IOTA Social e-Commerce Marketplace “Commerce on the Internet has come to rely almost exclusively on financial institutions serving as trusted third parties to process electronic payments.” -Satoshi Nakamoto

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The creation of cryptocurrency was intended to eliminate payment processing companies such as PayPal and Stripe. If you are an e-commerce retailer you know the fees these companies take in order to process your payment. The creation of fee-less cryptocurrencies, such as IOTA, will disrupt e-commerce because there will no longer be payment processors to deal with.

Companies such as Uber and Airbnb have tapped into a trend of monetizing one’s unused assets. These companies solved two problems: one user needs extra cash for their living expenses and another user needs a service of transportation or lodging. These are two sided marketplaces but there is room for much more growth here by introducing a third party.

We have tapped into another phenomena in social media with the power of ‘influence’. Social networks have tremendous value and that can be noted by the valuation of social media products such as Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, etc. One’s social network inherently has value and the spread of information through such networks is not only fast but effective.

The goal of this platform is to monetize one’s social network using one’s influence by sharing products a user likes. By integrating a social network and an e-commerce platform together new meaningful data can be extracted from users. Users can now understand each other in a deeper level by being able to see what type of products they are willing to purchase. If a user shares a product to their following on Metamesh (similar to Pinterest’s Pins and Twitter’s Retweet), and that share leads to a direct sale, then the user will get a commission from the sale of the product.

User Journey

The users of this platform can interact with it in several ways. A user can sell, share and buy products. Users can also favorite items so that they can go back to find them or let their following know the type of products they like. A user can have several roles and is free to use this platform however they see fit. Any user is able to be a seller, marketer and buyer.

Every user will have:

A following/follower based social networking functionality. An identifiable profile leaving out anonymity. We aim to tie a user’s identity to their favorite and shared products to help their social network realize what they like. A history of purchases that they can see for self-auditing purposes. Reviews on their profile from other users that have purchased a product from them. A credited IOTA wallet where they can deposit IOTA and start shopping for items, or they will earn IOTA by selling and sharing products that lead to a successful sale. The Seller

The seller will create a product post with a title, image of the product, description, and price in IOTA (APIs will tie the rate to dollars). After being posted on the platform, the seller’s followers can then share the product to their own followers that are on the platform. The seller will earn 90% of the sale and the marketer (user that shared the post and successfully made the sale) will earn 5% of the sale. If there is no marketer involved then the seller will earn 95% of the sale. All sales conducted on Metamesh will use IOTA as a medium of monetary exchange.

Product Post Pathway. Notice the flow in which the post moves between the platform’s users. This can be shared to the nth user. The Marketer

A marketer is an individual that helps distribute product posts by sharing a seller’s product posts. If a marketer successfully affiliates a buyer and seller through their shared post then the marketer will earn 5% of the sale conducted between the buyer and seller if the transaction is executed successfully.

A marketer is free to share whatever products they want to share. There will be an hourly limit on the amount of products a marketer can share to prevent spam attacks from any malicious users. This marketer feature is key to this platform, allowing users to monetize their following by providing meaningful products to a specific product-seeking niche.

If we use the figure before this one we can state that User 1 is the seller, User 2 is in the network, User 3 is the marketer and User 4 is the buyer.

The marketer can share any product they desire but they should strategize on the products they will share. We believe that marketers should build a niche following, such as in cosmetics or electronics or whatever they have a domain expertise in. Users that have a following in other social networks can invite other users to this platform so that they are able to gain monetary value with the use of this platform. Metamesh will have an affiliate program for users to bring in new users to the platform, similar to how cryptocurrency exchanges have an affiliate program.

The Buyer

This user tends to browse through items that the users they follow share or post for sale. This user will have a feed with products that interest them directly without having to browse through unnecessary items. For instance, let’s assume that a user is an Apple enthusiast; this user will follow other tech related users and will then see relevant Apple and tech content. Generally, when a user visits Amazon.com or ebay.com they see a lot of products but they aren’t tailored for every individual. Amazon does have a feature where they track a user’s cookies so they can effectively target them to buy a product, but we see this as an invasion of privacy.

A benefit of this platform is that buyers can see what others have added to their favorites list or shared. This will allow buyers to know what gifts to buy for friends and loved ones, or to come up with topics of discussion with other users.

Transactions

The IOTA wallet that is in our system will work similar to the wallet software that an exchange uses. Buyers can directly pay a seller without using our integrated wallet and the funds will be locked in escrow. Once the item reaches the buyer and no complaints are placed within the stated return period, then the seller and marketer will have access to their earned IOTA on the platform wallet. When a user is credited with IOTA they will be able to spend it on the platform to purchase other products or withdraw it to their personal IOTA wallet that’s off the Metamesh network.

IOTA Wallet Deposit and Withdrawals

Depositing IOTA on Metamesh is an easy process for users. We will have an established hot/cold wallet ratio where the user’s funds will be held. A user is prompted to deposit IOTA to a certain address that we link their account to and when the IOTA transaction is confirmed they will be credited with the IOTA that they deposited. The IOTA will then go on to our pooled hot wallet for the liquidity of the marketplace. Our users should be familiar with cryptocurrency exchanges so this process will be very familiar for them.

When users want to withdraw their IOTA from Metamesh they can do so by providing the platform an IOTA address. For security purposes, we will establish a Two-Step Verification process to verify the identity of the user withdrawing funds.

Team

Metamesh relies on the skills its team can bring to the table. We have a strong focus on engineering and business development. The team has worked together in the Miami Bitcoin Hackathon, where they created Satoshi Snap, and also in StartUP FIU’s “Zero-to-One” technical workshops.

Claudio Atilano

Engineering & Business Development

Claudio Atilano is a web developer with a strong background in data analysis. Founded iMarkett, a company dedicated to create IOTA wallet solutions for non-technical users. Claudio studied Physics and Entrepreneurship at Florida International University (FIU), where he met Justin Cata and Oriana Aristizabal. Claudio worked as a web developer at Haqshaq LLC and Florida International University. Claudio is a member of the Blockchain Education Network and created a presence for the non-profit in Miami.

Justin Cata

Engineering & Business Development

Justin Cata, studied Physics and Mathematics at FIU, is skilled in data analysis, and has founded a private fund with several investors specializing in high risk cryptocurrency investing. Justin is also a member of the Blockchain Education Network. Justin worked with Claudio to create a physics data analysis package to enhance college student’s programming skills, called Physpy.

Oriana Aristizabal

Product Design & Business Development

Oriana Aristizabal studied Physics and Economics at FIU with experience working for the Federal Reserve of Atlanta as a quantitative analyst in the Supervisions and Regulations department. Oriana is also a member of the Blockchain Education Network and founded a small organization in FIU to help students learn the value of distributed ledger technology.

Vince Alcivar

Engineering & Product Design

Vince Alcivar is a skilled software developer with experience in web and mobile development, as well as UI/UX design. Vince received his bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from the University of Florida. He worked for Ultimate Software as a Software Engineer and QA Analyst before going on to found his own game development company, Freeze Ray Studios, where he now develops mobile apps full-time. Vince is also part of the Blockchain Education Network (BEN) and met the rest of the team by attending technical workshops sponsored by BEN.

Vision

We see that the cryptocurrency and distributed ledger industry is in its infancy and it offers a lot of value to existing markets. We believe IOTA is the best cryptocurrency for this platform due to its technical advantage and established traction. Our values are focused on improving the current Sharing economy and adopting the new Machine economy. This platform will have several phases where we will focus on different users in each phase. Each phase will seek to increase the inter-connectivity of people and machines. We envision our platform being the directory in which machine-to-machine e-commerce arises.

Phase I: The Peer-to-Peer Marketplace

The ideal user in this phase is one that:

Has IOTA and wants to use their IOTA. Wants to earn IOTA. Wants to sell their product without transaction fees. Is familiar with social networks such as Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest.

We have described how the platform should function in the User Journey section. From our beginning user base we will fix any problems that arise with Metamesh and then look to scale to users that don’t understand IOTA and want to earn a higher profit margin than existing e-commerce solutions.

Phase II: The Peer-to-Machine Marketplace

The ideal user in this phase is one that:

Wants to monetize the data their IoT device and Metamesh usage creates. Wants to have access to live data from IoT devices or from users with IoT devices. Wants to earn passive income by integrating IoT devices onto Metamesh

We aim to make IOTA’s Data Marketplace as seamless as possible by having users connect their personal IoT devices to the Metamesh platform. Artificial intelligence integration is a trend that current retailers use to enhance their sales. We aim to help our users by providing them artificial intelligence software to help them make market conclusions according to their following. For instance, if a retailer on Metamesh has a following that has been sharing a certain product, the platform will suggest to the retailer that they should add that product to their stock. Another example of artificial intelligence on the Metamesh platform will be Autonomous Offline Support, AOS. AOS will share product posts to the user’s following tailored to their prior Metamesh usage. To have access to the artificial intelligence integrations, we’ll ask the users to connect their IoT devices to Metamesh to provide their own computational power from their devices. These devices will also be connected to the IOTA Tangle to provide network security. There is currently no estimated time to reach this phase.

Phase III: The Machine-to-Machine Marketplace

The ideal user in this phase is one that:

Is an IoT device that provides a service to another IoT device in exchange for IOTA. Is an IoT device that needs a certain resource or good that is willing to accept it from an IoT device.

The infrastructure to reach this phase is yet to be built. IOTA aims to be the backbone of the Internet of Things to establish the Machine economy. To have machines autonomously transact there will need to be incremental advances in artificial intelligence and IoT integration. Once IOTA has smart contracts, IoT devices will need to have a directory to sort smart contracts. We will function similar to an ad mediator, ad mediators connect to a bunch of ad networks and serve you the best paying ad at the moment. We will sort these smart contracts based on several variables, such as location, pricing, and machine service reviews, to facilitate machine-to-machine transactions. For example, a Roomba Robot Vacuum won’t transport 10 pound packages as efficient as a drone would. Thus transporting a 10 pound device to a location can be a smart contract created by the device that needs the transportation and sorted into the Drone category. Also, you wouldn’t want your printer to buy ink from Australia if you’re in the U.S. There is currently no estimated time to reach this phase.

Traction

We are currently seeking startup capital and mentors to help us create this platform. We have applied to several programs such as the NSF STTR/SBIR grant and Y Combinator Cohort Summer 2018 and are waiting for their response. We are creating this platform using technologies such as NodeJS, ReactJS, PostgreSQL and IOTA. Be sure to Subscribe to Metamesh to have early access to it and get more information as we develop this marketplace. We see this increasing the adoption of IOTA and cryptocurrencies as a whole.

Metamesh Whitepaper

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Answers by Jez (May 24-31)