We have a dedicated DevOps team of 7 people working on the project since November 2018. And we have solid results to show for it.

The project concept was described in the whitepaper a year ago, but it was difficult to get support until people could see the product. In June 2019, we launched the MVP and now it is a production grade quality system with distributed CDN image servers and much more.

This is an open source project:

• GitHub Repositories - https://github.com/Waiviogit
• Tasks - https://github.com/Waiviogit/waivio/issues (mostly in Russian for our efficient remote team in Ukraine, but many images too, so it is easy to understand the tasks anyway).
• Discord channel and more.

The Waivio platform is designed to function in a decentralized environment (several nodes operated by different owners). And each server will power a large number of enterprise applications (web hosting, attention trading, guides, etc.), creating a combined network effect (users, connections, content, rewards, tokens).

This dynamic will create strong and steady external demand for STEEM. For example, when a restaurant runs its rewards program on Waivio (by replacing coupons with rebates, where reviews with photos are used to confirm sales), they will purchase $1,000 to $3,000 per month worth of STEEM to pay customers for the reviews. And when users receive $5 to $8 (in STEEM/SBD) per qualifying post, it is very unlikely that they will cash-out all these rewards. In short, this creates very strong positive demand and will drive up the price of STEEM.

The platform will also provide a solid foundation for guides - independent agents who help restaurants in their region manage rewards programs. This is a very profitable business where guides receive 25% of the rewards they manage (commissions are collected in regular currency instead of STEEM).

We are very excited about the future of STEEM and this community.