The blockchain, made famous as the accounting backbone of Bitcoin and other digital currencies, is gaining a reputation as a more secure, reliable, and competent networking strategy than our current offerings. It’s receiving high praise from important industry leaders and government officials, and there is a full-on hype blitz about its transformative potential.

Meanwhile, the blockchain seems to be waiting for an industry to readily disrupt and improve. It has several obvious implications for things like supply chain management, digital transactions, and cloud computing, but each of these industries is entrenched in their outdated technologies and established workflows. Many companies are pursuing blockchain adoption, but it will take time before those systems are fully operational.

To really flex its muscles, the blockchain needs a relatively contemporary industry to upend, and it seems to have found a perfect suitor in the sharing economy.

The Sharing Economy: A New Approach to Commerce

Like the blockchain, the sharing economy was fashioned in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. Burden by a weak job market, rising cost of living, and a bleak outlook on future opportunities, an innovative millennial generation reoriented their commerce experience by monetizing the things that they already owned.

Cars became cabs, bonus bedrooms became apartments, and spare time became an opportunity to hustle for extra cash.

These efforts have been incredibly lucrative, and they launched an entire ecosystem of apps and services that further proliferate its reach. According to The Brookings Institute, the sharing economy is expected to be a $335 billion industry within the next decade. Moreover, as Forbes notes, there are dozens of new companies contributing to this economy, and more startups are continually emerging on the scene.

In other words, it’s picking up steam, and it shows no signs of slowing down.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that it’s without its flaws. The sharing economy requires a high degree of trust among participants, and its most pronounced shortcomings meet profound solutions with blockchain technology.

The Blockchain Meets the Sharing Economy

Blockchain technology and the sharing economy are enjoying a tandem rise to prominence, and their growth is a boom for both industries. For the blockchain, it’s an opportunity to demonstrate its prowess, and the sharing economy is desperately in need of better technologies to power its unbridled growth.

More specifically, the blockchain enables new platforms to develop on top of its infrastructure, and these platforms are creating compelling solutions for the sharing economy.

ShareRing: Bringing the Sharing Economy Together

The sharing economy is expanding at an incredible rate, but it lacks a singular platform that unifies this movement. Like commerce benefits from the exposure and centrality of Amazon, the sharing economy requires a platform that can introduce people to new services and can facilitate participation in these services.

ShareRing brings the sharing economy together on a single mobile platform. With ShareRing, participants in the sharing economy can discover new services, but they can also use their native digital currency to participate in the platforms that they already love.

In this way, ShareRing is akin to the Amazon of the ShareRing economy. It brings people and services together, and they are both better because of the connection.

Origin: A Decentralized Sharing Economy

There are dozens of companies that comprise the sharing economy, but practically it is dominated by just a few entities. Uber, one of the wealthiest private companies in the world, is a pillar of the sharing economy, and it’s joined by others like Lyft and Airbnb as the dominant players in the market. This is problematic for several reasons, but they won’t maintain a monopoly forever.

Origin wrestles control of the sharing economy from these large centralized companies, and they return it to the users. Origin capitalizes on the popularity of the public Ethereum blockchain to create a protocol for developing sharing economy marketplaces. Origin makes new marketplaces discoverable, and it allows consumers to interact with these platforms by leaving ratings and reviews.

Origin enables companies to be Uber without having to be Uber.

Better Together: The Future of Collaboration

As the blockchain grows in prominence, more platforms are being developed that will allow the sharing economy to thrive well into the future. It’s the blockchain’s big opportunity to demonstrate its proficiency. As a new industry, the sharing economy gets to benefit from its innovative practices from the onset, and that’s great news for companies and consumers alike.

In an assessment of blockchain technology, The Harvard Business Review concluded, “We’re moving toward a true sharing or collaborative economy – one that is not controlled by a few large intermediary operators, but that is governed by and for the people.”

That’s the defining ethos of the sharing economy, and it will be made possible by blockchain technology and the platforms that are developed upon it.