Kyoto Startup LCNEM’s “Ticket Peer to Peer” Uses Blockchain to Stop Ticket Resales
LCNEM, a startup company in Kyoto University, released a ticket issuance management service called “Ticket Peer to Peer” with a function to prevent the reselling of tickets using a public blockchain. Public blockchains will be used not for remittance and games, but for managing tickets. The new mechanism is simple, but clever.
The mechanism of resale prevention, which is its biggest feature, will be described later. The salient points will be explained first. “Ticket Peer to Peer” is a service that can issue tickets for events, and is made as a SaaS-type cloud service with the public blockchain of the virtual currency NEM as the back end. It also has a mechanism to scan tickets by reading the QR code at event venues.
The profit model is a usage fee model. 50 yen($ 0.44 ) per ticket is paid to the service side. Payments can be made with credit cards. Supported browsers include Chrome, Edge, and Opera.
Application procedures are not particularly necessary to issue tickets, and the process can be completed with minimal operation on the website. Since a Google account is used to sign into the service, as long as one has a Google account (which many internet users have), a few clicks are all that’s needed. The organizer embeds the code into the event website to get things running. A document detailing the steps necessary to embed into the website has also been released.
Ticket Peer to Peer is being used on the reception page of the October 21, 2018 event “BlockChainJam2018.” Yu Kimura (CEO and CTO) of LCNEM said, “I want this to be used openly by everyone.”
Users are also provided with the benefit of being able to complete applications on the website without being transferred to other pages.
Application of Tamper-proof Blockchain Technology to Stop Ticket Resales
The greatest feature of the Ticket Peer to Peer service is its mechanism of resale prevention that applies NEM ‘s public blockchain. The mechanism is explained below.
First, the “address” on the blockchain plays the role of a single ticket. A unique address is issued for each ticket that is issued.
Blockchain makes it possible to know whether transactions on the blockchain (similar to remittance processing) are received at each address. The ticket with no transaction is “valid,” and the ticket with a transaction is deemed “invalid.” For example, when a ticket’s QR code is read at the event venue, a transaction is sent to the address of the ticket, making it “invalid.”
Likewise, if someone finds a ticket being resold, sending a transaction to the address of the ticket on the NEM blockchain (this is an operation that anyone with a NEM wallet can do), will make the ticket invalid. In other words, you can report and invalidate the ticket simultaneously. Furthermore, the person reporting and invalidating the ticket can also be recorded on the blockchain in a form that cannot be tampered with. In other words, the data is recorded in a way that allows no objections.
A reward in the form of a remuneration on the blockchain of the first discoverer of a resale is given as an incentive for reporting. Since it is possible to send a reward only to the first informant of each ticket resale, abuse or objections regarding reporting should not happen. The amount of compensation sent to the informant is out of the scope of the service, and is at the event organizer’s discretion.
A mosaic (token) of the cryptocurrency NEM is remitted as an incentive for reporting. For example, you can send a token (XEM) of the currency NEM, or you can send an “LCNEM Stable Coin” (contents will be described later), which is linked with the Japanese yen.
LCNME is a startup company established in March 2018 by Yu Kimura, who is currently a student at the faculty of economics at Kyoto University. He has created unique products such as “LCNEM Wallet,” which is a wallet app for the cryptocurrency NEM that can easily be set up if you have a Google Account, as well as “LCNEM Stable Coin,” which fluctuates with the Japanese yen and US dollar and can be sent or received through NEM wallets.
Regarding the legal status of LCNEM Stable Coins, although it uses public blockchains, the preliminary confirmation procedure (no action letter) to the FSA does not make it a legal cryptocurrency. Instead, its status is confirmed as a “prepaid payment method.” In other words, it can be issued without a cryptocurrency exchange operator license, which has become very difficult to acquire these days.
LCNEM also has a business alliance with PoliPoli, which is aiming for political media x token economy, and is providing technical support. PoliPoli is a start-up that was created by students in Keio University.
The UI of the LCNEM services that were created by students look unfriendly at this stage, but the simplicity, wisdom, and newness of the ideas are drawing attention. It is exciting to see what services will be created by the “native generation” of blockchain.
