E-commerce, or electronic commerce, is the buying and selling of products and services through the internet. Starting as Electronic Data Interchange in the 1960s, the first real online commerce was launched in 1979, when a British inventor, Michael Aldrich, connected a computer to a telephone line, accepting orders through teleshopping.
The e-commerce had its first boom with the advent of affordable PCs. Primarily a B2B system, it was later connected to end consumes, as B2C gained a lot of market. Today, the e-commerce business had grown into a multi trillion dollar sector, ending with a record breaking $2,290,000,000,000 in sales in 2017. This is predicted to increase up to an estimated $4,000,000,000 by 2020.
MerchantChain, a Blockchain project of Plaza, is a distributed ledger technology that intends to make Plaza the default platform when it comes to e-commerce in the decentralized world. The developers of the e-commerce Plaza system have carefully studied the distributed ledger technology of Blockchain and identified key points that were needed to be addressed to ensure that their Blockchain is extremely user-friendly and does not possess the kinks that other Blockchain-based e-commerce platforms have, or will eventually face in the future.
First thing first among the features that make their version of Blockchain the most acceptable form is security. Blockchain, in itself, is a very secure technology that does not allow manipulation of its stored data. Developers often rely on this and promote their systems, but overlook fraud and phishing from the merchant and buyer source. MerchantChain users must have an AURA SSL certificate, providing security of user connection and countering any phishing attempts by other parties.
Future Tech Immunity is another feature. Plaza’s MerchantChain developers keep abreast of future technologies that may become advanced enough to threaten the decentralized system. One major threat is from quantum computing, that theoretically, can break into enough nodes at one time to hack the Blockchain successfully. A Proof Of Reputation algorithm prevents that.
The third feature is Power Diet. Using low powered devices such as IoT, instead of power hungry systems, the Blockchain is extremely light when it comes to powering consumption. This makes it very easy for merchants and users to run nodes.
One more feature in the list is Auto Scalability. The low power devices that power nodes of this Blockchain also give it a built in scalability feature. With the devices for trade available on the platform, consumers will have the option to connect these IoTs to the network, making a new node for every device and allowing for more nodes to cater for the increasing transaction volume automatically.
And the last but not the least is Transaction Speed. The MerchantChain is designed to be fast in processing transactions. It can do 15,000 transactions per second in parallel, with an average processing time of less than three seconds.
Plaza System has developed an internal, value stable token that will power all transactions done on the Blockchain and layered platform. The PLAZA is currently going through its first phase of TGE, giving a 30% bonus for backers. The bonus drops by 5% every week. Main TGE starts on April 26, 2018 and registration for the main event is open. Current default rate of exchange is set at 1 ETH = 7500 PLAZA.
Eugenia can call herself a multy-interested person, as she is always in search of new proffessional fields to encompass. After graduating from Belarussian State University with Bachelor degree in both International Communication and Public Relations, she joined a travel startup Fresh Adventures, where she worked for 3 years creating unique itineraries through exotic countries, travelling around the world and developing the company as a partner. Currently, she works as a business analyst in the field of information technologies. She believes that IT is the future, that is why it is so important to keep up with the latest trends in this rapidly growing industry.
