Interview with James Waugh of CanYa, the blockchain replacement for fiver and upvork
Over the past few years, the “gig economy” has radically shifted the way we purchase goods and services and interact with the world. Driven by major players like Lyft, Uber, Upwork, Fiverr, Postmates, and Takl, we’ve become a world obsessed with ordering anything, to be done or delivered anywhere, at any time.
Need a ride from the airport? Lyft or Uber will be there in a few! Want to have some food delivered at midnight, Postmates or Grubhub shall be your munchies savior. Maybe the Postmates guys opened the door too fast, and your door just fell off the hinges, so you enlist the aid of a Takl agent to help your not-so-handy self out. Point being, the gig economy is an intrinsic part of our day-to-day life, but it certainly has its flaws and limitations.
CanYa aims to fill in the gaps in the current gig economy by providing a decentralized peer-to-peer marketplace of services, where users are instantly connected to service providers. Gone are the days of having a greedy third party charge service providers subscription fees, leads or extra fees to get a quote for a job.
Based on their in-app rating system, you’ll get to choose your service provider, whether you’re in need of a landscaper, app developer, plumber, or a virtual assistant. CanYa currently has over 200 services and 400 different skills listed for their providers, all of which have been submitted by users. Unlike most ICO’s, CanYa already has a fully functioning product, as they had a soft launch earlier this year based out of a small market in Australia. CanYa is a true meritocracy and is self-curating. Providers with the highest ratings will see more work, exposure, and can afford to charge higher rates for their services.
CanYa’s platform also includes free media-rich messaging, free voice calling, and a free quote & invoice service. They’re also building a smart chat-bot to engage with users and providers, to do everything from process job requests or help providers manage their schedule.
Another revolutionary feature of CanYa is the ability to pay for tangible, real-world services using cryptocurrency! CanYa gives you the option to pay for its many services in either their native ERC-20 CanYaCoin (CAN), other popular cryptocurrencies such as Ether, Bitcoin or Monero, or, if you’re feeling nostalgic, in fiat.
They’ve even built a digital cryptocurrency wallet directly into the app, which is already free to download for both iOS and Andriod devices. Service providers will earn CAN for their skills and services and will be able to either spend it in the app or exchange it immediately for Bitcoin or Ether. For clients, there are no hidden fees to pay for any of CanYa’s services. You’ll also be able to link your credit card to the wallet, and withdraw straight to your bank account too!
Their CAN token will be the engine driving the whole platform forward, as it serves as a bridge between fiat and cryptocurrencies, while also acting as a powerful reward system that will incentive user-curation. To protect against volatility, CanYa has partnered with Digix, a cryptocurrency that is backed by gold. Digix tokens (DGX) will be used to secure the store of value for the hedged escrow function of their smart contracts. For a more in-depth explanation of this, see page 16 of their whitepaper.
In addition to Digix, they’ve also partnered with a bevy of other crypto/blockchain companies, including Gladius, Trust Wallet, Madana, Giveth, Endorse, qibee, and Kowalla. CanYa hopes to accelerate mainstream crypto adoption by introducing users and service providers alike to the crypto realm. According to their whitepaper, “by integrating fiat payment gateways, CanYaCoin aims to become a legitimate gateway of fiat into crypto, enhancing the entire ecosystem and accelerating mainstream adoption.”
The HODL CLUB
We’ve all seen plenty of ICO’s get their tokens dumped by people out for a quick buck as soon as they hit exchanges. CanYa has seen enough of this, so they’ve created the CanYa HODL Club as a way to reward their ICO contributors, and incentive the long-term holding of the token. CanYa had this to say on the inspiration for the club:
“This club will encourage ICO contributors to HODL their tokens! By doing this we will be able to protect those that believed in CanYa from the beginning and share our long-term vision for what CanYa can be. This has never been done before and we are very excited to introduce it to both our community and the crypto community at large.”
How can you participate in the HODL Club? Simple! Every member who purchased at least 5000 CAN tokens during their ICO sale is automatically enrolled. For those who missed out on the ICO, you must purchase at least 10,000 CAN and then apply to have your address whitelisted on their site. The short-term benefits of being a HODL member is that during the first three months, you’ll receive an airdrop of CAN tokens direct into your wallet, corresponding to whatever amount of tokens you’re already holding.Long-term benefits include an annual airdrop of tokens which will once again be based on your current token balance. According to CanYa’s blog, “… the longer you are a member of the club the higher your proportion of air-dropped tokens will be as people leave the club. We will also regularly share information on our roadmap execution to our HODL Club and give them breaking news – first.” CanYa HODL members also will gain free tickets to their annual CanYa blockchain conference and party (at a location to be voted on by members). If for some reason the conference doesn’t happen, the community will vote on a similar blockchain expo to attend, and CanYa will give its members tickets to that one instead! For more information on the specifics of the club, be sure to check out their blog.
CanYa’s ICO sale is currently live, and they’ve created this handy ICO guide to help walk you through the process of buying CAN tokens. The ICO began on November 26th and ends on December 26th, 2017. Unfortunately, US investors must be accredited to participate in their ICO sale.
For all their latest news and updates, follow CanYa here:
Contribute to the CanYaCoin ICO here: https://sale.canya.io
Telegram Announcements: https://t.me/canyacoin
Telegram Community: https://t.me/CanYaCommunity
Website: https://canya.io
Twitter: https://twitter.com/canyacoin
LinkedIn: https://au.linkedin.com/company/canya
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CanYaCoin/
Hello World Blog: CanYaCoin – An ICO with a mature product, not a hopeful idea