OST & Travala 101
Founder and CEO of OST, Jason Goldberg reached out to Matthew Aaron to discuss all things OST with the Crypto 101 audience and community.
What is Simple Token (OST)?
In early 2016 the ideas and needs around the Simple Token were being formed. It is essentially a protocol for creating brand tokens or digital currencies.
“The idea we had from the beginning was to create a currency for influencers to be able to earn money by providing good tips and reviews, top ten lists, itineraries.”
This idea was bubbling away even within with Jason’s former companies as he worked with and for big brands who were trying to provide native transaction solutions.
“There was a need not to just tokenise one app but to build the tools to help any mainstream application [to] launch a branded cryptocurrency [for] their users. So we immediately pivoted our entire business.
A few weeks ago the OST Platform was launched.
Which Platform?
OST is an ERC-20 token but the OST-built brand name tokens are operated on sidechains. They minted a token in October in 2017, running a token sale from mid-November. The platform uses OST tokens for staking. You stake OST on the platform to be able to mint branded currencies. OST is also used as gas on the sidechains, much like ETH and NEO-GAS does.
Who is Jason Goldberg?
46-year-old American entrepreneur living in Berlin, Germany. Simple Token is Jason’s 7th company — so he has been around the block a few times. Many of the same team members of older products have stuck with Jason through his journey and are working on Simple Token with him now. Jason and the team specialise mostly in design and e-commerce.
Crypto 101 Branded Currency?
Matthew seemed pretty keen to mint our very own Crypto 101 currency, stay tuned for further developments!
CEO of Travala, Matt Luczynski also sat down to have a chat with Matthew Aaron to talk about his project that allows consumers to purchase accomodation at their favourite hotels using cryptocurrency.
What is Travala?
“Travala is a global travel booking marketplace that essentially provides hotel bookings to anybody. Anybody means anybody with any kind of asset.”
Travala is part-centralised, the transactions with the hotel and accommodation providers are not settled on a blockchain. However the platform does have a native token (AVA) that does operate smart contracts to validate and settle customer transactions in house. Bookings and actions are settled and stored on the blockchain.
Travala also accept AVA tokens for payment from clients. Additionally, customers are incentivised to HODL AVA as there are cash-back rewards for clients who book on their platform. these cash-backs are paid out in AVA — thus adding value to the token and incentivising the platform.
Why Crypto?
“One reason is, we see the growth in the market. We’ve seen it already. We only see this growing. All the statistics are showing that cryptocurrency is going to be used more and more and more. In the future, cryptocurrency will be cheaper than traditional fiat currency. It currently costs us 2% less to take a cryptocurrency transaction and pay our supplier in fiat currency than it does to take a fiat payment and pay our supplier.”
The AVA token is built atop the NEO protocall, they are a NEP-5 token.
Why NEO?
“There has been a few glitches in the past, but there has been that with every blockchain right now. Everything is new. But it is moving together we are really happy with it and most other players in the industry feels the same as well… The scalability of Ethereum is an issue. While we are expecting Ethereum to scale, we are expecting NEO to scale even further. Also the NEO community is very big and very active. It allowed us to gain a lot more exposure a lot quicker than it would if we did it on Ethereum for example.
Who is Matt Luczynski?
At only 22, Matt was travelling the world when he met up with his soon-to-be co-founder, a marketing director of a cruising company. Some of Matt’s friends were into Bitcoin, even mining it on some occasions. Travala was born soon after as the two discussed what could be possible with payment solutions for travel accomodation and experiences.
Be sure to check out Travala and perhaps even book your next trip.
Also, check out the podcast.
