Many similarities can be drawn from the rise of decentralized finance (DeFi), a peer-to-peer finance system that leverages decentralized technologies on the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain, and what e-commerce was like in the late 90s/early 2000s era. Both time periods shift the way consumers do things by bringing about greater efficiencies and tackling major pain points. 

Even more surprising than the parallels are the proposed combination of e-commerce and DeFi in a use case. Since DeFi has continued to shake up the financial space, many believed the same thing happening to e-commerce was only a matter of time. With decentralized finance, the middleman, an institution, is replaced with a smart contract that automates the introduction and exchange of the currency.

If you can imagine, the result is that customers with cryptocurrency can pay for their goods and services online with their digital currency. In this web storefront with supportive functionality, payment means connecting one’s wallet and completing the transaction, eliminating the need for adding personal card details, and for the store owner, no chargebacks due to blockchain’s immutable nature.

Uquid, a DeFi ecosystem, is aiming to “build a bridge between DeFi and e-commerce,” effectively becoming an “Amazon of DeFi" online shopping platform. Their goal is to provide a solution for decentralized finance to access e-commerce through use cases, including Shopping Mining, Shopping Staking and automated Shopping Making.

Tran Hung Uquid’s CEO shares, “this combination of DeFi and e-commerce allows buyers and sellers to cut out middlemen and reduce fraud, which makes the exchange of goods and services more efficient and leads to savings for customers.”

Considering the use cases

Uquid plans to address several primary use cases. Among them is a DeFi-oriented enhancement of the Loyalty program system. Typically, each customer is required to show their loyalty cards each time they make a purchase. From now on, each wallet address used for payment will automatically be used for bonus recognition after the completion of an order. A smart contract will recognize these points and make them available for a user to spend on a future date. Therefore, a shopper could receive loyalty points from one vendor and then spend them elsewhere.

Uquid has an ecosystem called Defito, which offers a DTO token -- a governance token that can be earned by contributing to the shopping liquidity pool. Each Defito pool represents goods of Uquid’s e-commerce websites, including games, mobile top-up cards or gift cards. The automated shopping maker then connects goods from different suppliers and allows token holders to look for and track the lowest prices for a given quantity of goods they hope to buy.

More insights from uquid here

Another use case is in nonfungible tokens (NFTs) and, more specifically, an NFT supermarket system for digital products. With this shopping system, sellers of each product are identified as a unique tokenID. After the transaction is complete, the buyer’s ownership is immediately confirmed. The launch of the Uquid NFT marketplace brings about a location specifically tailored to the needs of influencers and content creators, such as YouTubers, TikTokers, live streamers, and other social media influencers. 

Uquid also has plans to apply “Buy All. Pay Later. Any Coin.”, -- a new feature to further enhance the shopping experience.

Impacting business growth

Uquid continues to disrupt the world of e-commerce by providing users with a digital shop with more than a million digital products to shop within this ecosystem. With the help of the Lightning Network node, transactions are further accelerated, ensuring a lower cost for consumers.

The team continues to prioritize further upgrades of their store in their official Roadmap. By doing so, the platform believes that DeFi will support business growth in the e-commerce sector, expanding the number of customers that can be reached around the world.

Learn more about Uquid
