Moving the Sharing Economy to the Blockchain — Starting with Airspace

A blockchain-based sharing economy would reveal available supply (i.e. host availability) and demand data, while radically increasing consumer choice and host income opportunities.

For the purposes of this discussion, the sharing economy is defined specifically as, “consumers granting temporary access to under-utilized physical assets (‘idle capacity’), possibly for money.” Frenken et al. (2015).

In the current Sharing Economy, hosts and users rely on trusted centralized intermediaries to facilitate host/user pairings, provide reliability barometers, dispute resolution mechanisms and when applicable, ensure compensation. While centralized intermediaries can and certainly do provide material value to the sharing economy, serving as nothing more than digital gatekeepers, deliberately obfuscating supply and demand data, isn’t a component of their long-term value proposition.

“While centralized intermediaries can and certainly do provide material value to the sharing economy, serving as nothing more than digital gatekeepers, deliberately obfuscating supply and demand data, isn’t a component of their long-term value proposition.”

Furthermore, data-siloing creates a dependence on the intermediary service provider for both hosts and users, limiting consumer choice and stymieing potential income for hosts. As each sharing economy company (ex. ride sharing service) develops and expands their market presence unilaterally, it’s not simply a matter of hosts and users alternating between intermediary service providers to successfully partake in the sharing economy (ex. reserve a ride or pick up a passenger).

Sharing Economy on the Blockchain: A High-Impact, Real World use of the Blockchain and Crypto Tokens

In a Peer-to-Peer (or Peer-to-Blockchain) sharing economy, hosts would be able to go directly to the blockchain to notify all network participants and interested parties that their asset or service is available. Therefore, decentralized applications (“dApps”) can eliminate the dependence on relying on any one organization to match potential hosts and service providers based on siloed data.

Moreover, dApps can utilize smart contracts to eliminate the dependence on third party processors for compensation. Smart contracts can ensure that sufficient funds are held in a requesting participants wallet prior to participation and upon verification of execution of the parameters defined within the contract, transfer designated funds to a host’s wallet.

Airspace is an Under-Utilized, Valuable and Ideal Asset for the Sharing Economy

In the Sharing Economy, hosts typically incur “Additional Costs” for sharing their assets. There are various forms of additional costs that can manifest themselves in a number of ways depending on the context and nature of the asset shared. From housecleaning, to vehicle maintenance, the severity of the additional costs varies from the type of assets shared to specific transactions (ex. sharing economy participants that damage host property). Moreover, material non-monetary additional risks are inherently present to all persons that engage in the sharing economy. There are non-trivial liability concerns and physical safety considerations that should not be ignored when allowing other parties to access one’s home, vehicle or property.

Ideal under-utilized assets that maximize income opportunities for hosts in the sharing economy are ones that i) have low additional monetary costs ii) possess minimal liability concerns and iii) introduce minimum physical risks to all parties involved.

Granting temporary airspace access to drones in exchange for compensation, not only addresses the three-part definition for an ideal under-utilized asset, but is an ideal use-case to demonstrate the sharing economy efficiently and effectively operating on the blockchain.

A Blockchain-Based Sharing Economy will enable a Drone Superhighway

A number of respected institutions and companies are working toward drone flight management software solutions, while others have proposed policy initiatives with the aim of modifying FAA controlled airspace to accommodate both drone and conventional human piloted aircraft.

However, without an efficient mechanism to enable and incentivize property owners to grant low-altitude Right-of-Way access to drone service providers, there is no practical way to generate viable flight routes and fly commercial drone services at scale without trespassing, short of an eminent domain action.

By utilizing the blockchain, AERO Token enhances the sharing economy by demonstrating that an under-utilized asset, airspace over private property, can be easily leveraged to generate income.

AERO Token provides a missing technological and legal mechanism necessary to enable and easily facilitate the consent of property owners for low-altitude drone flight over private property.

But perhaps more importantly, AERO Token demonstrates that the blockchain can maximize the potential of the sharing economy by eliminating data silos, increasing consumer choice and establishing a use-case that may materially influence how future policy and economic issues are addressed.

AERO Token is an Ethereum-based blockchain technology that enables property owners (i.e. hosts) to grant temporary Right-of-Way easements to authorized drone service providers in exchange for income.