Blockchained
Making reviews trustworthy
New Zealand tech experts are leading a launch for the internet’s first ever blockchain platform for online ratings, where good reviewers could be paid in a new kind of cryptocurrency.
Several Kiwi tech heavy-hitters have been involved in the platform’s development including NZTech chief executive Leigh Flounders, NZTech and FintechNZ chair Mitchell Pham.
Also involved is Greg Kushnir, known for his role in the early development of worldwide messaging app, Viber.
The platform is called Lina.review, and Pham said using blockchain would mean all interactions and payments between reviewer and reviewee were replicated on every server using the Lina platform.
That was the answer for several problems online reviewing culture faced.
‘‘The industry is currently not at all transparent about ratings that are contributed about a business so we actually don’t know if reviewers have been paid to write good reviews.’’
Pham said there have been issues in the online reviewing business, such as when businesses paid to have bad reviews removed or hidden, that a blockchain system could solve.
He also said a cryptocurrency incentive would sustain quality reviewers on a site.
The global initiative also involved Kiwi company Blockchain Lab NZ co-founders Paul Salisbury and Mark Pascall as technical advisors.
Blockchain Lab NZ has previously helped raise over US$300m (NZ$410m) via initial coin offerings, or ICOs.
ICOs have become a popular way for a company to raise real world money. By creating its own cryptocurrency and selling it to investors, Lina.review raises real world money from those buying the coins.
Pascall said the team behind Lina was pretty confident about raising US$150m (NZ$205m) through its ICO.
Two-thirds of the currency will be locked in smart contracts and released over the course of 10 years.
The company has no plans to mine any more beyond the initial 900 million coins mined earlier this week in Geneva. What is left of the remaining third of the currency will become available on public exchanges in April.
Pham said he did not see companies like Yelp or TripAdvisor as competition, but hoped they would adopt the blockchain platform.
However, a TripAdvisor spokeswoman said the company was already ‘‘very effective at maintaining the integrity of the reviews’’ on the site.
She said that the company had shut down more than 60 ‘‘optimisation companies’’ since 2015.
In May 2016, Yelp, US’s leading restaurant and service review website, issued 59 notice warnings to consumers about businesses paying for better reviews.
Issues with trust, accountability and traceability are pillars for which blockchain has been heralded as the silver bullet, but there are still issues that are getting lost in the hype, one IT executive says.
Managing director of Catalyst IT, Don Christie, said he had concerns
Afterpay Touch shares are at a record high after the-buynow-pay later service revealed its underlying annual sales are on track to reach more than A$2 billion (NZ$2.19b) and flagged a potential foray into the US.
In the three months to December 31, Afterpay’s underlying quarterly sales hit A$551 million, up from A$367 million the previous quarter.
Sales for the first half of the current financial year were A$918 million, Afterpay said on Tuesday.
Afterpay Touch also announced was it was exploring expansion into the US market.
Lina was ''looking for ways to use blockchain to improve the levels of trust we have in our interactions with other actors on the internet''. Don Christie
blockchain weas being applied randomly as a universal remedy to issues around identity and security, some of which could be solved in more straightforward
The company’s shares closed up 16.9 per cent at A$7.62, the highest level since the company listed on the ASX in June last year at A$2.50.
Afterpay is rapidly growing its customer base, which in New Zealand includes TradeMe. Customers grew to more than 1.5 million by the end of second quarter FY18, an increase of 400,000 on the previous three months.
It has also lifted its number of merchants to 11,500, from 8,700 the prior quarter.
‘‘The market dynamics that provided the opportunity for Afterpay’s launch and rapid growth profile in Australia and New Zealand appear just as prevalent in the United
ways.
‘‘There are still many technological issues around blockchain that still need resolving, not least the one about the extraordinary levels of computer power required.’’
Digiconomist.net’s Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index estimated the annual cost of the electricity used to mine bitcoin was about $2 billion, roughly the same amount of energy the country of Hungary consumes in a year.
But for Christie, Lina.review didn’t fall under the category of businesses using the technology unnecessarily.
In fact, he took his hat off to the States,’’ the company said.
‘‘These dynamics relate to a number of macro factors including the retail culture and growth of online commerce, as well as millennial trends in relation to lifestyle, shopping, finance and payments.’’
Afterpay pays the retailer for a purchase, and the customer pays fortnightly instalments to Afterpay, with the benefit of no interest payments or up-front fees for up to 56 days.
Afterpay is the largest but not the only service of its kind in Australia, with Zip Pay, Ezypay and zipMoney among other buy now-pay later platforms in the market.
Lina team who were ‘‘looking for ways to use blockchain to improve the levels of trust we have in our interactions with other actors on the internet, whether those are machines or actual people’’.
‘‘They are thought leaders willing to push the boundaries.’’
Christie predicts the technology will eventually fade into the background of tech.
‘‘My view is that blockchain, or something like it, will simply become a somewhat useful part of the underlying infrastructure of the internet and we will stop talking about it breathlessly as though it will solve all the problems of electronic life as we know it.’’