Introduction

Why Bitcoin: A Peer to Peer Electronic Cash System[3] or any other cryptocurrency is not used at large scale right now?

Early adopters cross barriers and are not afraid to use technologies that have high friction. Yet, among all the different use cases that have driven anyone to interact with the decentralised world, the total adoption is still less than 1%.

To enable the rest 99%, we must think from a user's perspective who would be driven by the utilities that are enabled by Web 3.0

Thinking deeper on these lines, let's have a look at what are the existing barriers in the ecosystem that inhibit large scale adoption?

1. Entering Crypto Ecosystem

2. Storing Digital Assets

3. Utility of Digital Assets

All of these are challenges that Opoch aims to solve.

Entering Crypto Ecosystem

Digital Asset Trade Experience

Markets work on demand and supply. For eg. Somebody in your country right now is selling Bitcoin at market price. Somebody in your country is willing to pay for it. Unfortunately in all probability, both side of this exchange would be interacting with a 3rd party intermediary, like a centralized exchange in most cases and not directly with each other. We wish to change that.

The experience of trading or using cryptocurrencies in a decentralized manner at par if not better from centralized solutions, if we are to expect the larger masses to use them. Thus, time taken by a user in the process of purchasing these assets needs to be minimized.

Purchasing Process Time

In simple terms, the time required in purchasing process can be broken down into 2 parts.

1. Search and discovery

2. Transfer of assets

For example,

For Physical Assets: Transferring (shipping) physical assets bought online is more time consuming than the discovery of the same right now. That's why 1-day delivery, 2-hour delivery is what excites the consumer and adoption most. This ever improving experience has driven e-commerce adoption to levels that has crushed the traditional retail industry[23].

What's not going to change in 10 years? Because you can build a business strategy around things that are not going to change. For example, 'I love Amazon; I just wish you'd deliver a little more slowly', nobody is going to say that in the next 10 years. Therefore, we can focus on making sure we keep improving our delivery times.

Jeff Bezos, Founder and CEO, Amazon Inc.

For Crypto Assets: Transfer of Assets: Lightning network, Plasma and upcoming scalable technologies in development, help to transfer digital assets instantly. As stated above, it's one part of the total purchase time, but experience also fundamentally depends on the time of search and discovery of the digital asset.

Centralized exchanges that hold consumer digital assets in their order books can do search and discovery of trade instantaneously, but due to their systemic risks and safety issues, are inappropriate for mass adoption.

Opoch solves search and discovery via marketplace model so that peers can exchange fiat currency for digital assets in a decentralized manner.

To minimize the search and discovery time in a decentralized manner requires two key components:

• Product

• Community (Network Effects)

Product: To reduce this search and discovery time in a P2P marketplace is one of the first challenges for Opoch to solve. This is must as communication between peers need to be instantaneous for a great user experience.

We realize this cannot be done via emails or desktops, where there is a delay in communication, rather by being closer to the user, on their smartphones. By being mobile first, Opoch reduces this delay of communication and enables a seamless experience for the next billion.

In the current scenario, the experience of doing this P2P trade is like trying to use Uber in a world of Desktops and emails.

Community: Marketplaces fundamentally require early pioneering community. It must have users at both ends of the market, such that we are able to create the experience of trading digital assets, as compared to centralized exchanges.

Thankfully, OPOC tokens allow us to appreciate and reward the early pioneers for their endeavours. We need people and communities that are willing to put up with a not so-good experience in early days, so that we can unlock the upcoming wave of mass adoption.

Storing Digital Assets

In the information age, the real battles are being fought with scammers and hackers rather than tanks and missiles. Safety and security are of paramount importance in the tokenized world for mass adoption.

Centralized System Risks

Today, most users have their digital assets stored in centralized systems, which are insecure and have a single point of failure. They have witnessed loss of funds via hacks, malicious activities, etc.[24] These events have inhibited growth of user trust and adoption.

At its core, Opoch has a decentralized multi-currency cross platform wallet. This makes sure users hold their assets in their own hands, and therefore are completely secure from such risks or attacks.

Private Keys Safety

The storing of crypto assets in decentralized wallets, where private keys are generated and stored in the device itself, has a fair share of concerns around it. Losing private keys and mnemonic phrase subsequently makes funds inaccessible which is a bad user experience compared to traditional systems of password or account recovery.

Opoch's social recovery mechanism allows the user to restore his/her private keys via interacting with a set of friends and network.

Multiple Crypto Assets

As Crypto ecosystem continues to evolve, demand and usage of various crypto assets continue to rise. This presents a scenario where a user holding several digital assets across blockchains is required to use multiple wallets. This presents a unique challenge for simplifying adoption at scale. Opoch aims to solve this by providing a multi-currency wallet with a single master-seed thereby making it convenient for a user to handle all his/her digital assets.

Utility of Digital Assets

Buying and storing of digital assets securely is required for the dawn of Opoch Age. But, their utility must become mainstream for the true unveiling of possibilities. We believe that this requires the community to come and build together. The masses would be excited by the diverse possibilities that this ecosystem brings to all.

We are building Opoch in an open and modular structure allowing us to empower developers and businesses with powerful APIs on our open platform so as to kick-start their projects swiftly, without spending resources on common infrastructure challenges that Opoch has solved for all.

Living on Cryptocurrencies

Unfortunately, currently there's no city in the world where you can live on cryptocurrencies on a regular basis. In all cities, everyone can, and does live on fiat currencies. We are taking a big leap on making it convenient to switch between the two at all times. Thus, enabling one to hold his/her wealth in form of cryptocurrencies, yet being able to live freely in regular world using fiat currencies.

Future Commerce

Fiat currencies are centralized asset that are important for functioning of governments and society at large. We believe the technology and community used to enable fiat-to-crypto transactions in a peer-to-peer manner, will also be used to enable new markets, wherein one may offer services and products in exchange of digital assets.

The possibilities that are unlocked when larger masses have adopted cryptocurrencies are colossal. New economic opportunities that are not possible in traditional financial systems would be one of the key factors that lead to adoption of decentralized technology.

Bridging Token Ecosystem

Distributed file storage, prediction markets, distributed video encodingetc. are but a few of the utilities that are being built in web 3.0. Most of them are being built as self-sustaining ecosystems having their own unique tokens for the niche service or utility they provide.

The Opoch platform with its integrated decentralized exchange will empower developers, to use these tokens seamlessly to build applications. From a user point of view, s/he will hold assets in desired cryptocurrencies and inter-conversion between tokens, required to use these applications, would be handled by the platform.

Thus, Opoch will drive adoption by creating a seamless ecosystem for developers to build applications, and allowing users to use these applications, without worrying about what goes on in background.

Payments

Cryptocurrencies enable global commerce, but technical challenges inhibit traditional businesses from taking part in it. In the current scenario, whether it be a one-time transaction like e-commerce, or subscription services like Netflix, the challenges for accepting cryptocurrencies in various payments schemes remain unsolved.

Opoch enables businesses to accept cryptocurrencies as desired effortlessly. For users, Opoch provides larger control over their business relationships via accessing all their subscriptions from the one single smart-contract. This can also be accessed without using Opoch, giving user complete sovereignty.

Micro payments, global instant transactions and immutability are incentivizing entrepreneurs to innovate and build new business models that aren't possible in traditional financial systems. Opoch is building tools and infrastructure that connects users and businesses in new found ways, actuating existing industries such as modern journalism and several others.