Blue Whale Foundation, The Decentralized Ecosystem for the Self-Employed Blue Whale is set to rock the gig economy’s boat by building a decentralized ecosystem to allow freelancers and the self-employed to reap rewards and employment benefits from their contributions Against the backdrop of technological disruption and offshoring, the “gig/sharing economy” is burgeoning globally. Freelancers will make up a whopping 58% of the US workforce by 2027. Consequently, peer-to-peer booking platforms like AirBnB and Uber have seen a meteoric rise in demand accompanying these shifts in the job market. As the definition of work changes and evolves, the difficulties encountered by freelancers and part-time workers such as the lack of protection, and the insecurity of self-employment will only worsen. This not only affects the growing mass of freelancers, but also ruptures the social contract between workers and governments. Consumer protections have also weakened because of the murky legal relationship between freelancers and their host platforms. This simmering dissatisfaction has created popular backlash, as concerned governments in several countries such as France have begun to crack down on platforms like Uber and AirBnB. Despite these worrying trends, no workable remedy has been proposed - until now. The Blue Whale Foundation’s ICO is set to rock the boat of the gig/sharing economy by leveraging on blockchain as a service to provide freelancers with employment benefits such as paid-time-off, and retirement pensions traditionally available only to salaried employees.
Crypto.com, the pioneering payments and cryptocurrency platform, seeks to accelerate the world’s transition to cryptocurrency. The MCO Token Sale was conducted in May-June 2017 and raised US$26.7 million. MCO Card is a Visa-branded debit card that draws from a cryptocurrency-funded bank account. Since it’s a Visa card, you can use your MCO Visa card just like you would any other card. The card and bank account are free for holders of cryptocurrency. In order to open an account, you simply sign up, verify your identity, and transfer any of the various accepted cryptocurrencies to your account. At this time, the Visa card is available to customers in Asia. They also have a waitlist for European customers. Customers in the United States does not have access to it at the moment. However, there are plans to change that. Solving the problem of everyday payments has the potential to be huge for cryptocurrency. However, MCO Visa card is not the only project attempting to create crypto-backed debit (or prepaid) cards. Other projects, such as TenX, are working on the same issue. All of these projects run into challenges implementing such cards in a large scale, compliant manner. Crypto.com hopes to crack the code, ultimately getting cryptocurrencies and popular payment methods to play nicely together. Crypto.com was founded in June 2016 in Switzerland and rebranded from Monaco on 6th July 2018. Their first prototype was developed in October of that year. In February of 2017, they were accepted into a Hong Kong Government backed Cyberport incubation program, where they developed their platform until they were ready to launch their token sale in 2017. The sale closed in June with $26.7 million in funding. Their app became available to pre-registered users in August 2017, followed by the official partnership with Visa in October. The team consists of seasoned veterans in the fin-tech space, most of whom have experience in Asia, where Monaco Cards have first been made available. Since MCO Visa cards are backed by cryptocurrency, they don’t have border issues like fiat currencies. As a result, you can use your card anywhere you go. The card will automatically default to the local fiat currency when you make a purchase. The low fees and exchange rates also apply in other countries. Transactions take place at the exact exchange rate that Crypto.com receives as an institutional trader. In contrast, when you use your debit card across borders with most banks, they’ll add an additional percentage to the exchange rate or include a transaction fee. Crypto.com has connections with eight of the top ten international foreign exchange banks to facilitate currency conversion. The MCO Visa card is a compelling option for anyone looking to make everyday purchases with cryptocurrency. It also makes sense for cross-border travelers. However, we can expect the rollout to take a long time and hit a lot of bumps along the way. The financial industry is highly regulated and cryptocurrency-backed payments is a complex issue, even if Crypto.com's solution seems to make it simple and user-friendly.