In recent years, the “sharing economy” market where goods and services are shared and traded among people and the “gig economy” market where freelancers undertake work via the Internet are on the rise.【日本語版はこちら】

Although many people are exploring ways to earn income while utilising the time they have, the means of acquiring funds and customers are still limited and inefficient. The new way of working isn’t quite here yet.

In this article, we interviewed Mr Masato Kakamu, the CEO of TimeTicket, Inc., which operates the sharing economy marketplace “TimeTicket”, the platform that connects people who wish to buy and sell skills and services, and the service “eSportStars” that connects and supports esports players and fans. The interview was mainly about an innovative blockchain project the “TimeCoinProtocol”, which rewards users for their contributions (activities and transactions etc.) with their cryptocurrency (TimeCoin).

“Time-mining” and “esports-mining” are the keys.

Mr Kakamu is also the founder of Globalway, the company that operates “Career Connection”, the site where companies are reviewed by employees. In 2016, the company acquired “TimeTicket”, the sharing economy service platform that connects people who wish to buy and sell skills and services. The operating company was established in June last year. It has been exploring new ways of working and doing business, which is in line with their company’s mission of creating the “reputation economy” where individuals can unlock their potential and prosper.

Currently, they are working on their original cryptocurrency “TimeCoin”, preparing for it to be listed on Bitforex, the world’s top-class cryptocurrency exchange, by the end of the year.

“You get rewarded with TimeCoin when you use the service through the purchase of TimeTickets. We call this “time-mining”. Similarly, the more you participate in eSportStars game tournaments, the more TimeCoin you get as rewards. We are also planning to implement the “esports-mining” function”, said Mr Kakamu.

The users can sell TimeCoin on a cryptocurrency exchange. In addition, they can receive in-service special privileges by holding TimeCoin for the medium to long term. With TimeTicket, the users can receive special services such as discounts according to the amount they hold. With eSportStars, the privileges could include access to exclusive goods and tournaments.

Furthermore, esports teams and players can receive TimeCoin not only by participating in eSportStars tournaments but also hosting tournaments and inviting fans to tournaments.

“In terms of hosting tournaments, it’s usually difficult for players and teams to get sponsors and fans on board but it will be easier to do so with eSportStars and the TimeCoin mechanism. Individuals can finally have the chance to earn money. TimeCoin will help them in that sense too”, said Mr Kakamu.

Game streamers can also receive TimeCoin; all they need to do is to create ‘let’s play’ videos of eSportStars tournaments and submit them to the management office. By expanding the circle of support, eSportStars aims to boost the entire esports industry.

Widespread use of TimeCoin will lead to the creation of a variety of sharing economy services.

The idea of TimeCoin came from the vision of ??TimeTicket which is to create the “reputation economy” where individuals’ skills and work can be evaluated fairly.

“In order for individuals’ skills and work to be evaluated fairly and traded appropriately, I thought that it would be necessary to have a mechanism where individuals can manage past transactions and activities in a unified manner and can share them freely.

Sharing economy services such as TimeTicket rely on a business model in which you lock-in users with a strong capital base in order to be competitive, but it should not end there. When individuals’ reputations and credibility are locked-in within certain services and applications, it won’t be a fair system for users as there are limitations in the way that their reputation can be utilised fully. Reputation and credibility should belong to the users themselves.

In other words, it would be better to create a matrix for each job type and skill level and evaluate those in an open-source environment, including involvement of third parties. This way, we would be able to create the reputation economy in a real sense “, said Mr Kakamu.

Therefore, they decided to create the “TimeCoinProtocol “, a decentralized sharing economy service platform that solves the problem of information silos allowing users to un-lock their reputations and credibility for their past transactions and evaluations by utilizing blockchain.

In order to use sharing economy services, users normally need to register their personal information for each service. On this decentralized sharing economy platform, information such as reputation data can be shared across services.

In addition, by utilizing this protocol as the technical foundation for a series of processes from the seller-buyer engagement to settlement, even individuals who are not confident in their IT knowledge can easily kickstart a sharing economy service by using the TimeCoinProtocol, which also helps lower the barrier to entry in terms of cost.

“The cost of sharing economy services especially in developing, operating, and attracting customers is very high, and it is difficult to make a profit if they are operated in the conventional way. If the basic functions of the sharing economy service can be easily set up and customer data can be shared across services with a high level of automation powered by a protocol utilizing blockchain and AI, operators’ break-even points will be lowered hence more sharing economy services can be created.

The use of this protocol in a variety of service apps will eventually allow users to hop freely in search of better services, without relying on any particular service. We will be heading to a world where sharing economy services are commonly used “, said Mr Kakamu.