Cryptocurrency: INS : The Grocery Industry, Reinveted

FIRST GLOBAL DECENTRALIZED ECOSYSTEM

DIRECTLY CONNECTING GROCERY

MANUFACTURERS AND CONSUMERS

INS Ecosystem

The INS ecosystem will become the first global decentralized grocery marketplace where consumers can buy products directly from manufacturers, enjoy low transparent prices for a wide range of high quality products, and save on direct promotions. Manufacturers compete for consumers and interact with them directly.

INS Ecosystem Limited, incorporated as a BVI company (“INS”), is the official entity that creates the INS tokens, platform and technology. INS is focused on releasing open source cryptographic technologies that enable operation in the INS ecosystem. For the avoidance of doubt, the INS tokens do not provide token holders with any ownership or other interest in INS. Token holders are not entitled to any guaranteed form of dividends, revenue distributions, and voting rights. To become an ecosystem participant, the user creates an account on the INS platform. During the registration, the system will create a user profile and a wallet. Each participant of the ecosystem will be provided with a wallet that preserves all data in the decentralized database and interact with other parties, utilizing smart contracts. We plan to place the INS token on cryptographic token exchanges, giving an opportunity to openly buy them (to residents of countries where the purchase of digital tokens does not violate local laws).

Ecosystem Participants

The ecosystem will be built in accordance with a scalable and decentralized approach that ensures stability and sustainability in the long term.

The ecosystem will involve the following participants, which will participate as depicted in the

next diagram:

Platform
Consumers
Manufacturers
Fulfillment (fulfillment center operators and workers, couriers)

Platform

The INS platform is a decentralized marketplace that allows manufacturers to join, publish their

products for sale, carry out promotion and loyalty campaigns, and get feedback from consumers. It enables consumers to order those products and facilitates the order fulfillment process.

INS roles include:

INS token creation and the token launch to fund development and expansion
Establishment of a decentralized, fair and secure model for order execution
Development of smart contracts to run the order payment and fulfillment process
Release of the customer website and app, fulfillment app for fulfillment center workers and couriers, and web interfaces for manufacturers and fulfillment center operators
Creation of an effective incentive model for all parties to join the INS ecosystem
Development of an active marketing campaigns to ignite initial traction
Elaboration of the ecosystem’s regulatory aspects

Manufacturers

Manufacturers are companies or individuals in the business of fresh produce, groceries and

consumable household items. They range from local farmers to large multinationals, such as

Procter & Gamble, Unilever, Coca-Cola, etc.

Manufacturer roles include:

Publish products
Deliver products ordered by consumers to fulfillment centers
Promote the INS ecosystem by bringing traffic via promotions of derived apps

Consumers

Consumers are individuals or companies that want to buy online high-quality groceries at cheaper prices. Orders can be placed via the INS website, INS app or custom apps derived by manufacturers from the app reference implementation.

Consumer roles include:

Search products listed by manufacturers, make orders and pay for them 17
Participate in feedback requests
Receive promotion, loyalty, referral and feedback rewards

Fulfillment

Fulfillment Center Operators

Fulfillment center operators are owners or lessees of existing warehousing facilities and/or

delivery fleet. They provide the space where workers take products delivered by manufacturers

and assemble orders.

INS will engage independent fulfillment center operators to join the ecosystem to ignite fast

geographical expansion.

Fulfillment Center Workers

Fulfillment center workers, employed by a fulfillment center operator or acting as independent

contractors, will follow instructions received via the INS fulfillment app to:

Collect products delivered by manufacturers to fulfillment centers
Assemble products into orders
Pass assembled orders to couriers

INS will seek to attract independent workers to join the ecosystem.

Couriers

Couriers, employed by a courier company or acting as independent contractors, will follow

instructions received via the INS fulfillment app to:

Pick up orders from fulfillment centers
Deliver orders to consumers

INS will seek to attract independent couriers and courier companies to join the ecosystem.

INS Platform

Key Componets and Processes

Product

Products in the consumer markets constitute the basic item that actions revolve around. To make it simple and convenient, products on the INS platform are required to have several defined parameters, such as name, category assignment, volume, price, description, ingredients, etc. that makes it easy to find and choose products for ordering.

Placing Order

Consumers choose products to buy, specify delivery details, and pay in fiat, BTC, ETH or INS tokens. Depending on the payment method, consumers will be eligible to different prices and rewards.

Consumer can order products using the official INS website, the official app or a derivation of the official app released by a specific manufacturer.

Product Search

The decentralized file storage network (we explore different options from IPFS to Storj) is used to maintain up-to-date databases of products listed by manufacturers. Consumers can apply sorting and filters to choose what they want to buy. Manufacturers may distribute proprietary apps derived from the reference implementation, in which they can choose specific sorting methods and filters for products.

68% of consumers that shopped online say they are very likely to switch grocers for a better online shopping experience (quick, easy, convenient, enjoyable) . Browsing tens of thousands 20 of products online can be very daunting for consumers, so we will make it as easy as possible for them to find the products that they love. For instance, we will provide catalogue filters for item attributes such as Local, Gluten-Free, Organic and On Sale.

We will use the 1-to-1 personalization right from the homepage where consumers should feel that the experience has been tailored specifically to them. Consumers will see their previous orders, have access to their most frequently purchased items, and be shown products and specials that are relevant based on their shopping history. The 1-to-1 personalization will extend to search results, the products displayed at the top of each department, product recommendations in the cart, and daily/weekly offers.

Rewards

Today's consumers have a range of choices about where to shop, and sellers need to work hard to earn repeat business. Rewards and discount programs give customers more reason to come back again, especially in the competitive grocery market. In the INS ecosystem, manufacturers will be able to apply any logic in the smart contract to create bespoke reward programs according to their needs.

Loyalty

Loyalty reward mechanisms is one of the best ways for manufacturers to easily set up a loyalty program to reward long-term customers. Payments are processed by smart contracts making it possible to proof that a consumer is eligible for a reward. Manufacturers set the rules such as reward type, expiration date, product lists that the reward can be spent on, amount, etc. Loyalty reward instruments will be coded in a smart contract, which accepts reward funds from the manufacturer and distributes them to those who provide proofs of eligibility linked to consumer wallets.

Promotion

Automated promotion reward mechanism is built to incentivize consumers to make a first order. Promotion reward mechanism will be coded in a smart contract, where manufacturers set the rules (expiration date, list of products, customer parameters, etc.) and deposit tokens that can only be used to buy pre-defined products during a limited period of time.

Cross-Marketing

Cross-marketing mechanism will be used by manufacturers to promote products to new audiences and generate more sales. Manufacturers can find partners - other manufacturers that created custom apps and sell complementary products, and cross-promote each other. Cross-marketing reward instruments will be coded in a smart contract, where the product details and reward rules are specified. The cross-marketing mechanism intends to incentivize manufacturers to share app traffic with other manufacturers and help consumers discover more products.

Referral

INS will create the INS Reserve Fund as the part of the token generation event with the primary goal to use these tokens as referral rewards to new customers and popularize the INS ecosystem.

Feedback

Manufacturers, seeking to receive direct customer feedback on their products, will be able to incentivise consumers with INS tokens to motivate them to participate. The feedback reward mechanism allows to set a specific set of parameters and create a focus group of consumers from whom a manufacturer wants to receive feedback. The customer data will not be share with manufacturers and will initially be processed in a centralized way on the INS platform, but later decentralized as consumers will provide privacy-preserving proofs of eligibility which enable them submitting a feedback without being identified.

Minimum Balance

Manufacturers will be required to hold a balance in INS tokens equal to some portion of previous month sales to guarantee the ability to pay all types of rewards. Manufacturers can either keep tokens received from consumers or buy tokens on exchanges to comply with the requirement.

Rating Score

The reputation system is important to establish trust between counterparties. Initially rating scores will be deployed for manufacturers and fulfillment parties, and later might possibly include consumers too. We plan to code the rating smart contracts so that they would count the ratings and accept privacy-preserving proofs of validity from consumers, while satisfying the following security

requirements:

Transparency: it should be clear how the ratings are accrued
Legitimacy: only certain set of participants (i.e. manufacturer’s customers) are able to rate
Integrity: it should be difficult, if not impossible, to manipulate the ratings
Privacy: the consumers who rate do not disclose their identity or other personal details

Order Status

All smart contracts are limited in their ability to read data outside the blockchain. The natural way to make smart contracts process external data is to submit it digitally signed by a proper participant (oracle) from off-chain so that a contract can verify the signature and process the data. The order status report will form automatically during the fulfillment process and contain the following signed confirmations:

Manufacturer: supply request received and fulfilled
Worker: products delivered to a fulfillment center
Worker: order assembled and ready for delivery
Courier: order picked up
Courier: order delivered
Consumer: order received

Each participant has a private key to his account securely encrypted and stored in the wallet, and the latter also creates and verifies signatures so that the entire process is smooth. Once the statuses are reflected on-chain, this data is available to other participants or various smart contracts in the system.

Dipute Resolution

Maintaining a high rating score incentivises all ecosystem participants to act truthfully, rendering the dispute mechanism unnecessary in practice in the vast majority of cases. The dispute mechanism will be built to make it as easy as possible to solve a dispute without calling a 3rd party arbiter. If failed, an INS employee will serve as an arbiter. The dispute result can influence the rating score for both defendant and complainant.

Personal Data Security

Handling personal data securely is a task of great importance to us. Due to the public nature of data in the blockchain, we cannot store such information as customer names, addresses, mobile numbers, KYC data, and documentation there. Permissions on the blockchain will be made easily verifiable to allow cooperation of different entities in the ecosystem. The actual personal data and information will be stored in a centralized storage, managed and secured by INS. As the decentralization continues, we will store less and less personal data. The secure storage will allow accessing the data without the need for usernames or passwords using the following scheme:

When the data is saved into the storage it will be linked to the public identifier of the entity such as a blockchain address
The party that wants to retrieve the data should confirm their identity by signing the request with the private key that corresponds to their blockchain address
Storage service will get the information about permissions from blockchain, check that the signature is valid and the requester has the right to access the data
If the check is successful, the data will be returned to the requestor and a confirmation record will be made in the blockchain

Apps & Interfaces

We plan to develop and publish a website and mobile apps for consumers, as well as mobile apps and web interfaces for all other ecosystem participants.

Consumer Apps & Website

Consumers will shop for groceries and provide feedback on the website or in the apps. The official consumer app implements the consumer side of the model including access to smart contracts and access to products from a decentralized cloud storage.

The app will be published as open source software on GitHub and serve as the formal reference implementation. Manufacturers can alter the official app and release their own branded and customized apps. We will publish an open source customization software development kit (SDK) with tutorials and documentation to make the app customization process as easy as possible. Customized app implementations are not forks of the INS platform and are not forks of the INS token but simply a different client for the same network.

Fulfillment App

The fulfillment app will provide a smooth order fulfillment process to allow fulfillment center

workers and couriers to coordinate with each other, manufacturers and consumers. The fulfillment app will be published on Android Play.

Web Interface for Manufacturers

The web interface for manufacturers will run in a web browser without the requirement of local

installation and allow to perform all actions, including listing and editing products, performing stock control, setting delivery options and reward policies.

Web Interface Fulfillment Center Operators

The web interface for fulfillment center operators will run in a web browser without the requirement of local installation and allow to set warehousing fees, receive statistics and earning reports.

Roadmap

Our roadmap involves many different aspects, such as technology development, operational infrastructure installment, signing partnerships, and launching marketing initiatives. The preliminary roadmap is presented below. Dates and activities may be subject to change.

INS Token

Structure

After the ICO period, all contributors will receive an ERC20 exchangeable INS tokens on the Ethereum network. Whenever the INS blockchain is launched with its own token mechanism, the ERC20 token will be always accepted for exchange to a new token 1-to-1.

The INS token is a core component of the INS ecosystem and is designed to facilitate all kinds of operations that make the token an integral part of the ecosystem and the driver for its economy. The INS token is fractionally divisible, transferable and fungible.The token balances and transfers will be tracked by INS. In the case of any force majeure, such as large token theft, contract compromise, or a disrupting change of Ethereum protocol, INS may opt to freeze token transfers and issue a new token contract with balances replacing that of the original token registry by certain date. In the case of an Ethereum fork, INS will properly announce which branch it will support.

INS Token Contract Address: 0x5b2e4a700dfbc560061e957edec8f6eeeb74a320

Usage

The INS token is planned to be the only means of exchange for handling all types of rewards

and one of the means of payment within the INS ecosystem. We plan that INS tokens will be

accepted as a payment method in partner services.

INS Token Usage

Manufacturers

Rewards: loyalty, promotion, cross-marketing, feedback
Minimum balance hold

Consumers

Payment for orders

INS

Referral rewards to consumers

Adoption

One of our key goals is the introduction of a decentralized consumer marketplace to audiences

that have little experience with cryptocurrencies and likely to have little-to-no knowledge of blockchain-based technologies. The INS ecosystem will be expanding beyond the crypto community and focusing its activity on the broad audiences. Providing services to this audience requires perfect knowledge of the grocery industry and its specifics.

Given extensive industry experience, our team knows exactly what consumers want. We will make it very simple and straightforward for consumers to buy, earn and use INS tokens. The complexities of opening and maintaining a cryptocurrency wallet will be made seamless in the INS website and apps.