Our London Correspondent Nick Ayton, the Sage of Shoreditch, explores a new truth serum often overlooked, called the App Token. Also known as the Utility Token, it will change more lives than any other form of token.

There’s often so much time and attention spent focusing on security tokens that deliver specific things (returns) for investors, founders and users in different ways. Security tokens also provide an on/off ramp into and out of the crypto world. However, we often forget the real transformational star is in fact the App (Utility) Token and not the Security Token.

The App Token delivers with its close ally - the decentralised ledger - a real secret sauce that unlocks not only an industry but delivers something really special that cuts through and exposes what is wrong in this world, starting with the things we use and consume.

Too often Blockchain design suits the owners, where they try to convince you they are not recreating a centralisation or skewing consensus that benefits a closed audience.

This results in DLT’s as they try to convince you the solution is for everyone to benefit, whilst the rules are being created by the few. Meanwhile, the App Token is the real deal!

We no longer want to be misled, conned and deceived

Take any review site, whether food like Yelp or Foursquare, TripAdvisor or the website of the venue or place you are spending your hard-earned money. The restaurant, the show, the hotel, the means of travel, when you read the reviews, what do they say? Are there more good reviews than bad, or are there no bad reviews and only a few recent ones?

Do you find that when you visit the place, eat the food, experience the product and services - that it is shockingly bad, poor value and bears no resemblance to the ‘review’?

We all have a voice and we want to have our say, don’t we? We want the things we write to be read by other unsuspecting customers, of course provided our comments are genuine and we are not just putting the boot in. But how does one level the playing field, create a system of trust, and mechanism for fairness. Blockchain is how: an open, immutable ledger offering a consensus that can confirm a genuine comment, the real article, a fair process for people to leave their comments, driven by the App Token.

Can you believe in a review?

Are we really naïve to believe people don’t tamper with reviews, delete the bad ones, and get other people to write a great review? Well it seems that many people are taken in and reputations are built around untruths and fake reviews. Rather than learning from feedback, owners of businesses and marketing departments are tempted to ‘tinker’ and ‘tamper’ to create a new version of the apparent truth.

How easy can it be when there’s nobody around to check or validate, where records are held centrally, accessible by those who have much to gain, and to lose when the truth is revealed. It’s tempting because we live in a world of fake news and reviews, dominated by an unpoliced Internet that is guilty of pumping products and services that are either flawed, bad value for money or masks their misselling.

The issue is a centralisation of control problem, where the website, or review site is owned and controlled by those with a vested interest.

It is time for the truth…especially when it comes to my stomach…

I am a discerning and complaining customer and would guess I am not alone. I get really upset when the owner of a business, the person behind the offer is trying to deceive me. When it comes to food, I used to own a restaurant where you lived by local reputation and word of mouth alone. It was before the days of the Internet, before the days of LIKES and the now infamous review. The ultimate judge used to be people who actually tasted the food and lived locally, not out of towners, or people that have never visited and who just want to put the boot in.

But there is real hope and the answer is the decentralisation of the entire review process.

Enter a new App Token, which you can earn when you download a food review app with the assurance your comments will be validated and delivered intact and tamper free. Such a token could remove the bias from food reviews which has to be good for the industry and for food lovers everywhere.

This way a Blockchain solution has the potential to change the face of the restaurant industry and close the door once and for all on the cheaters and fakers, and reviews that just get deleted.

But it gets better. You have to take part in the community, and peer reviews using machine learning that select from the community, which ensure fair play and the integrity of the ecosystem is maintained. This is how an App Token has to work: you have to earn it, do something and make your contribution. Earning tokens delivers community, strength in numbers and a support infrastructure to create a movement, a shift that anchors new behaviours.

The genuine restaurateur, the foodie owner and talented chef have everything to gain from joining the community to showcase their fine food, their great service and their determination to help change the face of the food industry.

Now who doesn’t want to be a food critic, as most of us have an opinion, likes and dislikes? Your dreams have been answered, you now have a platform to get it off your chest.

Revolutionary change

We are seeing a real revolution driven by App Tokens, because they reward changes in behaviour and commitment to encourage doing the right thing. ‘Token buys’ buy App Tokens, ‘Investors’ buy Security Tokens. You decide which delivers more value for whom.

Munchee, for food reviews is one of the first of a new generation of App Tokens that are structurally challenging and changing a variety of industries, to benefit us all.

Along with other App Tokens supporting the movement economy led by Sweatcoin, the app that gets you fit and rewards you for moving; zero carbon lifestyle by LivingOffset enabling you to reduce your carbon footprint, the sharing economy led by MotionWerk, “Share and Charge” a part of Innogy RWE in Germany, and humanitarian help.

There are other new App Tokens on their way for climate, for sustainability, for tackling some of the world’s biggest challenges and in a real sense they matter, deliver an impact and it is important we earn them and get behind them.