This is part 3 of our first article series. Read the previous article here: Our Journey to VeChain Part 2.

As we developed our product on Ethereum, we ran into several concerns and pain points. There were some key problems we were having difficulty solving on Ethereum. Luckily, after coming across VeChain, we later realized that this particular blockchain had the necessary solutions.

The following sections will take you through the problems we had, and we will go in-depth on how VeChain has helped us solve them in an effective manner thus far.

Overall, the problems we faced were the following:

(1) Unpredictable transaction fees

(2) Complicated user onboarding

(3) Clunky multiple transactions

Unpredictable Transaction Fees

The market price of Ethereum (ETH) is still quite volatile and can increase or decrease within a short time-period, which can affect the transaction costs. Imagine the price of ETH doubling over a period of a few weeks. Essentially, resulting in the cost of using it doubling as well. The idea of transaction costs doubling (or perhaps even tripling) over a short period of time made us think twice about the short- and long-term consequences. In worst case scenario, it could have enormous influence on the overall usage and scalability — making both us and investors nervous.

VeChain solves this by implementing their dual-token system: VET (currency) and VTHO (energy). VET is used as a store of value and smart payment currency on the blockchain. Moreover, as your account stores VET, your account generates VTHO.

VTHO is used to pay for the transfer of tokens and the execution of smart contracts on the VeChainThor blockchain (same as gas on Ethereum). The rate at which VTHO is generated from VET is controlled by the VeChain Foundation, resulting in transaction costs are not necessarily tied up to the ups and downs of the market as a whole.

Complicated User Onboarding

One of our primary goals with Real Items is to make our products easy-to-use for everyone, including non-technical users. Requiring users to sign up for an exchange, transfer funds, undergo KYC and purchase cryptocurrencies are all time-consuming and tedious tasks. Forcing users to do all this will turn users away before they even use our App.

In our quest to solve this issue, we experimented with the Portis Wallet in conjunction with Tabookey’s Gas Station Relay Network. The combination of Portis’s ease-of-use features and Tabookey’s relaying architecture provided us the ability to easily pay for our users’ transactions. This was a huge step towards real usability, something we had strived for in order to accomplish widespread adoption. However, Tabookey’s smart contracts are not, at the time of writing this article, available on the Ethereum mainnet.

We needed a solution that would work immediately, without any unnecessary delays.