- Uber pioneered the ride-sharing model, disrupting the taxi industry.
- Solana-based TRIP is looking to take on the ride-sharing apps.
- TRIP envisions multiple, competing ride-sharing operators running on its platform.
Ride-sharing apps have revolutionized the taxi industry with innovations like cashless payments, rating systems, and competitive pricing. Despite competition from Lyft and Grab, Uber remains the global leader, facilitating 7.6 billion trips and generating $31.9 billion in revenue in 2022, but reported a net loss of $9.1 billion during this period.
However, a new blockchain-based challenger called TRIP is gearing up to disrupt the disruptors. Built on the Solana blockchain, TRIP is rolling out its decentralized ride-share network, which aims to offer better deals for riders and drivers.
Solana-Based TRIP Looking to Shake Things Up
According to TRIP, Uber’s rapid growth and dominance in the ride-share space has come at a significant cost, including massive infrastructure costs such as making payroll for 32,800 employees and servicing repayments on $9.5 billion debt. Ultimately, Uber’s business model and costs get passed down to riders through higher fares. At the same time, drivers see their earnings squeezed as Uber seeks to cover its costs.
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However, Solana-based TRIP is positioning itself as a decentralized, open protocol that is looking to upend the ride-share industry. By leveraging blockchain technology, TRIP aims to facilitate cheaper rides for users while enabling drivers to take home a larger share of each fare compared to traditional rideshare companies like Uber.
Central to TRIP’s innovation is its use of blockchain smart contracts and a decentralized network of operators, verifiers, and auditors that coordinate rides without a centralized middleman taking a hefty cut. This architecture allows TRIP to operate with lower overhead costs that can translate to savings for both riders and drivers.
A key incentive mechanism for TRIP is the use of “TRIP Miles,” which refers to non-transferable tokens earned by network participants for activities like taking rides, providing rides, referring new users and drivers, or facilitating the ride.
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TRIP Miles are allocated to participants proportional to their contribution, with riders and drivers getting the biggest allocation of TRIP Miles at 29% each.
The current TRIP Miles distribution is set at 1,793,868 TRIP Miles per minute. As activity grows, this allocation interval and quantity adjusts upwards, for example increasing to 17,938,682 TRIP Miles every 10 minutes under higher demand.
TRIP Miles can be traded for “TRIP Rewards,” which are digital collectibles (or NFTs). The amount of TRIP Miles an individual holds determines their reward tier, with rarer NFT traits available to the higher-tiered members. This incentivization mechanism gamifies ride-sharing.
The Network Participants
While TRIP provides the underlying decentralized infrastructure for facilitating rideshare services, several other participants are necessary to complete the process, beyond riders and drivers.
Clients build software apps that connect riders to drivers and allow both parties to interact with the TRIP network. The first such client is Teleport, whose tagline is “Pay less. Earn more. Get rewarded.” Teleport founder Paul Bohm confirmed that its services are currently only available in Austin, Texas, but the team is working on obtaining licenses to expand to several, unspecified U.S. states.
Operators play a key role by matching available drivers with rider requests and making pricing proposals to both parties.
Verifiers provide attestation services to the network, ensuring that drivers have the necessary accreditations to offer driving services. This may include background checks, driver’s licenses, car inspections, etc.
Balancers promote the TRIP platform in different locations to build a network of riders and drivers. Each successful referral is recorded on the client’s platform.
TRIP’s setup, where clients and operators can set their own rates, allows for an open market where multiple client apps and operators can participate on the same network, effectively creating a platform with competing ride-share services.
Summary
At its core, TRIP establishes a decentralized infrastructure and set of rules and checks that govern how ride-share services are facilitated more equitably.
From requesting a ride to receiving payment and earning rewards, the protocol facilitates the process by coordinating the actions of network participants as follows:
- Riders and drivers connect to the protocol through apps offered by operators, but Teleport is the only operator at the moment.
- Verifiers validate driver credentials (licenses, background checks, etc.) off-chain and issue encrypted certificates.
- Auditors validate that operators and verifiers are legally compliant to operate on the network.
- When requesting a ride, the rider receives price and ETA offers from licensed operators in the area.
- After a ride, the rider pays by credit card, debit card, Apple Pay, or stablecoins. While the driver gets paid in USDC stablecoin, minus an expected 15% fee to TRIP.
- Ride data is reported to the blockchain TRIP Marketplace which coordinates payouts and allocates TRIP Miles rewards based on contributions.
- Users can redeem accumulated TRIP Miles to claim randomized NFT TRIP Rewards of varying rarity tiers.
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