Problem
By the end of year 2018, it is very clear that “Blockchains are here to stay.” There have been many developments in this domain and enterprises are now actively researching on leveraging the benefits of Blockchain for improving their business.
Creating a token on a Blockchain Platform is relatively easy now. By abiding to the appropriate token standard we can easily create a token. For example, You can create an ERC20 Token on Ethereum platform.
At the time of writing this article, CoinMarketCap lists 2073 Cryptocurrencies. With big enterprises entering this space, this number is surely to increase in future.
Imagine having to own and utilize multiple cryptocurrencies/tokens. It is very difficult for a user to remember all these names and their use cases. Due to this, people might prefer using the fiat currencies and the whole purpose of using cryptocurrencies is defeated.
In this article, I attempt to solve this problem.
Motivation
During my vacation to India in August 2018, I wanted to purchase a book. Upon opening Amazon, due to my location I found the prices listed in “Indian Rupees”(India’s fiat currency) instead of US Dollars.
amazon.in(Amazon’s domain in India) list prices in Indian Rupees
amazon.com (Amazon’s domain in USA) list prices in US Dollars
Due to a change in my geographical location, there has been a change in the currency. By drawing analogous relation, what if the cryptocurrencies change automatically in a wallet based on the location of the service that is being used.
Eureka, I have found it!
Solution
Let us zoom into the future. Every corporation will be having their own tokens/coins. You might be required to buy:
- Coffee with “coffee coin” from a popular coffee shop.
- Sandwich with “sandwich coin” from a deli.
- Doughnut with “doughnut coin” from a popular doughnut shop.
For the sake of simplicity, let us assume that all these coins are built upon Ethereum blockchain platform. As a consumer, you have to purchase these coins and store them in your wallet.
Let me now explain the wallet design:
- As mentioned previously, you will be purchasing all these coins and storing them in the wallet.
- The moment you enter a coffee shop, with the help of the location of your mobile device/smartphone, the wallet will immediately “pop up” in the main screen of the application showing you the “coffee coin”. This means that you have to use this coin for the purchase in this shop.
- After having coffee, you might want to grab a sandwich from a deli. The moment you enter the deli, this wallet will sense the location based on the data received from GPS. Now “sandwich coin” will pop up in the main interface. This will help you know that you have to pay for your sandwich using this cryptocurrency.
- Now let us take another scenario in which you are in a cafeteria and all these shops are under a single roof. Then each brand will have an unique QR code. When this QR code is scanned from the wallet, the appropriate coin would pop up and you can seamlessly make the payment.
- There will be situations/times in which these recommendations might not be accurate. During such events, users can send a feedback detailing the error. This will help build a better recommendation system for cryptocurrencies.
Hence, we need not worry about remembering the list of cryptocurrencies in our portfolio. Such applications will improve the user experience and appeal to a wider user base.
Only by making cryptocurrencies simpler to use, will Crypto ever achieve mainstream success.
Towards a safe bright future, cheers!
The following quote motivated me to write this article:
“When it comes to raising kids, you have got to be futuristic.”~EMMAY
Thank you for reading my article.
Note:This article comes under research work done at Wright State University’s SMART Lab under the guidance of Dr. Yong Pei.
Wright State University: https://www.wright.edu/ Department of Computer Science and Engineering : https://www.wright.edu/degrees-and-programs/profile/computer-science Dr. Yong Pei : https://people.wright.edu/yong.pei
If you have any questions, please feel free to send me an email. You can also contact me via Linkedin. You can also follow me on Twitter.
In order to get started with Blockchain read my article published on Hackernoon.