Blockchain Transparency: Built for the Sharing Economy

Blockchain was originally created for transferring financial value. But soon many sectors will employ it to enhance the value of business models.

Part one of our series Discovering a Shared Purpose Through Blockchain

First, a little about networks. Mainly, that networks are everywhere, and without them, there is no modern economy. Every business, government agency, and social circle has relied on networks. Physical, virtual and social networks have become central to everything we do. We share information, create relationships, and transfer value and funds. For many years now, these digital interactions have been transferred through centralized networks, hidden from the public.

That includes the platform economies of businesses such as Google, Facebook, and Airbnb. These businesses point to the power of the network, or specifically, network laws. Due to powerful network effects these platforms become de facto monopolies whose value is created not from products, but from the network itself, i.e., customers creating value with and for each other.

Blockchain and Sharing Networks

The question “Do you need blockchain?” is now “How can blockchain enhance your business model?”

Of course, there’s a new idea that could transform this model of network companies, and even change the laws and ways we understand and govern global networked marketplaces. That, of course, is blockchain. While it is a network, specifically a distributed ledger of peer-to-peer network interactions, it is also, most importantly, a “readable” ledger.

The “Readable” Ledger

Blockchain will undoubtedly transform many, many industries, and in the not-too-distant future, blockchain will come to the sharing economy. Blockchain will help these companies evolve into managing not only physical resources, but will also to validate and manage the information on these important networks.

Unfortunately, older blockchains such as Bitcoin and Ethereum are limited by their purpose (financial transactions and smart contracts) as well as transactions per second (8tps and 24tps).

EOS, on the other hand, is built to handle these powerful network effects. While EOS could theoretically handle every click on a network such as Facebook, it is not ready for this. But, it can already handle 4,000 TPS and many suggest it could reach 10,000 TPS by year end. Which is already more than enough to decentralize some of the most important platform data into the open ledger.

We think, at the beginning, it is not necessary to decentralize every single data point to build the right user experience and a collaborative networked economy.

Here’s are two use cases, where we think it’s important to begin.

First, it is important that metrics describing the main transfer on the platform of these networks are decentralized and transparent. There are two important new concepts to know: the core interactions and the shared purpose. For example, in an Airbnb-like network, the “core interaction” is the transfer of an apartment between hosts and guests and decentralizing this performance data makes sense. The “shared purpose” is the minimum value transfer that must be exchanged. This includes things like cost effectiveness, cleanliness, time management and others.

When you think about it, startups and networks are simply matter and energy, combined — and ensuring the shared purpose of the core interaction is progressive, not destructive, will prevent platform entropy. The Dapps that decentralize these performance metrics and deliver on a network’s shared purpose will build strong network effects. But the open ledger will also prevent them from aggressively maximizing profits at the expense of the declining metrics.

Secondly, decentralizing the information about the these important networks can prevent and solve many problems. Stakeholders will be able to study the effectiveness of Dapps policies, smart contracts, and various payment protocols on the value transfers. This pushes data insights, learning, and collaboration to the edges of the organization, while increasing knowledge about the ecosystem and making it more abundant and even increasing common understandings. With the P2P commons of the sharing economy, we are likely to enter into a more Collaborative Networked Economy.

Collaborative Efforts

To engage a global audience, a sharing economy Dapp will still require a strong business model and well-defined solution to a global problem. Only then can blockchain be used to enhance the business model. With the transparency of blockchain and the incentives of network tokens, a sharing economy platform can support co-creation in an entirely new way.

Co-creation, or collaboration, is key to building successful networks, communities, and ventures. As explained by Seapoint Center, collaboration is not the same as teamwork or cooperation. Collaboration is truly a collective effort to build something new. It works with a distributed team as long as everyone interdependently is focused on a well-defined “shared purpose” of the business. When this happens, you get strong network effects.

Instead of optimizing traditional formal education, we will facilitate a networked economy that will empower people to collectively create new pathways to employment through non-formal education.

By supporting the world’s leading and emerging training programs, and enabling a collaborative environment in non-formal education, we are confidently looking at a future with a smaller global knowledge and skills gap. The transparency of the readable ledger guarantees that our mission and core purpose will be more than words. It will be actions.

Non-formal education is a way to build the professional networks that you need to launch your career. Check us out at https://tapyournetwork.com/

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