My Top 3 Blockchain Projects
Cryptocurrencies are gradually moving towards a new generation of how transaction can make a real impact in current societies. In today’s post, I want to share with you my three favourite crypto projects and why I am inspired by them.
These are the projects:
- Lev Market Pilot Study
- Risidio Auctions
- The Fabricant
1. Bancor- Lev Market Pilot Study
Galia Benartzi is the co- founder of Bancor. The Bancor Protocol Foundation promotes the development and the use of smart tokens through their smart contracts. Galia mentioned in a talk that ‘money is a story’, that humans have created value and meaning through money. In order to take this a step further and create a positive step for communities, Galia wanted to redesign the way people percieve and share the value of money on blockchain based assets, using tokens. Tokens are an incentive to encourage collective activity through community transactions, using the cryptocurrency ‘Hearts’. This is known as the Lev Market pilot study conducted in Israel (2017).
In order to fund the study, Bancor raised $153 million through an Initial Coin Offering (ICO). The aim of the study was marketed in helping mothers as well as their families to use the cryptocurrency Hearts, to purchase foods and services in a trusted marketplace. To encourage mothers to participate in the pilot study, mothers would receive a Heart for joining, , referring other women into the network and for contributing in equity to the community. The responsibilities mothers did in helping each other within the community included selling their own goods, volunteer in schools, help after school programmes, tutoring children or babysitting through payments of Hearts.
The result of this pilot study found out that under a year, mothers performed over $24 million work of transactions in Heart. The success of Hearts transactions was because mothers from low income background did not have to use their own physical money. They found out that the currency used in Israel- Shekels would be spent on food, gas, rent, school fees and other liabilities. However, when Hearts was introduced, mothers did not have to spend Shekel but rather collaborated with each other as a community. Galia called this ‘Human Freedom’ changing the way transactions and currencies can be used for the greater good.
This study is highly inspirational to me, it shows the potential in the way tokens can be used within communities through collaboration and what blockchain technologies can bring to society, in particular for low- income backgrounds that helps to create a network for social impact and how technology can be used in ethical and meaningful ways.
2. Risidio – Risidio Auctions - Digital Collectibles On Stacks 2.0
Having been part of the Risidio team as an Education researcher, this project has taught me the limitless boundaries of emerging technologies and the various applications of how blockchain can be utilised. This project has given me the insight of online auctions and the development of a marketplace for digital collectibles building on Stacks 2.0 network and Clarity smart contract as part of the decentralised web.
When I first heard of the term ‘non-fungible tokens’ (NFT)-the cryptographic token, I didn’t understand it at first. After some research, the easiest way for me to understand this was the similarity of limited edition Pokémon Cards. That NFT is the digital version for collectables, and that we have ownership of the digital art that can be sold in a marketplace. I had the opportunity to try to understand this more and experimented with Loopbomb- risidio’s digital collectible app. This taught me that artwork can be utilised in this way with blockchain applications.
For me, someone from a non-tech background and being part of Mike Cohen's team, it has been truly inspirational to observe from behind-the-scenes of a product being developed, the time and stages of progress has been enlightening, as well as being introduced to blockchain and Blockstack. This project has shown me the gradual direction of Web 3.0 and that the creativity of digital art does not have to be physical to be valuable but its applying real life world of auctioning, bidding and market place into the digital world. This is extending beyond transactions with blockchain applications between sellers and buyers developing the new generation of the Web.
3. The Fabricant
Following on from Digital Art, another project I follow is called ‘The Fabricant’. The Fabricant is a digital fashion house that contributes to combatting fast fashion using 3-D design software. When I first encountered this crypto project, I was confused to why would anyone want to purchase digital clothing- something that you could not wear to go outside. With further research, I found out that someone purchased a digital garment for 9,500 euros in cryptocurrency.
Then I realised that this project goes beyond the physical realm, rather a positive social impact for environmental concerns. Kerry Murphy, the founder of The Fabricant mentioned that he wants fashion to be more open, rather than secretive and encourages the fashion industry to share ideas about designs and that’s the morale of decentralisation. This is the reason I follow this project, because it is an example of how disruptive technologies can be applicable in changing the future of fashion, but also the variation of blockchain applications. In particular, the impact in how the crypto space can be catalysed in a meaningful positive way addressing societal issues.
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