Ribbit.Me Releases RibbitRewards Blockchain
The North American Loyalty market is estimated at [$54 billion USD ](http://www.slideshare.net/RiteshBhavnani/stats-facts-on-loyalty-programs-for-2013-2014)and is growing by 20% each year. RibbitRewards are reward credits that will be tracked using a Bitcoin-derived blockchain. This gives RibbitRewards abilities which typically are not possible with other rewards systems.
“When we were designing RibbitRewards we wanted it to be more than just a decentralized rewards program. We wanted it to also be a decentralized, autonomous utility of direct blockchain-to-charity value distribution.”
— – Ribbit.me
When Gregory Simon met Sean Dennis, they had no idea they would embark on such a unique project. Sean Dennis facilitated Gregory Simon’s Bitcoin purchase of land in Nicaragua, and later introduced Levi Barker. Bitcoin became a hot topic. Discussions over time, between the three soon to be founding partners, set the wheels in motion for what is now Ribbit.me – Creators of the world’s first rewards program based on blockchain technology, RibbitRewards.
A blockchain, such as Bitcoin, is simply a ledger. It keeps a series of addresses and balances. Unlike a paper ledger individuals can exchange their balances with one another, without the participation of any central authority.
Every 10 minutes, on average, a new group of transactions, or block, is incorporated into the Bitcoin ledger. A network of decentralized Miners sign the blocks, and are rewarded with Bitcoin. This creates a block chain.
When miners sign a new block on the RibbitRewards Blockchain they will receive newly minted RibbitRewards (RBR). This serves to initially distribute the coins, as well as to incentivize miners to perform the Proof-of-Work (PoW) task which secures the blockchain.
An additional 5% will be sent directly to charity. “Regardless of what happens to us, as long as the blockchain is being mined, a percentage will always go to charity,” says Dennis. “It is something that people are trying to figure out as it has never happened before where you have a community in an automated and distributed way donating to charity.”
Ribbit.me recently partnered with Global Impact, who run Charity.org, providing access to 120 charities. “They go out and find worthwhile charities which are viable and help corporations distribute to these charities,” explains Dennis.
Simon explains that this is hugely beneficial to both the charities and the growth of cryptocurrencies. “We can take the value of RibbitRewards and distribute them directly to these charities in either the form of RibbitRewards, Bitcoin or fiat currencies like dollars, so it is very flexible in what the needs of the charities are.”
“It’s incredibly interesting from many perspectives. Not just from upgrading how people help each other and donate to charity, but because the donor of the value is a distributed autonomous blockchain,”
— – Simon
Without an underlying source of value a blockchain is valueless, it is just a list. As a list, RibbitRewards tracks purchases of goods on the Marketplace. Each transaction in the MarketPlace produces minted coins, “It is useful to think of this “minting” as simply the mechanism by which new entries are recorded in our ledger. Our ledger tracks purchases.” explains the white paper.
The Marketplace, www.marketplace.life, is a planned commercial environment. Marketplace.life is a free to use, multi-currency bazaar where both buyers and sellers earn RibbitRewards from each transaction. “We already have many merchants and millions of items ready for launch in 2015. It is a fun marketplace for shopping and selling using any currency, including most digital currencies,” states the website
Ribbit.me envisions several entities receiving RBR upon completion of a purchase: the vendor, the customer, Ribbit.me, and charities. “It’s not just RibbitRewards either,” Simon explains. “It will open up to cryptocurrencies in general. We have our own blockchain and we support Bitcoin also. We love Bitcoin, we love the technology and we would like to help all chains and all coins, which is really the theme behind our marketplace.”
The release of the Blockchain follows a recently completed distribution of RibitRewards. The free airdrop provided registered users with an equal share of the 200 Million RibbitRewards, which resulted in over 20,000 RibbitRewards per user. “We reached a user base of over 13,000 people which was awesome and a great start for a start-up that is prelaunch. We reached a market cap of around half a million dollars. Which we were really happy with,” says Dennis
“We’ve been really surprised and encouraged by our fanbase which is really cool. People are hanging on to what we are saying, and what we are wanting to release, as the value of RibbitRewards goes up and down. It’s been very interesting to watch. To see something you have created released to the world and to see how people react to it,”
— – Dennis
The blockchain Ribbit.me has developed as RibbitRewards is aimed at flexibility, “Merchants interested in either offering RibbitRewards to their customers ‘as is’ or as their own branded rewards powered by the RibbitRewards blockchain please reach out to us!” Simon is looking to expand, "Now that the RibbitRewards blockchain is released we are excited to be actively seeking interested merchants.”
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