As information technology has developed, a new type of employment has come into being - a gig economy. It is a far cry from the traditional environment in which employees work full time in one space. In a gig economy, independent workers contract with companies or organizations for short-term engagements as freelancers or non-regular staff, and the trend toward a gig economy is gaining steam. The best example would be Uber. Anyone can earn money by offering riding services any time you want. As the workforce is increasingly mobile, the concept of having to work inside the company is wearing thin. A study by Intuit, a California-based software company, predicted that 40 percent of American workers would be independent contractors by 2020.

Lee Won-hong (Will Lee), CEO Of blockchain startup Blue Whale, is taking note of this phenomenon. In an interview with Decenter in southern Seoul on July 18, he said, “While living in America, I saw a baker earn 6 million won by giving lessons on breadmaking six hours a week. Lessons were given three times a week and there were 20 students who had to pay 100,000 won for each class,” adding that “I thought then that the gig economy could be a new form of business.” “People will be increasingly charmed by these gig economy features,” he said.

Lee expected the recently controversial minimum wage issue to bring forward the spread of the gig economy domestically. With the rise of wages, self-employed business owners and smaller firms prefer to contract with most suitable workers restrictively for specific projects. From the perspective of laborers, a gig economy can prompt demand for freelancing, as the wage gap between full-time workers and part-timers narrows.

“If the hourly minimum wage reaches 10,000 won in Korea, the gig economy in which freelancers and part-time workers spread rapidly will be in the limelight,” Lee said. “But labor market systems and structures should be changed to dismantle barriers between regular and non-regular workers. The most sure-fire solution to realizing this is blockchain.” And Blue Whale is a solution he suggested to prepare for the era of a gig economy.

Blue Whale is a blockchain-based, sharing-economy platform that provides employers and laborers with such services as employment, job search and marketing. It supports an environment for non-regular workers and freelancers by living up to its characteristics of blockchain technology making it impossible to manipulate and ensuring transparency. Blue Whale is designed to provide diverse services such as customer relationship management (CRM), reservation software and intelligent advertising so that everyone can create businesses and hire workers using marketplaces on the blockchain network. By contrast, job-seekers can find temporary jobs and projects through the platform, contract and work. “We will create a blockchain-powered fair and transparent platform so smaller business operators can team up with talented workers,” Lee said.

Blue Whale is trying to solve what troubles freelancers and self-employed persons most - how to prepare for their later years such as various allowances and pensions - by adopting token economies. The company has issued its own cryptocurrency BMX (Blue Whale eXchange) tokens and gives them in compensation to network participants who contribute to activating the Blue Whale ecosystem. Part of tokens generated in the course of using the platform is deposited at Reward Bank to enable small business owners to get pension funds, paid leave and unemployment benefits.

“Previously, credit card companies took all commissions but we hand them out to store owners and part-time workers who make contributions through blockchain technology. That’s because labor efficiency and work quality can go up when compensation for contributions exists,” Lee said, adding that blockchain systems of this kind can be realized if all processes are transparent.

Based on these ideas, Blue Whale conducted its initial coin offering in April and raised 20 billion won through private sales and pre-sales. In October, it plans to launch services, centering around freelancing, education, entertainment, human resources management and space business. Verlocal, an online marketplace startup Lee founded in the U.S. in 2014, will join its freelancing business.

If launched according to the plan, Blue Whale will become the first ICON-based decentralized application (DApp). ICON is a local blockchain project aimed to be an “interchain service” connecting both public and private blockchains. “Blue Whale provides partners including small business operators with services through DApps and cryptocurrency. So it might be in line with the interchain system sought by ICON,” Lee said.

/Doobo Shim Reporter shim@decenter.kr

심두보 기자

shim@decenter.kr