AMA Highlights — ShareRing

By Daniel Dal Bello, Director.
September 2, 2020–7 min read.

On Saturday 22 August, we welcomed Tim Bos, CEO and Cofounder of ShareRing into the Hillrise Group Telegram chat for an AMA. ShareRing’s ShareToken has enjoyed significant price appreciation beginning in early June and peaking at the beginning of August. This is can be attributed to many fundamental advancements, additional token markets, community events, and product updates.

Tim worked with Barclays Capital before becoming involved in founding and leading several tech startups prior to founding ShareRing.

In this post, we have compiled key questions and answers from our AMA event.

Daniel Dal Bello
Welcome Tim, thank you for being here today. For those just hearing about ShareRing for the first time, could you please give a brief intro to yourself and the company?

Tim Bos
Sure, thanks, Daniel. I’m Tim Bos, the CEO and founder of ShareRing. I’ve been involved in blockchain for about 10 years in some form or another, from mining, to building businesses on the blockchain. ShareRing was started for the purpose of developing a platform and ecosystem to support the circular economies, including [the] sharing economy, travel industry and e-commerce. We have introduced our foundation products on our ShareLedger blockchain, which include our identity management system (ShareRing ID), our payment system (ShareRing Pay) and a number of other protocols and products.

Daniel Dal Bello
I’m interested in learning more about your white-label product and the niche you’re targeting with it. What are the core selling points of this product in comparison to established travel booking interfaces and how does your token interact within that? What is your strategy to penetrate that market and onboard agencies and travel agents?

Tim Bos
Travel is one of the first products we had ready. We delayed the launch of it due to COVID-19 though. We have a multi-tiered approach. The first is the launch of the ShareRing App, which (after signing up for ShareRing ID) allows you to book hotels, flights and activities through one of our many aggregator partners (we haven’t announced any of them yet, but they’re all leaders in the industry). The additional benefits we add though are things like ‘express check-in’ through some of our partner hotels, where we utilise your ShareRing ID to check you in before you arrive, so you can go straight to your room. We also offer advance check-in for flights and pre-checks by sending your passport info. All of this functionality is also offered through our API, so online travel agents can make use of it with their own branding and customer base.

Our other products that are ready to launch include our ‘eVisa on Arrival’ system, which will be used for entry into Thailand and other countries we are in discussions with. That will launch when travel resumes. We are also in discussion with governments and other organisations about our ‘Open World COVID Passport’. This is providing a way to help open the borders again. These discussions are in advanced stages with NGOs and governments.

We’re also about to launch ShareRing Shop with a huge partner in Thailand. We’re just doing operational testing from this Monday before we launch the pilot there. The shop is focused on ‘local’, so customers can purchase products from anywhere within about a 5km radius and have it delivered to them on the same day. It utilises ShareRing Pay, and also our identity management system.

In terms of ShareToken, our utility token, this is used to pay for transactions on the ShareLedger network. Because most of our clients/partners aren’t too familiar with blockchain and how to purchase the tokens, we charge in fiat (USD 0.02 to 0.05 per transaction) and then use that fiat to purchase SHR on the open market and distribute it to the Masternode holders.

@l628196
On the ShareRing website, it shows an application for drivers in India. Does this mean there are things in the pipeline coming up soon?

Tim Bos
We’re looking at multiple options in India too. We have a partner there. I think one of our guys was a bit excited and premature with that though.

@Coronl
Tim, can you tell us the sales numbers from the shop? We know that 100.000 people got in contact with ShareRing.

Tim Bos
Sales numbers are steady. Our pilot area in a small part of Melbourne was launched to learn the process. We’re generating about 45 orders per day and not allowing more than that at this stage, while we perfect the model. We’re in the business of developing platforms and technology, so we don’t want to get locked into doing operations, which is why we are launching overseas with partners.

We actually have a backlog of 4–5 very large partners, which will be announced over the next 2 months. We work to their schedule, as we are relying on their PR and marketing teams to release the news in conjunction with us. When we announce partners, we don’t just talk about a signature on a piece of paper, we want to only announce ones that have a genuine benefit to ShareRing and our growth.

David C
Hi Tim, can anyone stake on the new app?

Tim Bos
We have built staking, but it won’t be in v1.0. It’ll come shortly after. The main purpose of v1.0 is to facilitate sign-ups to ShareRing ID, the shop pilot, some travel functionality, and the SHR wallet and payment system, then we’ll add some more blockchain functions such as staking.

@PHSHOE
With V 1.0 not having staking. Do you have any rough time indication of when staking will be available for the masses?

Tim Bos
Definitely within 6 weeks of v1.0 launch. Probably earlier. It’s not a big release, but we didn’t want to have a flood of users from day 1 just for staking.

@Tomek_PDT
Can you tell us more about what you are doing and achieving in China? You mentioned you had to expand your workforce to deal with demand.

Tim Bos
We’ve got 5 full-time developers that are based in China. We’re also working with a couple of companies there on our travel and identity products. I can’t say more than that at this stage.

@Mokke33
Everybody is waiting for some partner announcements. Can you please share some? Or perhaps tell us what the background of the partners might be and the timeline for their announcement?

Tim Bos
Sure, without naming any, the best I can give you is this:

• One is a platform/infrastructure company.
• Two are huge travel companies.
• One is a global logistics/delivery company.
• One is an NGO.

And the others aren’t scheduled yet. Now you can speculate.

@D_Zuko
Will ShareRing create a “listing” of sorts for the masternodes and the fee each will charge? I believe this will create a competitive marketplace for staking and will entice more individuals to stake.

Tim Bos
Yes, that’s exactly what we’ll do. The Masternode can set their commission up when they start the node. It’s built into the commands they use to start it. They can change it at any time to make it more competitive too.

@Tomek_PDT
What are the latest surprising successes and challenges you have achieved/faced?

Tim Bos
For the latest successes, probably our ability to talk to people in government and high up in some very large organisations. In terms of surprising challenges, technology. Things don’t always work the way you expect them to. Blockchain is still in its infancy, and when we try to push the boundaries a bit much, we’re often disappointed, but it just makes us stronger.

@l628196
Those partners who use the ShareRing ID brand, like the bank in the UK. Do they brand it as their own ID product, or are they using ShareRing as the underlying API?

Tim Bos
It’s a mix, but all will have the ShareRing ID brand on it. We use that to allow portability of their ID. Once they sign up for that bank, then they can also have a quick and easy sign up to any other services that use our ecosystem. We’re putting together an SDK that companies can incorporate into their app for easy sign-up, or they can use our existing API.

Jonathan Jacobs
Other than China and Thailand what other markets are you trying to penetrate?

Tim Bos
China, Thailand, Vietnam, HK, and the UK are all on our short-term hit list, but there are others that we’ll be talking to also. We are often approached by prospective partners, but we need to make sure we don’t spread ourselves too thin. My goal is to develop the products and tools in a way that allow it to be easy for any company to integrate them or use them, but we’re not at that point yet.

Daniel Dal Bello
With your connections and experience in the car hire/sharing business, I’d imagine this would be one of the first areas in which you could really get a significant amount of transactions flowing through, especially with your mention of the large partnership in that sector. Any timeframes or thoughts on that?

Tim Bos
Yes, absolutely, but since March, the car-sharing/rental market has been struggling, so our releases there have been put on ice (beyond some of the things we already did).

@D_Zuko
If there is one thing you wished someone asked you, that you are dying to let the public know. what would that be?

Tim Bos
That’s the first time someone has asked me that, I’m not sure, to be honest. But while you’re giving me a free question, what events are you talking at soon?

I’m glad you asked, I’m speaking on 2 panels at the BG2C conference in Tokyo on Monday and Tuesday. One will be about mobility, with a focus on how our identity management solution and COVID Pass can assist there, and another will be on blockchain in general.

I’ve also been asked to be a keynote speaker at a larger conference than that at the National Innovation Authority of Thailand (NIA) is hosting in September. I’ll post more information on that when I have it. The focus will be on how we can get the borders open for travel again.

Hillrise Group supports ambitious Web3 startups with early-stage venture capital and fundamental research.

ShareRing platform will be the host to a growing ecosystem of apps and products built for the worldwide sharing economy.

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