September 16, 2019 – San Francisco, CA – Vera Protocol, the world’s first blockchain-based P2P Commerce Solution, today announced their company’s launch. Vera Protocol’s proprietary technology leverages Near Field Communication (NFC) “smart tags,” smartphones, and blockchain systems to enable P2P retail and marketplaces where physical goods can be exchanged between parties without the need to rely on a trusted e-commerce platform. The company eliminates the need for buyers and sellers to be dependant on big tech oligopolies for marketplace access while also creating trust and accountability with its blockchain solution.
“The bigger that marketplaces like Amazon, eBay or Taobao get, the bigger the barriers of entry and risks become for the everyday digital entrepreneur,” said Rex Wong, founding investor of Applied Semantics (acquired by Google in 2003 and later became its chief revenue product, AdSense) and CEO of Fliqs Media, an AI-powered e-commerce monetization engine. “Vera Protocol is perfectly situated to be a disruptive force in the industry, by providing an open, decentralized infrastructure for anyone to build P2P retail and market applications that completely removes the middleman and their high fees.” Wong recently joined the Vera Protocol team as an early backer, advising on product and strategy. Along with his multiple successful exits that have created shareholder value in excess of a billion dollars, Wong’s experience with e-commerce and adtech will help the company as it scales.
Denis Lam, the CEO of Vera Protocol, is a serial entrepreneur and previously founded a startup that works with global Fortune 500 companies to help them leverage blockchain and emerging technologies. His venture was one of 20 Internet of Things startups selected to join Plug and Play Ventures Accelerator earlier this year. He holds a B.S. in Engineering and Biotechnology from University of California, Berkeley.
Michael Arbach, the CTO, was previously the Chief Architect for Kodak’s groundbreaking blockchain product, KODAKOne. The product was one of the first to generate significant revenue in the blockchain space, with over $1 million in photo licensing claims after just a few short months. Michael was also the Chief Architect of BitRail, a fintech platform that allows e-commerce providers to operate regulatory compliant cryptocurrencies for payments in accordance with state money transmitter laws and FinCEN. The product processes over $600 million dollars worth of transactions per year with over 4.5 million registered users, making it one of the most widely accepted cryptocurrency platforms in the world.
Vera Protocol’s Chief Scientific Advisor is Sanjeev Verma, PhD, who previously led Research and Development and Embedded Systems Security teams for Nokia, Samsung, and AMD. Previously, Sanjeev worked with a team that contributed to the development of Samsung Knox, a military-grade secure data storage layer on Samsung smartphones. Earlier this year, Samsung launched its flagship smartphone Galaxy S10 preloaded with a cryptocurrency wallet which uses Knox to store users’ private keys. Samsung is the largest phone manufacturer to unveil a blockchain feature in a phone to date.
“Vera Protocol has identified a unique opportunity and is developing a first-of-its-kind solution that will have potential widespread utility in the ecommerce space,” said Danny Yang, PhD, a Blockchain Architect for Vera Protocol. “In 2014, only 26% of mobile handsets have NFC-enabled, however, this number will surge to 90% by 2022, which creates opportunities for new business models and services that can directly engage with consumers in the real-world.” NFC, or near-field communication, is an open wireless communication protocol that enable two electronic devices to establish contactless communication just by being in close proximity to each other.
Previously, Yang was the Co-Founder of MaiCoin, Taiwan’s pioneer cryptocurrency exchange and Founder of Blockseer, a Silicon Valley artificial intelligence and a blockchain company that was acquired last year by Japan’s publicly-traded DMG Blockchain Solutions. Blockseer has worked with several law enforcement agencies including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and it also provides Ethereum blockchain data services for Blockchain.info, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency wallet providers. Yang is a serial entrepreneur with back-to-back successful exits and earned a BA in Chemistry and Physics from Harvard and a Masters and PhD in Computer Science from Stanford University.
“As a serial entrepreneur, I’ve been coding since I was six years old and started my first Internet business at 14,” said Lam, CEO of Vera Protocol. “It’s helped me identify talented people with the vision and drive to develop new solutions with emerging technologies that empower the common people. I’ve known and worked with Michael and Sanjeev for a number of years and I am thankful that our vision has attracted top talent such as Danny to join our team. Together, we are excited to introduce this revolutionary new technology to enable decentralized peer-to-peer commerce.”
Vera Protocol uses decentralized oracles to verify and send real-world data from NFC tags onto blockchains, bypassing the need to go through a cloud storage provider. Since blockchains cannot fetch off-chain data on their own, secure oracles are needed to enable a new generation of blockchain applications and “smart contracts” that can operate without reliance on a trusted intermediary.
“If Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer network to allow online payments sent between strangers without relying on a financial institution, then Vera will enable peer-to-peer networks to allow physical goods to be exchanged between parties without relying on a big tech oligopoly,” explains Lam. “Using Vera Protocol, developers can quickly build any service for decentralized P2P commerce without needing to build their own infrastructure. The applications will empower billions of entrepreneurs and consumers to build their businesses and brands.”
The Vera Protocol team is currently in discussion with manufacturers, retailers, digital entrepreneurs, and other strategic partners as they prepare to launch pilots for decentralized P2P retail and marketplaces using their technology.
About Vera Protocol
Vera is a blockchain application protocol that enables decentralized peer-to-peer exchange for physical consumer goods. Founded by leadership from top universities and Fortune enterprises such as Berkeley, Stanford, Harvard, UPenn, Samsung and Nokia with domain expertise in e-commerce, cybersecurity, big data, IoT, and supply chain, Vera leverages the most advanced innovations in blockchain technology to enable P2P commerce as an alternative to marketplaces and solutions such as Shopify, Amazon, Taobao, or eBay. Supported by an advisory board consisting of a founding investor of Google AdSense and PhDs with 20+ patents and award-winning research papers, VERA is the token used by the Vera protocol to reward all stakeholders in the Vera Blockchain Ecosystem and empower billions of digital entrepreneurs and consumers around the world. Vera is based in Silicon Valley, California, USA.
To learn more about Vera Protocol, please visit https://veraprotocol.org.
Media ContactCompany Name: Vera Consortium, LtdContact Person: Denis LamEmail: Send EmailPhone: 6507336475Address:Vistra Corporate Services Centre Wickhams Cay II City: Road TownState: TortolaCountry: Virgin Islands (British)Website: veraprotocol.org
