Today, the world is witnessing a momentous upsurge of interest in digital currencies, their management and trading platforms only with a pronounced misfortune of feeding the spongy minds with often falsified information thrown here and there over the web and social media platforms by mostly anonymous less experienced individuals lacking credibility. Other more credible sources attempt to hide useful information but do incentivize users through very attractive marketing to subscribe and join some channels or even transfer funds to CEXs promising notable revenues. Numerous are such marketing campaigns that, in a way or another, parallel the act of banks to devour capitals and return to fund owners only a bare minimum of revenues on investments. One can easily relate to the current situation in Lebanon, for instance, where following an exponential economic downfall, severe unemployment and idleness, people (mostly the youth), notably unexperienced in this domain, are hardly seeking to engage in the world of trades and digitized currency in an attempt to improve their financial rankings. Yet, with the lack of resources and credible information sources and mostly driven by frequently incognito, fraudulous and camouflaged individuals making volatile social media posts giving advices on investment, mining and trading of digital currency, results are often cataclysmic.
The above lack of credible/reliable online digitized-currency-related spaces motivates the present MEPI TLP Create-X project proposal entitled: “Cryptonite”.
Cryptonite is an envisioned online digital platform that aims at gathering certified, credible and reliable cryptocurrency-related information; hence serving as a comprehensive guide accommodating and linking newcomers to renowned professional advisors/traders for the purpose of spreading knowledge about state-of-the-art cryptocurrency trading and management practices together with their underlying enabling technologies. Truly, Cryptonite is expected to culminate a well-established and go-to cryptocurrency support community allowing its members to become well informed and be able to manage their own funds. This platform aims at joining the advantages of both CEXs and DEXs allowing investors and advisors/traders to interact, exchange posts, remarks and comments while allowing for the establishment of private one-on-one chatting as well as group discussions on the latest trends, pitfalls and recoveries in a real-time manner; hence, enabling users to make timely informed trade/exchange decisions. Most importantly, Cryptonite is not just the education, the knowledge and the practice but also about the establishment of mutual trust among users, especially beginners, who often seek quick results forgetting about the high-risk factors endangering their funds in a highly volatile financial environment. More precisely, the core purpose and Lebanese-led initiative for this project includes the following:
1. Educating and engaging the Lebanese people with cryptocurrency (inspired by the successful initiative of Anghami, a proud Lebanese product) by creating a local Lebanese crypto community in the early stages of the project.
2. Crypto-Mapping (described below) allows people to find and report locations in Lebanon that are adopting crypto currency as a method of payment.
3. Encouraging Lebanese advisors and giving them recognition will advocate for a more widespread use of cryptocurrency in Lebanon, which will, in turn, partake in a pinnacle transition by adopting cryptocurrency as a new method of payment (considering the fluctuating value of the Lebanese Pound).
4. Promoting safe online payments within the trending online shopping scenes in Lebanon and abroad while evading the security concerns accompanied by bank transactions persisting throughout the crisis.
The application distinguishes between two types of crypto users:
1. Traders: Users that have invested or traded cryptocurrency but have not been certified or have not yet attained sufficient knowledge or expertise to qualify as an advisor. Traders may also represent new users that are beginners or have not yet engaged with any form of cryptocurrency.
2. Advisors: Users that have been certified within the platform (via reliable examinations) or demonstrate the required criteria to guide other users with crypto-related matters.
Hence, the central goals of the development of the Cryptonite application are:
1. Easy access: Establish a simplified and centralised source for traders and advisors to access crypto-related topics.
2. Knowledge Enhancement and Certification: Incentivize improvement of users in their crypto knowledge through a certified embedded promotion system.
3. Professional Accessibility: Provide easier communication services between traders and professional advisors through channels, chats, webinars, etc.
4. Advisor Promotion: Expand the community and followers of a particular advisor through posts and webinars to explain and express their crypto principals.
5. Crypto Self-Assessment: Evaluate and inform a trader about their own transactions by analysing their latest crypto activity through a digital crypto diary.
6. Advisor Placement: Distinguish between different levels of crypto expertise through a promotion system that indicates the knowledge level of a crypto advisor.
7. Centralised Resources: Organise and visualise the latest trends and updates related to a selection of the most dealt-with cryptocurrencies.
8. Crypto-Mapping: Provide location services to the nearest outlets where crypto-transactions or payments are accepted.
9. User Integrity: Secure and protect users, particularly advisors, from invasive or spam-like activity by ensuring restrictions upon all forms of direct user interactions.
10. Sorted Sourcing: Categorise the essential information and core practices/advice provided by advisors rather than feeds with scattered and unfiltered topics.
On a final note, this project aims to optimise its UX/UI component by accommodating the latest and most common devices for flash news delivery and cross platform examination. Consequently, Cryptonite will have its own web app as well as its own Amazon Alexa Skill. The web app serves as an extension to the application for services such as examinations, analytics, KPI, summaries, etc.