"Blockchain + Sharing Economy": Ubike will subvert the old model

In mid-February, Ubike, a domestic bike-sharing brand, announced that it would introduce blockchain technology to improve its operational service level. As soon as the news came out, it immediately attracted attention from the outside world. During the Spring Festival, there was no news of other brands in the bike-sharing industry officially entering the blockchain field. Ubike also became the first operator in the industry to publicly enter the blockchain field.

Recently, Yu Yi, founder and CEO of UBike, accepted an exclusive interview with Babbitt, a well-known domestic blockchain information community portal, and elaborated on key issues such as his insights on the combination of blockchain and sharing economy, the specific application of blockchain in UBike operations, and UBike's strategic planning for introducing blockchain.

Yu Yi said that he started to get involved in Bitcoin in 2011 and participated in the investment of mining machines and exchanges. He has witnessed the growth and development of related industries since the current popularity of blockchain and sharing economy concepts. And observing how blockchain and shared bicycle business are combined and implemented is what he and Ubike have been doing.

In response to the question "What problems can blockchain solve for Ubike?", Yu Yi emphasized that Ubike will innovate its services around the three characteristics of blockchain: information immutability, openness, and decentralization. Among them, information immutability can solve the credit and deposit problems in the shared bicycle industry. Because in the existing model, credit and deposit are mainly aimed at the mutual trust between users and operators, and violations by either party will damage this trust, leading to obstacles in bicycle operations and a decline in user experience. After the introduction of blockchain technology, the deposit will be replaced by the recording characteristics of blockchain. At the operator level, the user's violation can be traced back with the help of blockchain, and the corresponding credit limit can be given accordingly. This limit is the premise for the user to use the bicycle; for users, with blockchain acting as a "guarantor", the deposit can be exempted from payment, and naturally there is no need to worry about the whereabouts of the deposit.

The openness of blockchain can help YouBike's global deployment strategy. Yu Yi gave an example, saying that YouBike has already landed in Canada and the United States, and will expand its layout in Southeast Asia in the next step. This has given rise to such a usage scenario: if a user uses YouBike in different countries, does he need to use different currencies to settle the fare with YouBike? Obviously, this is very cumbersome and unreasonable. But with blockchain, this problem will be solved by Token (token, that is, electronic instructions with monetary attributes issued on the blockchain). In other words, blockchain can help YouBike resolve operational conflicts in different countries in terms of income and expenditure. Yu Yi also explained that YouBike will abide by the laws of various countries, including China, and will never "issue coins" in violation of regulations, but will make full use of the data recording function of the blockchain and share this data with other forms of sharing economy.

Talking about the blockchain layout plan of Ubike, Yu Yi made it clear that the blockchain solution has occupied a strategic position within Ubike. A long time ago, Ubike established a team of dozens of people to study the innovation trend of blockchain for shared bicycles or shared travel, and even the decentralized ecosystem brought about by the shared economy, and regarded this trend as the basis for the birth of a new business model. At the same time, this is also a good opportunity for Ubike to overtake from the second echelon of the industry and enter the first echelon.