The LockTrip team have been relatively quiet after their ICO. Once called crypto scammers for their questionable marketing strategies, which even the inclusion of a former president and a member of the European Parliament couldn’t negate, the team has been changing the public perception about its capabilities.
Following a successful rebrand and a move away from sketchy antics, the technical people behind the project have been showing significant progress towards the goal of offering a decentralised alternative to traditional web giants such as Booking and Airbnb.
Once mocked about requesting $30,000,000 to create a website the functionality of which was recreated in a weekend by an enthusiast, the team has been showing ambition to utilise its ICO funding in a way that can impress outsiders and stand a chance against the web Goliaths of global accommodation.
In a blog post detailing the advancements, LockTrip reveal that they have borrowed Blackcoin’s non-delegated Proof of Stake consensus protocol, which drives up to 300 transactions per second – more than 10 times the current throughput of Ethereum. Considering LockTrip only had 80 transactions today, this is probably overkill, however some of the other features the team announced could be considered much more practical.
A Fiat rate oracle has been implemented, allowing LockTrip users to seamlessly accept USD-based payments in the blockchain’s native cryptocurrency. Staking, which often successfully drives token prices upwards, has also been included. A voting mechanism decides the burn rate for staking rewards on the protocol level. A UTXO layer for direct transactions provides scalability improvements.
And most importantly for sceptics, a wallet is available for download. So the question of whether the team can deliver on their promises has been answered.
As for LockTrip – now it is up to them to prove that their development efforts are not in vain, and their marketing team could step it up to create a product of actual value. The cryptocurrency space needs blockchain-based products to start replacing traditional businesses, and the accommodation business is a great place to start.