Hitch A Ride With Ubers New Cryptocurrency

It was only a matter of time before Uber (the peer to peer taxi share platform) branched out from their controversial taxi and food delivery services, and sunk their fingers into the e-commerce pie, so to speak. Today, Garrett Camp, the co-founder of Uber, announced that he is using the service to boost the launch of his own brand-new cryptocurrency. The token, aptly named ‘Eco’ has been designed for use in day to day payments and stands itself up as a serious rival to Bitcoin. The premise of Eco is that its transaction verification process between blockchains will be far more efficient than Bitcoins, which is known for its power-heavy mining processes. Part of this however, will mean that unlike Bitcoin, the transactions will not be fully decentralized, meaning in essence, transactions will be fully traceable, and users of Eco will thus have zero anonymity. According to Techcrunch: “Eco aims to use only verified nodes for network support and transaction confirmations, meaning someone anonymous couldn’t run a node and confirm transactions like they could do on bitcoin’s network. While this essentially removes issues of 51% attacks or other acts of fraud, it also means it won’t be truly decentralized”. Camp also aims to create a user-friendly interface to support Eco as a real-life payment option, allowing it to be compatible with a range of mobile apps, essentially creating a wallet that even the least tech-savvy users can use with ease. This is clearly yet another story in the growth of the Uber brand, considering their recent allegations, including them losing their operators license for London, maybe Eco is an attempt to freshen up the image of Uber. With the project being backed by the Eco Foundation, and Camp’s claims that the blockchain transactions will be far more environmentally friendly than Bitcoins, is this is an attempt to actually make a difference, reduce Uber's carbon footprint and create a technology that is accessible for all, or has Camp just decided that actually, there’s money to be made here? Image Source: Flickr Sponsored by