We want to create a logistics and supply chain protocol that is accessible to anyone, from anywhere in the world; this will enable any vendor from Africa, Asia or Latin America to trace their products with ease through the supply chain, granting them access to financing and creating a clean record of their dependability. It will also enable any consumer to consult a trustworthy record of the elements and ingredients that went into the final product, and the processes it went through.
The ultimate focus will be on minimizing the difficulty of entry into the protocol, and linking it to the decentralized identity data that will already be available on the Cardano blockchain through Atala PRISM.
Our first customers will be companies operating in the Italian agri-food sector: we think the industry offers great opportunities for our service because of the growing need for Italian food and beverage makers to protect their exports from counterfeiting: global trade in counterfeit and pirated products that infringed Italian trademarks amounted to as much as EUR 35.6 billion in 2013, equivalent to 4.9% of total Italian manufacturing sales (domestic plus exports)[¹]. Food and beverage counterfeiting resulted in losses equal to EUR 4.6 billion; 85% of counterfeit food products were sold in the primary market, meaning there was no way for wholesalers and retailers to know it was counterfeit.
Following the launch of our mobile app, we will start onboarding our target clients: SMEs in emerging markets (which the World Bank estimates are responsible for up to 77% of jobs, and as much as 50% of the GDP in some African countries [²]).
These are the economic actors that are yet not benefitting from blockchain innovation, and could see considerable improvements in their businesses from implementation of the protocol. The retail and e-commerce sector in the area has seen considerable growth, and is expected to grow a further 18% a year up until 2025, with 40% user penetration [³].Thanks to IOHK’s partnership with World Mobile, citizens from Tanzania and subsequently other African countries will gain internet access and will have their first exposure to e-commerce through Cardano’s DApps: that is where Logyq Protocol comes in.
Logyq will provide a simple, easy to use interface that will enable anyone to track their product’s provenance and shipment, which in turn will make it easier to find buyers and commercial partners.
We have envisioned the second phase of Logyq Protocol to comprehend a peer to peer e-commerce platform that will seamlessly integrate into our tracking protocol. Phase 2 will start at the completion of our tracking DApp and will involve building a platform to allow the buying and selling of goods tracked through Logyq; the e-commerce platform will be available on a new section of our mobile and desktop app. We think this is a natural evolution of the tracking protocol, since it will provide a clear use-case for our DApp and will foster the adoption of decentralized technology in our targeted markets. Phase 2 will be funded by our Initial Stake Pool Offering, which will reward GYQ tokens to the Cardano users who will stake their ADA in our stake pool.
Our decentralized marketplace will be developed following the same principles that guide our tracking protocol: accessibility from anywhere in the world and ease of use for anyone.
How it works
We leverage the Cardano blockchain to provide a personalized tracking service to any business that needs to track the provenance or shipment of their product.
When a new client contacts us, we register its business in our DApp and then enable the customer to define the product information it needs to track using the blockchain, and the personnel that is authorized to submit said information on the DApp. In order to record the submitted information, Logyq Protocol sends a transaction on the blockchain, along with metadata that contains the information and a timestamp.
In the first version of the protocol, we will personally record the desired information on the blockchain by sending a transaction containing metadata using our Cardano Node CLI. In the final version of Logyq, the Dapp will convert the information in JSON and submit transactions using the cardano-wallet.js library; this will allow us to connect the Dapp to our Cardano Node so that the client itself will be able to submit transactions in a totally decentralized way.
Logyq generates a QR code that is applied to the product, and points to the corresponding metadata on the blockchain. A customer that scans the QR code gets redirected to a section of our website where all the relevant information about the product is provided. The client can track all of their shipments through a personalized section of our site.
After completing our data infrastructure, our first fields of research will be Internet of Things (GPS trackers, RFID sensors, NFC tags) devices to speed up the information-filling process and to register any sensible environmental data critical to the shipped product, such as temperature during the shipping process; the research will be conducted with particular attention to the challenges that may arise from implementation of the technology in areas with scarce or absent internet connection.
Our phase 2 e-commerce platform will feature a registration system for vendors and customers, and an internal search engine to search for different products. Vendors will have access to a form to insert the products they need to sell, which will integrate with the tracking protocol. Payments will be processed by a smart contract, which will convert data regarding the product in JSON and attach it to the corresponding tracking transaction.
Once the customer receives the product, scanning the associated QR code redirects to the product review section where he can post a review and get rewarded for it.
Business model
We plan to bring in revenue in two different ways: through a subscription model during Phase 1, and through a commission model in Phase 2. During Phase 1 we will offer our tracking service for a standard subscription package based on the volume of weekly tracked items; we will also offer premium packages for implementation with already established IoT devices’ networks.
Phase 2 will use our proprietary GYQ token to power the ecosystem: we will charge a minimal fee for every transaction on the protocol, taking advantage of Cardano’s native token feature which will allow users to pay for the blockchain transactions themselves with GYQ. Of course, payment will be possible in all Cardano native tokens, but paying with GYQ will provide advantages such as cheaper transaction costs. The use cases we envisioned for our token, apart from paying for transactions, are a reputation system and a liquidity pool for buyer and fraud protection.
The reputation score system will work like this: every time a buyer receives an item, the seller can incentivise him to post a review of the item itself by locking his GYQ tokens in a smart contract that rewards customers for posting reviews. This can solve review fraud and review bombing problems and assure customers of the reliability of sellers, since every review will be bound to a single transaction. This means that every review posted on the seller’s page will be verified by a smart-contract, making it impossible for malicious users to post fake or multiple reviews. An incentive system will be structured to reward those who perform detailed reviews, which will help increase the level of trust within the Logyq ecosystem.
We have also modeled a system to provide protection for both buyers and sellers in case of fraud or missing shipments, without relying on a centralized liquidity provider. Users will be able to lock their GYQ tokens in a liquidity pool, and earn rewards over time depending on the duration of their locking period; the rewards will come from a percentage of the transaction fees charged by the protocol. The pool will cover damages to goods that are not imputable to the seller, and will be guaranteed by a reserve of tokens owned by Logyq itself.
Detailed information about our tokenomics model will be provided in our whitepaper at the time of our ISPO’s start.
Sources:
[1]:OECD (2018), Trade in Counterfeit Goods and the Italian Economy: Protecting Italy’s intellectual property, OECD Publishing, Paris.
[2]: <https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/smefinance>
[3]: <https://www.statista.com/outlook/dmo/ecommerce/africa>
We want to create value for our customers: enabling vendors to track the origin and shipment of their product will result in easier access to trade finance instruments, on or off-chain. Giving buyers the guarantee of blockchain tracking will result in more trust about the quality of the product itself, and will foster the adoption of e-commerce solutions in emerging markets. Our proprietary e-commerce platform will further grow web-based exchange of goods in those markets.
Slow penetration: Initial entry into emerging markets largely depends on how many users will already be familiar with Cardano and its ecosystem and, more broadly, on how many will be able to access its services. In case of slower user penetration than expected, we will continue acquiring partnerships in Europe while strongly investing in marketing and brand awareness initiatives in emerging markets.
Difficulty of entry for the illiterate: we cannot exclude that many potential users may have difficulties with the English language, or any written language for that matter. Besides providing translation in any language spoken where Logyq will be available, we will focus on providing a simple, streamlined user interface accompanied by descriptive images. We will constantly review the accessibility of our platform through diverse focus groups and adjust accordingly.
Hostile legislation: in Western as well as emerging countries, the legal framework regarding blockchain technology is approximate at best and chaotic at worst. While we have total confidence in IOHK’s work in coordinating with national governments for clear and understandable legislation in the blockchain space, we cannot underestimate the potential legal obstacles we might face. For this reason, we will make sure that we are on the right track from the beginning and will launch our token only after a thorough study of its legal compliance with European and African standards.