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.
Nexus is the first truly quantum-resistant blockchain, incorporating advanced cryptography designed to negate the threat posed by quantum technology of the future. The 3DC combines 571-bit private keys, 1024-bit Skein and Keccak quantum-resistant hashing algorithms, and an evolving signature scheme called signature chains. Signature chains update the private and public keys that secure your address and obscures them after each and every transaction, maintaining the integrity and security of your account even on mobile wallets. Signature chains offer several advantages over equivalent quantum-resistant schemes such as BLISS and Lamport signatures, being extremely compact and lightweight, making it ideal for blockchain applications. The Nexus coin (NXS) is the currency of the network. There’s no cap on the amount of NXS that will be minted. Instead, the coin has a 10-year distribution period in which 78 million NXS will be distributed until September 23rd, 2024. After this time, the supply will inflate each year by a maximum of 3% through the holding channel and 1% through the prime and hashing channels. Nodes create blocks, on average, every 50 seconds, and an NXS transaction requires 6 confirmations. Currently, most transactions cost 0.01 NXS. However, once the 3DC is built and 10-year distribution is complete, transaction fees will disappear. Instead, the system will absorb the fees through inflation. Nexus didn’t hold an ICO. Instead, the project has a Developer Fund that takes a small commission from mining rewards. This commission starts at 1.5% and increases to 2.5% over 10 years. Additionally, 20% of the block rewards are slotted for marketing as well as the production and launch of the Nexus satellite network. Colin Cantrell, also known as Videlicet, is the founder and lead developer of Nexus. He first named the project Coinshield (CSD) when starting in September 2014. The original code only contained the prime channel; the team added the hash channel in October 2014. In April 2015, the team rebranded to Nexus, and they added Proof-of-Holdings in July 2015. Besides partnering with Vector on the satellite network, Nexus has also joined forces with SingularityNET to provide their 3DC architecture to the project’s decentralized AI network. Moving forward, Nexus is releasing major updates following their TAO (Tritium, Amine, Obsidian) roadmap strategy. The releases include the 3DC, mobile wallets, quantum resistance, and the satellite network, among many other things. The creation of new NXS is capped at 3 percent per year and is earned through securing the network by mining or staking. The platform is developed and maintained by the Nexus Embassy who is funded through a 1.5% commission on each block produced and from funds acquired through early mining of NXS. The commission will also gradually increase from 1.5 – 2% over the next 10 years.