The only text I added was the title, and the only questions asked were the first one and "Who founded Ethereum?". The rest of the questions were generated and fully answered by GitHub Copilot, and no alterations were made.

What is Ethereum?

Ethereum is a decentralized platform that runs smart contracts: applications that run exactly as programmed without any possibility of downtime, censorship, fraud, or third-party interference.

What is a smart contract?

A smart contract is a computer protocol intended to digitally facilitate, verify, or enforce the negotiation or performance of a contract. Smart contracts allow the performance of credible transactions without third parties. These transactions are trackable and irreversible.

What is a Dapp?

A decentralized application (DApp) is a computer program that runs on a distributed computer system. The distributed computer system is typically a blockchain, which is a decentralized network of computers that maintains a continuously growing list of ordered records called a blockchain.

What is a DAO?

A decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) is a decentralized organization represented by rules encoded as a computer program that is transparent, controlled by the organization members, and not influenced by a third party.

What is a DEX?

A decentralized exchange (DEX) is a cryptocurrency exchange that operates without a central authority. DEXs are built on top of blockchain technology and are therefore decentralized. They are also known as peer-to-peer (P2P) exchanges.

What is a DAI?

DAI is a decentralized stablecoin that is pegged to the US dollar. It is a stablecoin that is backed by the MakerDAO protocol. DAI is a stablecoin that is backed by the MakerDAO protocol. DAI is a stablecoin that is backed by the MakerDAO protocol.

What is a stablecoin?

A stablecoin is a cryptocurrency whose value is pegged to another asset, such as gold or the US dollar. Stablecoins are designed to minimize the volatility of cryptocurrencies.

What is a DeFi?

Decentralized finance (DeFi) is a financial system that is not controlled by a central authority. DeFi is a financial system that is not controlled by a central authority. DeFi is a financial system that is not controlled by a central authority.

Who founded Ethereum?

Ethereum was founded by Vitalik Buterin in 2013. Vitalik Buterin is a Russian-Canadian programmer and writer. He is the founder of Ethereum and the creator of Ethereum's virtual machine, Solidity, and the Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) process. He is also the founder of Bitcoin Magazine and the co-founder of Bitcoin Magazine.

Ethereum Foundation

The Ethereum Foundation is a non-profit organization that supports the development of Ethereum. The Ethereum Foundation is a non-profit organization that supports the development of Ethereum. The Ethereum Foundation is a non-profit organization that supports the development of Ethereum.

What is a gas?

Gas is a unit of measurement used to measure the computational resources required to execute a transaction on the Ethereum blockchain. Gas is a unit of measurement used to measure the computational resources required to execute a transaction on the Ethereum blockchain. Gas is a unit of measurement used to measure the computational resources required to execute a transaction on the Ethereum blockchain.

What is a gas price?

Gas price is the amount of Ether (ETH) you are willing to pay for each unit of gas. Gas price is the amount of Ether (ETH) you are willing to pay for each unit of gas. Gas price is the amount of Ether (ETH) you are willing to pay for each unit of gas.

What is a gas limit?

Gas limit is the maximum amount of gas you are willing to spend on a transaction. Gas limit is the maximum amount of gas you are willing to spend on a transaction. Gas limit is the maximum amount of gas you are willing to spend on a transaction.

What is a transaction fee?

Transaction fee is the amount of Ether (ETH) you are willing to pay for each unit of gas. Transaction fee is the amount of Ether (ETH) you are willing to pay for each unit of gas. Transaction fee is the amount of Ether (ETH) you are willing to pay for each unit of gas.

What is a transaction?

A transaction is a transfer of value between Ethereum accounts that is stored on the blockchain. A transaction is a transfer of value between Ethereum accounts that is stored on the blockchain. A transaction is a transfer of value between Ethereum accounts that is stored on the blockchain.

What is a block?

A block is a record of a set of transactions that have been verified by the network. A block is a record of a set of transactions that have been verified by the network. A block is a record of a set of transactions that have been verified by the network.

What is a block time?

Block time is the average amount of time it takes for a new block to be added to the blockchain. Block time is the average amount of time it takes for a new block to be added to the blockchain. Block time is the average amount of time it takes for a new block to be added to the blockchain.

What is a block reward?

Block reward is the amount of Ether (ETH) that is given to the miner who successfully mines a block. Block reward is the amount of Ether (ETH) that is given to the miner who successfully mines a block. Block reward is the amount of Ether (ETH) that is given to the miner who successfully mines a block.

What is a miner?

A miner is a person or organization that uses computing power to process transactions, secure the network, and earn transaction fees. A miner is a person or organization that uses computing power to process transactions, secure the network, and earn transaction fees. A miner is a person or organization that uses computing power to process transactions, secure the network, and earn transaction fees.

What is a hash rate?

Hash rate is the speed at which a miner can solve a block. Hash rate is the speed at which a miner can solve a block. Hash rate is the speed at which a miner can solve a block.

What is a hash?

A hash is a unique identifier that is generated based on the contents of a block. A hash is a unique identifier that is generated based on the contents of a block. A hash is a unique identifier that is generated based on the contents of a block.

What is a difficulty?

Difficulty is a measure of how difficult it is to find a new block. Difficulty is a measure of how difficult it is to find a new block. Difficulty is a measure of how difficult it is to find a new block.

What is a nonce?

Nonce is a number that can only be used once. Nonce is a number that can only be used once. Nonce is a number that can only be used once.

What is a fork?

A fork is a change in the protocol of a blockchain that makes previously invalid blocks/transactions valid. A fork is a change in the protocol of a blockchain that makes previously invalid blocks/transactions valid. A fork is a change in the protocol of a blockchain that makes previously invalid blocks/transactions valid.

What is a hard fork?

A hard fork is a permanent divergence from the previous version of the blockchain. A hard fork is a permanent divergence from the previous version of the blockchain. A hard fork is a permanent divergence from the previous version of the blockchain.

What is a soft fork?

A soft fork is a temporary divergence from the previous version of the blockchain. A soft fork is a temporary divergence from the previous version of the blockchain. A soft fork is a temporary divergence from the previous version of the blockchain.

What is a wallet?

A wallet is a software program that stores private and public keys and interacts with various blockchain to enable users to send and receive digital currency and monitor their balance. A wallet is a software program that stores private and public keys and interacts with various blockchain to enable users to send and receive digital currency and monitor their balance. A wallet is a software program that stores private and public keys and interacts with various blockchain to enable users to send and receive digital currency and monitor their balance.

What is a private key?

A private key is a secret piece of data that gives you access to your funds. A private key is a secret piece of data that gives you access to your funds. A private key is a secret piece of data that gives you access to your funds.

What is a public key?

A public key is a piece of data that is derived from your private key. A public key is a piece of data that is derived from your private key. A public key is a piece of data that is derived from your private key.

What is a signature?

A signature is a piece of data that proves you are the owner of a given address. A signature is a piece of data that proves you are the owner of a given address. A signature is a piece of data that proves you are the owner of a given address.

What is a seed phrase?

A seed phrase is a group of 12 or 24 words that can be used to recover your wallet. A seed phrase is a group of 12 or 24 words that can be used to recover your wallet. A seed phrase is a group of 12 or 24 words that can be used to recover your wallet.

My goal with this newsletter is to introduce you to DAOs (decentralised autonomous organisations). I am working on and will eventually publish an ultimate guide, which will go more in-depth into many of these concepts and provide you with many more examples.

When I found out about DAOs, I became obsessed. It was like discovering what the organisation of the future will look like. Maybe like the feeling that millennials felt when they entered a Google campus in the early 2000s. The only difference was that there was no campus; it was a bustling discord server with a governance platform, where from day one you get ownership, voting rights and pretty much full transparency on everything going on.

What is a DAO?

In essence, a DAO can be any type of organisation; the only difference is that its governance process is programmed into smart contracts and when decisions are made they are recorded into the blockchain. Think of your organisation’s rules, but in code. Most DAOs are highly decentralised to the point where there is no one person that can take major decisions, such as changing the governance process.

There are no international standards; they vary as to how decentralised or autonomous they are. However, when looking into a DAO you will often find the following characteristics:

• Ability to vote on proposals created by members

• Holders can purchase or receive governance tokens

• A governance model that includes the ability to create motions or disputes

• A high level of transparency when it comes to treasury management or payments

The first DAO was created in 2016, although the concept had already been introduced earlier in 2013 by Dan Larimer (here) and Vitalik Buterin (here).

The DAO

The first DAO was a real-life experiment that ended horribly wrong.

In 2016, the DAO was created on top of Ethereum, with the aim to function as a venture fund for new projects. Decisions would be made by all members owning tokens, and it raised around $150m (12.7m Ether at the time). This was the first viral moment for DAOs. However, less than two months after going live a hacker managed to exploit part of the code and take away Ether worth US$50m at that time (if you want to know more about how that code was exploited, click here.)

This eventually led to a very controversial decision to hard fork the network; the original “hacked” network is called today Ethereum Classic.

This was not good PR for DAOs and led to many very ambitious projects not getting as much attention as they should. Nevertheless, the community kept working and today there are hundreds of DAOs and dozens of tools that make it easy to create one without even needing blockchain or programming knowledge.

DAO examples & tools

The best way to truly understand DAOs today is to become part of one or look at real ones. Not all the examples I give you here have the same principles or levels of decentralisation and automation embedded within how they work; however, for most DAOs it is a step-by-step process to get there.

DAO examples

**Project Catalyst **Started last year, with the aim of becoming a key part of the governance and funding of the Cardano network, with a treasury of $1 billion. Funds run every six weeks, when members of the Cardano community can create proposals for new business ideas and are then voted on by ADA token holders. The voting period for Fund 6 is currently happening right now, so if you want to know more about it or even become part of it click here.

There are already tens of thousands of members participating in Catalyst by creating proposals, being community advisors, or voting.

**Uniswap **The largest decentralised exchange for the Ethereum network, and the largest DAO by market cap. Since last September, anyone holding the UNI token has been able to vote or delegate their vote on decisions that help the day-to-day operations of the exchange. Here is an example of one of the latest votes.

**The LAO **A group of blockchain enthusiasts who want to support the growth of the Ethereum network. The LAO presents itself as the future of venture capital. It has already invested more than $50M and blockchain founders are starting to want to be associated with them due to their ethos. If you want to know more about venture DAOs, you should read this article.

DAO Tools

**Llama **A simple tool that helps members of communities visualise crypto treasuries. It is a key implementation tool, which makes it easier for people to understand transactions that are made in a DAO.

**Colony **A 360° solution to run a DAO with a very innovative way of decentralising the process of assigning budgets to certain domains of an organisation. However, due to the high Ethereum gas prices you need to wait until their v2 solution running on xDai is launched to create an organisation.

**Aragon **A suite of tools that enables you to run a DAO, with a very user-friendly approach. It recently acquired Vocdoni, a digital voting solution for public and private organisations. This enables people to vote without having a personal crypto wallet, which will be important to drive adoption early on.

There are many more tools out there, and many will be covered in my forthcoming newsletters. But If you want to dive into the rabbit hole right away you can click here.

Future

For now, DAOs are mainly reserved for companies that live mostly on the internet. However, I can’t stop thinking about what the implications will be when the tools and principles used by DAOs go mainstream. I believe it could become a competitive advantage for more traditional companies to implement many of these tools and principles. Imagine a hotel that gave you a small share of ownership and voting power as soon as you become an employee. Many of the governance processes that happen today involving advisory boards, boards of directors, internal committees, and a long list of lawyers and auditors could be scaled up to the entire organisation without harming the quality of governance, but actually improving it.

Today, with our current legal and financial frameworks, the situation I describe above wouldn't be feasible for a business owner.

The future picture isn’t completely rosy, however; there are many issues that DAO founders and tool builders need to solve, such as:

• Lack of voter participation

• The legal status of the organisation and members

• Security and privacy, as another hack could be devastating

Many of these problems are already being tackled by companies like Aragon or lawmakers and given the convincing picture below, I believe they will be sorted. DAOs are here to stay.

Yesterday, I posted a deep dive into Winding Tree. I read it again and felt I should add a short personal take on what the future of online travel distribution might look like, in let's say 10-years from now.

I believe that there are two possible futures for the world of online travel distribution, one where companies like Booking, Expedia, Amadeus, Sabre are pretty much non-existent and one where they still dominate.

https://mirror.xyz/elgirafo.eth/4yv407_REuxiNPsHkTz31yao_5nUobtcpuGLLS6wpms

Scenario A

In the next 5 to 10 years, Airlines will slowly move towards driving more direct bookings and joining marketplaces like Winding Tree. By the end of this decade, over 80% of their bookings will be coming through distribution channels that are at least half as expensive as GDSs (currently at around 10% per booking).

In 2025, after front-end applications are more user-friendly, integrations with major PMSs are easy to set up and adoption of blockchain technology is even more mainstream we will see small and big hotels move in the same direction as the airlines did.

Scenario B

Major intermediaries go through a deep transformation of their business model and find new ways of generating revenue and growth while adopting blockchain technology-based distribution.

Big internal transformations are not impossible for big corporations, but for now, there aren’t any signals for change from the major OTAs or GDSs.

Take for example this investigation by a Dutch newspaper on Booking.com, that interviewed more than a dozen employees that raised serious concerns about their tech stack as they still use Perl an outdated and unpopular programming language. So, if an internet company is struggling to hire developers to maintain its platform running It doesn’t seem like they will start to learn and develop a dAAP on Solidity (Ethereum’s programming language) anytime soon.

If you don’t have access to the article you can check this one that refers to it.

Final Thoughts

The truth is that both scenarios have intermediaries, the only difference is the power and influence they have on the market. Intermediaries are not bad until they become gatekeepers of innovation and progress.

I believe this to be the case when it comes to OTAs and GDSs, the high number of commissions have squeezed the bottom lines of many hotels and airlines which then gets trickled down to travellers. By giving just 5% back to suppliers (that do not have an oligopoly status) we can expect many of them to put that towards giving more value to customers.

The reality is that there is a lot of work in either scenario and external factors that will influence the timelines I presented such as rate parity regulations.

This deep dive was made possible after a conversation I had with the Head of Product, Mathieu Tahon. Whether this is the first time you have heard of Winding Tree, or you have been following them since 2017, this article covers the basics and what is coming for the company. From now on I will refer to Winding Tree as WT. If you need a refresher on the current applications of blockchain technology and the main problems these aim to solve, you can reach my last newsletter:

https://mirror.xyz/elgirafo.eth/auRsVIdqlNGZJh3l1LczhDTB5ONqUrJyn3ry3MloANI

Introduction to WT

Launched in 2017, WT was one of the first projects that aimed to decentralise the world of online travel distribution. It claimed to offer a viable alternative for travel suppliers, which were using distribution solutions such as Amadeus, Sabre, Booking, or Expedia.

Since I started looking into WT, I’ve taken many different steps to try to understand what they are up to; reading their White Paper, blogs, articles, joining their Telegram chat, looking into developer documentation and GitHub repositories, all things I highly recommend you do (links at the end). However, if you are new to the world of blockchain technology and online travel marketplaces, I believe that the best way to understand it is to look at the products that make this decentralised travel distribution possible.

But before I give you a breakdown of each of these, let me explain the underlying technology the WT team has leveraged to build their ecosystem.

Smart Contracts

If this is the first time you have read the term ‘smart contracts’, get ready for a short explanation. In one of my last newsletters, I gave a very brief explanation about what blockchain technology is, and explained that today the use cases have expanded well beyond digital currency. This is mainly thanks to smart contracts, a term initially coined by Nick Szabo in 1994 (some suspect he might be Satoshi Nakamoto). However, the term was popularised by Vitalik Buterin with the creation of Ethereum (today the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalisation).

Nick Szabo defined a smart contract in 1994 as “a computerized transaction protocol that executes the terms of a contract”. That definition still stands today, but it has been expanded and brought to life thanks to the original Ethereum White Paper published by Vitalik Buterin in 2013. Thanks to its open-source nature, Ethereum has allowed developers to create decentralised applications (dApps) with a very high amount of flexibility.

Here is an example, let’s take traditional supply chains, which still require a high number of approvals and due diligence to reduce risk or fraud when making deliveries or payments. Now, we can create smart contracts that executes:

if x amount of flour is delivered then pay the supplier x amount per kilo.

It seems simple, however, this entire process often requires more than a smart contract - and some will often call them dumb contracts. This is because for most smart contracts you still need a connection to the real world. That is where oracles come in; oracles are a third-party service that provide smart contracts with external information, serving as bridges between blockchains and the outside world. In the example I gave above that could be the data from the scale weighing the flour (click here for more information on oracles).

Another popular oversimplification to understand the difference between Bitcoin and Ethereum is to think of Bitcoin as a calculator and Ethereum as a smartphone.

If you want to learn more about smart contracts I’d recommend reading Nick Szabo’s article from 1994, the Ethereum White Paper, or you can start by watching this explainer video. 

So how does WT leverage smart contracts?

WT uses the Ethereum network to create permissionless access to its marketplace. However, as most projects built on top of Ethereum do, WT created and issued their own native token and side-applications, which provided the functionalities needed to run an online travel marketplace. The token is called Lif and fuels the ecosystem by verifying all the transactions that happen in the marketplace. So, to be part of the marketplace and expose inventory, suppliers need to have a Lif stake. WT is currently writing a second white paper, and I suspect that it will contain some key updates about the functionalities and purpose of the Lif token within the ecosystem.

Smart contracts are not created every time a booking happens on the platform; that would not even be possible with the current capabilities of the Ethereum network in terms of transaction speeds and costs. The only time a smart contract transaction is created is when an organisation becomes a verified member of the marketplace, which is why to become a member you must pay a transaction fee in ETH, Ethereum’s token. However, users will then send transactions to the smart contract to modify the state of the blockchain.

Winding Tree Ecosystem

Here is an overview of the products that make the WT ecosystem a viable alternative to current OTAs and GDS. 

**The Marketplace **This is the heart of the WT ecosystem and the first “product” that was built by the team. It enables people to join the network and start exposing their inventories. The team has worked towards removing the barriers to joining the marketplace by making it a simple process. However, there are still steps that involve using a cryptocurrency wallet (such as Meta Mask) After you have been registered on the marketplace you can start adding your API endpoint (which enables you to expose inventory and receive bookings). It might not be as simple as signing up on Booking.com or Expedia, but I believe that WT will eventually get there, which will be key to driving adoption.

The marketplace already has a few pages of registered institutions, including travel agents, booking platforms and hotels. What is less clear is whether companies such as Lufthansa, KLM and Etihad are actively using the marketplace, despite announcements of their adoption in recent years.

**Glider **Glider is a set of two products, which act as real-life examples of ways to use the WT protocol to sell or buy travel products.

**glider.travel **By clicking on glider.travel you can see a simple example of an OTA built by the WT team. I believe the goal was to give an example of an OTA and empower people to get started and build OTAs on top of WT. You can also technically copy the open-source code here and start your own OTA on top of WT. However, it is not as simple as building a website on a no-code platform as many integrations and developments are still needed, especially on the back-end.

I wonder if any successful projects have been able to fully build an OTA on top of WT? Having been involved in a similar project at the start of this year it was not as easy as it seemed. However, the WT team was very helpful and provided our team with a lot of guidance. I hope that in their upcoming plans to increase the adoption of WT, more development is done on the Glider OTA to make it easier to use the WT protocol. This will be especially important when it comes to building the back-end infrastructure needed to connect inventories and the content from hotels and airlines.

**Glider aggregator **The Glider Aggregator is a back-end service that forwards the booking requests received from the WT marketplace to airlines and hotels. Again, the code is open-source and offers documentation on how to make requests to the marketplace. Nevertheless, the same problem remains that non-tech-savvy travel agents won’t necessarily understand how to start buying inventory. Most importantly there needs to be a large amount of inventory to attract users to start using this channel.

**Rooms **Rooms is a more recent and very exciting product built by WT, which offers a lightweight solution for suppliers that don’t necessarily use APIs, a CRS, or a PMS. Any supplier can log into Rooms, add their available inventory with a friendly interface and start accepting bookings throughout the WT marketplace. Again, the code is open source for anyone to contribute or use.

I believe this will be a key product to drive adoption with smaller suppliers, who frequently end up paying the highest commission fees as they have less leverage in negotiations with OTAs. Additionally, given that WT Glider Aggregator only integrates with eRevMax, a CRS and PMS for hotels, it is important to allow hotels that work with different PMS or CRS to start connecting to the WT ecosystem while the integrations are developed. On the airline side, WT confirmed that they are integrated with Air Canada.

**ORGid **Launched at the start of this year, ORGiD is a Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) Solution for organisations. It functions as a decentralised business registry that makes it easy to verify someone's identity. The main goal is to increase trust within the network by limiting the possibilities for scams or phishing attempts, which have been on the rise in the blockchain space [source]. Even though some community members might wonder why WT focused on creating this solution and not on expanding the adoption of the eco-system, I believe it was a key component to truly make WT a trusted permissionless marketplace.

If you want to learn more about it you can browse the open-source code here, and read an in-depth explanation of it here.

All of these products come together to create a more efficient model for online travel distribution.

Future Outlook

The WT team has been working on some major updates and solutions to solve some of their problems, such as the lack of adoption or clarity around the project.

**Updated Token **In response to many requests from the community to update the original Lif token, a new token was released in September. The new token will enable more compatibility with the growing Ethereum ecosystem, allowing holders to trade it on decentralised exchanges, such as Uniswap, and potentially allow for use cases on layer 2 solutions, such as Optimism. All in all, this expands the scope of the Lif token as well as making it a more attractive project. For a full list of details on the new token click here.

**White Paper v2 **The WT team has started writing a new White Paper. The reason for this is because the original White Paper, published in 2017, is outdated as most of the goals and aspirations have been achieved. Expect a strong focus on how the team plans to grow adoption, an updated Roadmap and an explanation of the new Lif token. You can check out the new White Paper under construction here.

Simard Oü Simard OÜ is a licensed travel agency independent of the WT Foundation and accredited by the IATA. Up until now, it seems to have only been used to accept payments. However, a few weeks ago simard.io showed up and had a simple countdown clock. After some speculation on the Telegram chat, the countdown ended and the announcement was very vague; check it out for yourself. I received limited information about this, but I can share that it will be a for-profit entity, which will be a key player in driving the adoption of the WT protocol. The goal is for it to mainly offer services to larger companies that want support in integrating with WT.

In my opinion, this is a very smart strategy, similar to the one taken by the Cardano network, which has formed a trinity of the Cardano Foundation (the non-profit legal custodian), IOG (the engineering arm) and Emurgo (consulting services).

**Becoming a DAO **Finally, WT has taken some steps towards becoming a decentralised autonomous organisation (DAO). An example of this can be seen on Snapshot, where holders of Lif have been able to have an input on governance by choosing and creating proposals or voting on them.

My next newsletter will most probably be an in-depth guide to the world of DAOs, so if you are an expert or enthusiast feel free to reach out.

Relevant Blockchain Projects

WT is unique with regards to its solution of creating a permissionless marketplace for the entire travel industry. However, there are more projects that are implementing blockchain technology in different ways; here are some of them:

• Travala.com: Powered by the Binance smart chain and a partnership with Booking and Expedia

• Dtravel: Newly launched platform backed by Travala, aiming to be an Airbnb alternative.

• LockTrip: Ambitious project that started on Ethereum and has now has an in-house blockchain solution

• Trips: Community approach built on Ethereum aiming to become an alternative to OTAs

• Bistroo: a competitor to food delivery apps Bistroo has lower fees and puts restaurants, food shops, and their customers back in control.

There are of course other players such as Fairbnb or the Air France & KLM group, which have internal projects that aim to implement blockchain technology for different use cases, such as governance.

Useful Links

Here are some useful links if you want to learn more about WT:

Website Telegram Blog  Documentation White Paper GitHub Reddit Youtube

Related articles on WT: https://www.travel-industry-blog.com/travel-technology/blockchain/#Blockchain_use_case_in_travel_Winding_Tree

https://oberhummer.com/winding-tree-bitcoin-travel-might-flawed/#sthash.Yx1SfvL0.dpbs

Blockchain Technology 101

The first thing that surprised me while reading academic papers on blockchain technology was the decades of research in cryptography, programming, and mathematics that were necessary to build real-life applications that worked. The feeling you often get with blockchain is this wild west free for all that appeared out of nowhere in 2008 from someone using the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto.

If you are interested in the academic papers that led to Bitcoin and the overall development of blockchain technology, I'd recommend reading this article by Rishi Sidhu.

In a nutshell, blockchain technology is not a piece of hardware or a cryptocurrency, but a system or method to keep track of information. 

You can think of it as a shared Excel document with sheets that each contain a block of information. The designers of the Excel sheet give it a purpose and create a set of protocols on how information gets verified, recorded, and added to the sheets.

As soon as this Excel goes live, collaborators have access to all of the information that is on the sheets, are able to suggest edits and can see the changes that have been made in the past.

We move from a reality where you have one person or entity that has access and is in charge of approving and changing the document to one where the process of editing and maintaining the information is mostly distributed and automated.

To be clear, we do not need blockchain to collaborate on excel sheets; this is an analogy and over-simplification of a technology that has evolved a lot since 2008. I'd highly recommend reading more introductions to blockchain; here is a good start.

This system is what Satoshi Nakamoto used in his Bitcoin White Paper to create a viable digital currency, describing it as follows: "A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution."

Applications for the Online Travel Industry

There are a multitude of applications for blockchain technology in online travel; here are the three most impactful ones in my opinion.

N.1 - DisintermediationAs I wrote in the previous newsletter, the current state of the industry is highly centralized, with only a few players owning the main distribution channels. These are global distribution systems (Amadeus, Sabre, and Travelport) or online travel agencies (OTA’s), such as Expedia or Booking.com. Blockchain technology provides a unique opportunity to remove or reduce the layers of intermediaries in online travel. By creating global protocols for exposing inventories and purchasing them, we can democratize the act of selling and buying travel products, and along the way possibly reduce the high commissions that these intermediaries ask for.

**Main Benefits: **✔️ Democratised access to travel inventories ✔️ Re-empowerment of suppliers and buyers ✔️ Simplification of selling and buying travel products.

Active projects:

• Winding Tree

• LockTrip

• TripsCommunity

N.2. - International PaymentsThe adoption of cryptocurrencies, whether it is Bitcoin or those that will eventually be issued by central banks, will be a game-changer for international payments and compliance. Businesses operating in the travel industry incur high costs for dealing with international payments, transfers, and exchange rates. This also applies to travellers who pay high bank fees or endure laughable exchange rates. Cryptocurrencies will eventually make paying and transferring money internationally as smooth as using your Apple Pay.

**Main Benefits: **✔️ Reducing costs for international payments ✔️ Reducing the complexity of international payment compliance ✔️ Making the experience of paying for goods and services easier while travelin

Active projects:

• Travala.com

• Circle

• Most cryptocurrencies

N.3 - Personal Identity & PrivacyTired of uploading your passport every time you book a flight? Cryptographically securing personal identity will be a game-changer for identity verification in travel for both governments and travellers. Governments will be able to tap into a more reliable international system, which stores travellers’ identities and securely verifies who is who; travellers will reduce the number of times they have to expose private information to databases that could become easily compromised. This could contribute to the reduction of identity theft or credit card fraud. Of course, this application will have more far reaching implications than just the travel industry.

Main Benefits: ✔️ Reduce the risk of personal identity fraud ✔️ Facilitate verification of personal identification ✔️ Provide more security and privacy to travellers sharing their IDs.

Active projects:

• Civic

• Metadium

• Tykn

Challenges & Roadblocks

So why are we still not booking hotels and flights through blockchain systems? With any new technology, there is an adoption curve and a lot of heavy lifting required both in building the technology and getting people to use it. For now, here are a few of the many challenges and roadblocks that lie ahead:

Operability with legacy systems

Think channel managers, central reservation systems, property management systems, etc. The new protocols and systems will need to integrate with some of these to drive adoption.

Building out a digital infrastructure 

For these new systems to work there is a need for simple front-end and back-end interfaces that make it easy to plug and play.

Adoption from small and medium businesses

In general, airlines have a massive scale and are able to invest in these types of new technologies early on. However, real change will come when small-to-medium sized businesses (independent hotels, museums, etc.) join the new world of travel distribution.

Blockchain Projects

I have already referred to some current projects that are building blockchain-based solutions for the travel industry, there are more so I created a database; to add a project, click here.

In this newsletter, you'll get to know how travel distribution evolved in two different time periods:

• Thomas Cook and the advent of travel agents (1841-1996)

• Online Travel Agents (1996-2020)

But first, let's make something clear, something that this pandemic might have allowed us to forget.

Humans and travel.

Humans have been travelling for thousands of years and the Covid pandemic is a speck of dust in our 300,000-year history as Homo Sapiens. Nonetheless, the way we travel, and the reasons why, have changed throughout history. Unfortunately, if you try to understand how humans travelled more than 15,000 years ago, you must rely on limited methods: fossils, genetics, and present-day hunter-gatherer communities, for example.

For most of history, we didn't rely on intermediaries to plan our trips; we just walked, foraged, hunted, and set up camp. Today's world is different, and since modern tourism began, intermediaries big or small have been a game-changer, enabling millions of us to visit places we couldn't have dreamt of before. That brings us to Thomas Cook, the father of tourism.

Thomas Cook

Thomas Cook from Leicester, England, was the founder of the travel agency that bears his name. In the history books, he is credited as the first person to commercialise travel. In 1841, Thomas created the first organised trip and acted as the first travel agent.

The thrill of travel quickly spread across the English midlands, and improved workers’ conditions enabled more and more people to take part. In 1855, Thomas Cook organised the first continental trip across Europe. The next 150-years were mostly characterised by strong growth and the proliferation of mass tourism across the world.

However, in mid-2019 Thomas Cook (the agency) filed for bankruptcy, marking the end of an era. Although in reality, the end of this era started a few decades earlier, when travel agents started to go online. Traditional travel agents started to lose more and more market share to a new breed of company that took the business model online in the late 1990s.

**Online Travel Agents **

The year 1996 was a significant one for the industry, as Booking.com, Expedia and Travelocity all launched that year. Although they were not the first to bring travel products online, they were the first to allow travellers to access them directly (skipping ‘traditional’ travel agents).

Airlines, however, had already started to develop and connect to the Global Distribution System (eAAsy Sabre) since 1986. This "delay" of 10-years between airlines being connected to the internet compared to hotels seems to be showing up again in the adoption of Blockchain (more on that in the next newsletter).

Dennis Schaal, an Executive Editor at Skift, published an extensive report on the development of online travel [2]. He divided this history into three parts:

• Pre-online travel agency 1985-1993

• The key launches 1996-1998

• Consolidation & evolution 1999 onwards

This market has been in "consolidation mode" for a long time and today the two main players dominate two of the most important regions: Booking.com in Europe and Expedia Inc. in North America. This reflects these two companies’ origins, in Europe and the US respectively, anchoring their market share in these geographies, even though they both operate worldwide.

The two major changes in the market in the last decade are the start of Google Travel and the growth of Airbnb. However, from a structural point of view, the industry hasn't changed a lot, data and contracts are still highly concentrated in the hands of a few players.

Is it a problem though? for travellers? after all booking a trip is easier than ever before. Well, it doesn't take a genius to understand that many cities have inflated hotel prices due to their high commission rates and rate parity agreements.You can see the similarities with the current tensions that Apple is facing on its high commission fees in the app store. However, the difference is that using an iPhone is a rather sleek experience, but browsing for accommodations on booking.com is an often frustrating, lengthy and stressful experience for most travellers.

All due respect should be given to booking.com and Expedia for their contribution to the travel industry, but it is time to innovate and start adding value to travellers and accommodation providers again. I wouldn't be surprised to see them facing the same fate as Thomas Cook did in 2019 in the next decade (more on the "why" in the next newsletter).

Historical Timeline

Here is a simplified timeline of the recent history of online travel.

**References **[1] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/essential-timeline-understanding-evolution-homo-sapiens-180976807/ [2] https://skift.com/history-of-online-travel/