More and more people are turning to freelancing in today’s world for so many reasons. Some are unable to get jobs, while many others are losing their jobs and need to get something doing to support their families financially.
Most platforms in the market have equally been helpful in connecting billions of people in the global freelance market to employers but with a significant problem. These traditional centralized freelance platforms are making most of the money to themselves. They charge up to 40% of whatever the seller earns.
Storm Market, having been in the market for a long time as BitMaker, now Storm Play, offers a different, and possibly the best approach to freelancers getting paid the real worth of energy put into completing micro-tasks and gigs, charging just 1% and of their earnings and sending payouts in cryptocurrencies.
What is Storm Market?
Storm Market, is a decentralized marketplace for Storm Market participants called the Storm Makers (they include sellers, advertisers, companies, etc.) trying to source for the services of freelancers to complete tasks of different levels and Storm Players (these are consumers, viewers, freelancers, etc.) who help carry out these tasks.
In return for carrying out tasks by the Storm Makers, Storm Players get rewarded with bolts on the platform which are redeemable for Storm Tokens and can be sold or exchanged to other cryptocurrencies. Storm players are also paid in Ethereum and Bitcoin cryptocurrencies.
Why Storm Market?
There has been a significant transition in the freelance marketplace for some time now. Employers place more emphasis on technology and automation than traditional work schedule for more efficiency and at the same time cutting down costs with institutions being able to employ a software engineer from Canada, a designer from Poland, and a community manager from Holland.
This has been a breakthrough for both employers and employees as there are no longer geographical restrictions on both parties, and tasks posters can source skilled workers from a global talent pool.
The Problem and Its Solution
With current centralized platforms having established a strong market, companies like Fiverr, TaskRabbit, Upwork, MTurk have their network spread out globally, but current problems are hurting freelancers financially. Freelancers are losing up to 40% of their wages to these platforms with restrictions of withdrawals. All these problems have created a dangerous relationship between tasks posters and performers.
The blockchain can create a lasting solution through by creating a platform where tasks listing and implementation is carried out with no intermediary and rewards being paid directly to freelancers as tokens that can be cashed out into real money.
How Storm Play Works
StormX, the company behind Storm Play, started by taking a different approach to the digital marketplace by transferring wealth between platform participants with cryptocurrencies through an Android Mobile application.
Users can earn Bolts (points) in three distinctive areas:
Storm Play
With the Store Play application by StormX Inc, opportunities are posted on the platform which runs on the Ethereum Blockchain and users can complete the tasks to earn rewards.
Storm Shop
The platform rewards shoppers for buying specific products or requesting for services through the marketplace with bonus tokens.
Storm Gigs
With Storm Gigs, users can access the decentralized marketplace where micro-tasks are regularly rolled out in different categories which include QA testing, machine learning, and freelancing tasks.
These tasks play a vital role in the ecosystem. These tasks are implemented using smart contracts which are an agreement between task poster (Maker) and task performer (Player). These contracts contain details about the job, milestone, and terms of payment.
The goal of Storm Market is to reduce the costs of tasks posted and also make sure those who fulfill these tasks get fair rewards for their time.
Benefits of Storm Market
The platform aims to:
- Eliminate friction between buyers and sellers with no middlemen.
- Reduce cost of transaction compared to other traditional micro-task platforms.
- Removing risks and costs of dispute resolution by enforcing rules within smart contracts.
- Giving out micro-rewards for micro-tasks.
- Giving an opportunity to both Storm Players and Storm markers to reaching a broad audience, helping their businesses more efficiently and giving freelancers more earning opportunities.
The Storm Tokens and Compatible Wallets
Storm Tokens are official cryptocurrency of the Storm Market platform. Storm Makers can posts tasks on the platform using the tokens.
Storm tokens can be earned by completing tasks on the Storm Market decentralized platform by watching videos among other things. They also were purchased during the token sale, and now available to be bought/exchanged on cryptocurrency exchange platforms.
The tokens are ERC20 tokens and are implemented as smart tokens using Bancor protocol.
Being an ERC20 token, the Storm Token is compatible with all ERC20 token cryptocurrency wallets.
Hardware wallets like Trezor or the Ledger would be great to have them stored for better security.
Holders can also have their tokens stored in software wallets like MyEtherWallet, MetaMask, Mist, Parity, and Trust Ethereum wallets.
Where To Buy Storm Tokens
Storm Market, since rebranding, has been listed on some exchanges. Storm Tokens can be purchased using fiat and cryptocurrencies like Bitcoins and Ethers.
Storm Token (STORM) is traded on the following exchanges: Binance, HitBTC, Bancor Network, Coinrail, Coinnest, YoBit, IDEX, Radar Relay, and ForkDelta.
It can also be purchased with fiat on YoBit exchange.
Storm Token ICO
Token Sale started 7th November and ended 8th December 2017. StormX was able to raise 64,321 ETH ($32 million at the time) from the Token Sale. It was announced that all unsold tokens would be airdropped.
1 Storm Token was priced at $0.0113 at the token sale.
Total token stands at 10,000,000,000 STORMS.
Storm Market Roadmap
- 2014: BitMaker released. A digital advertising application that uproots the traditional marketing methods by offering bitcoin in exchange for customer engagement.
- February 2017: BitTask feature released. Launched our first major release to allow users to opt-in to more multi-engagement level experiences.
- August 1, 2017: Whitepaper released. Release official whitepaper for Storm Market and STORM Token.
- August 2017: Public QA session held. Hold a public Q&A and AMA on Reddit to provide the public with an opportunity to learn more about the upcoming crowd sale.
- August 15, 2017: STORM token crowd sale begins.
- August 15, 2017: 13:00 UTC STORM Token becomes available for public purchase.
- Q4, 2017: STORM tokens & BitMaker to be integrated. Enable STORM with BitMaker.
- Q1, 2018: BitMaker for iOS to be launched. Launch BitMaker for iOS.
- Q1, 2019: Storm Market mobile client to be launched. The first decentralized micro-task marketplace powered by STORM tokens.
Team Behind The Project
StormX Inc, a Washington-based company, created the Storm Market platform and its token. The platform already boasts of 250,000 active users on the platform before the rebranding.
Key members of the company include Simon Yu who is the CEO and Co-founder, Sean Zhong the CTO, and Arry Yu as COO.
Conclusion
With Storm Market, anyone, anywhere, on any device can participate in the global freelance market. Users can advertise their skills to a worldwide network and earn Storm Tokens which are tradable to real money completing micro-tasks.
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