The shared economy shares a ton of labor earnings with intermediaries like Uber and Airbnb . $ 38 million funded by Origin wants the next large bilateral market to be decentralized in the block chain so that drivers, riders or hosts and guests can connect directly and avoid high fees that can go up to 20 percent or more . So today, Origin launches its decentralized market protocol in Ethererum's core network that replaces a core business that connects users and suppliers with a smart contract.
"Markets do not redistribute the profits they earn to members, they join founders and venture capitalists," Matt Liu, co-founder of Origin, who was the third product manager on YouTube. "By building these decentralized markets , we want them to be equal, not from company to corporate monopoly. "When people make transactions through Origin, they plan to issue them cards that will allow them to participate in the governance of the protocol, and could encourage them to enter these markets early and convince others to use them.
The internal market of Origin, DApp
Today's mainnet beta network sees Origin offering its own basic decentralized application that works like a Craigslist in the blockchain Users can create profiles, connect their ethereal wallet through services such as MetaMask, consult lists of products and services, send messages each other to organize transactions through smart contracts without additional charges, leave comments and appeal to Origin's internal arbitrators.
Eventually, with the Origin protocol, developers can quickly build their own secondary markets for specific services like walking dogs, cleaning houses, sharing rides and more. These developers may choose to charge fees, although Origin expects the cost savings from its blockchain platform to allow them to undermine non-blockchain services. And suppliers can offer a commission to any market that matches / sell their listing.
It may be years before the necessary infrastructure such as login systems and simple portfolios make it easy for developers and general users to build and adopt DApps based in Origin. But it has a lot of clues thanks to $ 3 million in Pantera Capital chip sale funds, $ 6.6 million raised through a Coinlist chip sale, plus $ 26.4 million in traditional Pantera Capital risk funds , Capital Foundation, Garry Tan, Alexis Ohanian, Gil Penchina, Kamal Ravikant, Steve Jang and Randall Kaplan.
"Markets are the core of what makes the Internet so valuable and useful, and the Origin team has one of the most promising blockchain platforms for the new exchange economy, with the currency baked in. this could be really disruptive (and one of the best uses of the ethereum blockchain) "says Ohanian, the co-founder of Reddit and Initialized Capital.
Liu and co Josh Fraser, Founder, came up with the idea after trying to imagine the after effects of Ethereum, Liu recalls thinking: "What would happen if we could replace dozens of multimillion-dollar and multi-billion dollar companies with open source protocols that are not owned or controlled by anyone? "
Origin co-founders (from left to right)): Matthew Liu and Josh Fraser
So, why will markets want to build on Origin instead of creating their own blo ckchain or traditional patented system? Fraser tells me that smart contracts can save money, but that "these individual pieces are incredibly difficult to build", so he sees Origin as "analogous to Stripe: able to abstract all the friction of building in the block chain" . 40 markets have already signed letters of intent to build on the protocol.
If the Source reaches a critical mass, it could also benefit from the concept of shared network effect. Users only have to register once, and then they can interact with any market based on Origin. That means that the new markets that are built into the protocol instantly have a registered user base.
However, Origin will face some difficult challenges. There will be a problem with the egg and hen that the first markets are registered before there are users on their autonomous identity platform, or that users participate when there is little to do. Liu admits that the moment is the biggest threat to the startup. " We believe that decentralized markets are inevitable, but many smart people seem to think we are too early and that we should focus on building lower-level infrastructure instead," the co-founder says. For us, we prefer to be too early than too late. "
There is also the problem of letting actors in a capitalist system treat each other without centralized authority If a Uber driver treats you terribly, you can complain and get kicked out of the platform.Even with the Origin review system, system abusers can continue to operate.It is easy to imagine that your arbitration service will be completely overwhelmed by disputes. He made some important hirings to face these challenges, among them, Yu Pan, who says that he was co-founder of PayPal, former head of engineering of NYC in Cuong Du, and F ranck Chastagnol who previously, the engineering teams led by Paypal, YouTube, Google and Dropbox.
Origin's success is reduced to ease of use, its average Uber driver or host n Airbnb is not an expert in blockchain. They sell through those applications because it's easy. These centralized organizations are also highly incentivized to carry out transactions quickly and without complications, in a prohibited manner when eliminating tariffs. Origin will have to make effectively disappear the aspects of the block chain of its service so that all users and providers know that they pay less or earn more.