Matic is StacksCity’s Scaling Platform and Partner of Choice
Matic Network will help StacksCity to Achieve High Scalability and Transaction Speeds in Public WiFi Ad Bidding System
StacksCity was conceived in 2018 based on the commitment to build a global wireless WiFi coverage network. In order to realize our vision, we identified an initial use case that combines solutions for public WiFi stakeholders as well as an industry need, specifically advertising. Thus, we are building a distributed intelligent WiFi advertising ecosystem to meet the needs of Internet users in public areas; create new revenue channels for WiFi router owners; and most importantly, provide advertisers with efficient, accurate and transparent solutions.
The StacksCity platform is an integrated advertising system based on physical location data, a sharing economy model, and a smart WiFi ecosystem with blockchain technology. This model allows the setup of public WiFi networks and the redistribution of advertising revenue with global participants, allowing more participants and partners to help us achieve our goal faster.
In brief, business and public places are provided WiFi routers so their visitors can connect to the Internet. The WiFi networks are integrated with location-based advertising, and advertising transactions reside on the blockchain to prevent ad fraud, which has been the bane of the industry for a long time. Each user login and therefore each ad view corresponds to payment to the router owner and brand exposure to the advertiser.
Rationale for the System Design and Business Model
StacksCity is an independent project initiated by StacksNetwork. As a company focused on providing Internet connectivity solutions for enterprises, the Internet of Things and its related technologies such as Lora, WiFi, and Bluetooth, was an area for StacksNetwork to explore and StacksCity is an avenue for this exploration.
As WiFi is the most widely used technology for connectivity, and as the advent of blockchain technology opens up opportunities, we are leveraging the potential of a sharing economy to attract more people to participate in our WiFi ecosystem, thus maximizing the coverage through the contribution from all industry players and stakeholders.
The widely spread network coverage and existing user base of StacksNetwork provide StacksCity with significant resources that will enable our platform to complete product testing and initial user accumulation as fast as possible, making the process of business model validation is also fast-tracked and optimized. This will help StacksCity to enter the expansion phase as early as possible.
Given our strong foundation and advantage in jumpstarting StacksCity’s platform, the biggest challenge falls on the technical aspect, i.e., blockchain technology. A blockchain transaction happens every time a user logs onto a WiFi network and watches an advertisement. Since we expect a high rate of logins from a great number of users from a large coverage area, a high volume of transactions is also expected. For the potentially large number of transactions required to be completed in a matter of seconds, there is a high requirement for the transaction speed to be fast and the gas fee to be low.
Choosing the Right Platform and Partner
For us to provide the smoothest user experience while adopting blockchain technology, StacksCity has tested and researched many solutions. Based on the system requirements of the StacksCity platform, we found Matic Network as the platform and partner of choice.
Matic Network provides a layer 2 Plasma-based sidechain scaling solution for decentralized applications. Matic delivers on the requirements demanded by the StacksCity ecosystem.
- Low Cost
The cost per display for each ad on the StacksCity platform is very low, around a few cents (USD). Therefore, we can’t accept a transaction cost that will be higher than the actual transaction value that occurred. Because of Matic’s sidechain solution, assets, i.e. StacksCity tokens used by router owners and advertisers, can be transferred cheaply.
2. Scalability and High Transactions per Second (TPS)
StacksCity is committed to building city-wide WiFi coverage — across the globe. This means an unimaginable number of routers listed on StacksCity’s platform, and the massive amount of transactions generated every time a user connects to the WiFi and an ad is viewed. Matic has achieved 7,000 TPS on testnets alone and even higher after optimizations, with the capability to further scalability by supporting multi-sidechain and sharding.
3. Simple and Optimal User Experience
StacksCity’s platform is meant for everyone who’s connected and who’s looking to be connected. Therefore, it’s necessary to deliver an easy-to-understand and easy-to-use experience. Only with that can we possibly progress towards mass adoption. A major hurdle for Dapps has been transaction speeds. Matic allows great user experience through conducive block time, at 1 second or faster. This means router owners and advertisers don’t need to wait a long time for transactions to execute and reflect in their accounts.
4. Security
Ad fraud and ad platform abuse have been plaguing advertisers for a long time. For advertisers on the StacksCity platform, where large amounts of funds enter the smart contract each time the advertiser user places a bid, the security requirements for trading channels and smart contracts is extremely high. Matic’s 3 layered security architecture, secures both router owner and advertiser funds. Since Matic has a block producer layer which rejects incoming transactions with zero amount in payments, it deters denial-of-service (DoS) and spam attacks with zero cost.
5. Future Compatibility
Our reason for building a wide network coverage of wireless WiFi is to enter the interlude of the IoT era. In the future, StacksCity’s smart WiFi platform will be used for connecting various IoT devices in a smart city. So having a compatible sidechain solution in preparation for our future plan would be in our best interest. Matic’s focus on decentralized finance (DeFi) and other applications (DApps) means our goals are aligned. Its plan to support financial service stacks using various protocols means we can expand the services we offer in the future.
The choice of a platform to build our system on is critical, and with Matic, we know we have not only a reliable platform but also a partner. Matic has already given us outstanding assistance through its Developer Support Program by helping us with continuous technical mentorship since last year and marketing support. We are excited to work with them on a new and higher level.
Expected Timeline & Milestones
In less than a year, we’ve reached milestones since we started in 2018. StacksCity Alpha development launched in December last year and went into testing in Q1 this year. Blockchain development began at the same time and culminated in May. The platform’s UX/UI was also upgraded in Q2 in preparation for the next stage.
Now, we’ve just completed the critical and important stage: blockchain integration with the StacksCity database. We are now doing error handling and testing.
And by the end of August, StacksCity Beta will already have blockchain integrated through the Matic network. Real user public testing of the dApp is scheduled in September.
To encourage adopters and users for the platform, we will be holding an airdrop of StacksCity tokens and Stacks Routers, as well as another stage of our bounty campaign.
With the platform launched, on the business side, ambassadors will be recruited to speed up deployment of Stacks Routers in various regions — thus taking advantage of the scalability of the Matic network.
Useful Links:
Bounty Program: https://bit.ly/2HGoaOp
Ambassador Program: https://bit.ly/2KJfntX
Twitter Channel: https://twitter.com/StacksCity_ANN
Telegram Channel: https://t.me/StacksCity_ANN
