ICO Review: Tip
Tip is a third-generation blockchain platform with the goal of powering mass adoption. They aim to achieve this by creating an ecosystem that connects end users and businesses on a network where they can transact easily across international borders.
As taking blockchain mainstream has been something no platform has completely figured out yet, Tip might be the answer. By creating an ecosystem that’s intuitive and enables people to understand blockchain without technical barriers, Tip could be the frontrunner.
Looking to raise a hard cap of 46,450 ETH, Tip is an exciting project to potentially buy into (especially with the current discount on their presale). Here’s what we think of their whitepaper:
The Problems Tip Looks To Solve
A big selling point of Tip is the level of accessibility they’re looking to offer. For this, they recognize a few problems in crypto they aim to solve, which includes:
Peer-To-Peer Cryptocurrency Exchange
Tip views how we send cryptocurrencies to one another difficult, where processes such as QR code wallets or sending hash IDs as a hassle for users.
Small Business Acceptance of Cryptocurrencies
Small businesses that want to accept crypto need to use a QR code, which can be a difficult point of entry for those not used to cryptocurrencies. Furthermore, small businesses currently don’t have an easy way of accepting crypto over the phone, as reading out a wallet address is very much prone to error.
Contextual Information For Transactions
Finally, if several transactions come in at once, being able to go back and verify the value of a transaction can be difficult, as well as the identity. In a busy period for a small business, it’d be wildly inefficient and time-consuming to go back through the ledger to find the transaction.
What Tip Plans To Offer
Tip aims to solve a few of the problems above with the following solutions:
Human-friendly Addresses
A significant part of what Tip looks to solve is offering user-friendly addresses, which includes attaching an alias to a wallet address. These will be readable names or aliases on their account.
Transaction Metadata
Tip also looks to include metadata for accounts and transactions. Metadata can be protocol dependent (such as your alias), or arbitrary specified by the user. It will be stored in the form of key-value pairs and will support both private and public data. Public data will be stored in plain text on the network and accessible to anyone on the network, while private data will be encrypted by the account holder and stored on the network.
Discovery
The Tip Blockchain is a fully indexed, searchable platform. This will enable users to discover other users and new content by searching the client’s applications. Furthermore, network nodes will expose a RESTful API that store and access information on the network. DApps will then be built to use this RESTful API to discover information.
Peer-To-Peer Messaging
The first dApp Tip plans to build will be a wallet that incorporates instant messaging, including text, photo, voice, gifs, and video calling.
POS System
Finally, Tip aims to provide a dApp specifically for retailers, which their point-of-sale system will include such features as:
- Transaction management
- Order management
- Customer management
- Sales reporting and analytics
Technical Implementations
Tip will be an ERC-20 based token on the Ethereum network, eventually planning to graduate along to the development of the Tip blockchain. Here’s a little bit on how they plan to structure themselves:
Tip Indexed Database
This database will serve as the storage for the Tip Network. Although Ethereum allows for the storage of arbitrary data on-chain, Tip views the following as limitations:
- Data is not indexed or searchable.
- IPFS is not easily indexed or searchable, which is why they went with a traditional database.
Tip Network Node
The Tip node provides the interface clients talk to interact with the rest of the network. The Nodes provide a REST API clients can access. Furthermore, only data storage and retrieval requests are handled by nodes, which aren’t responsible for confirming or processing transactions in the first phase.
Desktop and Mobile Light Wallet (Kasakasa)
The primary interface to use the Tip Network will be their application Kasakasa. The app will have much of the features listed above (I.E., search, messaging, etc.), and will also be accessible with their POS system as well.
Merchant Point of Sale System (Sika)
Sika will be the POS system the Tip Network looks to implement. They aim to make their interchange fee 0.1 – 0.2 percent, which is significantly cheaper than the current 3 percent the likes of Visa and Mastercard charge. Furthermore, Tip looks to implement the following features into their POS, including:
- Transaction and Order Management
- Customer Management
- Sales Reporting and Insights
- Third Party Integrations
Overall, Tip does a great job of giving an overview of the technical aspects of their project, which if you’re interested in learning more, then I highly suggest you check out the link to their whitepaper above.
What We Think
Tip is an excellent project that definitely has the potential to break crypto into the mainstream. Although they’re going against a mammoth task, it’s also one they’re taking the right approach to, opting instead to give people something that feels familiar and works from there. Plus, with a great foundation in both their user experience and technical structure, this has all the makings to be a unicorn. Overall, we highly recommend hopping on the Tip train, as this is a blockchain project that could scale pretty quickly after launch.
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