The consumer wallet will soon be in your hands and the team are working hard on getting it up to scratch. With that, we’re looking into possible integrations to enhance the user experience and technical capabilities.

One of the most important factors for the application of the wallet is proof of location. Where exactly are our users? How do we prove this to our third party partners?

Consider this scenario:

Joe is leaving for work in his car and is going to take the usual route straight through the city centre. He gets a notification from DOVU to tell him that an alternative route is available, that will avoid congestion, and importantly, not add to it, but will take a little longer overall. Joe decides to accept this new route and earn some DOV tokens for doing so. How do we verify that he’s done this? Proof of location.

With the development of blockchain technology, we are on the verge of groundbreaking changes that will affect how we travel. Providing millions of points of reference, avoiding errors, mismanagement and protecting privacy; embracing the decentralized ecosystem allows us to remain leaders in this innovative landscape while accomplishing our mission.

Synergy — the magic word

We’re thrilled to be working with XYO — a decentralized location network that aims to become the main source of information for location data.

The problem they can address for DOVU concerns the centralized control of GPS over our location system. Firstly, GPS can be intentionally tricked into believing that someone is located somewhere where they are not. Uber is facing a few of these issues with its drivers pretending to be somewhere else to game the system.

Secondly, GPS is notoriously owned and controlled by the United States. While other organizations are working on alternative models (see Galileo in the European Union), there is an opportunity for a decentralized system that can avoid the central power of one single point of control (and failure).

Whilst we have only just begun with the integration of our wallet with a proof of location network, we are already excited about the fact that we’ll be able to utilise XYO’s location beacons — over 1 million devices are already distributed around the world.

Bring on the beacons — potential use cases

A city wants to reward users with DOVs for alleviating congestion and taking an alternative route. It needs a system that cannot be spoofed where citizens can be comfortable with sharing their location data.

A user needs to prove that they arrived early at the airport to receive his/her reward and be able to spend it on access to the business lounge. Rather than trusting the GPS system, the airline could rely on the beacons present in and around the airport.

A carsharing user wants to demonstrate he/she is at a pickup point on time, and receive rewards for this, while remaining anonymous.

If somebody signals that they are leaving a parking spot so that someone else can take it without having to spend time and resources looking for a new one, both users need to prove where they are so that transactions of rewards can trustlessly take place.

Proof of location is clearly core to what we’re aiming to achieve here at DOVU — to facilitate smarter travel. We’re now exploring the most feasible opportunities that can add value to both XYO and ourselves, and establish a roadmap to bring this vision to a reality. We’re very excited to be working with XYO and to be bringing those benefits directly to our customers.