These are very exciting times for Electroneum as we launch a real world utility product called AnyTask, a crypto-powered freelance platform that focuses on the seller, ensuring they receive the full amount of ETN sellers agree to pay for a completed task.
Naturally, many questions have arisen since we announced the next phase of AnyTask’s beta testing.
So, let me start by saying to people that have asked “when app?”, that the system has been designed from the ground up to be ready to make an AnyTask app. The Anytask system works via API calls, which is perfect for app development.
The community is anxious to know when the app will be ready, and the simple answer is that we will start developing the app once we have finished all the multilingual and translation features that we have planned over the coming months. You probably won’t see an app for AnyTask in 2020 - but lets focus on the positives! This is an incredible - ground breaking platform that has NEVER BEEN DONE in the history of the world. People RIGHT NOW are buying small tasks from our early task listers using their credit cards and their earnings are arriving at the other side of the world in ETN and they don’t have to have a bank account.
People have asked if there are plans to allow task PURCHASE with ETN. There are currently no plans to do this for various reasons, the answers to which are quite lengthy but incredibly important.
Firstly, the gigantic market for purchasing digital tasks is driven by the global north, which has a voracious appetite for low-cost digital solutions.
When selling a task, we do not want to try and take this new user on a journey of understanding cryptocurrency when we simply want them to buy a task. We need access to the FULL buyer market so that there are enough buyers to match AnyTask sellers. That was why we built in credit/debit cards.
Once these buyers understand the positive impact that they’ve achieved by purchasing a task using a system that allows true global integration, we can begin to educate a vast new army of cryptocurrency enthusiasts on the benefits of using ETN. Let’s not forget that having sellers paying for tasks with credit and debit cards brings new money into ETN. Remember that ANYTASK DOES NOT TOUCH CRYPTOCURRENCY! Sounds strange but this is vitally important. Banks and credit card companies are still largely anti-crypto. If AnyTask touched cryptocurrency they would shy away from us. AnyTask Ltd does not. We use a third party company that handles the fiat to ETN conversion and fulfilment. This leaves AnyTask Ltd as a purely fiat based company that can have a great relationship with card processing companies and banks.
Secondly, accepting cryptocurrency allows some anonymity, which could be a problem for AnyTask. A few projects have attempted freelance work powered by crypto in the past, and those platforms have instead become tiny dark webs, allowing the anonymous purchase of services. Thus, the services listed are frequently unpalatable to the mass market, and that destroyed the reputation of the platform.
By accepting credit or debit cards as payment, AnyTask changes the world. We use KYC for our ETN wallets, and there are no anonymous buyers due to bank card purchases. That protects everyone and enables the platform to grow at an enhanced rate in comparison to a crypto powered platform.
I own a digital marketing agency that spends many thousands of pounds on digital services each month. So, when developing AnyTask, I thought to myself “If I could personally save 10% on my costs by using a new freelance platform, but I would have to use a cryptocurrency exchange to turn fiat currency into Bitcoin, and then Bitcoin into ETN, and then pay for the freelance services, would I be able to find a member of staff that I could economically train and trust to manage this process?”. The answer was “no”. For this level of saving, I would not be willing to use a crypto-powered platform. I knew this though process would be reflect across the entire world with hundreds of thousands of digital agencies and buyers thinking the same thing.
I then asked myself if I would purchase from a CSR-focused platform if the sales process was precisely the same, and the prices were lower, and it made the world a better place. I decided I would hugely embrace a platform that enables this.
And thus, accepting credit and debit cards for purchases on AnyTask was the only way forward.
I’m sure more questions will be coming up - please remember everyone that AnyTask.com is currently in MVP (minimum viable product) so be patient with us! We have had an INCREDIBLE first couple of days, the office here is buzzing with excitement about inviting in the rest of the 27k of beta testers.
PS - Where I say “currently no plans” (to take ETN as AnyTask payment) - it is important to note that we WILL implement payment by ETN (via instant payment system) but we have hugely more important things to do first (translation system, task upsells, and many more system critical things). 99.9% of real buyers want to use a credit card - so we are “picking the low hanging fruit”, whilst bringing a new stream of fiat money into the ecosystem.
