The more we learn about the applications of blockchain, the more apparent it becomes that the technology has the potential to completely disrupt the financial sector. Commerce and trade are entering a new era of security, accountability, and user-privacy as developers make astonishing progress in blockchain and cryptocurrency platforms and solutions. With world governments tackling the issue head on and bringing in the regulatory measures that will herald mainstream adoption for the average consumer, all that’s missing is a secure platform from which users can make cryptocurrency transactions in the real world.

Introducing Zeex, a startup that finally gives you the means to spend your cryptocurrency on real products. You can go on a crypto shopping spree down Main Street and leave a tip for your barista from your digital wallet. There are no fees involved — what’s more, once you’ve acquired your cryptocurrency, there’s no fiat currency involved whatsoever!

Problem and solution

Cryptocurrency isn’t fungible, meaning it’s difficult to exchange it for goods and services. Next to impossible, really. By uniting cryptocurrency with corporate currency (gift cards and vouchers), Zeex brings the security of blockchain technology and the fungibility of the $700 billion corporate currency market together to make the best out of both.

Zeex has developed a platform that allows users to deposit cryptocurrency in a digital wallet, exchange it for a corporate currency with one of the 350 partnered name brands like Nike, Amazon, and Starbucks, and spend the newly-acquired corporate currency in-store or online. You can buy shoes with Bitcoin and coffee with Ethereum, all in the same seamless, hassle-free shopping experience. This is a really major step in cryptocurrency adoption — once people can easily buy products with crypto, there’s no stopping it, and Zeex is at the very forefront of that movement.

Zeek Group: The Big Sister

Zeek Group is Europe’s leading marketplace for buying and selling currencies. Zeek has seen tenfold growth year over year over the past two years, securing close partnerships with name-brand retailers like Nike and GAP. The skilled leadership team behind Zeek’s massive growth and success also launched Zeex as a sister company. Zeek Group will be committing millions of dollars worth of retail vouchers from top brands to the Zeex stock. The corporate currency is secured and ready to be spent, meaning the ZIX token will be off to a roaring start with easy convertibility right after launch.

These partnerships also give Zeek Group access to bulk discounts on corporate currency, and sales and offers will be available through Zeex that will allow you to buy corporate currency at a lower rate, multiplying your earnings. Because of this backing, and because Zeex already has retail relationships, the product will be ready for use upon launch.

It’s just as easy to transfer corporate currency back into ZIX after a purchase, so you won’t have to worry about planning the exact amount of funds you need every time you go shopping. There are no fees for using the wallet, and the Zeek Group already has access to so many retailers that you’ll be able to spend your crypto in most major outlets.

The Team and The Tech

The core team consisting of Guy Melamed, Ziv Isiah, and Apan Amos Damri have a long and illustrious history in launching successful start-ups, founding and leading companies and projects, and providing software and business solutions to industry problems. You can learn more about them and the rest of the team in the Zeex white paper.

The Zeex team have combined their considerable expertise to create a much-needed service in the cryptocurrency ecosystem — here’s how it works. The ZIX token is the key to the whole platform, and performs three crucial functions. First, the token is how the platform decides who’s next in the queue to buy corporate currency — the token essentially acts as a ticket. The inherent buyer/seller risk involved in exchanging volatile cryptocurrencies is covered by the token — so it acts as a ticket and a deposit as well.

In both cases, users are “pledging” the tokens to guarantee their spot in the queue — by doing this, the platform is given the value it needs to cover transaction costs internally. This is done at no cost to the user, as the deposit is then refunded. If two users place a transaction at the same time, the system identifies which user pledged or owns more tokens and orders the queue in that way, making everything run smoothly and fairly.

Finally, the token performs a third key function, acting as a login mechanism for the Zeex platform. Interestingly, the spending of corporate currency is totally anonymous — Zeex registers the purchase on the blockchain, but purchases then made with the resulting gift cards are actually made anonymously and off-chain, adding an extra layer of privacy to the project.

The crypto/corporate currency exchange is pseudonymous, meaning hidden behind layers of encryption and with no name attached. This data is actually also kept off the blockchain using zk-SNARKS encryption. This stands for zero-knowledge succinct non-interactive argument of knowledge, and basically enables most of the transaction to take place privately off-chain, filing the end result on-chain without connecting it to any specific user.

Meaning?

No-one can see who’s buying what, although a very useful feature does allow users to decrypt their own data with a private key. That means you can track your spending without the information being publicly available.

It’s fast, it’s safe, it’s private — and it’s due to launch in May 2018. Zeex will finally give the community what they’ve been waiting for, which is fungibility and purchasing power, so get ready for it — very soon you’ll be able to go on your first ever real world crypto-shopping spree!