Incent: Has anyone done some analysis on this?
Hi Guys,
i just saw INCENT. Apparently it is a blockchain based loyalty program.
Has anyone found some good analysis on the business model of this. I would like to know if this is something to invest in.
I will be reading the white paper, but if anyone knows some collateral like blog post, videos etc that analyze INCENTE in a way that will help me understand how it works technically and from a business perspective so that i can form an opinion on it that would be amazing.
After reading the white paper my understanding is the following:
Incent will allow merchants to use a rewards system without any infrastructure need and investment cost, since it runs on a blockchain. The merchants can select how much they want to reward their customers, which means any purchase will trigger a buy transaction for the reward which will be paid out in the incent currency to the customer as reward.
This is just a crypto token that can be traded openly and also at the merchant, i.e. to buy stuff.
All that said I don't get the value of this for the merchant. The only advantage is low cost. But the key point of a reward system is to force customer to come back. By allowing customers to have a token they can just sell is the same thing as giving them money back right away, except with more friction which is the same as reducing the price except with more friction.
I don't see how this business model makes any sense?
What am I missing?
Here are few things that can help get you up to speed on Incent - I think it's an interesting project.
@incentloyalty has been posting their latest updates on medium: https://medium.com/incent-loyalty-blog
Rob Wilson, CEO of Incent and the Lead Developer, Peter Godbolt did a really good AMA over at SteemSpeak Chat back on Sept. 23, 2016 - they go over all of the aspects of their business in pretty good detail. @proctologic made a post, but the audio link doesn't seem to be working at the moment. Here's a link to my backup recording that I posted to soundcloud.
3 . @creationlayer has teamed up with a couple of folks to create a nice ICO research site. The Incent profile page has a good bit of information on there as well: https://tokenmarket.net/blockchain/waves/assets/incent/
Thank you. This is what I am looking for.
Why do you think it's an interesting project. What is the value of the solution in your opinion?
The first question is: Why this service has to be on a blockchain?
Blockchain is a great innovation, but it doesn't mean that blockchains should or could be used for everything. For many things a normal database is much better choice. If the whitepaper doesn't explain clearly why this service has to use blockchain to work properly, I would stay away from it.
The blockchain is a great new technology, but like TCP/IP may take many years to mature. At Currency Alliance, we have also created a digital currency called comcoin to be used as a global loyalty point currency, but we only commit transactions above $10 to the blockchain immediately, while smaller transactions are settled immediately in a private, cloud-based infrastructure and then all smaller transactions are backed up to the blockchain hourly.
The Incent approach is conceptually very interesting, but in practice, it remains unclear how traditional supply and demand for the currency will ensure price stability (a risk that most merchants won´t be able to accept until economies of scale demonstrate stability).
How is the project interesting. After reading the white paper I have not seen anything that creates a viable business model. When people say interesting they usually mean something that could work. I could not see anything that makes sense from a use case perspective. I.e. How would invent create value for merchants and customers.
Good point.
The blockchain creates free infrastructure.
However i dont see a business model that makes sense.
Blockchain isn't free. At least somebody has to produce the blocks, and preferably there should be also enough developers to continue the development and fix the bugs. All those people usually want some money for their services and somebody has to pay for it.
True. Blockchain is not free. However it makes sense that with a blockchain infrastructure be ones easier for merchants. But u are right, a cloud service could do that as well and maybe even better
Can you post a link? Maybe I will try to check it out if I can.
https://incentloyalty.com
The best place to go if you want further clarification is the Incent thread on BitcoinTalk or to join Incent on Slack