To those who have followed me for a while now, it comes as no surprise that I am a big fan of the GET Protocol and the GUTS Tickets application. In my previous article on GUTS, I generally went over what the project aimed to achieve and how they were going to do it. The problem is, I never made a good enough reason into the true psychological barriers that the team are over coming with their project and why, in my opinion the steps they are taking is necessary for this technology to be ready for mainstream adoption. In this blog I’ll be delving in to what the blockchain and cryptocurrency needs to achieve in order to really be mainstream and why the GET Protocol is designed to perfectly meet this criteria.

Mumbo Jumbo — AKA Jargon

It feels like since the dawn of time, humans have had an innate love to make simple processes as complex to explain as possible and on top of that to throw in buzzwords and twistful jargon for extra measure. The problem comes that when facing something new, it’s often the wording, the descriptions and the explanations for technologies that throw people off. When you’ve been creating a product for a long period of time it is easy to understand how everything works because at the end of the day you are the one who put it together, hell you probably know it inside and out. The user however should always be assumed to know nothing and this is how you should treat them, jargon doesn’t help them and this is often a massive trap that entrepreneurs, researchers and innovators fall into.

I for one firmly believe that the cryptocurrency and blockchain space falls into this pattern and it is a simple explanation as to why that is. A long time ago, before this space got any adoption what so ever, it was a place for true technology obsessives who were in love with the ideal of creating something perfect in an imperfect world, something that no one person had true control over. When you spend so much time on something you care so much about, you often forget about the fact that in order for something to truly take over it needs to have elements of simplicity because not everyone has the same levels of passion and technological capability to conceptualise and understand something as much as the next person.

Anything that is to be used by the general public needs to be unobtrusive and seamless for them to use, in fact the best cases of technology done right is one where the tech runs in the background.

OMG IS THAT THE PRATT & WHITNEY J58 JT11D-20 SINGLE SPOOL TURBOJET WITH AFTERBURNER?!?!?!

“The Blockchain Should Be The Engine, Not The Product”

There’s a real problem happening right now in this space and 90% of us are oblivious to it, we LOVE blockchain too much.

Now wait, hear me out because that’s not a typo or error, we truly are a giant echo chamber and the sooner we realise this, the quicker we will grow and the reason behind this is simple. In this giant cryptocurrency community, those of us who love blockchain idealise the concept and capabilities that it brings, we love theorising about the rightful ways it will truly change the world but the issue is we see the blockchain as the real product where as we should see it like an engine with its role playing a crucial part but not being the center of attention.

If we look at the vehicle industry, over the past 100 years there has been a rapid rise in innovation and now almost everyone has access to this type of product, I mean we all know and love the car, the plane, the boat and the other vehicles out there. However none of this would have ever been possible if it wasn’t for the engine. While most people will idolise over their favourite car, or marvel at a plane taking off and gasp at the largest boats, how many people really get hyped over an engine and care about it like it’s their first born child?

The Blockchain needs to be the engine of the tech world because the general public will never have the same fascination over it as we in this community do. However the general population will certainly love the products created BECAUSE of the blockchain, they have no idea how it will change their lives and truly this is how it should be. When I pay for a coffee, I don’t want to be forced to know about the underlying payment technology, I could learn on my own free will but I shouldn’t have to, at that point when blockchain gets to this level, it will really be mainstream. When anyone can use blockchain or crypto without having pre-requisites or needing prior knowledge, its at that point where it breaks through.

Business in the front, Party in the back!

The User Experience In The Front & The Blockchain In The Back

The GET Protocol achieves what I believe is the most important and necessary requirement for any blockchain protocol to thrive over a long period of time. It future proofs itself by knowing that in order to appeal to the mainstream public it must present itself in the most simplistic and appealing way possible, moving all the blockchain and complexity it carries to behind the scenes, under the hood where it rightfully belongs.

Everyone in this photo has no idea that they have an Ethereum wallet courtesy of GUTS & The GET Protocol

50,000 is a massive number in any terms of the word, but what pops out at me the most is that this is the number of people in the world who have absolutely no clue that by the end of this year they will own an ethereum wallet which thanks to the GET Protocol & blockchain technology allowed them into theatres across the Netherlands with unscalpable blockchain tickets. On its own this is damn impressive but it could also be one of the few first times that blockchain has been used without the end user even knowing about it and that is exactly how the blockchain should be used, as an engine for the products on top of it!

In the future these event goers will never ever know that they also hold Cryptocurrency backed tickets, with GET darting around the blockchain to signify all the different states in the ticketing cycle, but they will never know this so shhh it’s a secret (don’t tell them!)

Pamper Me, With Animations, Pretty Colours & Sleek Graphics

The GUTS Tickets application which is going to run on top of the GET Protocol has been designed by wizards of the designing world… well ok they are mere mortals (I promise!) but to me they have consistently impressed with their sleek design skills, knowing exactly what they are doing and why they are doing it. Frans Twisk, one of the main front end designers at GUTS who you can learn more about here has visually built an application that is simplistic yet stunning and as mentioned above it is imperative that the user experience is a delight for all parties involved. At the end of the day remember that the GUTS application is like the car, it should be marvelled at for all it’s beauty and ease of use and the end user should never have to be impressed by all the inner workings (AKA the engine or in this case blockchain/cryptocurrency) no matter if this tech is indeed amazing (sorry Kasper!).

Above you can see a screenshot of how the ticket animation looks as the QR code is scanned when entering an event, this visual feedback works great for telling both the venue scanner and the event goer that this ticket has indeed been scanned correctly, it’s part of a myriad of smart design decisions that all adds up to why I believe both the GUTS application and protocol will be a success in the mainstream eye.

“Take The Road Less Travelled” — Unknown Wise Person

They Told Me, Be A Roadman and Follow The Travelled Path, To Which I Said No!

The road less travelled in this case involves using cryptocurrency in the form of GET or “Guaranteed Entrance Token”. Which has value from all the events that will be running on top of the protocol!

The GET Protocol does indeed use a cryptocurrency, to which many of you reading may gasp and say, well if we want mainstream adoption, surely using cryptocurrency involves a level of technicality?

Well thankfully the GET Protocol and its processes have been developed and created in such a way that firstly the end user never realises they own cryptocurrency and secondly, the event creators purchase the GET required for smart tickets used during an event in FIAT currencies as this prevents there being a barrier to entry and is a very smart design decision by the team. The below process shows how this works:

As we can see in this flow diagram the Event Organiser has a very easy method of acquiring necessary GET for use with their smart tickets using the GUTS Ticketing application. Further detail on how this works is available in the GET whitepaper.

When we combine all these factors together, we have a blockchain project that doesn’t force all the technical knowledge onto the end user, it gives them all the power of the blockchain and cryptocurrency, in an application/protocol that is seamless to use as well as potentially being one of the first real mainstream use cases of blockchain technology and the kicker is most people won’t even know it!