Blockchain Platform to Connect Self-employed Domestic Workers and Customers With No Fees

A company that empowers service workers and helps them become entrepreneurial is planning to replace its app with a new Blockchain-based platform, helping providers with hard-earned reputations to win more business.

Crafty is initially going to launch in Brazil but believes its marketplace can transform the “extremely inefficient” service sector worldwide by ensuring a higher proportion of revenue goes to self-employed workers on the front line.

“Decent working conditions anywhere”

The founders of Crafty have already tested their concept through an app called Diaríssima, which launched in 2016. The company has described this as a minimum viable product (MVP), as it focused solely on connecting household cleaners with paying customers.

After opening for business in São Paulo, Diaríssima expanded nationwide and now boasts tens of thousands of customers and service providers, the company states.

Crafty, Diaríssima’s replacement, is to increase the number of services on offer considerably, and opportunities listed in its white paper include cooks, tutors, nannies, caregivers, gardeners and drivers. Underpinning all of this will be a Blockchain-based system where trust is established with every interaction between customers and providers.

This allows self-employed workers, who will use the platform for free without incurring any intermediary fees, to benefit from their reputation. In time, Crafty is planning to use artificial intelligence (AI) to offer “meaningful recommendations” to prospective customers who are searching for service providers.

Crafty is hoping to tackle five of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals established by the United Nations, one of which is “ending poverty in all its forms.” The company believes its lack of fees will result in higher frequencies of use, create a more level playing field where prices are more difficult to dictate and result in “decent working conditions everywhere.”

First Brazil, then the world

There are a few hurdles Crafty is determined to tackle. Among them is the fact that, on the face of it, a platform using cryptocurrency seems to be an unusual choice in a country where 40 percent of the adult population do not have a bank account (according to research by Instituto Data Popular.) Here, virtual accounts including debit cards would enable Crafty users to receive money and spend it opening new opportunities to 55 mln Brazilians and making cryptocurrency available to people from all socioeconomic backgrounds.

The company says it wants to encourage use of Crafty (CFTY) tokens in local commerce by negotiating partnerships with business groups and it claims this would enable token holders to access prepaid credit for everyday items such as mobile phones and electronics.

Crafty’s website and app have initially been written in Portuguese, but the company says its platform’s design means translating into other languages is easy.

Once a 45-day ICO concludes on April 9, the company is planning a massive promotional drive to attract new users, and a large proportion of its funding is being earmarked for marketing. It is expected that a virtual wallet will be integrated into Crafty accounts by September 2018. Additional services that providers can offer are going to be added every few months, with the platform forecasting that 150 professions will be covered by March 2020.

The company is confident that its idea can improve the lives of service workers around the world and plans to expand internationally in the coming years. Eventually, it hopes imperfections in the market will be eliminated, helping incomes to rise and granting more people access to a healthy, comfortable and financially secure life.