The Path to Decentralized Shopping

In the coming articles, we are going to look into the big questions that were asked during Particl’s panel of industry personalities in the Philippines discussing the potential of and challenges for decentralized marketplaces, in an attempt to explore the humps and bumps, but also the opportunities and achievements on the path to large-scale “readiness” for decentralized markets.

Lead Community Evangelist Lina and two Manila community members

#1 The Panel

Manila’s crypto event scene remains fairly lively even in the bear market, which is in part due to the crypto-friendly environment which the Philippines regulators are trying to establish in the country. However, no different from other places, the focus has shifted from “the quick cash” to an actual interest in technology development and implementation. Or rather: the people that were in it for said quick cash dropped out with a black eye, re-establishing the tech-savvy majority in the scene. Whoever attends events and participates in community activities these days is, for the most part, there out of conviction, to learn and to stay updated.So Particl set up a holiday-themed event at BlockchainSPACE, Manila’s crypto event hub in the heart of the city, in collaboration with the local communities of BlockChats and Coding Girls: Manila’s Blockchain Christmas Fair (I know I am guilty of leveraging the buzzwordiness of “Blockchain” for marketing purposes).Twelve companies and communities from around and even overseas came together with around 100 guests to set up a free bazaar of merchandise and food, for everyone to get into the holiday mood, enjoy some good networking, meet the participants, get acquainted with Particl’s marketplace app, and take part in a panel discussion on the topic of decentralized marketplaces.

“Can Amazon be replaced by Decentralized Applications?”

I believe that even in the tech community, Particl’s forward-thinking marketplace concept tests the limits of our imagination. The concept of full decentralization (being completely trustless and using no third-party at all) by itself already puzzles us, simply because it’s so far from the world we live in, and because we have no history to refer to. We are essentially tapping into undiscovered territory here.

Why abandon Amazon?

Amazon is doing a great job at customer satisfaction —we can’t deny that. As commented by Colin Goltra, Head of the Cryptocurrency Program at Coins.ph, “Amazon is fantastic” — because they know so much about us. This is in their best interest, since using such data, centralized marketplace providers can improve efficiency and convenience in our shopping experience, from storing our purchase history over recommending products of interest to sending us gift vouchers for our birthdays. Sacrificing that advantage in order to protect our privacy means trading in the luxury of convenient shopping — a compromise for which the urgency, on a global scale, is simply insufficient as of today.“You can’t just go full decentralization and have full security, and not sacrifice scalability or user experience,” Gerb Reign Inajada, Head of Blockchain at Union Bank, pointed out. “Maybe, in the coming years, it’s going to be easier, but right now, it’s still hard.”Being a pioneer means doing things that haven’t been done before; and that involves the task of showing and convincing the people around you that what you do has actual value. We are creatures of habit. Unless prompted by a traumatic or radical incident (“PayPal’s security barrier got cracked and now someone is enjoying a trip to Ibiza using my credit card data”), or seized by the wave of large-scale adoption (“everyone uses this, so it must be good”), we don’t want to give up on what we have, for something we don’t know actually works.

Then how do we achieve change?

Obviously, not by waiting for traumatic incidents.Establishing an application in a market as competitive as the e-commerce space is ambitious in and on itself. But establishing an application in a market as competitive as the e-commerce space while building on concepts that the majority of consumers neither understands nor wants to get into, that’s a whole other level of difficult. It’s a step-by-step process which, first of all, requires decentralized marketplaces to identify their user groups — a profile that is likely to change over time.

Who buys on a decentralized marketplace?

Chris Verceles, Full Stack / Blockchain Developer at Consensys, captured this question on an interesting note: “to be really specific about who uses decentralized marketplaces today: it’s the people who play CryptoKitties.”In other words, it’s the believers, the ones that are in it for the ideology, and that are willing to invest their time and effort in the improvement of technology and useability.Mainstream e-commerce is a competitive space and doesn’t allow for mistakes. If an application fails to deliver on user experience or interface, or if other flaws come to light, it will be “replaced”, probably faster than it can improve. At Particl, we believe that having a core user group of supporters in tech and / or ideology that wants to see the application succeed presents an incredibly valuable addition to any project. They play a crucial role in elevating an app like Particl’s marketplace from a playground for crypto fans to an intuitive, user-friendly service ready for large-scale adoption.

Who sells on a decentralized marketplace?

The more enthusiastic you are about the technology, the deeper you will want to dive into it. No matter if you’re an event-goer or more of a Reddit-kind of person, it’s easy to get lost in the isolated wonderland of the crypto community where everyone shares your world views. We’d love to think that decentralized marketplaces can take over control from the current big players today. But this would be naive to expect, and our panel spent a good amount of time discussing what real use cases match decentralized marketplaces, and which categories are (for the time being) better left to centralized providers.

“If you are Nike, a decentralized marketplace cannot accommodate your scale. And if you are a boutique artisanal shoemaker, you cannot accommodate Amazon’s scale.” (Colin Goltra, Coins.ph)

Just like with their buyers, on the vendor side, decentralized marketplaces might likely go through an “evolution” of user profiles. Our panelists suggested one of the likely most powerful use cases for decentralized markets to be data-based marketplaces, or as Chris Verceles explained, “basically us driving our car and selling that data to an A.I. that wants to learn how to drive better.”SCI co-founder and Particl advisor Miguel Cuneta mentioned the use of IoT for sales that don’t require human interaction, and Coding Girls-member and Qratedcrates CTO Minrie, joining our panel with an extensive background in traditional e-commerce, further pointed to small vendors and the secondhand market as a possible user group.
Independent sellers, in particular, may appreciate the immediate benefits of peer-to-peer e-commerce in significantly lower fees like on the Particl’s marketplace platform.

Should Amazon be replaced by Decentralized Applications?

Rephrasing the original question triggered a unanimous yes from our panel.It takes time, patience, and a lot of effort, and being in the middle of it, we should be careful not to end up with unrealistic expectations of overnight revolution. Change is a constant process.

“I think everyone is still experimenting right now. And the only way to know is to actually try it out. And the Particl team is willing to stick their necks out.” — Miguel Cuneta, Co-Founder of Satoshi Citadel Industries

Being at the forefront of anything is not easy; it means there are no footsteps to follow into, and it means experiencing a lot of firsts, both accomplishments and mistakes.With Particl’s marketplace release just around the corner, we are up for the challenge, and we want to share that journey with you. Our panel event in Manila inspired me to start an article series titled “The Path to Decentralized Shopping” that attempts a candid, unbiased approach to decentralized e-commerce on its way to the global stage. What are the big opportunities and hidden (or not so hidden) hurdles, and how can marketplaces like Particl’s clear all of them and come out stronger?Read the first part of that series here: Decentralized Marketplaces shouldn’t compete with AmazonWhat challenges do you see coming for decentralized marketplaces? What opportunities are up for grabs? We appreciate your opinion, so don’t hesitate to leave your comment or reach out to us directly to share your views.Also read about how Bitcoin & Particl are building an independent economy together,or about the case for privacy in the tech industry.