Currying favor from customers in the 21st century requires a multifaceted approach, and depends on optimizing every link of the retail supply chain to ensure that the experience is unparalleled. As such, the field of analytics is to garner a better understanding of their clientele and facilitate improved interactions. However, access to these granular insights about customer trends and preferences is mostly limited to large companies and industry gatekeepers. Even when smaller shops work to promote themselves by using 21st century commerce tools, this asymmetry grows even greater. While LivingSocial and Shopee are attempting to level the playing field by helping bring customers through the door, they oftentimes put their merchant customers at a disadvantage by restricting the flow of valuable data.
With companies seeking to look beyond the short-term boost that discounting and promotional activities provide, to deliver the best possible solution for the entire retail industry. By building upon its attributes of decentralization, democratization, and disintermediation, blockchain could not only shift the balance of power away from the central data purveyors, but also engender a more level playing field.
Data’s Role in Refining Retail
The growing dependency on data is especially evident in the retail sector, which must routinely adjust and adapt to changing consumer preferences. With the need to constantly review figures related to inventories, purchases, loyalty, and other trends, data is playing an increasingly outsized role in the retail decision-making process. are especially popular, specifically when it comes to identifying sources of future demand for items during the holiday season. Analytics can also improve supply chain efficacy and efforts to ensure that products meet strict quality control standards. DAG technologies like IOTA’s can aid these efforts, building connections between interspersed IoT devices to collect and aggregate data which can eventually go towards streamlining the value chain while identifying areas for improvement to alleviate potential bottlenecks.
Finding efficiencies is an activity for which analytics is perfectly suited, but the data itself is not always accessible for all merchants. For instance, amongst businesses seeking to drive traffic to their stores, using an online coupon that can be redeemed in store. Apart from the obvious benefit of increasing retail traffic, it gives many smaller businesses a perfect opportunity to introduce their products and services to new customers eager to take advantage of a discount. However, this is where the benefit for businesses generally ends.
Centralized purveyors of these discounts like LivingSocial and Groupon are undoubtedly providing a service that can help businesses drive value, but ultimately, they are the major beneficiaries of these efforts thanks to the data they collect. Details about the shoppers themselves, preferences, and buying habits is all valuable information that is not shared with the participating retailer. Furthermore, the gains for retailers are often one-off jumps in activity and store traffic instead of fostering longer-term relationships with customers. Without access to their valuable data, retailers are oftentimes paying to erode their margins instead of gleaning insights that could conceivably help improve their value propositions.
Revising the Existing Value Exchange Model
Although oftentimes value is simply denominated as currency, blockchain is upending our understanding of how value is transferred between and redefining what value even means. It is not to say that LivingSocial and Groupon are necessarily bad, but rather of all stakeholders. Without being able to access the more granular data about the customers walking through their doors, merchants’ disadvantage in relation to larger peers grows palpably. Blockchain’s innate benefits like disintermediation and decentralization ensure that the gatekeepers that currently preside over this valuable data will gradually see their grip loosened.
Put in the context of consumers going grocery shopping, more individuals than ever before want to know the source of their produce and proteins. To help them understand the entire chain of custody from farmer to wholesaler to grocery store, designed to increase the trust and transparency across the entire logistics supply chain. Apart from helping businesses handle logistics, customers can buy with greater confidence, cultivating a closer relationship between all the parties in this retail experience and improving the collective confidence in the system. When combined with a system like Wave which helps monitor the entire supply chain, helping keep all paperwork in a single location to avoid duplicates, forgeries, and the possibility of disputes between suppliers that ultimately impact the merchant and consumer experience.
Apart from the supply chain possibilities, the relationship between retailers and their customers is also ready for a blockchain-based revolution. Retail engagement platform HotNow has built a gamified platform whereby merchants and customers build a more direct relationship, engaging in mutually beneficial activities. In exchange for completing an in-app game, posting on social media, or even writing a review, consumers are rewarded with for their efforts by participating merchants. These merchants are not only getting better exposure to help them expand their outreach efforts, but also able to bring online traffic offline into their retail outlets with the promise of promotions and discounts. Furthermore, they can better understand the efficacy of their efforts by accessing all the accompanying data without the restrictions imposed by other location-based advertising purveyors.
With greater insights and the data to support their decision-making, smaller merchants can fine tune or pivot depending on the preferences of their most important stakeholders without being at a disadvantage relative to bigger peers. In addition, blockchain-based services eliminate the need for intermediaries to collect and distribute the data thanks to the transparency of the distributed ledger, helping reduce the barriers for analyzing this valuable trove of information. With no gatekeeper lording over the most valuable data, merchants can freely improve their services without being beholden to the largest data collectors operating across the web.
Blockchain As the Great Retail Equalizer
The systems that were once the pride and joy of the entrenched retail giants are now filtering their way down to their smaller peers seeking to end the serious informational imbalance that currently defines the status quo. Even though these newer blockchain startups have a long way to go towards proving their efficacy in terms of aiding merchants, their efforts towards disintermediation and decentralization mean that a new status quo draws nearer with each passing day. With platforms designed to help streamline all activities across the value chain, while forging stronger connections between often disconnected stakeholders, the attributes that make blockchain so relevant will likely be the driving force behind greater retailer effectiveness.
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There are currently over 1,500 crypto assets cryptocurrencies that investors can choose from to construct their digital asset portfolios. While the bulk of a portfolio should ideally be composed of the market-leading coins and tokens such as bitcoin, ether, litecoin, monero, and ripple there is always space for a few smaller coins that have the potential to multiply in value faster than their large-cap counterparts.
While there are a select few cryptocurrencies that are able to compete with the top ten cryptocurrencies in terms of public attention, there are some digital currencies that have some noteworthy characteristics that may lend them to widespread use, which could result in a substantial increase in price. A good example of this would be .
What is Groestlcoin?
A competition was organized by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), called the , which attempted to develop an algorithm that would work in tandem with older SHA algorithms and mitigate any challenges therein.
While the Keccak group eventually won the competition and was subsequently used to formulate the SHA-3 algorithm by NIST, Groestl was declared to be a finalist in this competition. Its cryptographic design, known as Groestl-0, became the basis for the technology upon which Groestlcoin is now built upon.
Groestlcoin features an algorithm that is unique to the digital currency, created during the competition. The algorithm is as “an iterated hash function, where the compression function is built from two fixed, large, different permutations. The design of Grøstl is transparent and based on principles very different from those used in the SHA-family.”
The algorithm utilizes a cryptographic tool known as wide pipe design, which is based on a cryptographic architecture named the Merkle-Damgard construction. The explains further:
“The Grøstl hash function iterates an underlying compression function in a variant of the Merkle-Damg˚ard construction where the size of the state (or chaining value) passed on from one iteration to the next is at least twice as large as the final hash value. The final hash value is computed from the last chaining value using an output transformation. Hence, Grøstl is known as a wide pipe design.”
The algorithm is designed to provide a high level of security with regards to attacks to the blockchain. “The two permutations used are constructed using the wide trail design strategy, which makes it possible to give strong statements about the resistance of Grøstl against large classes of cryptanalytic attacks. Moreover, if these permutations are assumed to be ideal, there is a proof for the security of the hash function.”
Moreover, Groestl’s algorithm borrows heavily on the AES block cipher design, which carries the distinction of being named as the standard set by the United States federal government. That is because AES is flexible enough to support a good level of performance on a wide variety of platforms, largely due to a wide range of implementation methods. “Grøstl is a byte-oriented SP-network which borrows components from the AES. The S-box used is identical to the one used in the block cipher AES, and the diffusion layers are constructed in a similar manner to those of the AES.”
The cryptocurrency was eventually launched on March 22, 2014. The team behind the coin is focused on ensuring the token stays at par with current standards within the crypto space, releasing updates every three months. The digital currency was the first to implement SegWit in January 2017. As a result, the transaction speeds within its network are very fast.
Moreover, Groestlcoin has enabled the , which facilitates transactions with near-zero fees. “The fee for transferring 10,000 GRS will be 0.000045 GRS.” In addition, instant payments, scalability as well as Atomic Swaps are made possible by the addition of the Lightning Network to Groestlcoin’s blockchain.
Another important feature of note is the privacy-centric nature of the coin. Using a wallet developed and provided by the team as a result of the implementation of BIP147, it is possible to have complete privacy with regard to transactions on Groestlcoin. The team :
“The Samourai wallet, boasts its anonymity and security, as it allows for private stealth addresses with both TOR and VPN support, as well as onboard AES-256 encryption.”
Groestlcoin is one of the coins designed for GPU . Due to its algorithm, no ASICs have been developed suitable for its mining. Also, the algorithm provides it with a level of resistance to mining multipools which gives the individual with a GPU the opportunity to compete on an equal level, which makes it popular with miners. While block rewards started out as 512 coins, it is currently at the fixed minimum of five GRS per block.
The cryptocurrency also claims to be the only currency that can be .
The Price Activity Of Groestlcoin
Groestlcoin (GRS) has a market capitalization of around $37 million. It is at $0.53 and is ranked at 222 on CoinMarketCap and 136 on CoinGecko. The ’s total supply is 105 million. Following constant performance within a price range of low values, Groestlcoin saw it’s all-time-high on December 2017, during the cryptomarket rally, reaching a value of $2.25.
It is possible to acquire the digital currency through a number of exchanges such as Bittrex, Cryptopia, Coinexchange, Ccex, and Bitpanda, among others.
The chart below shows the weekly price action for GRS-BTC over the past 12 months. THe market has retreated away from the fractal support at 0.00005506 and now looks to attempt the resistance at 0.00007075. Notice that if the market manages to regain 0.00007075 (open of the large bullish candle from mid-December), we should see bulls reinvigorated. Resistances lie at 0.00011146 and 0.00016708, with the latter resistance approximately triple the current value of the coin.
GRS-BTC: Weekly, Bittrex
On March 22, Groestlcoin’s fourth anniversary, there will be new community and development releases, the introduction of a third-party wallet, and listings on new exchanges.
Should You Add GroestlCoin To Your Portfolio?
If you believe in the future value of privacy-centric digital currencies, then adding some Groestlcoin exposure to your would make sense. This coin is relatively unknown but has an active team working on it that aims to add innovative features to the coin on an ongoing basis. Hence, it may be an opportunity to get in at a price level now that we will not see again in the future.
Having said that, Groestlcoin is by no means a staple holding in a digital asset investment portfolio as it is a small privacy-focused coin that has heavyweight competitors in its market segment that are much more popular and established.
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Interessieren sich auch Frauen für die Blockchain-Technologie? „Ja“ ist die klare Antwort nach dem MoinBlockchain-Event in Hamburg. Der Fokus lag neben der Blockchain-Technologie auf Frauen, die für den Themenbereich brennen. Moin, Blockchain & moin, Frauen Die ersten Worte eines Programmierers sind meistens nicht „Mama“, sondern „Hello World“. Die Veranstalter des Hamburger Events tauften ihre Konferenz deswegen…Der Beitrag erschien zuerst auf .
