ENET Network

5 min readDec 10, 2017

Background and motivation

In this world of online marketplaces we are living in, the need for a fair online marketplace has never been this high. There is no power balance between the consumer and the merchant. Scams are rampant, getting money back is always hard, and as a seller as soon you make a transaction with a consumer, you cannot be sure he will not try to make a false claim. We want to be part of a more sustainable economy. This is why after a long period of brainstorming, documenting and researching we are proud to present you ENET. ENET is what we believe to be a step toward a fairer world. Some companies tried to resolve this issue by creating trust labels. But all only few companies are indeed trustworthy. What if these companies fail in their duty to check data ? The issue of trust is just moved to another supposedly “more trustworthy” actor, but is still not resolved. So, the real questions behind a marketplace are : How can I trust an unknown seller ? How can I make a transaction with them ? How can the seller trust me if I say I didn’t receive the package ? These questions are legitimate, and we tried our best to provide an answer.

Why Ethereum and IPFS ?

Blockchains have changed the way we can trust each other. First with Bitcoin, now with Ethereum, we can trust the ledger we are sharing together instead of trusting each other directly. Today, Ethereum is one of the most popular blockchain that supports smart-contracts. It aims to replace server computing as we know it, by creating a “world computer”. IPFS is the technology for asset storing and file sharing on the internet in a purely decentralized way. It aims to replace HTTP by creating a better solution to share files across the internet.

What is a smart-contract ?

A smart-contract is code deployed on the blockchain. It is used to define and enforce the relationship between actors on the blockchain. And since the blockchain is immutable the code of the smart contract cannot be altered. On a blockchain, a smart-contract is like any other actor. It has an address, a balance and can do actions (sending money etc…) but it also has a brain: it can perform actions and store information.

What is IPFS ?

IPFS stands for InterPlanetary File System. It is a protocol designed to create a peer-to-peer, addressable, distributed file-system. This is the technology that will be used to store assets such as stores’ pictures, products’ pictures, products’ description, in a distributed way. An asset stored on this filesystem has an unique address that can be easily stored in a smart contract.

How will we use these technologies ?

Our engineering team has leveraged the possibilities of Ethereum to build smart-contracts over the Ethereum blockchain that defines the relation between “sellers”, “buyers” and “shareholders”. Furthermore, we will use IPFS to store assets to provide a user-friendly store without centralizing all the data at one point.

Contract definition

Smart-contracts will enforce the relation that exists between the 3 parties stated before. First, we will present their roles, then the different relations and interactions between them.

The seller

The seller is an actor that wants to sell goods or services.

The buyer

The buyer is a consumer. It browses the market, checks out different sellers, and buys from them.

The shareholder

The shareholder owns a part of the market (represented by tokens). It represents a part of the market intrinsically.

Relationship definition

To create a fair market, we need to enforce a set of rules between sellers, buyers and shareholders. Here is the exhaustive list of these rules.

• A seller cannot receive the money of an order before the buyer confirms he received the transaction, or after a defined period after which the buyer cannot make a claim anymore.

• An order cannot be processed if the buyer doesn’t provide the required amount of money.

• When there is a dispute between a buyer and a seller that can be solved amicably, the shareholders may decide on the action to be taken to resolve the conflict. To do so, the shareholders can ask for proof and choose between three outcomes :

• Seller is in their right, buyer is not. All the money is given to the seller.

• Buyer is in their right, seller is not. All the money is given to the buyer.

• Shareholders cannot decide by majority, they can decide to split the money between the two parties.

• When a transaction is made over the market, a fee equal to 2% of the transaction amount is held by the market.

At the end of each month, token shareholders can take their part of the 2% collected during the period based on the amount of tokens they hold at the closing date of the month.

Reputation

After a purchase is made over the marketplace, the buyer can leave comments for the seller and another about the product itself. They can also rate both. After enough feedback, we can rate a seller.

Market regulation

The content of the marketplace is regulated. We don’t want to see illegal goods or services spawning across the market. When a seller wants to register, it’s status is set to “under registration”. A seller which is “under registration” is not yet shown to buyers. A certain amount of shareholders must approve the seller before the status goes from “under registration” to activated. Furthermore, a seller can be reported and removed.

User experience across the marketplace

We have summarised the interaction between users, actors and contracts. Interacting with a smart-contract through raw transactions is not acceptable for most users. That’s why we believe we must make this market as user-friendly as possible. Our vision is the following : the user goes to https://enet.network, provides its wallet file or plugs its hardware wallet (like a Ledger Nano S) and can start using the app. No matter if he is a buyer, a seller or a shareholder, it must be simple and easy to use. So the first thing to remove is the need to install a full Ethereum node or a full IPFS node. To permit such a system to exist, we need to use public nodes and use web applications that can be executed only on client-side. MyEtherWallet is doing this. They use the wallet locally to transmit the signed transaction to a public node that relays it over the network. For IPFS, we can use a public node too. This way a user can use the marketplace without needing to run a node, and can use it without uploading its wallet somewhere. Everything is happening locally and is broadcasted to the network when needed. Furthermore, work is in progress on both the Ethereum and IPFS projects to enable bootstrapping a node directly from the browser. When this technology becomes available, we will be able to use it and connect directly from the browser without the need of a third-party public node. Another aspect that we want to simplify is billing which can get complicated. To make it easier, the market will generate bills automatically after a transaction is made. Since the market stores all the transactions on the blockchain, we can directly use the blockchain data as the support to create a PDF document on the client side.