The sharing economy on the blockchain: the next step for Function X’s decentralized web

First published on the Pundi X Medium blog on November 29 2018.

When we unveiled the Function X blockchain to the world, we applied it first to telephony and messaging. The XPhone, and the first blockchain phone call, showed that we had a new protocol for communication that could take blockchain beyond the world of financial transfers.

But our aims have been broader than using blockchain for telephony and towards a new blockchain internet where ‘every bit and byte’ of data in the world can truly be decentralized.

Today we took a step into a new domain, for the XPhone and Function X.

At Consensus Invest 2018 our CEO, Zac, demonstrated how the XPhone and a decentralized application — DApp — published on Function X could change the terms on which industries operate.

Using a new DApp published on Function X, Zac hailed a New York City cabbie from midtown Manhattan to Central Park via a smart contract executed on Function X. The taxi order was both conducted and recorded on-chain and by-passing any ride-hailing service via XPhone.

“So far the use of decentralized applications has been disappointing. But what if there was a way to bring popular, existing apps onto a decentralized environment, without rebuilding everything?” Zac said. “What we want to show is how using smart contracts and decentralization we can cut out the middleman not just from financial transactions but for all kinds of services.”

“We all know that internet companies are deriving tremendous value from controlling data. But decentralizing apps can put this data onto smart contract and give control back to creators and to users.”

Until now, much of what we call peer-to-peer or ‘decentralized’ services continue to be built upon centralized networks.

We set out to change that with Function X; to disperse content now stored in the hands of the few; and to change services currently controlled by central interests.

As the ride-hailing DApp demonstrates, moving toward true decentralization empowers the providers of services not intermediaries. In the same way, the XPhone returns power to consumers over how their data is shared and with whom and in the same way that similar applications will empower content creators to say how their work is displayed and used.

Function X can re-engineer centralized structures. It’s an entirely new blockchain ecosystem for changing the way we talk, transact and interact.

There’s much more yet to come.