What is myBlockpool (and why should you care?)
What is myBlockpool (and why should you care?)
Last week I wrote about the solution that we provided for Bjork utilising our BiT API and explained a little bit about what that currently makes possible for anyone who wishes to integrate with it. This week I would like to briefly describe our own web interface (which itself integrates with BiT for its features) called myBlockpool which will form the heart of our public offering.
Anyone can go to https://my.blockpool.io and register for an account; we look forward to welcoming you over there.
myBlockpool has three main features: it is a Web Wallet, it allows a user who is earning BiT Rewards to interact with the Reward Campaign and it allows power users to manage their API Keys and set up campaigns and other integration steps. I’ll go through each of these below.
myBlockpool — the Web Wallet
The main feature that you will interact with is the Web Wallet that is at the heart of myBlockpool. We enable you to create an account for (currently) up to five different currencies. These are ADC (Audiocoin), BPL (blockpool coin), BTC (Bit Coin), DASH (DASH coin) and LTC (Litecoin).
You can create an account with a single click and are provided the address that we created for you, shown your balance (zero when you first open the account) and also review historic transactions for that account. You can display the current value (based on various conversion APIs that we subscribe to) of your holdings in USD, GBP and BTC.
Once you have an account for a currency, and some coins in it, you can send those funds to either another BiT user, via their email address, or to any other wallet address that you can provide. You will need to input the One Time Key that is emailed to your verified email address before the transaction. Once the transaction has been successfully sent to the blockchain you will receive a confirmation on screen with your transaction Id.
The purpose of the Web Wallet is to make it as easy as possible for anyone to have and use crypto currency. As myBlockpool develops we will add more features to this core area of our business but for now it should support most basic use cases.
myBlockpool — the Rewarding tool
Bjork didn’t just provide the opportunity to pay with cryptocurrency; every one of her customers was rewarded with an amount of Audiocoin paid into a myBlockpool account. The mechanic was simple; you were offered a Single Use Claim Link and, upon following it, your myBlockpool account was created and the correct funds were deposited. Just like that.
This is only the first of many campaigns that we will be running with multiple companies who will provide rewards paid in the cryptocurrency of their choice into new or existing myBlockpool Web Wallets. There are so many exciting things to come within this space, from myBlockpool exclusive products that can only be bought via our User Interface using crypto currency, to location based rewarding systems (we proved this with a Proof of Concept with Buzz Bike during our TEC and it worked really well) and this is probably the area of myBlockpool which will get the most attention of the coming months. I may well return to BiT Rewards (as we term it) in a future colum.
For now only those customers who have purchased from Bjork’s website (https:shop.bjork.com) who will see the rewards area and these lucky people will be able to earn additional Audiocoin by interacting with myBlockpool to send status updates on Facebook and Twitter.
Power Users Area
The first two sections are public facing and available to all users however we have another class of user who we also cater to; the Campaign Manager and Software Developer.
The Software Developer wants to develop against BiT and make use of some of the features I described last week. To do this they will create a myBlockpool account and then contact us to explain their needs. We have set this up to be a manual process deliberately so we can talk with every person and ensure they get the best solution for their needs. If your product fits well with existing BiT plug ins then we will allow you to access the API zone within myBlockpool where you can generate an API Key for your account which will then secure all your requests and allow you to gain the power of BiT within your application. For more information on this please visit our documentation here: https://github.com/blockpool-io/BiT/wiki
A less technical element is for a Campaign Manager. Each customer of myBlockpool and BiT Rewards will be able to set up multiple Reward Campaigns for their Organisation, and indeed One Little Indian did just this for Bjork. They were able to provide the copy, define the reward levels and regularity, and turn on and off different elements of the campaign instantly and quickly via our easy to use interface; it took less than five minutes for the Bjork Campaign to be initialised and live.
So why SHOULD I care?
So there you have it; a very quick overview of myBlockpool and the features it provides; interesting I’m sure but maybe it hasn’t answered the main question of this post: Why should you care?
myBlockpool aims to democratize the ownership of crypto currency, to demystify and simplify it for people who maybe have never even considered owning crypto currency, or have considered it and rejected the idea when they have seen the confusing interfaces offered by most Blockchain websites.
By also offering rewards via crypto currency, and opening up many more retail outlets to accept it, we also increase the utility of this niche product and bring it to the masses as something they can understand and use.
So if you have a small retail website (or even a huge one) and want to allow people to pay via cryptocurrency, or maybe you run a youth group and want to reward the kids for turning up without it being a huge bookkeeping task, it doesn’t have to be a risk for you anymore; just get in touch with us and we will show you just how easy it is to join the Crypto Currency Revolution.
