airproof: blockchain security for your stay at a private rental.

I am happy — and a bit proud — to announce that the first app out of chain.ventures is now live. Please welcome airproof!

Airproof is a blockchain-powered app with real use for real people. It might even be the first app using blockchain technology that has a tightly defined use case (outside of trading and financial transactions) and is targeted towards normal people. You don’t have to be a nerd to use airproof, you only have to have an android phone. Want to try it out now? Here’s the direct link to the Google Play Store. Want to learn more? Here goes!

Airproof is your (free) insurance when checking out of a private rental like airbnb, wimdu and the likes. Most often, there is no one to do a handover, and you are dealing with amateurs (private “landlords”, not commercial organizations).

So there is always the potential of minor (and major) trouble afterwards. The internet is full of it: Landlord claims the kitchen was ruined. Or that you have broken a window, even. It is always the same situation: You were told to just leave the key and pull the door shut. Then the trouble starts.

But now you have airproof. Now, you simply take an airproof video of the apartment just as you are leaving. Go through, show everything — maybe even open up the cupboards in the kitchen to show all equipment is still there. That’s it! Other than a regular video, airproof now takes a digital fingerprint of your video and stores this fingerprint, together with a timestamp, in the Bitcoin Blockchain. That way you get two things:

• You get proof that the video on your device has existed at the time when you were leaving the apartment.
• You get proof that the video on your device is exactly the video that was taken when the timestamp was made.

btw: the airproof app only allows you to take new videos, so that no user can try to upload an old video and fake the whole thing. If you want to know more about the technical background of the airproof app, read on here.

Now, if an owner contacts you and wants to claim damages, you have your airproof. And unless the owner is willing to go to court, we are confident that his or her groundless claims will most likely disappear.

Florian Hollender is COO at chain.ventures, the makers of airproof.
He is also Director of the IoT Practice at LSP Digital, a consulting boutique focussing on digital strategy and business building.