An Overview of the BH Network Goals
This article will take a more simplified look at the plans of BH Network, how the team aims to accomplish them, and how they will help the global freelancer economy with blockchain technology. If you are looking for a more in-depth view, please look through our whitepaper, available for download at https://bh.network.
1. Lower Marketplace Fees
As the team comprises freelancers and business owners, we all understand the challenges people face daily with FIAT marketplaces. Using the Elrond blockchain, we can reduce fees by up to 18 times in comparison. In particular circumstances, we can waive those and have almost zero fees through the Elrond Network gas fees alone.
*The Elrond wallet to wallet gas fees at the time of writing this article are 0.00005 EGLD ($0.01) per transaction based on the current price of $250.
When you consider the fees on FIAT marketplaces, you are paying a lot of money to the platforms and payment processors, and we believe that is unfair to the users.
2. A Fairer Marketplace for Everyone
While the face of marketplaces may seem fair, the truth is far from it. Established sellers with hundreds or thousands of successful transactions and/or reviews are always shown to buyers before anyone else as that increases conversions and revenue for the platform.
Imagine (if you have not already been in the position) that you are a new freelancer, you have done all of your research, have highly competitive prices, and are fantastic at your job. It is still almost impossible for you to gain any traction in the marketplace. That is because of the way FIAT marketplaces want buyers to see the established sellers.
That drive to show only highly endorsed sellers creates a huge problem. Newcomers to the platforms will try to abuse and manipulate the system, using fake reviews to fool the algorithm.
See point 12 for more information about how we will create a fairer marketplace for everyone, from multi-million dollar agencies to tier three freelancers and everyone in between.
3. No Fraudulent Chargebacks
FIAT marketplaces all use traditional banking and payment processing methods, all of which have one major flaw. That issue is the ability to create fraudulent chargebacks, and buyers get their money refunded even after product delivery.
Using blockchain technology, there is no way for buyers to take advantage of the apparent weakness in those platforms. After releasing funds and buyer agreement (using a custom Escrow service), the blockchain does not allow for chargebacks.
Source: PayPal
4. Lifetime Footprint on Blockchain
Selling goods requires traceability, especially if you want to resell an item, product, or service. For example, if you buy a domain for a price, carry out a lot of work on the site, and want to resell it, you can prove the price you paid, even after many years, using transaction hashes from the blockchain.
That is a considerable benefit for single items such as graphics, domains, custom video, audio, etc., and provides enormous trust to buyers and sellers.
Source: ScienceDirect
5. Interoperability
The interoperability of Elrond’s blockchain allows you to use your hard-earned money as soon as you earn it. Only seconds after the buyer sends your funds, you have complete control allowing you to hold, exchange, stake, or spend your money without waiting for banks and losing massive commissions.
Furthermore, you also have the ability to create instant payments and compounding through Liquidity Pools (LPs), farming, lending, and more.
Source: Decrypt
6. Adoption — Bringing Crypto to the Mainstream and Vice-Versa
For many years, freelancers and agencies have looked for a method the reduce or even remove unnecessary fees.
Let’s create a scenario:
YOU, as a student, have a passion and natural skill for graphic design and want to use your passion through freelancing to evolve and fund your passion and university, etc.
You search the internet and find an outstanding, clean, FIAT-based marketplace with a vast traffic pool and many people interested in buying your services.
As you are new to the platform, you barely get 1–5 orders a month because of the algorithms (see point 2).
- You sell a custom logo design for 100 USD. When the buyer pays, the platform charges them, by default, 1–3% of the sale cost, but you do not see that.
- You, as seller, will also be charged up to 20%
- When you cash out via a third-party payment processor (as no platform has an all-in-one service at the time of writing this statement), they will also charge you 2–6% for transferring funds into your FIAT bank account.
- Making matters worse, you will need to pay taxes; there will also be accounting fees if you own a small company.
To sum it up: You, from your hard-earned $100, will get around $50–70 to spend, depending on what country you live in and which kind of business entity you own. Worst-case scenarios are when freelancers remain with less than 40% of the total earned due to substantial government taxes.
One most significant advantages that our marketplace will provide is that the seller will not pay huge fees, and the buyers will see an accurate price, not an inflated cost that you often see on FIAT marketplaces.
Sources: WeForum, Upwork, TheUndercoverRecruiter
7. Easier Global Adaptation
As this platform will be one of the first blockchain marketplaces available, we predict that most users will already have relatively good backgrounds in computer science and the internet as a whole. That will create a simple, easy change from FIAT to cryptocurrency, making the experience easy for everyone.
However, the marketplace layout will be easy to understand and simple for everyone (see point 10).
Source: BioSpace
8. Stablecoins for Buyers and Sellers Who do not Like Volatility
Our goal is not only to make the world a little better but to take it to the future, too.
We have analyzed how marketplaces run, limiting people to their native currencies, banning cryptocurrencies, and making things difficult. Therefore, we decided not to restrict participants to our native token and allow payments through partners coins such as eGLD, along with a stablecoin such as BUSD or USDC.
We are aware that global adoption will not be overnight in some countries. Therefore, we want to use stablecoins to avoid any penalties, be fair to the most crypto-friendly countries such as Liechtenstein and Switzerland, and keep in mind places where adoption will be late in comparison.
Source: Investopedia, Tezro
9. Friendly UX/UI
The interaction of the platform will be as “simple” as possible from the user’s point of view. We will try our best to bring it to the masses and avoid complicated UI/UX (User Interface/User Experience). All of the “magic” and disruptive technologies will be handled on the shoulders of the platform, allowing easy adaptation on a global scale.
Planning for global adaptation will allow anyone new to the platform to become familiar with it within minutes, avoiding unnecessary research or issues down the line.
Note*: The image above is just a schema. There may be changes in the future according to community voting power.
Other than the legal forms that participants need to complete for invoicing, the whole platform will be a “click and go” layout, making it easy to find what you need when you need it.
Example from the buyer interface:
- Allow connection through Maiar App (for example)
- Buy service
- Wait for delivery
- Approve through Maiar
- Money released
- Invoice received
10. Avoiding Marketplace Manipulation Through Fake Reviews
A beautiful thing about web 3.0 and blockchain technology is that similar or complementary projects do not see each other as competitors, but they work together to reach end goals.
We will partner up with many security and crypto-related projects to help avoid any marketplace manipulation with maximum efficiency. We will announce all partnerships on our social media channels at the time.
Even if people find a way to bypass all the security triggers, which is unlikely, they will gain meager benefits due to the “fairer marketplace” schema. However, our customer support will continuously monitor the platform to maintain a healthy environment.
We aim to provide everyone from aged sellers to newcomers and everyone in between a position on the front page and seen by all buyers at different times, with rotating slides.
Conclusion
This article was a brief overview of the goals of BH Network and its visions for a marketplace with a footprint in the blockchain.
Connect with us on our Telegram group for further information.
