Technology
The Dtravel platform will leverage both conventional web technology and decentralized blockchain-based Web3 technology to satisfy the requirements of the Dtravel community.
The TRVL token has been implemented according to the ERC20 Standard and has been deployed to the Ethereum blockchain (see: 0xd47bdf574b4f76210ed503e0efe81b58aa061f3d). To enable cross-chain interoperability and allow TRVL token holders to use their preferred blockchains, we will also deploy contracts for TRVL using analogous standards (e.g., BEP20) on other EVM-compatible blockchains (e.g., Binance Smart Chain, ...) and use bridges (e.g., AnySwap) to allow users to transfer TRVL across chains.
The Premium Member NFTs have been implemented according to the ERC721 Standard and will be deployed on the Ethereum blockchain as well.
Dtravel's initial booking platform has been built using conventional web technology and provides an internal cryptocurrency wallet for hosts and guests based on a third-party wallet-as-a-service. Governance processes (e.g. voting on Dtravel Improvement Proposals) are planned to initially be off-chain as well.
In the future, Dtravel will seek to decentralize its booking platform and governance processes by having on-chain booking and governance through smart contracts deployed to and running on a blockchain or distributed ledger. The benefits would include greater transparency and autonomy of Dtravel's operations.
There are challenges, however, that arise from Dtravel's potential large scale and the current scalability limitations of public permissionless blockchains. For instance, as of 5th of November 2021, Ethereum's network utilization is about 51% with about 1.3 million daily transactions. In contrast, established home-sharing platforms have about 1 million daily bookings. Considering that a single booking may require several smart contract calls (e.g. for booking, canceling or completing a booking, initiating a dispute, resolving a dispute...), Dtravel's on-chain booking could one day easily exceed Ethereum's capacity by a few times. Moreover, this scalability issue also reflects on transaction costs of several dozen dollars, which are prohibitively high in the context of booking a few nights that may cost just a few hundred dollars. Although there are various proposed layer 2 solutions for the scalability and cost issues, none of them seems mature and widely adopted enough at this stage. To tackle these challenges, Dtravel is exploring 3 options:
- 1.Monitor the evolution, maturity and adoption of layer 2 solutions, and potentially use one of them when it is deemed suitable for Dtravel.
- 2.Consider using a variety of other EVM-compatible blockchains that may jointly have capacity and costs that are deemed acceptable for Dtravel.
- 3.Consider deploying Dtravel's own dedicated distributed ledger.
These options are not mutually exclusive. For example, Dtravel could start with option 2 while it is small and switch to option 1 or option 3 when it grows.
Last modified 5mo ago
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