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.
WeTrust is a collaborative saving and insurance platform. It is autonomous, frictionless, and decentralized. WeTrust utilizes the Ethereum blockchain to create a full-stack financial system that leverages existing social capital and trust networks, eliminating the need of a “trusted third party”, which allows for lower fees, improved incentive structures, decentralized risks, and a greater amount of capital to reside among the participants. WeTrust’s first product is a Rotating and Saving Credit Association platform, inspired by the ~1 billion people around the world who are using mostly informal organizations to lend/ borrow, and support each other financially within their communities. ROSCAs will bootstrap the community, and WeTrust plans to build future products that include sovereign credit identities, trusted lending, mutual insurance, and more.