I found out about bitdrive through a post by Krystelle Galano and it piqued my interest.
One liner
A de-centralized ride sharing app built on Ethereum blockchain with its own tokens that wants to empower drivers and passengers with an optional insurance feature.
Why did they build this product?
They realized that companies like Uber, Lyft has definitely changed the transportation industry however, the drivers are not treated fairly. Their business model as per the white paper claims that they will just charge a flat 13% fee and the driver gets to keep 87% of the transaction
Token Details
Symbol: BTD
Type: ERC-20
The pros:
As mentioned earlier, drivers get to keep 87% of transaction fees
As this is based on the blockchain and it has its own tokens, it is a peer to peer system which means no transaction fees to 3rd party. Accepted currency being bitdrive, Ether and Bitcoin
Security for women passengers, by giving them an option to look for women drivers only and another button that will alarm the local city authorities. (This is not related to blockchain as it is a front end feature) but definitely takes a step further to take security of its passengers seriously.
The cons:
- The insurance premium basic plan costs $300 monthly, which I think is really expensive especially when they are targeting countries like Belize which is equal to $600 Belizian dollars, unless they are targeting San Pedro(which is where people have all the money jk)
Questions:
- As per the architecture diagram in the whitepaper, it looks like-only the transactions are being stored on the blockchain. However, it is not clear how the passenger and driver information are stored? They are two options
a) It is stored on the blockchain so that it is visible to everyone -- in this case the blockchain contains a lot of data and the other question is that how do they verify it?
b) It is stored in a database(which means there is centralization involved) and that is fine, it would be more helpful to know how that is being done. The reason to know it for an investor or a user is that, one of the thing bitdrive promises is security of customer's data. So it is of huge value to know how this is being done?
What is the road map for deploying this app to different countries? The current plan is to roll out the app in Belize City in 2019. However the future plan is not clear. Are they going to work their way from developing countries like Guatemala, India, Nicaragua etc. to developed countries like US
The whitepaper mentions about referral fee but it is not clear how that will be calculated?
The paper claims that Uber is robbing off passengers with features like Uber Surge and I am not a fan of Uber Surge here. However the question is, how does BitDrive handle huge demands. For e.g. people are going home after a new years eve party, the demand is huge and the supply is less. In this particular case, it makes business sense to charge more to a passenger who is willing to pay more. This scenario would need more explanation in the whitepaper.
The paper talks about offering an insurance called Bitdrive Autosurance. The paper claims unbiased people in localities along with Jurors all over the world will be used to check if the claim is legit. How exactly it is done is missing?
Conclusion:
The company is based in Belize and it has its team all over the world. The team is experienced and I am looking forward to this. However there are lots of questions as mentioned above and if Bitdrive will be successfully be able to navigate through the above mentioned questions, it definitely has the potential to make a dent in the ride-sharing/transportation industry.