The CyberMiles projects aim to decentralize the e-commerce ecosystem, providing a blockchain alternative to e-commerce titans, like Amazon. The system is incentivized by the actively traded CMT (CyberMiles Token). Ultimately, CyberMiles hopes to connect its successful sister company, 5miles, with a blockchain platform that provides support for auxiliary decentralized apps for a self-sustaining, networked marketplace.

“By focusing on e-commerce and online marketplaces, CyberMiles will integrate the latest blockchain innovations to power ‘smart business contracts” on a highly effective chain, and resolve the latency issues associated with existing, general-use blockchains,” the developers wrote. “Its utility token, CyberMiles Token, is planned to be a ‘master token’ to fund and empower new e-commerce applications and projects, similar to how ETH is used for the current generation of ICOs.”

What’s the Matter with Traditional E-Commerce?

Traditional e-commerce platforms are heavily centralized and rely upon a winner-take-all strategy, according to CyberMiles’ development team. Winner-take-all strategies tend to accumulate the largest networks, which allow them to further consolidate their power by setting prices and serving as a final arbiter for transaction validations.

“The CyberMiles blockchain aims to be the public blockchain for all e-commerce related transactions,” the developers wrote. “Building on the smart business contract technology, CyberMiles is specifically optimized for e-commerce. It has the benefit of a single large network, and yet is maintained and validated by the community of trustless peers.”

How Can Developers Use the CyberMiles Blockchain?

Developers can develop their own proprietary coins to mesh with the CyberMiles network, based on the CMT token. Cross-coin features, like loyalty points, can be integrated seamlessly.

CyberMiles proposes several interesting potential use cases.

Using CMT, digital coupons could be issued to users within a fixed geographic radius. Disputes between sellers and buyers could be submitted to service pool arbiters. Specialized groups could be created with a dapp system to cater to one particular good – say, classic cars.

CyberMiles also has the potential to change future advertising strategies.

“As a social network centered around local commerce, 5miles is uniquely well-suited to match supply and demand for goods and services, and CyberMiles’ solutions could fuel the next generation of features to better connect ‘sellers’ with the most relevant ‘buyers,’” the develops wrote. “For example, we expect many car dealers or auto mechanics would like to reach out to the daily volume of approximately 12,000 active car buyers on 5miles, and many moving companies would like to reach out to users buying large furniture. On traditional marketplaces, sending messages or pop-up notifications to those users may be intrusive and disruptive.”

In the CyberMiles system, CMT is used to transmit targeted messages that can be accepted or rejected by the system’s users. Accepted messages will generate a small portion of CMT as a reward.

Who Is on the Team?

CEO Lucas Lu previously served at CERN, conducting both experimental and theoretical research on the Higgs particle. Lu was a co-founder of e-commerce company Light in the Box and also served as the first general manager of Alibaba’s Taobao Mobile platform.

The company’s chief scientist is Michael Yuan, who has worked as a software developer for numerous open-source projects, including Firefox, Fedora, and JBoss.

The team necessarily has deep connections to the 5miles app.

What Is CyberMiles’ Connection to 5miles?

CyberMiles is the blockchain wing of 5miles, and both were founded by Lu. 5miles is a peer-to-peer marketplace app, similar to Facebook Marketplace or a non-anonymous Craigslist. It’s based on relationships between buyers and sellers and transparent reviews.

5miles claims to have facilitated $1 billion in peer-to-peer sales in 2015, its first year of operation.

“A unique advantage of the CyberMiles blockchain is that it will be deployed to support 5miles’ existing e-commerce network of over 10 million US-based registered users, and over $3 billion USD in estimated annual transactions,” according to CyberMiles’ white paper. “This would immediately create the largest blockchain-based commerce network in the world. The network could provide services such as decentralized user identity and credit management, decentralized settlement clearing house, peer-based voting and conflicting resolution.”

What Is the Tie to Ethereum?

CyberMiles views Ethereum as Bitcoin 2.0 due to its ability to create and execute smart contracts. Ethereum’s scalability issues, as CyberMiles views them, can be solved via the creation of a so-called “smart business contract” that does not require an external condition to be met. Taking inspiration from the Linux operating system, CyberMiles aims to create a virtual machine similar to Ethereum’s coupled with a defined middleware software stack that exists outside of the blockchain.

“Every node in the blockchain would not only run the blockchain ledger but also supports standardized middleware,” the developers sketched out in their white paper. “Borrowing a page from past successful enterprise software’s playbook, the key is not to create an all-powerful virtual machine or programming language, but to build an extensive library of reusable software components, and then standardize the whole stack of software.”

What Are the Market Mechanics of CMT?

CyberMiles plans to issue an initial 1 billion CMT, but up to 10 billion might eventually be released. As of May 8 2018, CMT was trading for $0.3275 with a market cap of $327.5 million. It is actively traded on nine major exchanges, including Bibox, Binance, Huobi, and Cobinhood.

CMT holders can actively participate in governing the network via delegating tokens to network validators.

“The validators are professional network operators who compete for the privilege of validating transactions on the CyberMiles network (and hence maintaining its integrity),” the developers wrote. “In return, the validators receive newly ‘minted’ CMTs via our 8% annual inflation and also receive transaction fees for smart business contracts they execute. The validators typically split earnings with his or her delegators.”

Validators are selected with a public algorithm built directly into the blockchain itself to remove the human element and fight centralization.

Where Can I Learn More?

You can visit the coin’s home page here and view the white paper here.