Introduction

Money is entering the “gig economy” in billions hence it is time blockchain technology is used in this growing economy. Freelancers add about $715 billion every year to the US economy. The numbers of freelancer or independent workers is growing steadily and its projected to climb to 43% by 2020. The jobs available for freelancers ranges from handymen for hire to peer to peer-to-peer home sharing gigs and a lot more.
The advent of the internet has helped the revenues in this growing economy to sky rocket. Now, freelance jobs are available via various online mediums, mobile app, websites etc.

What is Gig Economy

The gig economy has often been called the “sharing economy” and references are always made to the likes of Airbnb, Uber. Websites like Fiverr, Upwork and Problogger have arrays of freelance jobs like writing, designs etc. and websites like Etsy have a lot crafty products put up for sale by freelancers.
All this platforms and mediums are online based which makes the possibilities in this economy limitless. Freelancers can connect from any part of the world and make transactions; write a book for a publishing house in New York, ship a product to Asia and connect online like never before.

Blue Whale Foundation

Since blockchain came to light in 2009, it has been revolutionizing every industry it touches. From finance, logistics, health etc. and the “gig economy” is not left out. The Blue Whale Foundation is looking to change the way things are done in this growing economy. They are building a decentralized ecosystem where self-employed and freelancers can pursue their passion, reap reward and get the value they deserve for their contribution.

They are set to freelancers with employment benefits such as retirement pensions, paid time-off which normally is made available to salary employees.

The Problem with The Gig Economy

It’s been highlighted that most of this platforms run online and they operate as a third party mediator between service provider and the client. There is no way to get someone to write a book for use without using Fiverr or Upwork platform.
Unfortunately, there is a lot of problems experienced by freelancers/service providers. The companies or platform say they bring flexibility and ease to work. However, those who work on these platforms and critics argue that this isn’t the case.
Three main problems faced by freelancers are;

1. High commission rates
2. Expensive marketing and advertising costs
3. Lack of security: retirement plan, unemployment benefits and holiday or sick pay.

Solution

The Blue Whale Foundation propose a solution tagged WORK (Workers Optimized Reward Keeper) which comprises of 3 main components.

Contribution Activity Manager (CAM)

This component has been designed to distribute rewards earned through contributors’ activities which includes;

Decentralized Associated Network (DAN)

The main purpose of DAN is to collect user data and build a decentralized advertising network as a main business model of Blue Whale Network. This is done by installing a SaaS tool on websites and social media accounts which transforms each social media/websites into a node in the network.
Such tools include;

Booking Software

widget provided by the Blue Whale Foundation through which clients can make bookings will be provided. Data such as booking, processing the fees, etc. will be transferred, stored and processed on the blockchain.

Ad Display Widgets

The data collected are used to improve the network. Participants on Blue Whale Network can also install the Ad Widget on their websites and social media accounts to promote their products and services and earn rewards.
The Verlocal experience comes to play here as Blue Whale is going to be using their service in this regard, hence, they have already partnered with them.

Reward Bank (ReBa)

20% of BWX offered at Blue Whale’s initial ICO will be kept in the Reward Bank. This will be combined with 60% of net profits and freelancers’ referral rewards.
Deposits in the Reward Bank will be utilized as welfare benefits for freelancers as follows.
Like pensions, rewards earned through referrals are saved in the ReBa, and payouts will be made only after a certain period; in a lump sum or monthly.
60% of the annual net profits for Blue Whale Foundation is reserved for offering paid leave in case of events like sick leave.
In case the amount held in the reserve held in the ReBa falls below 20% because more rewards are drawn out to for paid leave and sick leave than planned, the reward bank reserve will be filled by issuing new coins based on consensus.

Use Case

Freelancer X recommended freelancer Y to Blue Whale network and he registered. There are 2 ways by which customers can get access to freelancer A’s services; its either via the Blue Whale advertisement network or directly. For referring freelancer B to the network, there is a reward for him. He also earns reward by redirecting other customer Z to other freelancers.
All this rewards are deposited in the ReBa and will be used for the longterm payment plan like pensions. Time offs are also paid on request.

ReBa/CAM-Freelancer Referral

Freelancer Y registers for the Blue Whale Network with Freelancer A’s referral code. For the referral, both freelancer X and freelancer Y receives an acquisition reward from the Reward Bank.

ReBa/CAM-Freelancer Verification

Freelancer X is to be validated by a verifier after registration. The verifier who works in similar industry and scores more than 4.5 on average, receives a reward from the reward bank for verifying the newcomer.

No Commission

Freelancer X receives a full-service fee from a customer without commission when the customer visits directly Freelancer X’s website. For example, if the customer makes payment of 100 USD, Freelancer X receives 100 USD in full.

ReBa/DAN/CAM-Service Referral

If a customer who visits Freelancer X’s service page clicks-through to the other service’s landing page and makes a purchase, Freelancer X will receive a referral reward from the reward bank in return for their user traffic. For example, if the customer who visits Freelancer X’s service page visits Freelancer Y’s service page exposed through DAN advertising network and makes payment of 200 USD, Freelancer X will receive 10 USD as a reward immediately. Freelancer X who acquires a new customer and create revenue will contribute 10 USD, 5% of the service to the Blue Whale Network.

Reward Bank - Retirement Reward

From step 4, Freelancer X doesn’t receive service referral reward instantly but instead the reward is saved in the ReBa and will be paid out after a maturity period like pensions.

Reward Bank - Paid Time Off

Freelancer X who fulfills certain conditions is eligible to receive paid time-off from the reward bank on request, based on their average revenue. However, if the number of paid leave exceeds the maximum, no reward will be paid to the freelancer.

Tokens

The BWX token will be an Icon blockchain based token prior which will be the official token of the Blue Whale Foundation.

Token details

Token symbol: BWX
Total tokens: 105.6 billion tokens
Soft cap: 25 million SGD
Hard cap: 55 million SGD
Price/Conversion rate: 1 SGD = 300 BWX
Projected crowd sale date: Private sale: 2nd – 15th April, Public sale: 30th May – 30th June

Team

Will Lee - CEO, co-founder

He is the present CEO of Verlocal. He has a degree in Artificial Intelligence from Stanford University. He has 5 years’ experience in the sharing economy.

Hyunjin Choi – CTO

Choi has 20 years’ experience in in R&D. He served as the head of Advanced Platform Lab at Samsung Electronics where developed many software that runs on various devices and gadgets. He has a Ph.D. in computer science from Cambridge University, UK.

Changsub Keum - CIO

Changsub has 20 years’ experience in ICT industry. He is a board member of Korean Software Engineering Society He got his Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University.

Hawon Chung - COO, co-founder

Hawon is the CEO of ChainTOB, a global blockchain service operator. He studied computer science and engineering at POSTECH. He had setup multiple startups and has ran his own business in the IT industry since 2000.

Jaehyun Park - CAO, co-founder

Jaehyun worked with Samsung and developed the first sharing economy platform in Korea and created Samsung Pay as Global General Manager. He has over 24 years’ experience in ICT.

Conclusion

From my research, Blue Whale has a real product and has a lot of potentials. Being the first project on the ICON blockchain, hype might easily be generated from ICON as they are helping them with marketing and tech support.
The team as a whole has a lot of experience in the sharing economy industry which is an assurance that they will deliver.

Overall conviction: BULLISH

For more info on this project, visit;

Website: https://www.bluewhale.foundation/
Whitepaper: https://www.bluewhale.foundation/assets/Bluewhale_White_Paper_ENG_V.pdf