In the previous article (https://medium.com/@wonoworld/whats-wrong-with-a-sharing-economy-and-what-are-we-going-to-do-with-it-9851f03d8357) we’ve found out, why exactly does peer-to-peer economy need blockchain. OK, but WONO is not the first decentralized project designed for sharing property and services. Indeed, there are dozens of blockchain startups dealing with home rental, car sharing and freelancing. Some of them even managed to complete ICO’s successfully, and started developing their platforms. But we’re sure that single market crypto-services aren’t able to unlock all the benefits that blockchain and cryptocurrencies can give.
The explanation is easy. In real life you would never use 15 different kinds of money for 15 different purposes. Remember your feelings when you had to buy some local currency while travelling. And now imagine that you have to use crypto exchange every day.
For example, you’ve earned some tokens freelancing and want to pay for your flat. Since you can’t exchange token-to-token directly, you should first buy some Ethereum or Bitcoin and exchange again. Losing money and time. If this is supposed to be a happy decentralized blockchain-powered future, I would better stay offchain and use good ol’ fiat.
It’s obvious that the only way to make blockchain user friendly is to let people earn and spend using one single token. Worldwide, for every purpose. That’s why we combined 4 most popular peer-to-peer services.
Our idea is really ambitious, but there’s actually no other options: either you offer people a completely new approach to sharing, or fail trying to convince people that constant token exchanging is exactly what they need to make their lives better. Come on, fellow startupers, let’s face the truth, this way is actually a dead end.
But hey, why not just use Ethereum for all transactions? It’s a popular and trustful currency designed for smart contract use. Why introduce some WONO token instead? We’ll discuss it in our next article. Spoiler: a token is essential for building a community to control the platform.
Andrei Chepelev, COO at WONO
