CyberMiles (CMT) is a next-generation blockchain platform designed to facilitate fast ecommerce transactions. It wants to use the latest blockchain innovations to create a decentralized ecommerce platform powered by smart contracts on a highly effective chain that has none of the latency issues associated with existing blockchains.
CyberMiles is designed to:
– Support a large library of business-related smart contracts.
– Manage user identity and transaction data securely and privately, while enabling new transactions and settlements amongst network participants.
– Theoretically support over 10,000 transactions per second, resolving the latency issues commonly found in existing blockchains.
The project is being developed by 5Miles, a leading consumer-to-consumer (C2C) ecommerce platform based in the U.S., together with the Hong Kong-based CyberMiles Foundation. 5Miles has more than 10 million registered users on its flagship ecommerce app and its gross merchandise value for 2017 was estimated to surpass $3 billion USD.
5Miles believes blockchain technology could provide natural solutions to common problems in ecommerce networks, such as inefficient transaction settlements, high transaction costs, and unfair dispute resolution. It plans to migrate its users onto CyberMiles in order to use the decentralized network as a backend service and jumpstart the CyberMiles ecosystem.
Its decentralized computing infrastructure will ensure that the marketplace never goes offline, significantly reducing IT expenses. It will also facilitate and even automate business transactions through the use of smart contracts and an immutable ledger.
How CyberMiles Works
Existing blockchains have been unable to address the needs of ecommerce because they aren’t designed for that purpose. They can’t support a high volume of transactions because of latency issues and existing implementations of smart contracts are too primitive for ecommerce use.
CyberMiles wants to build a smart contract platform that is similar to Ethereum, but is heavily optimized to facilitate ecommerce transactions. The first iteration of the CyberMiles blockchain is built on the Tendermint/Cosmos platform. Tendermint is high performance blockchain implementation that uses a Delegated Proof of Stake (DPoS) consensus mechanism. It’s officially endorsed by Ethereum as a scalability solution and can reliably support up to 10,000 transactions per second.
By using Tendermint’s underlying Byzantine Fault Tolerant (BFT) DPoS mechanism, CyberMiles will have a block generation time of under 10 seconds and transactions in a block will be instantly confirmed once the block is committed.
Smart Business Contracts
The CyberMiles team has created a new blockchain-based “virtual machine” for building applications for businesses. It will support what the team is calling “Smart Business Contracts.” Smart Business Contracts are analogous to smart contracts on Ethereum. They are executed by nodes and are validated by miners when a new block is created.
The main difference between the two is that instead of writing every application from scratch, Smart Business Contracts will have access to an integrated stack of powerful middleware software designed for business use.
The middleware software stack will exist outside the blockchain. A Smart Business Contract will tie together all the middleware components and connect them with the transaction ledger maintained by the blockchain. Nodes would not only run the ledger but also support the standardized middleware.
A key aspect of Smart Business Contracts is that they are not only built on top of reusable software components, but are also reusable themselves. Since most business transaction scenarios are well-defined, it’s possible to create Smart Business Contract templates that can be reused by only changing key terms as parameters (e.g., amounts, dates, contract party names, etc.). This library of templates will reduce the cost of deploying business applications and increase the value of the network.
The CyberMiles team will leverage 5Miles’ experience with running an ecommerce website to build Smart Business Contract templates. 5Miles already has thousands of contract templates divided into 20 major categories that have been tested for real-world applications and are readily available for reuse.
CyberMiles Token (CMT)
CyberMiles features a utility token called CyberMiles Token (CMT), which will function as the “master token” that funds and powers ecommerce applications and projects on the platform. CMT will initially be issued on the Ethereum blockchain as an ERC20-complaint token. It will have the following uses:
To reward community members for contributing their computing power and maintaining the integrity of the network. This includes validating transactions, running nodes, and executing smart contracts. Sellers, buyers, and marketplaces that use the platform’s services must pay CMT to network maintainers.
To incentivize community members to provide value-added services, such as conflict resolution services and customer support.
To facilitate transactions on the platform. All processes between sellers and buyers throughout the supply chain will be facilitated by CMT. This will greatly reduce transaction costs and friction on the network. CyberMiles will receive a small fee from every transaction to pay validators who execute the smart contracts associated with the transaction.
CyberMiles will eventually be implemented on its own blockchain and all existing CMT will be exchanged on a 1:1 basis for native CMT tokens issued on the new blockchain.
CyberMiles vs. Other Blockchain Projects
A blockchain project attempting to decentralize ecommerce is nothing new. Syscoin, for example, is attempting to build a decentralized ecommerce marketplace that offers instant transaction at almost zero cost, arbitrated escrow, unlimited inventory, and encrypted messaging. Another project, OpenBazaar, already operates a fully decentralized marketplace.
The CyberMiles blockchain has a unique advantage however. It will be deployed to support 5Miles’ existing network of over 10 million U.S.-based users. This would automatically make it the largest blockchain-based ecommerce network in the world.
CMT Trading Volume, Price and Market Cap
The CyberMiles Foundation initially proposed to generate 1 billion CMT, but the supply may be expanded and capped at 10 billion CMT in the future. The tokens were issued in an ICO held in November 2017 that distributed 420 million CMT and raised $30 million USD. The available supply is distributed as follows:
– 700 million tokens were generated for the token sale
– 100 million tokens are allocated to the CyberMiles team and partners with a 2.5 year vesting period
– 100 million tokens are allocated to 5Miles with a 2.5 year vesting period
– 100 million tokens are held in a reserve by the foundation and will be used to jumpstart CyberMiles applications and encourage participation in the ecosystem
The price of CMT has remained relatively stable by crypto standards. It was first listed at $0.36 USD in December 2017 with a market cap of $74 million USD. It reached an all-time high price of ~$0.5 USD with a market cap of ~$224 million USD in January 2018, and then slowly dropped to reach an all-time low of $0.06 (market cap of ~$38 million USD) in March 2018 before picking up steam again.
Buying, Storing and Selling CMT Tokens
CMT tokens can be acquired from Binance, LBank, BCEX, Huobi, OKEx, DragonEx, IDEX, CoinBene, Bibox, and Cobinhood.
CMT is currently an ERC-20 token, which means it can be stored in any Ethereum wallet that supports the standard, including MyEtherWallet, Jaxx, Exodus, Parity, and Mist. Hardware wallets like Ledger Nano S and Trezor should work as well.
Liquidity of CyberMiles
CyberMiles is an interesting project with a lot of potential. The experience and support of 5Miles, plus 5Miles’ existing network of 10 million users gives it a big advantage over other blockchain-based ecommerce projects. All of this has translated into great market liquidity for CyberMiles.
