-develop CAHmine products with Cahrenheit, further restricting token supply
  5. CAH tokens are the medium of value storage and value transfer within the ecosystem.
  6. There will be tens of thousands of community members, including individuals and enterprises at their own discretion who will be holding CAH Tokens to become eligible to hold certain titles or node status within the ecosystem, so that they can become ambassadors, activists, liaisons to the community and the greater society, at the same time reap the benefit of the entire ecosystem.
  7. CAH is an ecosystem of value production. CAH token holders can decide to take control of their own life by being an active part of CAH ecosystem.

VeChain

As a team driven by lofty goals of becoming the first and the largest blockchain based ecosystem for the auto related industry, adoption is a key consideration when selecting public chain partners. After going around the block, we believe that VeChain is the right long-term partner to Cahrenheit both in terms of people, technology and ecosystem.

VeChain’s team is composed of veterans of various industries such as auto, consulting, supply chain, luxury goods, and finance who understand the intricacies in applying blockchain technology to complex business use cases. The auto industry is definitely among one of the largest and the most influential in society, to many this industry fulfils a daily necessity and that makes the partnership between VeChain and Cahrenheit a synergetic alliance. VeChain has designed protocols, modules and middleware that are capable of handling the rigorous requirements of our use cases. Their platform is the only one we felt comfortable handling the network that Cahrenheit is capturing, with over 1 billion cars and millions of SME auto shops running on the VeChainThor Blockchain.

Furthermore, an important aspect of the Cahrenheit ecosystem is data vending, of which VeChain has created a native Distributed Data Vending (DDV) framework, allowing ecosystem participants to own and control their own data across different industries. With this set of powerful tools, Cahrenheit will be able to allow Consumers, SMEs and EDUs to seamlessly contribute, maintain, and transact their data.

VeChain has already built a strong network within the auto-related industries. VeChain is actively working closely with BMW, Renault, and is a prominent partner within the MOBI alliance. This stellar network will allow Cahrenheit to expedite its business development and build long lasting partnerships.

Cahrenheit will share its access to the financial and car hailing industries to integrate further adoption of the VeChainThor protocol and their related solutions or initiatives. Cahrenheit has also purchased the 25,000,000 of VET tokens (250,000 VEN) required to be considered for one of VeChain’s Authority Nodes.

About Klover Insurtech:

Klover (http://www.1234ye.com) will be the first Channel Partner, bringing into the Cahrenheit ecosystem 30,000 + SMEs, 1 million+ Consumers and 30 insurer partners. Klover will work closely with CAH Foundation to educate and usher the 30,000+ SMEs and 1 million+ consumers to adopt CAH decentralized application and utilize CAH tokens to transact within the ecosystem.

Klover is the largest InsurTech company in China, and the first internet insurance platform to have successfully applied for and have received China’s National Insurance Brokerage License. Within a few years since its inception, Klover has covered over 30 cities in China, and occupied top position of market share in most cities it operated. Using advanced technology platform and tools, Klover is connecting a gigantic decentralized network of SMEs in the auto aftermarket in China. Klover’s“又一单”(Youyidan) mobile App is a B2B tool focusing on the business development needs of SMEs — with unique features including “Multiple insurer quotations in one go”, “Simple quotation based on license plate number”, “Underwriting results within seconds”, etc.

Cahrenheit Team

Joe Lee

Project Leader of Cahrenheit

Joe is a successful technology entrepreneur and a unicorn builder. He has over 18 years of entrepreneurial experience in automotive, insurance and gaming domains. He is a co-founder of Kuaidi, which merged with Didi to become the world’s largest car hailing platform. Joe oversaw the operations of Kuaidi’s premium car service segment (Kuaidi One) and orchestrated the Didi/Kuaidi merger valued at over $6 billion dollars at the time of merge. His previous positions include Founder of Bumblebee Taxi (another top car hailing platform at the time); Founder of 96PK.com (web-based gaming platform). Joe was a qualified CPA and graduated from the University of Waterloo with a mathematics degree and accountancy master degree..

Derek Ip

Operations Leader of Cahrenheit

Derek is a seasoned veteran in the strategic development and management of insurance companies. He has over 18 years of experience in the insurance and financial services industry. Derek was previously Partner of EY responsible for insurance consulting. His other positions included Head of Business Transformation in AXA; VP of Technology & Operations in AIA; and various other positions in which he led strategic transformations for international insurers. Derek holds a degree in computer engineering and an MBA.

Frank Chen

Technology Leader of Cahrenheit

Frank is a veteran in building disruptive technologies to revolutionize traditional industries. He has over 12 years of experience in managing digital products and technology development in Internet and mobile computing. Frank’s expertise included large-scale distributed systems design and implementation. As the CTO of China’s largest premium car hailing service, he led a team of over 200 engineers to architect systems supporting over 50 million users and 5 million daily transactions, making the platform Frank’s team developed to run at 58 TPS. His previous experience also included building other high-volume high-frequency transactions infrastructures for banking and securities industries, giving Frank immense experience with financial services and utility platform building.

JX Chen

Auto Aftermarket Leader of Cahrenheit

JX has over 10 years of professional experience across FMCG and transportation industries. His management responsibilities covered sales, op marketing and operations. JX was the Operations Director of Kuaidi, which merged with Didi to become the largest car hailing platform in China. He was responsible for growing the regional operations of taxi and premium car hailing services across China. JX graduated with a masters degree from the China Academy of Science.

Benson Wu

Partnership Leader of Cahrenheit

Benson has over 15 years of experience in the automotive industry. His experience spans across sales and marketing, aftermarket services, auto financing and most recently Internet-based transportation sharing. Benson was a core leader of the premier car hailing services of Kuadi, which merged with Didi to become the largest car hailing platform in China. As Head of Fleet Operations, he was responsible for managing a fleet of over half a million vehicles across China.

Strategic Partners

VeChain Foundation
Klover Insurance Technology
CREAM
Bitshine Group

We have a plethora of unannounced partners and innovative laboratories in auto makers, SMEs network, insurance companies, banks, and etc.

Advisors

Sunny Lu — Co-founder and Project Leader of VeChain

Frank Desvignes — Founder & CEO of AXA Lab Asia focused on developing innovative insurance products utilizing cutting edge technology

Jeff Fagnan — Founder of Accomplice: a successful venture capitalist and philanthropist; board member of Angelist.

Rob Shavell — CEO of Abine, founded the leading online privacy solution provider serving 10 million consumers

Yang Ming — Partner of King & Wood Mallesons, 19 years of legal experience specializing in FDI in China, venture capital, and M&A

Investors

VeChain

Kuaidi Founder’s Group

CREAM

Bitshine Group

Website

www.cah.world

Whitepaper

To be released end of Q3 to beginning of Q4

The Raise

The maximum supply of CAH tokens will be 10 billion. The fundraising process will be divided into three tranches, the private round, the VeChain Foundation round for X Node holders, and the public round. All three rounds of fundraising will be hard-capped at 20% of the total token supply depending on demand. The exact ratio of VET to CAH tokens for distributions will be announced at a later date.

Our private sale has already been filled and pre-sale for X-Node holders and the public sale will kick off in the coming months. Specific details will be announced at a later date. For more information and news, please follow our social media accounts:

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Cahrenheit

Official account for CAH Foundation. An ecosystem for the automotive industry powered by the VeChainThor Blockchain