For those who haven't heard of Winding Tree, the concept proposes a bridge from traditional airline ticket distribution technology to a decentralised alternative, allowing purchases without distribution intermediaries. The concept promises cheaper travel for individual consumers and more profitability for suppliers as a result.
The fuel of the Winding Tree platform is the Líf token. Líf is an ERC20-compatible token with the added functionality required by travel companies to send the necessary information within transactions. Specifically, Líf tokens will have three additional functionalities, compared to the basic ERC20 token, through which the token holder is able to send airline values and data, and/or execute a function on those transfers.
Put simply, a Líf token will be 'non-fungible', meaning each token is special and has different appreciation.
Consider an airline with 1000 flights p.a. between five different airports - every flight will have a different price depending on the date, the weather, the political situation of the country, etc. Through the non-fungible capabilities each of these varying dynamics can be recorded and represented via different Líf tokens - every token would have a range price and each seat on it would have a different price.
So now that we know how the platform works, what has Winding Tree achieved since its initial coin offering (ICO) in Feb-2018, which raised 16,278 Ethereum (ETH)?
Launched the first market validation mechanism (MVM) for token holders in the Ethereum network:
One month after the finalisation of the crowdsale contract that hosted the ICO, the company launched an MVM. The MVM is a smart contract that buys back Líf tokens, allowing participants of the ICO to withdraw a part of their contribution at any time.
The MVM releases a small amount of funding to the Winding Tree team every month if it still has money in it. This way the market can decide whether or not the team should receive more funding. Currently, the MVM has a balance of 5164 ETH.
Met with RSK:
Winding Tree and Rootstock (RSK) formalised a partnership in early 2018. RSK is an open-source smart contract platform powered by the Bitcoin network. This seems odd at first glance - Winding Tree's Líf token is based on the Ethereum network.
Interestingly, the partnership envisages using the RSK testnet to trial the Winding Tree platform on the bitcoin blockchain, meaning Winding Tree would be the first Ethereum token usable across both the Ethereum and bitcoin blockchains.
Confirmed plans to evolve from an ERC20 token to an ERC827 token:
Líf is not an ERC827 token. The standard was still in discussion by Winding Tree at the time of its ICO, however plans have now been formalised.
In 2Q2018, the company plans to deploy a new Líf token that will be upgradeable and finally integrate the ERC827 token standard. An ERC827 token is an extension of the standard ERC20 interface which addresses its shortcomings by allowing the execution of calls inside transfer and approvals.
Grew team from four to seven developers:
Winding Tree is now aiming to grow further, to 10 developers. The employees will join CEO Maksim Izmaylov and a wealth of advisors, including founder of the Vayama booking platform William Niejadlik and Mezi VP of travel strategy Johnny Thorsen.