Reebonz is a Singapore-based eCommerce platform for selling designer products such as handbags, shoes, and apparel. With a focus on the Asia-Pacific region, Reebonz carries over 1000 brands, has 6 million users, and sells both new (B2C) and used (consumer-to-consumer) products.
After announcing the signing of an MoU in Spring of 2019, luxury product platform Reebonz finally announced the progress on their PoC with VeChain. Reebonz is providing digital certificates with their products, making it easy to track and verify goods sold on the platform.
Reebonz has long been considered an innovative platform in the region, attracting customers with both online and offline stores, and providing high-quality products in an industry sorely lacking trust. In 2018, they sold US$88 million in luxury goods, making them one of the biggest platforms in the region.
“Building trust with our customers is one of our core values. Using cutting edge technologies and innovative measures, we hope to provide the first of its kind tracking and authentication tools for luxury products in Asia. We have evolved to a customer centric model, allowing anyone to buy and sell their luxury products through us in a seamless way. We are excited to use the blockchain technology and work with VeChain to solve one of the key global issues impacting our industry. The authentication of pre-owned luxury items using the blockchain is just one of many high impact innovations Reebonz is pioneering to improve the luxury shopping experience for customers across Asia Pacific.”
Reebonz’s CEO and co-founder, Samuel Lim
How does the solution work?
Luxury bag consumers are faced with a conundrum: expensive prices and high-build quality means that new purchases are a long-term commitment. Reebonz created their own consumer-to-consumer (C2C) market to allow users to easily buy and sell products, improving the resale value and increasing the frequency of transactions on the platform.
To ensure the authenticity, Reebonz tokenized the products, issuing a certificate that accompanies the purchase. This is important because Reebonz offers a sell-back guarantee, where users have the option of returning their purchases for credit towards future items, even after using it.
Within the Reebonz mobile app, users will be able to scan QR codes on the certificates directly, learning about the history of the product. Back in November, 50,000 products were tokenized as part of the initial PoC. Reebonz has plans to expand that aggressively as they move towards the first decentralized C2C luxury product platform verified by blockchain.
Reebonz, supported by VeChain GM Sarah Nabaa, presented their solution to Microsoft’s clients at a blockchain networking event sponsored by PwC in November.
Active Twitter users may have noticed @lunarcrush, an account trending on many of the popular VeChain feeds. LunarCRUSH compiles data from social media platforms, markets, and other community sites to create a real-time scoring indices. Showing which cryptocurrencies are being talked about is a potentially valuable metric for investors and projects trying to gauge demand. Ben Yorke sat down with Joe Vezzani, the founder and CEO of LunarCRUSH, to learn more…
BY: Thanks for joining us! How’s 2020 treating you so far?
JV: Wonderful. We started 2020 in the crypto-space with a major market rally. Even though I do not believe Bitcoin and crypto are perfect in their negative correlation – we have seen yet again an example when there is global unrest, the crypto markets rally. The main word to focus on is global. Cryptocurrency is extremely global and when investors think about this market, they have to be focused internationally. Personally at LunarCRUSH, we see well over 50% of our users come from outside the US.
BY: Interesting, that’s similar to VeChain, where many of our community come from Europe, Asia, and Australia. But anyways, let’s get started. I’m going to throw a few questions at you: How do you see users benefitting from LunarCRUSH? Can you shed some light on how the platform should be used? Who are the ideal users?
JV: I will start with the last question. Our ideal user is anyone who wants to learn more about how cryptocurrencies create value, and what makes them valuable. Right now for most of the retail market, cryptocurrencies are speculative investments. And everyday they become less speculative and move more into an established investment.
What we have identified at LunarCRUSH, is that unlike traditional stock markets, cryptocurrencies move more based on social supply and demand. We like to say, without a community, there is no crypto. We believe all cryptocurrency investors, new and old, should be focused on looking at the project’s community, and how it’s grown or shrunk over time. It’s an indicator you cannot ignore.
With that, a great place to start learning is to sign-up for LunarCRUSH and keep track of how social volume is trending over time. Social volume is the make-up of every unique metric across social media. Basically a unique volume of mentions across sites like Twitter, Reddit, Medium, Youtube. Places where the conversations are happening. Below is an example of what you can see on the platform:
Price vs. Social Volume – 3 Month Chart for VeChain
BY: Time to drop some knowledge on us. What industry insights have you been observing recently? How could we interpret this? JV: I will pick on Bitcoin a little for this one since it is the broadest of the coins with regards to market interest and knowledge. For those of us heavy in the industry, you need to get out and talk to people who are far away from the industry. Many people still only know Bitcoin and nothing else.
One thing we are seeing is an increase in retail interest. With the run up in the first half of 2019, we did not see the same level of retail interest. When the price of Bitcoin was hitting $12,000 at the beginning of August, mentions were maxing out at roughly 50,000/day. Today, as we speak, the daily mentions for Bitcoin has risen to above 80,000/day, and the price is about 30% less than we were in August. This indicates that retail investors are starting to gain interest again, and that’s a good thing for the crypto-space as a whole.
BY: Seeing as we are a VeChain community, are there any trends or insights you can share about the VET ranking? JV: We have truly enjoyed interacting and getting to know a lot of the veChain community. What a great group of passionate and engaged individuals working together as one.
In order to help investors access how a project is fairing against the rest of the market from a price and community perspective, we created the LunarCRUSH ALTRank™. The ALTRank™ combines price performance and social metrics to give investors an integrated look at how a project has grown and held value over time.
VeChain has not fallen out of the top 200 ALTRank™ since we developed the metric in 2019. We have another motto, “Not all Alt Coin’s are created equal.” And it is the reason we created the ranking. We wanted to understand how a coin’s community affected the value of the project. So far we have found the two to be highly correlated.
VeChain ALTRank™ over the last 3 months, never above 200
VeChain ALTRank™ over the last 7 days, never above 125
BY: How did you get into this industry? What made you decide to turn this into a website? Judging from the professional look of the platform, you’ve clearly done this kind of thing before… JV: Like anyone else who learned about cryptocurrency in what I like to call Phase II, 2013-2017, the technology was the perfect intersection between software and finance or technology and money. By solving the double-spend problem it made a new world possible. And if that does not fire you up, I don’t know what will.
I started my career in finance but moved away very quickly as I entered the market here in the US when the market was crashing. I always like to share the screenshot I took at my first job.
The day the bailout happened, I knew the system was broken. We had no choice at the time, which is actually a reinforcement for it’s brokenness.
I did not know how the market crash would affect my decisions later in life, but have always been curious during my career. Asking too many questions, challenging the “we did it like that last time” way of thinking. I felt it was important to gain experience in different sectors, working completely different jobs the entire way.
I’ve helped build a couple major pieces of software within the start-up space and for the Fortune 500 and gained insight along the way.
Even with my finance background, my true calling was always within software. It stemmed from gaming as a child. When playing the original Rainbow 6, if you wanted to be any good, you had to learn to speed up your CPU and create the lowest latency possible, even when you did not have all the tools. You had to be scrappy. There was teamwork involved and everyone was in a different place. It was fast and you had to make quick decisions. I honestly give my early gaming days the most credit when it comes to working in today’s decentralized marketplace.
As you transition those skills to the workforce, it’s important to learn how things are done differently, and why they may work in some cases and not in others. When you have a massive corporation, most of it is setup to protect the billions of dollars in sales and the nitch in the market. They are not setup to grow, innovate, and expand. That is okay though, our world does need economies of scale and big businesses. You cannot fly to the moon without them.
I have always worked well in a smaller and more nimble setting where I can connect with my team 1 on 1. Inspiration, creativity and big ideas come from small ultra-passionate groups of people who have learned to calm and control their ego.
When starting LunarCRUSH, that is exactly what we had. We wanted to solve a problem no one else was solving correctly. We had a small passionate group focused on customer experience and design. We believe we can bring transparency and confidence to the market.
VeChain’s Low Carbon Ecosystem is a WeChat Mini-App that rewards users for engaging in eco-friendly activities, such as walking or driving BYD’s line of electric vehicles. We introduced it a few months ago in this article.
January 9th – Chinese media portal ODaily (由星球日报) held their 2019 Blockchain Awards Ceremony. DNV GL and VeChain’s Low Carbon Ecosystem was the recipient of the award for the best “Blockchain Charity Event”, in recognition of their work in the previous year.
2019 “Finance and Technology” Blockchain Award for Best Charity Event
Last September, the Low Carbon Ecosystem partnered with Shanghai People’s Broadcasting Station (News 990) and multiple other municipal bureaus to bring school uniforms and supplies to rural areas of China. Local primary and middle schools throughout Shanghai donated the supplies, while donations through VeChain’s Low Carbon Mini-App went to cover the cost of shipping, transportation, and other logistical expenses.
Announced late in 2018, VeChain’s Low Carbon Ecosystem (DiTanHui in Chinese) has had a slow but methodical growth from concept to reality. Hindered by regulations on cryptocurrencies, VeChain is taking a conservative stance – one that can encourage large partners such as BYD and Renji Hospital to feel comfortable in this innovative new initiative. They are focusing on the transparency that blockchain can bring to charitable programs, especially for enterprises or NGOs. It appears VeChain is taking a measured approach based on bringing in more partners before trying to push the project to the mass consumers.
Users can earn points on a daily basis, and use those to either donate to charitable programs or put towards discounts in the Low Carbon Shop – a marketplace that is slowly adding products to attract new users.
While the project is still at a very early stage, progress is evident and the direction they are taking shows a logical decision to focus on growth and compliance in China. Blockchain-assisted poverty alleviation is a use case consistently mentioned by China’s government, giving VeChain and DNV GL an ethically and politically-sound platform to attract new partners – a move that should ensure the long-term success of the initiative. Recognition from media groups like ODaily is further confirmation that VeChain’s Low Carbon Ecosystem is on the right track.
For information on the San Marino-based Low Carbon Ecosystem, click here.
We often forget that in addition to producing VTHO and securing the network, VET has another major use: A digital currency. And while we’ve yet to really see people swapping VET for everyday goods, the reach of the VeChain ecosystem is constantly expanding, making that scenario more and more plausible.
This time, ecosystem partner Jur stole the spotlight, building secure commercial agreements that facilitate the flow of currency and procedures to purchase “off the plan” real estate. This allows property developers and construction companies to sell real estate in exchange for cryptocurrency, in a simplified, secure, and compliant manner.
What is buying off the plan? Buying off the plan is when you sign a contract to buy an apartment that is yet to be built. Without a physical property to inspect, buyers base their decision on plans and artistic renderings of how the apartment might look, in addition to information about the project and developer.
These properties aren’t going cheap, either. Located right off the beach in Limassol, Cyprus, these 55 luxury apartments are decked out with a VIP gourmet restaurant, roof-top residents lounge, business center, sparkling fresh water swimming pools and sun deck, world-class spa and sauna, fully-equipped fitness center and outdoor tennis courts. A simple one bedroom apartment is starting at just under €700K, while a 4 bedroom duplex is closer to €7 million.
Artist rendering of the Dream Tower in Cyprus
Convincing potential buyers to use VET might not be easy, but as an added incentive, the sellers are offering a 5% discount for those that do. That is quite substantial when you consider the high cost of one of these seaside flats.
Jur is going to play an important role in developing a complete legal vertical on VeChain’s infrastructure. These secure commercial agreements (SCAs) will automate a number of large professional applications, such as the real estate scenario we’ve seen here. This isn’t as easy as it sounds – Jur had to do a ton of work ensuring that the development company had the correct procedure to legally accommodate overseas buyers. It’s worth noting that in Cyprus and other areas receiving a high level of tourist traffic, overseas buyers make up a large percentage of overall purchases. The result is that Jur’s automated solution can save a lot of time, and give developers a lot more options, expanding the potential market on the international stage. With that in mind, it’s safe to suggest that the SCAs won’t end when the final Dream Tower property is sold – this can be replicated all over the globe.
Artist rendering of inside a Dream Tower apartment
And while the JUR token isn’t the primary focus of the exchange, law firms interested in working with Jur on SCAs and commercial standards will need to be a Jur Status holder – a hybrid staking model that was announced at the OceanEx Meetup in Europe last year. We are expecting an updated announcement on that early in Q1 of 2020, so stay tuned for that. These SCA deals can be extremely lucrative for law firms, and as a a first-mover in the blockchain legaltech space, Jur is in a good position to garner an abundance of professional interest.
Regardless of the outcome, this is another remarkable feat for the VeChain ecosystem, as they continue to knock down barriers into uncharted commercial use cases. With capable partners like Jur building alongside – 2020 is promising to be an eye-opening year for the entire ecosystem.
Baidu made headlines briefly during the week with the announcement of their new blockchain platform – named Xuperchain (Superchain, in Chinese). Baidu, China’s most dominant search engine, comes in at #50 on Forbes’ Top 100 Digital Company Ranking and boasts close to 200 million daily active users, despite their recent struggles. They follow a string of high-profile companies launching blockchain platforms, including Tencent, JD.com, and Facebook.
The Xuperchain website displayed some impressive stats, including the fact that since being open-sourced in the Spring of 2018, it has had 3.5 million users and 450 million transactions. It listed having multiple consensus algorithms, led by Delegated Proof of Stake (DPOS) and smart contracts written in either Solidity or Go. It also boasted of having main chains, parallel chains, side chains, and DAG capabilities with a max TPS of 20,000 transactions per second. What’s not to like?
Too good to be true?
And while the well-researched Redditors on r/Neo were commiserating the impending doom of public blockchain projects in China, we were left wondering what the actual impact of this announcement was? Considering this is a company whose stock price is over 50% down from its peak of $284 in May of 2018, there were many question marks surrounding the announcement. Speaking with three blockchain experts in China, we gained some valuable insights.
One smart contract developer working in Beijing noted that this “announcement” was par for the course considering China’s recent heavy approach to blockchain technology. He reminded us that companies like Alibaba, Huawei, and many others were scrambling over themselves to announce blockchain platforms in the wake of President Xi’s big announcement back in October. This isn’t a phenomenon unique to blockchain – it happens with AI, 5G, and every other emerging technology that shows promise. And while these companies have incredible amounts of resources at their disposal, they lack the focus and priority that a smaller, more agile company might possess.
A second expert, heavily involved in the Shanghai blockchain scene, was even more unimpressed. He hadn’t even taken the time to pay close attention to the announcement, seeing as how every large existing tech company in China had registered a blockchain-as-a-service platform, with little real world adoption to show for it. He suggested that the media fanfare that accompanied this was due to some high-profile media sources picking up the story, likely in an attempt to further impress pro-blockchain leadership.
A third and final expert, also a blockchain developer, was more complimentary of the progress the tech team had made when scrutinizing the documentation. In particular, he credited the team for improving the UTXO and database protocols that helped to speed up the blockchain. Still, announcing a blockchain project has never been the hard part, as evident from the estimated 32,000 registered Chinese companies using the word “blockchain” according to a CCTV report in November of 2019.
Unrealistic Goals for China’s Tech Giants
So what can we make of all this? Certainly, Baidu could pose a competitive threat to companies like VeChain in China, where Baidu’s influence and name recognition allow them to target top developers and big name partners. But in reality, these tech giants rarely miss an opportunity to make a headline: Let’s not forget Baidu going full-force at a number of new industries, including the short-lived Baidu Smartphone, the Baidu Apollo Smart Car (now facing massive losses and lay-offs at factories), and every other flavor of the week industry that they hurled themselves into. Technode estimates they lost RMB 2.3 billion on smart speakers alone. Without being too critical, Baidu will continue to excel at its core offerings, and will make some unexpected inroads into new markets, but will lack the finesse and understanding to penetrate technical areas such as the public blockchain space.
In many ways, their recognizable branding should continue the growth of blockchain adoption in China, bringing more exposure to the technology. It should serve as nothing more than a subtle reminder that for projects like VeChain, time is of the essence, a fact that CEOs like Sunny Lu is already 100% aware of.
![VeChain X Footwear – Shoes on the blockchain [in photos]](https://vechain101.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/shoes-400x250.jpg)
