Frictionless document verification

Dear All,

Our vision is to create a global product that will solve the problems with transactional trust, protect all actors (consumers and document providers) and do it in a way that is easy. We want to unleash the transformational capabilities and power of Cardano blockchain in the consumer world. This can be done by:

1. creating a Cardano-metadata-powered system that will keep track of document hashes and relevant metadata;

1. adding a private database layer for optional document storage;

1. providing all relevant functionalities via a beautiful, and UX-optimised web portal;

1. abstracting away from the challenges of registering a crypto exchange account, undergoing KYC/AML, buying crypto, setting up a wallet and learning to transact on the blockchain. Users should be able to pay via traditional payment gateways (in addition / alternative to crypto payments of course). First they need to feel the utility. Once they do they will yearn to know more about the underlying technology which we will comprehensively discuss. This will drive adoption in a more efficient way.

Features

Our trusted solution based on Cardano metadata will enable to securely manage document 1) ingest, 2) storage and 3) verification process, initialised by consumers or business transaction parties. The portal will enable the following key features and functions:

* Full and secure control over any digital asset and its versioning without the possibility of unauthorised change or replacement;

* Blockchain-guaranteed document integrity;

* Full data history without possibility to change it over time;

* Registration on public Cardano blockchain platform;

* Transparency for all parties of digital assets exchange.

Features such as control over publication, storage, and sharing of immutable documents allows clients to ensure document authenticity and asset provenance, especially for documents which must be trusted for a long time-horizon.

Benefits

For companies: cost and time efficiency, increased trust with fast authentication and validation, increasing the credibility of services.

For consumers: Full privacy and security of high-value information, fraud protection against counterfeit and falsification of documents and fake messages.

Sample Scenarios

1. Protection against phishing attacks;

2. Compliance with EU's Durable Medium regulations;

3. Protection against dishonest business partners.

Consumers all around the world get their bills and contract documents from issuers (banks, telco operators, utility providers etc.) every day. Hackers and dishonest business partners forge documents (pdfs or hard copies) and place urgent calls for payments of penalties for non-existing services. Consumers can't perform quick checks if the document is true or false. The same situation is with SMS or various widely used social communicators. They simply do as instructed. After fraud takes place, it is practically impossible to get the money back.  

Industry use cases 

Timestamping, updates, verification, circulation, data reconciliation, contract management for a variety of industries and documents:

Banking – e.g. transfer confirmations, contracts, terms of use, pricing lists, policies specification etc.

Insurance – e.g. policies terms, contracts, pricing lists, insurance certificates, claims, reinsurance etc.

Education – e.g. diplomas, certificates, training completion proofs etc.

Government – e.g. identity documents, ownership certificates (land, house, flat, business, patents, copyrights), grants, taxes etc.

Broker Dealers – e.g. transaction lists, order confirmations, pricing lists, identity documents etc.

Pharma – e.g. expiry dates, clinical trials data, drug approval certificates etc.

KYC providers – e.g. identity documents, terms of use etc.

Legal – e.g. notarised true copies confirmations, virtual data rooms (VDRs) in M&A processes etc.

Roadmap 

PHASE 1: porting (approx. 35 days) 

Since we already have a related prototype of a blockchain-based document verification platform, the first step would be to port the core of the prototype to Cardano from the current private-blockchain backend. The platform allows for verifying 3 types of documents:

1. public electronic documents such as price lists, terms of use etc. 

1. private electronic documents such as invoices, letters of credit, bank transfers, insurance certificates etc. 

1. private paper documents which are the same as private electronic however in a physical paper format. 

The platform is by design compliant with EU "Durable Medium" regulation and allows to protect the customer (individuals and businesses) from both third-party scammers as well as from dishonest business partners and corporations.

PHASE 2: development (approx. 55 days) 

Add relevant, new functionalities such as: 

1. payment gateways;
2. Fiat – ADA conversion module; 
3. enterprise APIs for bulk uploads;
4. document analytics.

and develop further existing functionalities such as: 

1. more comprehensive upload screen;

1. sharing options;

1. UI / UX improvements;

1. languages update of the interface (currently 14 languages that given improvements and new functionalities will be in need of update).

PHASE 3: Pre-commercialisation and beta testing (approx. 90 days) 

The client acquisition would be two-fold: 1) integration with 1 big enterprise that needs to comply by law with "Durable Medium" regulations 2) digital promotion of the service among individuals / SME users that need a digital proof of document or action for facilitating their economic activity.

That phase will be used for life testing of the platform as well as collecting experience from enterprises and consumers. At the end we will analyse the results and prepare final changes and desired budget for launching full commercial version of the solution. 

PHASE 4: Commercialisation 

The commercialization plan will be based on the following assumptions:

* Acquiring a trusted Partner with recognizable brand to strengthen our marketing message and trust to our service on the market.

* Launching periodic digital marketing campaigns with Partner in social media and information portals.

* Acquiring min. 5 large partners (e.g. financial institutions, telecoms, utility providers) for joint activities who have a customer base and periodically provide them with documents that can be verified, such as invoices, terms of services and their changes, bank statements, demands for payment, etc.

* Acquiring couriers and B2B/B2C on-line retailers (amazon.com, aliexpress.com, allegro.pl) to enable consumers verify messages and documents received from them.

The commercialization phase will be implemented after A series round funding. On a basis of PoC on Cardano we will choose countries with the fastest market adoption. 

Budget spending (USD)

We plan the following funding split:

1. Payroll and contracting fees for developers & analysts – 30 000;
2. Project administration (PMO, cloud service & support) - 10 000;
3. Pre-launch testing and final corrections – 3 000;
4. Market launch & go-live and promotion activities – 12 000;
5. Market monitoring, platform stabilisation – 5 000. 

Our KPI's

We plan to achieve the following project assumptions:

• Acquire 2 enterprise class clients;
• Acquire 5 000 users (consumers);

Success definition

After 3 months: Commercial beta ready for launch

After 6 months: Product launched and running in beta-mode for 2-3 months, insights from first clients incorporated into the product, main marketing campaigns ongoing, first public non-beta users, customer-support processes streamlined

After 12 months: KPI from above met

Expected public launch date

[mid November] - Catalyst results

[01.03.22] - Public launch

Blocking problem

Top 3 Industry consumers vector phishing attacks in Q1 2021:

Saas/WebMail – 19,06%

Financial institutions – 24,5%

Social media – 23,6%

Costs of the problem

Only in the USA identity frauds costed 56 billion USD in 2020 and 49 million consumers was falling victim, which give an average of 1 142,9 USD per victim*.

Accordingly to AU government entity ACCC (Australian Competition&Consumers Commission) in 2021 (YTD August) in the list of Top 10 Scams by amount lost the first 3 positions are**:

1 – Investment scams (bogus investment opt.) ca. 96 M $

2 – Dating & romance portals ca. 32 M $

3 – False billing ca. 15 M $

Evidence

Consumers lost $56 billion to identity fraud last year (cnbc.com) *

According to the Anti-Phishing Working Group's Phishing Activity Trends Report, the average wire-transfer loss from BEC (business email compromise) attacks in the second quarter of 2020 was $80,183. This is up from $54,000 in the first quarter.

Accordingly to FBI report Non-Payment/Non-Delivery type of attack losses in 2020 amounted for $265,011,249!

https://www.tessian.com/blog/phishing-statistics-2020/

$150 is the average cost per compromised record.

$3.92m is the average cost of a data breach.

75% organizations worldwide experienced phishing attacks in 2020

96% are coming via email

Top 5 subject line keywords of the attacks:

Urgent invoice

Payment is urgent. Do not ignore!

Attention! Credentials needed for login to secure mainframe

Re: Finance request for CEO of …

https://www.aarp.org/money/scams-fraud/info-2020/ftc-fraud-complaints-rise.html

Median loss of fraud victims by age:

$448 for people in their 20s

$379 for people in their 30s

$410 for people in their 40s

$500 for people in their 50s

$600 for people in their 60s

$800 for people in their 70s

$1,600 for people age 80 and older

Other supporting evidence info pages

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210323005370/en/Total-Identity-Fraud-Losses-Soar-to-56-Billion-in-2020

https://expertinsights.com/insights/50-phishing-stats-you-should-know/

https://www.umass.edu/it/security/phishing-fraudulent-emails-text-messages-phone-calls#Phishing%20Attacks%20at%20UMass%20Amherst

https://www.statista.com/statistics/184083/commonly-reported-types-of-cyber-crime/

https://www.statista.com/statistics/266161/websites-most-affected-by-phishing/

https://www.keepnetlabs.com/phishing-statistics-you-need-to-know-to-protect-your-organization/#easy-footnote-bottom-18-3791

https://www.scamwatch.gov.au/scam-statistics

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2021/jul/15/more-than-23bn-lost-in-a-year-as-scams-surge-during-pandemic

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2021/02/new-data-shows-ftc-received-2-2-million-fraud-reports-consumers