Vehicle Lifecycle Blockchain: changing for the better

The last month has been a busy one for team VLB, as we worked hard and accomplished a lot, just as promised. We come to the ICO, public presale of which begins on February 5, with bells on: the project’s architecture and technology concepts were updated, the “tokenomics” reimagined and revamped, by which we mean the project’s economic expediency for various parties and the roles available to them.

But let us start at the very beginning. We have substantially reduced the soft cap (which now equals $4 mln) and hard cap ($12 mln) — and the money raised in the ICO (round A) will be only used for blockchain development. Our roadmap envisions the release of VLB alpha and beta versions (basically, a testnet for auto industry participants) in the second half of 2018.

We defer the global expansion of the Vehicle Lifecycle Blockchain and all the associated activities to the subsequent rounds of financing, rounds B and C, which is why we felt comfortable lowering the soft cap and hard cap for the moment. The funds raised in rounds B and C will be used to expand the project’s infrastructure to such a degree that could encompass the widest range and number of the market players (auto manufacturers, car owners, insurance companies, spare part vendors, the banking sector, car salesmen, etc.) and their respective regional markets, while the blockchain will be customized to the needs of each of such participants, and they will be provided with the relevant functionality and interface.

We are contemplating making rounds B and C private, offering the tokens to the institutional investors and automotive industry players who want to become a part of the blockchain. That will be decided in open discussion with you, our ICO participants, who are more than welcome to come out with your feedback regarding such proposal.

Altogether we will issue 175 mln tokens, of which 30 mln will be distributed in the course of round A (ICO), and 115 mln — in the course of rounds B and C that would be off limits to the public investors if we decide to go the private route. We’re currently weighing the option of placing such round B and C tokens under a special smart contract or in an escrow account in order to create proper “distance” and transparency between them and the VLB team.

30 million tokens (18% of the total amount issued) will be used to finance the network’s development: they will be transferred to initial VLB participants from the automotive industry to test the use cases within their business ecosystems in a pilot mode; and distributed in the course of a bounty campaign and given to our advisors. The VLB team will receive the rest of those tokens as an additional incentive, although we sincerely hope that the project will become so widely adopted by auto industry participants, that there won’t be any tokens left — and that will surely be the best incentive.

Now, let’s talk in greater detail about the fundamental changes in the Vehicle Lifecycle Blockchain.

Expanding the circle of blockchain participants from the very start

We strive for maximum decentralization from the very beginning: from the first stages of developing and testing the blockchain, we’ve been introducing functionality that will be capable of satisfying the needs of the greatest number of future participants, by processing a wider range of problems, while offering business solutions that can run on blockchain.

We plan that even during the test stages, the blockchain will be used by large automotive industry companies. Such participants will be given free access to blockchain, and will be able to test the technology during development stages to see how it fits with their needs, and give feedback, so that their requirements are taken into account in the system’s features and network elements. Working in this way, the first VLB network participants will have an advantage over the later adopters.

We are currently searching for such partners and negotiating with different companies. We do not limit our partnerships to one particular region or socio-economically similar countries, as we are interested in the business practices and use cases for our blockchain in different parts of the world, because this will allow us to consider a greater number of problems and offer a greater number of solutions. Having said that, we will take into account the regulatory and other legal aspects of the countries of our partners’ operations, and will adapt the functionality of VLB in the corresponding jurisdictions accordingly.

We will report on all the signed contracts and announce all of the new VLB partners so that on the ICO launch date the participants will be confident that the network will be sufficiently decentralized from the very start and will enjoy the widest possible use within the industry without bowing to any specific business interests.

VLB architecture and technology concepts

We gave a much greater consideration to the project’s technological architecture — and ended up with a more intricate structure that combines two types of a blockchain: a public, Ethereum-based one, and a private one — connected via payment channels. The private blockchain part of our common architecture will be will be developed by one of the world’s most prominent private blockchain developers — to be announced.

The network architecture can be seen on the picture below:

Such architecture allowed us to resolve a number of important problems concerning network scalability and security of commercially sensitive information’s storage on the blockchain shard by market competitors alike. Furthermore, the blockchain will permit public confirmation, verification and validation of the completeness and accuracy of data, meaning that a third party will be able to confirm that the data wasn’t corrupted.

All of the technical details can be found in the White Paper.

Tokenomics

With the help of economic incentives theories, we reviewed the value of using our blockchain for its participants.

Such mechanics allowed us to give a better definition to the rights and responsibilities of blockchain participants, dividing them into the following categories:

- Data Owner,

- Data Сontributor,

- Data Сonsumer.

Vehicle Lifecycle Blockchain stores the data either in public access and free of charge, or with private, fee-based access. The private data is stored with the Data Owners, who control and sell it, while the blockchain confirms its fullness and accuracy.

The cost of transactions and participant actions will be regulated by the market, as the participants will determine the price of their products/services in VLB tokens.

This will ensure that the price of tokens isn’t artificially inflated.

All changes to the project’s architecture and tokenomics are described in full detail in our White Paper.

Terms and conditions of Pre-sale and ICO