Bulgarian blockchain start-up Lockchain.co concluded an initial coin offering (ICO) for its booking blockchain platform. The start-up raised $ 4.4 M during its ICO in the form of 10 344 Ethereum coins.
Lockchain.co is a travel accommodation booking marketplace that enables property owners (hotels and private homes) to offer their accommodation without any commissions. It aims to decentralize the hospitality industry, completely cutting out the middleman, and to allow travellers to benefit from significantly lower prices of accommodation.
The marketplace is built on top of the Ethereum blockchain and provides users with smart contracts – that also serve as escrow accounts – to settle their reservations and payments safely and reliably. Series of such forms the core of the project –the decentralized LOC Ledger1 – a blockchain booking engine with a public property database that will be accessible for anyone to use and contribute to. This is an opportunity for smaller marketplaces to compete with the established leaders in the travel booking industry.
The platform’s payment system uses the proprietary utility token – LOC, which gives access to both clients and hotel owners to the LOC ledger and is an invariable part of the ecosystem.
The user-friendly interface of the platform also serves as a functionality extension to the blockchain engine, offering added-value services like property promotion, instant currency conversions (allowing payments with fiat currencies) and others.
The platform is planned to be fully operational in the first quarter of 2018 although one can already use the marketplace to book a property. To date, the start-up has reached preliminary agreements with travel industry hosts to supply thousands of properties worldwide. According to the founders, the funding raised through the ICO will be sufficient for the complete roll-out of the project.
To learn more about the project, visit www.lockchain.co .
