Blockchain will care
“There’s an opportunity to capture the holy grail of health IT, which is to put the patient back in the center of their care. We can provide much more transparency balanced against confidentiality. We can change the landscape of that by adopting blockchain and hopefully cut the costs of bureaucracy and overhead that make healthcare so expensive.”
Brian Behlendorf, Executive Director of Hyperledger
The global cosmetic products market was valued at USD 532.43 billion in 2017 and is expected to reach a market value of USD 805.61 billion by 2023, registering a compound annual growth rate of 7.14% during 2018–2023. The cosmetics or beauty products industry, globally, is one sector which remains impervious to the ups and downs. Overall sales are affected in the event of an economic downturn. However, one can count on the sales of cosmetics to maintain a certain volume overall. This is because of continuing and growing usage of products by women and increasingly by men across the world. Strong desire among men and women to retain youthful appearances has groomed and nurtured the cosmetics industry worldwide. Rapidly aging demographics has led to a robust demand for anti-aging products in order to prevent wrinkles, age spots, dry skin, uneven skin tone and even hair damages, creating room for new innovations in cosmetics, thus boosting the industry growth.
Cosmetic products, such as skin care, hair care and fragrances are the most-sold products online. Thus, companies are increasingly focusing on online marketing campaigns that can increase their revenues with low investments. The market is witnessing a trend of multinational companies setting up websites and brand-specific Facebook accounts and Twitter profiles, in order to address the local taste. This sector is gaining prominence with different products being available ‘only on online’.
A recent noticeable trend in the global skincare market is the increasing use of online platforms to reach out to a wider consumer base. Savvy companies and distributors are fast shifting to e-commerce to boost sales.
Shopping for an anti-aging skin care product can feel like hit-or-miss experience. With so many choices, it can be difficult to know which products to choose. Consumers often spend hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars a year on skin care products in an effort to improve the look of their skin. From anti-aging serums to acne medications, many adults and teens regularly apply medications or treatments to their skin.
Receiving high-quality, professional medical care like a dermatologist consultation has never been cheap as well as hassle-free either. So when one needed to see a dermatologist, the typical process for such a thing is as follows: look up dermatologists in a healthcare provider’s directory and hope to find one reasonably close to where one lives, call to schedule an appointment. Wait probably 2–3 weeks to get that appointment. Drive to the dermatologist’s office. Fill out countless forms, spend 5–10 minutes with a doctor who writes a prescription. And finally drive to drugstore to buy skincare product. So much time and energy down the drain.
Healthcare is perhaps one of the industry disciplines where blockchain has not yet made a hugely significant impact. A few ICOs have dipped their blockchain toes into the sector with varying degrees of success. However the situation is changing, the majority of leaders in the life sciences and pharmaceutical industries expect a rapid adoption of blockchain based applications. More than 80 percent expect a widespread blockchain adoption in medicine field within five years.
OPU Labs is going to improve how the global skincare industry exchanges data, information and rewards in a way that benefits patients, dermatologists, treatment centers, brand specialists and product manufacturers.
OPU Labs is creating an intelligent skincare service that works very simply — users take a photo of their face, which is analyzed by OPU’s native AI system that is being trained by OPU’s team of dermatologists. The results are then matched to high quality products and programs which are designed by experts based on the skincare goals set by each individual. Each user can then choose either self-guided programs or connect online with their personal dermatologist or skincare advisor who guides them along their journey.
OPU’s technology will comprise five core services:
- A machine learning technology that analyzes, compares and recommends treatment solutions;
- A search platform that provides treatment information from consumer skincare service providers and eCommerce partners (Opu Search);
- An opt-in service for product testing (Opu Connect);
- A customer support tool that includes image markup and patient tracking tools (Opu CRM);
- Tokens (OPU Coin) that act as the base currency for the skincare marketplace and OPU loyalty programs. A live demo version of Opu AI is currently available.
The combination of blockchain and skincare recommendation technologies provides the community with an unprecedented opportunity to harness and make available the collective knowledge in a trusted ecosystem. OPU will pave the way for the creation of an evidence-based community where the sharing of verified, high quality skin care knowledge can be securely exchanged. Individuals will have access to both personalized image analysis as well as the ability to connect and securely share experiences with others facing similar skin challenges.
OPU Labs is the blockchain solution for the global skincare industry. Fueled by OPU Coin, consumers are able to monetize their skincare data along with receiving real-time support from verified dermatologists on the platform. Users are able to interact directly with real-time imagery to identify skincare deficiencies along with the products and services necessary to help solve these issues. Medical professionals are encouraged to build the OPU database through detailed annotations of facial scans uploaded by users of the platform. Altogether, OPU aims to provide reliable feedback on different skincare products along with offering a variety of solutions and discounts to assist users through a step-by-step skincare treatment process.
The token will incentivize users and professionals alike to add value to the decentralized and intelligent ecosystem and users will be rewarded with OPU Coin for making valuable contributions. There is a fixed supply of 12 billion OPU Coins. The vast majority of them — 74% are reserved as rewards that will stimulate the platform’s growth in the future; only 5.5% will be sold during the pre-sale and ICO. The remaining coins are being kept by the developers and their partners, reserved for future sales or distributed as a part of a bounty marketing program.
The OPU Coin allows fast transactions within the OPU ecosystem between all the platform users through a single token. WP clearly states that the OPU Coin is intended to be used via OPU Lab platform and thus it is not an investment but a utility token.
OPU Coin will be the first cryptocurrency to power the skincare industry. OPU uses the brand new ERC223 token standard that among other improvements (prevents the currency from being lost in an invalid transaction) makes transaction costs 2 times less than original ERC20.
The Pre-ICO is on the run with available presale discounts. The OPU ICO will begin on July 17th, 2018. During the sale, customers can purchase OPU Coins with either Ethereum or Bitcoins at a price of $0.059259 per token. The minimum amount that the OPU project needs to raise (Soft Cap) is $5M, Hard Cap is $37M.
This is really a challenging project. The idea to improve the global skincare industry’s data exchange and incentivize platform users by rewards is understandable. There is a clearly defined and understood business model — to charge both the professionals who market their products and services and the users who receive their recommendations, in addition the platform will reward all its users for actions that generate new business. The WP is actually well written and does a good job in transmitting the main concept and there is a lot of background information to provide a backdrop to the reasoning behind this project. Beside the explanation of idea, OPU ecosystem, skincare market, budget, tokenomics and ICO itself, the WP is focusing on in-depth technology details and thorough market analysis. Therefore it is not surprising that for such a complex and ambitious project it consists of 106 pages. It is a highly comprehensive document covering almost all substantial information of the project.
A real pillar of OPU Lab project is the team. This is really important for knowing who is behind the ICO. The management team of 21 international technology specialists and leading skincare professionals led by founder and CEO Marc Bookman and COO Richard Reed, bolstered by 7 dermatologists and 6 blockchain advisors.
Nowadays any blockchain project can succeed only when it is supported by a sufficient number of people. However, the OPU presence on Social Media is currently negligible, so the team needs to do a lot of work to make the brand known to a wider audience.
As to my recommendations, I would contact manufacturers of cosmetics and skincare products as well as internationally well known dermatology associations and organizations (like AAD, ESDR, BAD) to enter into collaboration agreements. It would give weight to the project and be an important incentive for investors. As the OPU Lab project is planned to be for the global market, the website, WP, OnePager and the Presentation should be translated into more languages. And of course, it is absolutely necessary to widen OPU’s presence across the social media.
We are going through an amazing, transformative period in history — a technological revolution — the opportunities are endless and extremely exciting. And I hope that OPU Lab project with the leverage of the blockchain technology will be able to help our skin. All in all I like the idea. I believe that the team will be capable to develop the platform and the overall project will be successful.
