Bitcoin has thousands of workers already earning wages.Getty
Gig Economy Fosters Productive Connections and Social Change
Gig life may not be for everyone, but tens of millions of people live it every day. As of August 2018, “36% of U.S. workers participate in the gig economy through either their primary or secondary jobs.” From one perspective, this could be cause for alarm. It could indicate that full time jobs either aren’t available or aren’t enough to make ends meet. From another perspective, it presents an enticing opportunity to revamp the way humans work together both for commercial and non-commercial purposes.
I recently had the opportunity to chat with Simona Pop and Mark Beylin of the Bounties Network, as well as Ivo Georgiev of AdEx about how blockchain and cryptocurrency can improve the gig economy and the way society functions.
Gig Economy 2.0
Collaboration without borders has never been as easy as it is with current technology. Data can be shared instantly. People across the globe can work together remotely. Industry professionals can market themselves to a global audience. While all of these advancements have altered the way business is done, there is naturally no end to the evolution process.
Mark Beylin, CEO at the Bounties Network, discussed that the nature of the way people are earning an income is changing. He’s observed that more and more people find themselves doing multiple things to earn an income. Thus, the Bounties Network is striving to make it easier for people to earn an income in the context of this shift.
As the internet opened doors for freelancers, platforms like Upwork and Fiverr emerged. The concept is great: provide a place where talent and those seeking it can easily connect. In practice, however, there are some less than desirable realities.
Several pitfalls of these major sites are detailed in this article, including high fees, the banning and subsequent withholding of thousands of dollars from Fiverr content creator, Voiceover Peter, and cases where freelancers had their payments taken away on Upwork after completing work. Certainly, for those trying to avoid use of fiat money, these sites have little appeal as well.
Luckily for gig lifers, the burgeoning blockchain and crypto spaces are home to many gig economy participants who have the motivation and skills to make something new and better possible. Even better, there are people seeking to extend the benefits of an effective network for commercial purposes to non-commercial applications that could radically change the way people organize to achieve goals.
Bounties For All
The Bounties Network is one company that has its sights set on impacting the global population through their blockchain and crypto-based network. On the Bounties Network, anyone can post a bounty for a particular task. Bounties are currently available for things like making parkour videos, researching thermal vacuum chamber providers in the US, and naming a token that will be used by the Bounties Network, UNICEF Ventures and ETHDenver to reward positive actions.
The network runs on the Ethereum blockchain and thus a bounty can be posted in any coin on Ethereum.
Beyond Business
While the relevance of the network to gig economy participants is clear, the Bounties Network has a vision for making the network accessible to the widest audience possible. The mission is to increase opportunities for individual and societal gain. In their words:
“The Bounties Network empowers humans to incentivize and self-organize, from freelancing to grassroots social action, and anything in between. Whether it’s for research, content translation, or video production, The Bounties Network lets you create projects, collaborate, and get paid for doing great work in any domain.”
Their social impact project, Bounties for the Oceans, demonstrated how incentivizing people can have an impact on the environment. Bounties for the Oceans offers participants a bounty for cleaning up plastics and trash.
The first event took place in Manila, Philippines. All told, the effort accomplished clean-up of “just over 3 tonnes of trash consisting of 315 kg of plastic, 103kg of rubber, 120 kg styro, and 27kg glass bottles.”
Beyond that, the project accomplished another intention Beylin had, which was to, “test out how we could re-engineer the flow of money and its distribution patterns by actively involving local communities through cryptocurrency based incentives.” Beylin reported that 224 people were educated on crypto throughout the project.
Crypto Makes New Income Streams Available
It may not seem like a big deal that 224 non-crypto users were introduced to crypto. However, it is significant in terms of freeing people from the confines of traditional currencies, legacy financial institutions, and limited local economies. It is especially significant to the current goal of the Bounties Network and its mission of “creating the components to power a new generation of human incentivization, stretching across borders and not limited by access to legacy financial institutions.”
As many have noted, fiat currency and legacy financial institutions often limit opportunities for prospective workers. Crypto has been widely discussed as a way for the unbanked to access new opportunities. Also widely discussed is the daunting task of introducing the non-tech-minded to crypto.
Though Bitcoin just recently celebrated its tenth birthday, the majority of people are not familiar with cryptocurrency and can find it intimidating to begin. In order for payment in crypto to appeal to a broader audience, a broader audience needs to be educated. In developing countries where internet access and availability of technology aren’t as widespread, this challenge gets even bigger.
Bounties for the Oceans took this on with determination. The first Bounties for the Oceans event took place in December 2018. From unreliable mobile phones, expensive data plans, and limited internet and crypto wallet availability, the Bounties Network got a firsthand look at what it will take to make bounties accessible and practical for a broader audience.
The Issue Of Adoption
Events like the Bounties for the Oceans project in Manila are important for the Bounties team and the crypto sphere at large. Hands-on, face-to-face experiences with people would could benefit greatly from the use of crypto is a key step in understanding how to address the challenge.
Another way the Bounties Network is approaching the issue of adoption is by providing an opportunity for someone to get their first crypto with no cost or risk. Earning crypto as opposed to purchasing crypto is more comfortable for those who may have trepidations about getting involved in “internet money.” Other methods of making crypto and the Bounties Network accessible include providing seed money for initial bounties, which then allows users to self-fund future bounties, said Pop.
This type of investment reflects the goal of the Bounties team. Pop emphasized the company’s goal of “redefining and creating new means of income,” particularly for those in regions of the world where opportunities are limited. Individuals in these regions may not have the capital to post a bounty, but once they get involved, there is the potential for a chain of transactions and future opportunities. Pop stated that there is a “need to facilitate this entry point and that’s why I think it’s so important to have a very broad range of opportunities for anybody to tap into.”
The team is dedicated to the vision of making opportunities accessible to all populations. In fact, the company has shifted its focus from growing the protocol to “validating bounties as tool, as an incentive mechanism,” according to Beylin.
Similar to the notion that there’s no excuse not to learn or research a subject when we untold amounts of information can be accessed from our hand-held devices, the sentiment behind the Bounties Network seems to be that so long as there are people with capital and people who are willing and able to do a variety of tasks, there’s no excuse for those with the will to work not to have the opportunity to do so.
Till now, there hasn’t been a way to facilitate that. And even with the advent of the Bounties Network, the revolution can’t happen overnight.
However, with efforts like the Bounties for Oceans project that put developers on the ground with people who haven’t been introduced to crypto or blockchain, the solutions will come. The network and Bounties for the Oceans are testaments to the value of directly connecting people. Through this event alone, a community improved its environment, people received compensation for their effort, and the Bounties team got invaluable insight on how to achieve its mission.
Direct Connections
Ivo Georgiev, founder and CEO of AdEx, is another innovator who understands the value of direct connections and the distributed work model, which he referred to as “the future of work.”
In working on his video streaming service, Stremio, Georgiev and his team became all too familiar with the ineffectual middleman relationship structure. They found the ad networks they were working with lacked transparency, and as a result both advertiser and publisher suffered while the third party in the middle gained.
From there, the concept of facilitating direct and transparent interactions between advertisers and publishers developed into AdEx. This benefits both advertiser and publisher greatly in terms of getting an accurate picture of what is working, as opposed to being given an altered or skewed version by a middle party with no concern for the success of the other parties. Not only is the middle party eliminated with the blockchain-based ad network, but micropayments are enabled and are automatic. Every impression is an impression paid.
With all of the potential use cases for blockchain, Georgiev stated that “using blockchain to eliminate middle parties is possibly one of the best use cases.” Whether it is a business setting, like his experience with ad networks, or whether it is a social impact case, where funds given to an NGO are filtered through the NGO and may never find their way to their intended source, blockchain is steadily finding its ground as a broad spectrum remedy that empowers those who are creating and contributing value.