PRESENTATION
A storm has hit the investment market which we are not going to recover from. Crypto investment is that storm. With strict capital controls in place by most countries to control the flow of money and charge high taxes, cryptocurrency gained usage in circumventing capital controls and taxes, leading to an increase in demand. Cryptocurrency has been able to present an easy to use digital alternative to fiat currencies. Offering frictionless transactions and inflation control, investors have been prudent enough to add these currencies in their diversified portfolios as an asset, as the size of the market does not represent a systemic risk. Cryptocurrency employs the use of cryptography that assures high-security processes and verifies transactions personal to each user. Hence, counterfeiting and anonymous transactions are impossible to achieve.
While this revolution is gaining wide acceptance, Universal Reward Protocol, a blockchain-based Protocol in which retailers can reward shoppers for several types of behavior, such as simply visiting a store has arrived.
Check out this video presentation
ABOUT UNIVERSAL REWARD PROTOCOL
Universal Reward Protocol provides a unique ecosystem for all retailers to reward their customers for any type of shopping behavior, and for sharing the corresponding Proof-of-Behavior data with the retailer.
Retailers offer URP tokens as an incentive for shoppers to interact with them along a desired behavior, and use the collected data to tailor personalized offers through which the shoppers redeem their tokens.
PROBLEMS AND OPPORTUNITY
The team behind Universal Reward Protocol identified four main limitation points in the shopping experience based on their experience in the retail industry, both from the retailer and the shopper perspective:
• In an increasingly competitive market, especially since the emergence of pure players, the market share of physical retail is decreasing and a new shopper experience must be created
• Retailers are lagging behind pure players on data collection and usage, even though they have a more frequent and privileged access to customers
• Customers want a more tailored experience, online and offline, while keeping their personal data private and valuable
• Loyalty programs to improve customer experience have not given full satisfaction, neither to retailers nor shoppers
Despite this ongoing decline, physical sales still represent 90% of retail sales1 worldwide. Digital has become part of a household daily routine and most sales now start online (56%). It is part of the human behavior to experience pleasure when getting rewarded, as is outlined in various behavioural research.
The asset that product stores represent can be better leveraged if retailers are able to establish direct customized digital communications with shoppers and enter into a personal relationship with each of them. Shopper experience can be revolutionized and made less of a chore and more of leisure. That’s why Universal Reward Protocol has the potential to disrupt the old-fashioned reward industry.
UNIVERSAL REWARD PROTOCOL SOLUTION
Universal Reward Protocol (URP) is a new way for retailers and brands to interact directly and transparently with their shoppers, and automatically reward their behavior and data sharing in a personalized, efficient way. The solutions include:
Reward Smart Contract
Each reward operation will be handled by a Reward Smart Contract. Retailers can create new reward campaigns by filling the Reward Smart Contract form. IoT sensors can act as an oracle to certify the transaction.
Universal Digital Wallet
A digital wallet that allows shoppers to query the loyalty network for rewards and redemption contracts at any time, check the balance of their wallet in URP tokens and edit their privacy settings.
Retailers redeem tokens through personalized offers
URP tokens can be exchanged for goods and services, coupons, and improved shopper experience with all retailers in the network. These redemption offers are tailored to match each shopper’s needs and desires using the data they chose to share with the network.
ADVANTAGES
URP enables the rewarding of any type of shopping behavior.
A retailer’s loyalty program only rewards a shopper when he purchases a product in his store. Other types of shopping behaviors such as simply visiting a store or interacting with brands on social media are not being rewarded. The goal of URP is to allow retailers to reward any worthy shopping behavior .
What does URP define as a “shopping behavior”? Examples can include visiting a store for the first time, purchasing a product, visiting a website or sharing content published on social media, and much more. In short, all online and offline interactions a shopper can have with a brand or a retailer are rewardable through URP.
URP allows you to create new relationships and interact with new potential customers.
The retailer can interact with all shoppers who are using URP , whereas a loyalty program only allows a retailer to communicate with shoppers who already accepted to enter in a relationship with them. It doesn’t allow the retailer to interact with simple prospects.
URP is a universal platform where URP tokens can be redeemed with all the retailers of the network.
Retailers offer URP tokens as an incentive for shoppers to interact with them along a desired behavior and use the collected data to tailor personalized offers through which the shoppers redeem their tokens.
A loyalty program is different because it usually issues “captive” points, which can only be redeemed with the retailer who distributed them. This leads to shoppers having multiple incompatible loyalty program, which makes it harder and harder for them to manage the points and creates less value for the shoppers.
URP guarantees data transparency and security.
The data collected through loyalty programs (usually at least the purchase history of the shopper, but often much more information are saved and used without any consent) is not always transparent to the shopper. It is not always clear exactly which type of data is collected, to what end, and who has access to it.
Both transparency and security of personal information are guaranteed by the Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT), inherent to public Blockchain technology. With the logging of each opt-in directly on the blockchain, shoppers can check their consents to different contracts, change their privacy preferences and decide to opt-out at any time. They can also see which Proof-of-behavior data was collected about them, at what time and for which retailer.
TECHNOLOGY
Distributed Data Storage on a hybrid blockchain architecture.
Shoppers give consent to each data capture to guarantee data transparency. Sensitive receipt data is isolated between retailers, while navigation data is publicly available to all nodes.
Neural Net
All data is fed to our deep-learning layer for further prof iling and analysis, allowing the deployment of custom redemption offers tailored to individual needs.
IoT Sensor
IoT sensors powered by Occi using geolocation technology, already covering more than 100,000 square meters of top retailers space, publish the data securely on the blockchain. They are deployed inside a mesh network to make setup simpler and the data capture more robust.
URP TOKEN ROLE
The URP is a generic ERC20 utility token and has a dual function:
Retailers will distribute URP to reward shoppers based on rules of their own choosing. Shoppers will redeem these URP through personalized offers such as discounts, gifts or premium services, with all retailers in the network
The URP will be used as incentive for all stakeholders of the URP to behave correctly, preventing fraud and securing the network, and to organize protocol governance
General information about token and ICO
Token: URP
Platform: Ethereum
Standard: ERC20
Quantity: 600,000,000 URP
Price: 1 URP = 0,1 EUR
Payment: ETH
Soft cap: 5,000,000 EUR
Hard cap: 20,000,000 EUR
PreICO
Quantity: 15,000,000 EUR
Beginning: 08.08.2018
Completion: 08.09.2018
Bonus:
5,000,000 EUR - 25%
10.000.000 EUR-15%
ICO
Quantity: Up to Hard cap
Beginning: 08.09.2018
Completion: 30.09.2018
Bonus: No
ROADMAP
2015
Launch of the company.
Partnership signed with Auchan, one of the world's biggest distribution groups.
Development of the Occi product.
2016
Proof of concept, first Auchan store equipped with IoT sensors.
Seed funding round from business angels.
Filed two patents on proprietary algorithms (FR1656748 and FR1654618).
Awarded at the Concours Mondial de l’Innovation (World Innovation Competition) by the French Public Bank of Investment.
2017
Solution is market-ready.
Contract signed with Carrefour, one of the largest hypermarket chains in the world.
Contract signed with Galeries Lafayette.
Occi live in more than 100,000 square meters of top retailers stores with 150,000 unique visitors identified every day.
Inception of URP Protocol.
Q1 2018
Token design and development.
Presentation of URP to brands and retailers.
Refinement of the protocol based on their expressed needs.
Q2 2018
Design of the architecture of URP protocol.
Preliminary partnerships discussions with consumer brands and retailers.
Release of the White Paper.
Mockup of the retailer interface and the shopper app.
Q3 2018
Release of UX/UI of the retailer interface.
Release of UX/UI of the shopper interface.
Release of URP MVP : Smart Contract Templating and Campaign browsing.
Letters of intent from known retailers and brands.
Token Sale.
Q4 2018
Alpha release of URP : Proof-of-Behavior specifications.
Collaboration with first dApps.
Integration with a self-sovereign identity service (SSIS).
Development of the shopper app.
Development of the retailer interface (Campaign Manager).
Launch of pilots on the testnet for onboarded retailers and brands.
Q1 2019
Integration of other dApps on the testnet.
Security testing.
Bounty campaign for beta testers.
Publication of first pilot results.
Q2 2019
Marketing campaign aiming at large-scale shoppers adoption.
Brand and retailers expansion.
Release on the mainnet.
Launch of the shopper app on application stores: tokens are used to reward any shopping behavior that can be certified by the dApps implementing URP.
Q3 2019
Deployment of URP to early adopting brands and retailers.
Other dApps join the protocol to reward all behaviors on mainnet.
Q4 2019
Start of international expansion in Europe and China.
2020
S1 :
International expansion to North & South America.
Protocol tokenomics optimization.
MEET THE AMAZING TEAM
François Poupard
Deepak Gulati
Thibault de Vésinne-Larüe
Nilesh Jethwa
Laurent El Ghaoui
Yves Benchimol - CEO & Co-founder
Louis Millon - CTO & Co-Founder
Thomas Wolf - COO
Yohan Maurin - Blockchain Engineer
Raphaël Attal - Chief Strategist
Tanguy de La Villegeorges - Data Scientist
Enguerrand Pelletier - Back-end Engineer
Gabriel Mulko - Marketing Manager
Rémi Gazquez - Backend Engineer
Alexandra Masse - Community Manager
Be a part of this incredible project. Download the whitepaper for the full scoop.
Till next time…
For more information, please visit:
Website: https://rewardprotocol.com/
Whitepaper: https://rewardprotocol.com/wp-content/uploads/URP_Lightpaper-1.pdf
Telegram: https://t.me/UniversalRewardProtocolOfficial
Twitter: https://twitter.com/RewardProtocol
Medium: https://medium.com/@RewardProtocol
Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/RewardProtocol/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/reward-protocol/
Author: TheMichaelMatch
My BitcoinTalk Profile: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1326035
Disclaimer: This article was published in terms of the bounty campaign. I am not a project team member or its representative but a supporter of this incredible project.