Bees, Bud And Business: Top Projects Surfing on the WAVES Platform
Show me the honey.
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Waves swept onto the shores of the blockchain scene back in 2016, thanks to a group of Russian developers who became disillusioned with NXT. They decided to launch their own platform, aiming to make it quick and easy for anyone to issue their own token.
Waves quickly became the first platform to market with its own decentralized exchange. At the end of 2018, the project raised $120 million from investors to develop a private version of its Vostok platform, which is designed to deploy Waves in commercial and government IT systems. However, recent reports suggest that the Waves founder sold his stake in Vostok to focus on developing out the Waves platform.
Nevertheless, Waves still has plenty of activity, with over thirty projects listed on the WavesDapp website. Here are a few of the most unique use cases.
Apismellifera
Apis mellifera is the Latin name for the western honey bee, and now also the name of a Waves project aiming to help the declining honey bee population.
The plight of the bees is real, y’all. Bees pollinate 70% of the crops that feed 90% of the world. Without honey bees, the global agricultural sector would be $30 billion poorer each year. But intensive farming, mono-cropping, and climate change mean that the bee population has declined by up to 45% in some parts of the western world.
By participating in the Apismellifera project, you can use Waves-based Beehive tokens to purchase a bee adoption plan. Participation entitles you to a portion of the honey produced by your very own adopted bee colony.
Tokens are locked up for a fixed period of time, and the project will establish more hives each year. Therefore, the number of hives your tokens are sponsoring increases each year that you participate. Adoption plans are available for individuals and businesses, with the higher-level plans even including a visit to the bee family in the hives.
Tokes
It’d be worth a mention for the pun-tastic name alone, but the Tokes (TKS) project has far more to offer than just humorous wordplay. It started life on the Waves platform as a tokenized payment solution for the legal cannabis industry.
Despite being legal in many states, cannabis remains outlawed at the federal level. Much like crypto companies, the cannabis industry has faced problems in gaining access to traditional banking services, forcing businesses to accept only cash payments.
Enter Tokes.
Along with the payment solution, Tokes also developed consumer mobile apps, merchant point-of-sale software, and e-commerce modules to transact in the token. However, Tokes also recognized that blockchain has broader applications in the cannabis sector. It now provides “track-and-trace” solutions that can be deployed in the cannabis supply chain, as well as other verticals.
RentApp
RentApp uses the Waves platform to provide a P2P sharing marketplace, where anyone can rent anything to anyone else. Services like Airbnb have evolved to an “own-to-rent” model that doesn’t exactly fulfill the original spirit of the sharing economy. RentApp aims to restore that intent by allowing people to rent out unused resources like a lawnmower, or let someone try-before-they-buy through renting.
Unlike many blockchain-based sharing economy initiatives, RentApp doesn’t force you to use the native RENT token. You can agree to pay via PayPal, wire transfer, or other digital currencies. Funds are held in escrow by the Waves blockchain until both parties agree that the transaction is complete.
However, if you do opt to use the RENT token, then you get to participate in additional benefits, like discounts and a loyalty and referral program.
Boltt
Wearable fitness trackers and apps are contributing to an explosion of healthcare data. So much so, that the growth of big data in healthcare is soon expected to outpace other sectors including manufacturing, financial services, or even media. Boltt aims to capitalize on this trend by developing the biggest health data network in the world.
With Boltt, users can monetize the health data in return for Boltt tokens. That data can be accessed in aggregate by organizations willing to stake Boltt tokens on the platform. There are also a host of other features, including user contests, and a portal where you can view your own health data from a variety of sources including health apps, pharmacies, labs, or anywhere else it’s stored.
Boltt has already been making waves (cough cough) in the dApps world, having clocked more than 10,000 daily active users in March this year. It’s also among the top dApps on the Waves blockchain, and was included in the Waves Labs accelerator program. The token is actually issued as a hybrid on the Waves and Ethereum blockchain, with the project having opted for Waves due to its higher transaction speed.
Kolin
Kolin is developing a decentralized, international translation and information exchange service on the Waves platform. The name is an acronym of “Konscienco Lingvo” means “Conscious Language” in Esperanto. It’s designed to reflect the mission of Kolin to bridge language boundaries – not just between different spoken languages, but also between technical and non-technical language.
The application operates around the Kolin token and operates as a kind of dual marketplace for translation services. The private marketplace enables anyone to request a translation by a professional translator., for which they’ll pay in Kolin tokens On the private platform, prices are fixed based on word count and the transaction complexity.
The social marketplace operates in a similar way, except volunteers perform the translations. Those who volunteer are proportionately rewarded for their accuracy, simplicity, and word count.
Waves Platform – Riding the Market Currents
These are just a select few of the projects currently riding on Waves. Others include various DeFi initiatives, organic food, and coffee supply chain trackers, and loyalty programs. Although the Waves coin itself currently has a bearish outlook, the Waves blockchain still has a lot to offer the broader ecosystem.
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