OST Community Heroes: From ICO Purchasers to Alpha Development
Meet Original ICO Purchasers Developing on OST
OST blockchain infrastructure empowers new economies.
This year, hundreds of developers from all over the world have participated in the first three waves of OST alpha, integrating early versions of OST blockchain technology into their websites and apps, while providing valuable feedback and informing our roadmap as we prepare the OST platform for widespread use.
From ICO Purchasers to Token Utility
Many of the developers participating in OST alphas have been with OST from the beginning, as participants in the Simple Token ICO last year. So far we have discovered more than a dozen ICO purchasers who are already developing on OST.
Today we are honored to turn the spotlight on four developers who purchased in the Simple Token ICO & have gone on to develop on OST. They are OST Community Heroes.
Daan van Tongeren, The Netherlands
Alpha Project: Quote Corporate Insurance Market / CIIS Coin
Daan, what made you participate in the OST ICO?
I honestly didn’t know that much about blockchain technology until somewhere in October 2017. Listening to Jason Calacanis’ podcast interview with Jason Goldberg, I learned about OST / Simple Token and the project’s ambitions. It got me excited and it made me dive into the rabbit hole of crypto. I found out later about 2000 other projects in crypto land, but I still think this is one of the best use cases for utility tokens to date.”
You’ve been with the Alpha program from the very beginning: Tell us about your project?
Before I dive in, here’s a question I like to ask: What is the best way to appreciate the added value of new technology? Try — Use — Iterate. This was my approach for the three Alpha challenges, coming from a market I know so well as a product owner: Corporate Business Insurance.
I created a sidechain powered by OST for different actors in this market, like brokers, insurers and policyholders. I came up with the idea to give incentives between the different actors and use these earned incentives (tokens) to either get a discount (Policyholder) or give an incentive to others so they deliver data in their format of choice (Broker to Insurer).
Circulating value between different actors would be impossible without tokens: The transaction costs would be too high, and we’d need a third-party payment processor.
OST recently published a four-year roadmap for the project: What are you most looking forward to?
By far the future iterations of the Wallet features and the many ways to exchange tokens into USD, cryptocurrencies or other Branded Tokens. I think most companies aren’t looking for complex explanations about private keys: We need understandable ways to use, change and transfer tokens. I think that will be the key to success on top of all the great things OST is working on. OST already proved that their technology is easy to integrate: that box is checked.
About Quote Corporate Insurance Market (CIIS Coin)
The CIIS application will enable organizations in the corporate Insurance market (insurers, policyholders, agency/brokers) to improve efficiency, loyalty and reduced premium for organizations and policyholders providing data quality and timely response by donating the branded token CIIS Read more >
Watch Daan’s Alpha III Video for CIIS Coin:
Jakub Weinfurt, Czech Republic
Alpha Project: Simple College Economy
What convinced you to participate in OST’s ICO, Jakub?
The project’s long-term vision is what won me over: If we want blockchain technology to be adopted by millions, if not billions of users all over the world, we must provide businesses with simple, easy-to-implement solutions that make life easier for its end-users. I believe that OST is one of the few projects out there that actually get it.
How did the Alpha program contribute to the development of Simple College Economy?
Alpha I gave us the opportunity to quickly mint our own branded token, which meant we no longer had to worry about doing an ICO at some point. Things really took a flight during Alpha II in April this year, as we could use OST APIs to make our platform “shake hands” with universities’ infrastructures, from their payment system in the cafeteria to their online shop.
We kind of built our own Wallet back then, but with the introduction of the OST Ledger and Balance APIs right before the third Alpha phase, we could finally allow end-users to review their transactions in real-time.
Last but not least, what excites you the most about OST’s future plans?
Definitely OpenST Mosaic: I can’t wait to see how OST will tackle Ethereum’s scalability issues. None of the flashy applications we’re developing will matter if we can’t solve Ethereum’s bottleneck. I’m looking forward to reading the OpenST Mosaic Whitepaper later this year!
About Simple College Economy
Simple College Economy is turning universities into ecosystems: Students lend money to their peers and buy/sell books on the university’s marketplace, while universities generate extra income through book sales and by tokenizing their cafeteria.
Read more >
Watch Jakub’s Alpha III Video for Simple College Economy:
Drew Falkman, United States
Alpha Project: DAOist
Drew, why did you participate in the OST ICO last year?
As a product manager, my opinion is that the main thing missing in crypto right now is product-market fit. I felt that OST was taking an approach that would make tokenization more approachable for the uninitiated. I was also impressed with the team and it was a well-constructed and organized ICO.
What can you tell us about your Alpha project?
DAO stands for Decentralized Autonomous Organization. DAOist started out as Vinzy, a DAO app for wineries, during the Alpha II phase. We quickly realized this is bigger than wineries: this DAO library could be used for any organization, formal or informal to organize, share ideas and stake tokens to execute on these ideas.
The way our system works is that “members” can register for the organization. They can receive tokens to register and can purchase additional tokens. These tokens can be used to confer trust onto other members by “liking” them (and thus transferring tokens to them).
The most critical aspect of our application is the use of ideas. An idea is an actionable unit of work that has a price (tokens or fiat money) and it can be executed. Building a website, launching a marketing plan, developing a feature — these are all actionable units of works, or ideas. Members can vote for ideas by staking their tokens against the concept. Once the value is reached, then the tokens can be released to the person who posted the idea to execute.
We already got really far during Alpha II, so the third Alpha challenge was really just about fine-tuning the existing concept, rebranding Vinzy to DAOist and, of course, integrating the Ledger and Balance APIs so that users can view their transaction histories.
What excites you the most about the recently released Roadmap?
The Branded Token Exchange, or BTEX, is really exciting! Especially the eventual goal of going from fiat to Branded Tokens. I also love the idea behind OpenST Mosaic and what that could mean for the ecosystem and all OST holders.
About DAOist
DAOist is a Dapp that can be set up by any organization — new or existing — and can solicit members to join. Any member can then buy tokens and can create an “idea”. An idea is something that the organization may want to pursue.
Watch Drew’s Alpha III Video for DAOist:
Tobias Flach, Switzerland
Alpha Project: OST Loyalty
Tell us what made you participate in the OST ICO last year, Tobias?
There were numerous ICOs that I evaluated at the time, but OST was the only project looking to rapidly onboard companies to the benefits of blockchain and tokenized ecosystems. This is what convinced me to participate. I believe their approach will help in driving the adoption of this nascent technology. Small Medium Enterprises especially do not have the knowledge and resources to create and run their own blockchains.
Using an existing token won’t cut it for most SMEs as they want something with their very own brand on it. Consumers, on the other hand, want to be flexible and free of company-dictated restraints. Obtaining “limited” loyalty points from different businesses is no longer attractive to end-users.
What’s your Alpha project all about?
As I strongly believe in point-based customer loyalty programs as a first major OST adoption driver, I created an e-commerce integration called “OST Loyalty”.
If a store owner installs this free add-on, customers can earn points (Branded Tokens) for every purchase they make. These points can then be redeemed for a discount on the next purchase. If a customer collects enough points, the Branded Tokens can even replace fiat payments. In addition, store-owners can create marketing promotions to incentivize customers (for example voucher codes to earn more tokens, added tokens when buying products from a promoted brand, etc.).
The possibilities are endless and only limited by the imagination of the shop owner!
Looking at the Roadmap, what features will be most important to you?
The OST Wallet is an important feature to make tokens usable by mainstream users. It allows them to keep track of their token balances and transactions across different token economies. Besides that, the most crucial feature I’m looking forward to is the Branded Token Exchange. As consumers don’t want to get “stuck” with their earned Branded Tokens, it is important that they can convert them to fiat money.
About OST Loyalty
OST Loyalty is an add-on for the e-commerce platform CS-Cart, allowing for a turn-key customer loyalty program based on branded tokens.
Watch Tobias’ Alpha III Video for OST Loyalty:
More than 90 teams from 50 countries recently successfully completed OST Alpha III integrations.
About OST
OST blockchain infrastructure empowers new economies. OST is a public blockchain platform designed for the needs of businesses with millions of users. Launch your own Branded Tokens with OST technology and turn your business into a dynamic ecosystem. OST is built on the OpenST Protocol, a framework for building highly scalable blockchain token economies. OST has offices in Berlin, New York, Hong Kong, and Pune. For more information, please visit: https://ost.com.
