Gems: Bitcoins Decentralised Social Network

“We started working on Gems in March 2014 and really think it can be a game changer in making bitcoin and crypto currency more simply accessible to the masses and to be the first project to successfully take blockchain technology and its advantages to the social network world.” – Peled

Daniel Peled CEO at Gems is currently based out of Tel Aviv with the rest of the Gems team: Eitan Rousso, Stad Oskin and Rotem Meiri. The team of four have been fascinated with bitcoin and blockchain technology and are striving to make their mark. Peled graduated from University of Haifa with the combined program inn Law (LLB), Law and Technology (LLM) and Economics (BA). He is uniquely positioned to look after the economics and legal side of the business. Peled advises the other three members of the team, “are very capable developers that Co-founded technology start-ups in the past. They specialize in Mobile, Software Development, Programming, System Architecture, Computer Networks, Front-End Development and Security.”

Peled explains the Gems project arose as an easy way for the masses to enter the Bitcoin ecosystem:

“Currently, when introducing Bitcoin to most new users, the process remains very complicated. We go to Blockchain.info, set up a wallet and then explain about public and private keys, two-factor authentication, cold storage and so on. It takes us typically 1 to 2 hours to introduce someone new to Bitcoin to get them set up in the ecosystem,” Peled continues, “Through Gems, we make all of this very simple. The registration process takes 10 seconds. Your username serves as your Bitcoin address. You’ll automatically start with a few GEMZ to play with — so right away you’ll be using cryptocurrency without the hassle.”

GEMZ, the native currency and value-reward system for the Gems Network. Users are rewarded with GEMZ for their participation in the network in the 3 distinct ways.

• Inviting friends to join
• Airdrop giveaways
• Advertisers pay into the network and users who choose to receive their sponsored messages tailored to their interests will also earn GEMZ rewards.

This novel approach differs from existing Instant Messaging applications such as Skype and WhatsApp. The current industry leaders profit from user contribution to the network (users introducing other users). The Gems model revolutionizes this industry by rewarding users directly for their relative network contribution.

Gems will look and feel like other online messaging apps, such as Skype and WhatsApp, providing a seamless transition for users of legacy social netoworks. But there are four key revolutionary features Gems has to offer the market.

• Gems offers a built in wallet to enable transfer of value in addition to communications
• Gems enables users to profit from using and promoting the application, incentivizing viral growth.
• Gems enables fully secure, anonymous and encrypted communications for all actions available, so at no point is the users data at risk or available to a third party without the user’s consent.
• Gems effectively solves the spam problem in communication networks and allows users to finally publish their username openly without fear of receiving uncontrolled amounts of unsolicited messages.

Another key aspect that will differentiate Gems from other online social networking applications is the “attention economy” model they have designed, Peled explains, "This means that. If someone you don’t know wants your attention they need to pay you directly." The cost to send unsolicited messages is dependent on the relative popularity of the recipient. This is deciphered by the bidding system commonly employed by Google. Peled explains further in saying, “Every user will be able to post his hashtag publicly over the internet (blogs, social media etc) in order for other people to be able to make a connection without having to worry about spam – this is a unique solution made possible by utilizing blockchain technology.”

Gems has partnered with Counterparty to issue the GEMZ native currency, and Koinify for fundraising, Peled describes his excitement about the projects:

“We think that “Bitcoin 2.0” companies are the new cryptocurrency frontier. Counterparty is an open-source project than enables developers to build a new, productive economy by utilizing the amazing technology and security behind Bitcoin blockchain. We think the approach Koinify is leading will become the standard in crypto crowdfunding. Development milestones and multisig wallet with third party arbitration. Accountability and transparency is the right way to go. We want to build a community around Gems and the only way to do that is to be as open and honest with our users. Choosing Koinify is a major contributor in reaching this goal,”

Peled advises that Gems has a roadmap with future feature sets that they would like to implement. At present they are focused on releasing a stable and solid client, with a view to acquiring input from users. This would give the team a deeper understanding of how to push adoption further. Peled expects Gems to be adopted first by the significant cryptocurrency community, as enthusiasts have a full understanding of what Gems are trying to achieve, with the aim of driving adoption out into the main stream. With this goal in mind Peled was excited to announce another partnership, “College Cryptocurrency Network who represent over 1 Million students attending over 150 University, Colleges, Middle and High Schools will be joining the Gems Messaging App Revolution. Gems will provide an excellent gateway for young people interested in cryptocurrencies to gain access in an intuitive manner by sharing messaging with their friends,”

As the network grows and new features are added, some will require payment in order to sustain. GEMZ, advises Peled, will always exist as a payment option for any of these future value added features. As more peer-to-peer reward models are created, the more the sharing economy of Gems will be enabled. These could result in peer crowdfunds and much more adding to the core value of the social network.