Background

Since their creation, one of the biggest weaknesses with digital assets has been the centralized exchanges people are forced to trade them on. According to a recent Bitwise report to the SEC, 95% of trading volume is faked on exchanges, damaging the credibility and harming the supposedly trustless environment that Bitcoin was created to make.

While greed and manipulation will be hard to eradicate, Coinmarketcap, OceanEx, and a number of other key exchanges are stepping up to try and bring more legitimacy to the industry. OceanEx CEO Nan Xiaoning has always viewed digital asset exchanges as a dynamic industry that can achieve more by working together, and this alliance confirms his commitment to that.

The alliance, known as DATA (Data Accountability & Transparency Alliance, includes a number of other high-volume exchanges such as Binance, Bittrex, and Bitfinex. Most of China’s top exchanges are there as well, including Huobi, KuCoin, Gate.io, OKEx, and of course OceanEx. These exchanges are committed to providing Coinmarketcap with comprehensive trading data, to help verify trade volumes, increase transparency, and create industry standards that new and existing exchanges will be encouraged to uphold.

Going In-depth with OceanEx COO Wei Wang:

When discussing their motivation to join the Alliance, Wei Wang was quick to re-affirm OceanEx’s commitment to the long-term development of the cryptocurrency industry. He was adamant that “fake volume is burning the credibility of the crypto industry, contributing to its stagnation and backwardness.” He believes that the inflated volume misleads users and biases their judgment. New exchanges are particularly susceptible, as projects and new users are generally skeptical about volume and reporting practices.

He also noted that the deteriorating environment was noticeably damaging to their business model and the industry as a whole. For this reason, they chose not to wait, and approached CMC early this year to discuss the idea of setting up an alliance. In this manner, they could improve transparency across the whole industry and encourage the projects that are advancing community development and being accountable to users.

After that initial contact, they worked together via a series of discussions, leading up to OceanEx’s formal invitation as a DATA launch partner. Interestingly, OceanEx is the only Initial Launch Partner of DATA with a history of less than one year.

Being a member of DATA will benefit the ecosystem in a number of ways. Firstly, Wang believes being backed by CoinMarketCap, one of the most influential players in the market, will help bring more attention to OceanEx. OceanEx’s engagement in the alliance as well as their active role in the VeChain Ecosystem should help promote the exchange in a positive light. Transparency and accountability are core philosophies that are shared with VeChain, and are important for building trust with the user-base.

The Alliance should also help attract more quality projects who share similar values. By listing projects like this on the exchange, they can provide sound investment opportunities to the ecosystem.

What requirements does DATA have for OceanEx?

Wei Wang summarized the requirements listed on the CoinMarketCap webpage, and discussed how they were divided into 3 phases.

Phase 1:

• Live order book data provided via API.

These data points will enable analysis to determine liquidity, order book depth, spreads, and other meaningful measures. With these additional data points, users will be better able to contextualize the pricing and volume being reported on the site and API.

Phase 2:

For phase 2, CMC are planning to grow the types of data available for analysis, and enable filtering to allow deeper perspectives into the exchanges’ operations.

• Exchange hot/cold wallet addresses: Proof of Solvency/Reserves/Liabilities, or at least indicative numbers to enable users to determine solvency of selected exchange.
• Live market-pair trading status: More granular trading data at the market-pair level for further analysis.
• Live wallet status: Summary status of all possible deposits and withdrawals across currencies.
• Historical trade data: All time-stamped historical trades for tracking, and in some cases, compliance.

Phase 3:

For phase 3, CMC is encouraging self-reporting channels for both exchanges and cryptocurrency projects. This voluntary reporting is optional, but participants that self-report will benefit from greater exposure. By incentivizing transparency, they believe that the industry as a whole will benefit.

What other measures is OceanEx taking to provide users with more transparency?

Before Wei Wang concluded, he noted that transparency is something they intend to keep improving on. In addition to a monthly community update they have been providing since March, they also plan to begin working on periodic financial reports. By releasing key financial information, OceanEx can better connect and build trust with both users and investors. Finally, he noted that they also want to hear community feedback regarding this and other topics, so that they can continue to improve the platform.

Special thanks to OceanEx COO Wei Wang for his contributions to this article.

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For more surveys, check out the VeChain Community Survey and the Safe Haven Community Survey.

In April, the third project in the VeChain ecosystem was examined by a community survey. This time it was about OceanEx, the growing exchange with strong ties to VeChain.

Participation in the survey was possible from April 15th to 22th. A total of 397 people took part in the survey. The usual significance requirements (95% confidence level, 5% margin of error) were more than fulfilled with regard to the target group.

Summary of results:

75% of the participants became aware of OceanEx before the exchange went live. So it is not surprising that about half (48%) participated in the token sale. However, only 12% of the community joined in 2019. This indicates a slow growth of the community.

Similar to VeChain or SafeHaven, the community is planning OceanEx as a long-term investment. Half of the participants have sold less than 10% or 0% of their OCE so far. 76% said they wanted to keep OCE for more than a year. And the price targets also speak for themselves: 96% would not sell at the current price, 35% only at a price of $1.00 or more.

A look at the distribution of the OCE tokens among the participants reveals an imbalance in the Member Club Levels – especially with regard to levels 4 and 5.

The ratings of the upper levels, for which at least 50,000,000 OCE are required, are correspondingly negative. 48% of the participants are of the opinion that level 4 is too high, with level 5 being even at 53%.

At the same time 58% of the participants are convinced of the member club benefits – this means, however, that 42% still have to be convinced. This part of the community would not store their OCE tokens on the exchange at the moment.

91% have already collected trading experience on OceanEx, 40% have already shifted most of their activity to this exchange. VET (92%), OCE (78%), VTHO (73%) and SHA (61%) were the most frequently traded assets. TIC (29%), USDT (24%) and DBET (11%) are the worst performers. On average, participants stated that 45% of their trading activity was already carried out on OceanEx.

With regard to various dimensions of the project, trust & security received top marks (8.0 on a scale of 1 to 10), and design (7.8) and platform speed (7.7) also came off very well. Trading campaigns (7.0) and marketing as well as social media activities (6.5) were rated lower.

Additionally, different statements about OceanEx should be evaluated again. It was notable that there was a low level of approval with regard to satisfaction with the Member Club program (24%) and a high level of understanding with regard to compliance procedures (e.g. KYC) (76%). The evaluation of all statements can be seen in the complete document at the end of the article.

The mobile trading app was at the top of the list of missing features (8.4), closely followed by fiat trading pairs (8.3). The other places were occupied by the stop/limit trading functionality (7.7), the IEO launchpad (7.5) and the export of the trading history (7.0).

Participants prefer an OCE Club system as the launchpad format (52%). The trading campaigns are used by the participants rather occasionally – most of them stated to participate from time to time (33%).

The coin burn received the highest rating (8.3) for a possible increase in the value of OCE – closely followed by the Launchpad (8.1).

The open text responses also turned out to be very interesting. Here the following wishes were expressed:

– The possibility to buy crypto via bank transfer / credit card

– Implementation of a fiat money gateway

– Connection between VeChain wallet and OceanEx exchange

– More OCE trading pairs & more project listings in general

– Dividends based on the amount of OCE a user is holding

– Export functionality of the complete trading history

– Mobile trading app

– Release of a roadmap / development timeline

– Better communication, more transparency and marketing

Although OceanEx is a very young platform, they have already achieved a lot that they can be proud of. However, there is still a lot of room for improvement – users are used to certain features or offers from other exchanges and don’t want to be deprived of them on OceanEx.

The complete survey report can be downloaded here.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me on Twitter at @hh_tim. You can find more contact options on my website www.cryptolyze.online

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VIP 191 is an upgrade to the VeChain core blockchain. Initially proposed by Totient, it allows users to bypass a transaction fee (VTHO) by delegating it to an application they are using. Many are familiar with MPP, a multi-party payment protocol that allows a smart contract owner to sponsor transaction costs. VIP-191 expands this by allowing sponsors to pay for transaction costs, even if they are not the owner of the contract.

Totient Co-Founder Clinton Bembry discusses VIP-191 at the VeChain Summit

Essentially, it allows a user to request someone else pay their transaction fee in a simplistic manner. In practice, this will likely be hidden behind the interface of an application, but will allow the user to skip past the more complex steps of the transaction, making VeChain more user-friendly than other cryptocurrency platforms.

How does it work?

VIP-191 works by delegating a secondary address to pay the transaction cost. When processing, the transaction will be signed by the secondary address, before being sent to the blockchain.

Example Scenario: A Cometverse user wants to tip another user. The VTHO is supplied by Totient, and the transaction is written to the blockchain at no additional cost to the user.

For a more detailed explanation, read the proposal on Github.

Why is this important?

From an investor standpoint, VeChain’s two-token economic model creates value for VET holders by earning them the VTHO used to power the blockchain. However, for the many projects working on the blockchain, such as Plair, Safe Haven, or Decent.Bet, requiring users to purchase VTHO is an unnecessary step that could discourage less-technical users from adopting their services. Third-party apps such as Vexchange.io or Cometverse could also benefit from streamlining the user experience and absorbing the costs of transactions. It also opens the door to more creative pricing models, such as subscription-based, where users could be charged a fee to use the platform, and then have all their transaction costs handled by the application.

This simple innovation will make the VeChain platform more attractive to third-party developers, as well as new ICO projects looking for a platform to launch on. By optimizing the user experience, VeChain can encourage more usage and higher user retention.

Making the platform more user-friendly and more developer-friendly should ultimately lead to even more usage over time.

When can this be used?

VIP 191 was first proposed in late March, and later shown off at the VeChain Developer Summit. Currently it is being tested, and will likely be implemented in an upcoming upgrade of the VeChain core protocol.

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On April 18th, founder Rik Rapmund announced his new blockchain-based startup, WorkPi. He described WorkPi as “Uber or Airbnb platform for the labour market, but owned by its users without commercial commissions and enriched by data applications powered by smart contracts.” He joined us to answer a few questions about the new platform he is currently developing.

Q1: First off, thanks for taking time to answer these questions. Could you talk a little about the state of the labor market, and why you felt a decentralized approach through blockchain was the correct way of solving this real-world problem?

Rik: Thanks for having me Ben! The answer to your first question consists of two parts: the labour market has an ethical and economic challenge. A lot of people in the recruitment industry say that ‘hiring is broken’, and I agree with them. The influence of recruiters on the hiring decision is too big, causing a huge bias in the process. Women & minority groups have a smaller chance of getting hired, which is unjust and irrational. We need to digitize the space and make unbiased decisions based on real data like assessments. From an economic perspective, the job market is dominated by mediating recruitment firms and changing due to the upcoming platform economy. Platform economies like Uber work really well for the users, but the commercial fees make them inefficient. With a decentralized approach, we can establish complete disintermediation, resulting in a very efficient shared economy.

Q2: Sites like LinkedIn, Glassdoor, and other job portals are very popular with job-seekers and employers. What gives WorkPi a competitive advantage over sites like that?

Rik: Social platforms like LinkedIn work very well because they offer free services and everybody is on it. However, people don’t realize that their personal data is the main selling point of the platform. WorkPi will not sell the data to third parties but incentivise you to leverage the data by sharing it with our AI-recruiter. The AI-recruiter will be a unique feature of WorkPi because it matches a candidate with real enterprise data. As soon as our AI-recruiter learns patterns, it will also be able to provide career advice based on a person’s unique WPI-profile.

Q3: What do you see as your target market? Are there any particular industries that you think are good fits for WorkPi?

Rik: It’s easy to mention our target market: every employer and employee/worker in the world! However, complex vacancies such as managers or consultants are still hard to fulfil because of the importance of soft skills. We will get better at measuring soft skills over time, but in the meantime, we will focus on hard skills. We conducted extensive market research within the U.S. to identify industries with a high number of jobs & hires per year. We decided to develop our MVP within the freelance and hospitality industry because we’re able to measure key skills, characteristics & preferences of hospitality workers and it’s a top volume industry with a lot of hires per year. We want to show the world an example of how people can work together peer-to-peer before we roll out in every other market you can think of. WorkPi is designed to target an enormous market, but we have to test and pilot our solutions in specific industries carefully.

Q4: Why did you choose VeChain to develop on?

Rik: Our grand vision is to develop a shared economy which is owned by its users. VeChain was the only public blockchain with an aligning strategy. The problem with PoW & PoS blockchains is that the foundation has no control over the selection of nodes providing the network. The only way to make sure that the network is provided by enterprises that derive utility from the rewarded token is to verify them (Proof of Authority). VeChain & WorkPi are both designed to be very scalable and adopted by extensive amounts of enterprises. If WorkPi proves to be working by improving HR & Recruitment processes, the enterprise partners within the VeChain ecosystem could also implement it easily (they are likely also steps ahead of their competition in the field of ‘smart money’ asset management).

Q5: How do you plan to onboard users who might not be familiar with blockchains and decentralized protocols?

Rik: I like that you’re asking me that. The fact that VeChain focuses on allowing people to use the blockchain unknowingly is another reason for us to use their chain. We will make sure that users don’t need any crypto-related knowledge to use WorkPi. For example, users will be able to pay for services with both $WPI tokens as fiat currencies.

Q6: How are you going to raise funds? Will you do an ICO?

There will probably be no ICO because we want our platform to be owned by its users. Enterprises will be the heavy users of the platform (workers only switch jobs a couple of times in their life, they have no incentive to hold $WPI long term). WorkPi will be funded by registered employers who hire a lot of employees on a yearly base. Maybe we will have a very small ICO for X-node holders and registered freelancers.

Q7: Can you tell us anymore about the projected roadmap for WorkPi?

The first year of our roadmap is very important because we are not planning to raise all our funds at the start. We want to prove that our solution could work with a MVP (Minimum Viable Product). We will raise the funds for the MVP through a seed round in Q3.

Q8: How can people get involved with WorkPi?

Rik: We will soon announce a way to get involved with WorkPi on the @WorkPi_official twitter. It will involve a whitelist to be one of the first users of the WorkPi Alpha release early next year.

To learn more about WorkPi, check out their website workpi.io and follow their twitter.

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