Karbon – KARB ICO Social eCommerce Crypto Debit Card & App?

Karbon, found online at Karbon.io, is a decentralized social eCommerce platform that promises to create a new decentralized social experience. Find out what that means today in our review.

What is Karbon?

Karbon.io is a decentralized social eCommerce platform built on the blockchain. The platform introduced itself to the Bitcointalk.org forums with the slogan, “Let’s make social media great again.”

The overall goal of Karbon is to create a decentralized marketplace and social network built on blockchain technology. The platform supports fiat and cryptocurrency conversions and the ability to seamlessly send money to other users on the platform.

Think of a combination between Facebook and Amazon, built on the blockchain technology for enhanced transparency and security.

What Problems Does Karbon Seek to Solve?

Karbon’s developers created the platform after “years of neglect, backlash, risks of fraud and/or identity theft, invasion of privacy and differing opinions that have had unfavorable disadvantages towards the users of many social media networks.”

Basically, Karbon believes today’s social media networks are inefficient. Users are missing out on important benefits – like the ability to turn their social media profile into an eCommerce platform.

The Karbon whitepaper breaks the problems of social media down into five core issues:

• Users need to use multiple platforms to achieve a single goal (say, they can’t shop and talk to friends from one platform)
• Social media companies focus more on advertiser benefits than on user behavior
• Users can’t manage a business through their social media accounts
• Social media platforms haven’t incorporated cryptocurrencies
• User-submitted content cannot be monetized through platforms like micro-tipping

These are common problems across all social media platforms – and Karbon wants to solve them. Despite all of the shortcomings listed above, users are still obsessed with social media: users spend hours every week on social media. That’s where Karbon sees an opportunity.

The Karbon Token

Karbon’s ecosystem revolves around the Karbon token, or KARB. That token can be used for all central services, products, and features on the Karbon platform, including all of the following:

Micro-Tipping:

Karbon allows users, fanpages, shop-pages, and advertisers to seamlessly tip users any amount they deem appropriate for quality content posted on the network. This micro-tipping feature can be used by content creators to finance new projects, or it can be used by companies as a type of crowdfunding. Micro-tipping will encourage the posting of quality content because users get a financial benefit from quality content.

Micro-Shop Creation:

Anyone who holds Karbon tokens will be given free access to create a number of shop pages and fan pages. In the future, it will cost a “substantial fee” to create micro-shops. However, initial Karbon token holders from the ICO will pay zero fees for the life of their accounts.

Cryptocurrency Exchange:

You can trade Karbon tokens through the platform. Right now, Karbon has cryptocurrency trading support for KARB with BTC, ETH, LTC, DASH, XMR, XRP, ETC, and ZEC. Karbon token holders will enjoy free cryptocurrency exchange across all crypto coins during the initial customer onboarding phase. Exchanges are usually done instantly, although Karbon claims there could be slight delays due to traffic.

ERC20 Currencies:

Karbon will have limited compatibility with ERC20 tokens and currencies during the initial customer onboarding phase, because their initial focus is to accept major cryptocurrencies like the ones listed above. However, they plan to add ERC20 currencies and others in the future.

How Will Karbon Make Money?

Karbon obviously isn’t a charity. So how does the company plan to make money? Karbon will have the following revenue streams:

Transaction Fees: All transactions that take place on the Karbon platform will include a micro-fee that gets sent back to the network pool. Transactions include user to user payments, payments made through shops, debit card transactions, cryptocurrency exchanges, shop page creation, micro-tips, and withdrawals to off-platform cryptocurrency wallets. The Karbon whitepaper doesn’t describe the specific fee used for these transactions.

Keyboard Bidding: Brands, users, and shops can bid on keywords to promote their cause, product, or service. Bidding takes place on a daily, weekly, hourly, and monthly basis. Expect a similar bidding system to ad platforms like AdWords. The rate for the Karbon keyword will be added to the network pool, then distributed back to ICO token holders and shareholders.

Sales Made Through Profile Pages and Shop Pages: Karbon gives users the ability to purchase shop pages. “Trusted Profiles” will be introduced in the future. Users can pay to create these products on the Karbon platform.

Direct Promotional Private Messages: Karbon will give users the ability to send a massive targeted private message to users within a specific keyword group.

These are just a few of the initial revenue streams planned for Karbon.

The Karbon Debit Card

Karbon plans to introduce the Karbon debit card, which is the link between the legacy banking system and the new Karbon platform. Users can use the Karbon debit card to perform standard debit card purchases using fiat in real-time.

You can load your debit card with the Karbon token (KARB). Then, an instant USD/EUR/CNY to KARB transaction will take place the moment your debit card is swiped at a retailer.

By the time the full platform is released, Karbon plans to support all major cryptocurrencies through their debit card, including BTC, ETH, LTC, DASH, XMR, XRP, ETC, and ZEC.

In addition to the standard Karbon debit card, the company plans to have a Premier Card that will be given to the top 99 contributors. Each Premier Card will have a number from 1 to 99 signifying the importance of that contributor. All Premier Cards come with 0% fees on debit card purchases, 0% fees on fund withdrawals and access to a compatible network of ATMs, and future early access to the Karbon credit card. You’ll also get a gift bag and other benefits.

Karbon Features

What kind of features can you expect to see on Karbon? Here are the key features planned for the platform so far:

Activity Feed:

The main page of most social media websites is your social media feed. The Karbon activity feed will show recent activity within peers on your network while also aggregating data from the network as a whole. Users can see people within their network – including people they’ve added as contacts, fan page subscribers, and brand followers. Content from outside your network may appear if its’ a highly-rated submission or a paid advertisement.

Voting and Commenting:

From your activity feed, you can give a thumbs up to comments you like, comment on others post, and perform other interactions.

Micro-Tipping:

Like the content you see on your activity feed? Karbon supports micro-tipping, allowing users to show appreciation for content they found helpful or enjoyed.

Secure Messaging:

Karbon will have a secure messaging platform. The client-side encrypted messaging system features OMEMO protocol at the base levels to keep conversations private and secure. Private keys are encrypted with a password and stored on the user’s device.

Search and Discovery:

Karbon users can search and discover new content under three different categories, including users, fan pages, and shop pages.

Multi-Currency Wallet:

Karbon’s wallet will support a wide range of cryptocurrencies as well as the KARB token.

Multi-Account Support:

Karbon users can control multiple accounts at once, including different types of accounts from one dashboard. Your dashboard might include a fan page, a personal page, a shop page, and more, for example.

Mobile e-Commerce Platform:

Karbon’s eCommerce platform includes online shops browsable through the social media interface. Anyone can create a shop with just a few swipes.

Who’s Behind Karbon?

Karbon is led by Vitaly Ovin, Jeff Russel, Marko Andriuchuk, Sergei Zherdev, Patrick Weinberg, and Dimitry Sokolov. The company began testing the beta version of its platform in June 2017.

Karbon Conclusion

The Karbon token sale is ongoing as we speak. Visit Karbon.io to learn how to participate. You can contribute with ETH or BTC.

Overall, Karbon is a combination between a social network and an ecommerce platform. It’s like Facebook and Amazon rolled together into a blockchain-based platform. Stay tuned for more information about Karbon as the project continues to move forward.