Open Application Network pushing blockchain platform for app development to provide alternative architecture to one driving most internet companies now

It’s time to stop talking about blockchain and to start using it instead.

That’s the message from the chief executive of the Open Application Network (OAN), a Toronto-based startup that is pushing a blockchain platform for app development, with the goal of providing an alternative basic architecture to the one driving most internet companies today.

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“I think we should probably move away from, ‘How does it work?’ because then we start getting into a rabbit hole,” OAN CEO Matthew Spoke told the Financial Post in a recent interview.

Blockchain technology burst into the public consciousness in 2017 when the price of Bitcoin, which is based on blockchain, spiked dramatically, before falling back to Earth. But the difficulty in explaining just how the distributed ledger technology works in layman’s terms has slowed the adoption of the technology.

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Spoke’s company is one of those that have ridden the wave of popularity.

In 2017, then known as Aion, it held an Initial Coin Offering which ultimately left them with about $50 million in the bank, enough to open offices in Barbados and Shanghai as well as downtown Toronto, to build out the project.

A couple years later, they’re still operating on around $20 million, which gives them room to keep building.

The emphasis on not actually talking about blockchain is a tacit acknowledgement that blockchain seems to make everything more complicated.

For example, OAN is technically a non-profit foundation which wholly owns a corporation — a convoluted structure aimed at making the ICO coin-holders effectively shareholders and avoid any conflicts of fiduciary responsibility.

The Aion coins are a currency used to power the underlying blockchain infrastructure, Spoke said.

Last week, OAN took out full page ads in the New York Times and Financial Post, part of an aggressive rebranding campaign that included a barely disguised shot at Facebook Inc. and its chief executive.

“Being called to Congress is just the tip of the Zuckerberg,” the ad declared in large letters. “Massive breaches of customer data are happening every day. Entrepreneurs are left vulnerable because they don’t control the platforms they build on.”

Spoke said the vision is that the Open Application Network will be a platform that other companies can use to build their services, and by building on blockchain infrastructure, those companies will be fundamentally different than the players that are currently dominant in the marketplace.

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One of the major criticisms of platform companies such as Uber, Facebook, YouTube or Shopify is that they create a closed ecosystem.

So if a driver spends a year working for Uber and develops a good reputation on the service, but he wants to switch to driving for Lyft, under the current system he has to start rebuilding his reputation from scratch.

Spoke said the benefit of using OAN is that a future ride-sharing company building on their blockchain means that data is automatically interoperable, so both consumers and drivers wouldn’t be locked into a single ecosystem.

Spoke pointed to another Toronto startup, called Velocia, which is running a project in Miami to encourage people to use bikes, scooters, public transit and ride sharing.

Users can earn points — called Velos — which can then be redeemed.

Spoke said that one of the benefits for the users of Velocia is that the points they earn will be intrinsically interoperable.

“Any type of little micro economy that gets built on top of that system effectively is interoperable, meaning you can create exchange mechanisms that are built into the system that don’t require the permission or approval of the companies building on the system,” he said.

“You’re kind of agreeing to the fact that you’re now part of a fungible market of assets.”

However, Velocia chief executive David Winterstein said for right now they control which partners can accept Velos as payment. But without understanding the nuts and bolts of the underlying technical system, it’s difficult to explain how the system works, and why it’s different from the “walled garden” approach used by closed platform companies.

“I would say if you look at it as different parts of the garden, you know, certain parts are walled and certain parts are not,” Winterstein said. “And then as we grow, the plan is to create new gardens where there are no walls to begin with, or tear down those walls.”

Financial Post