Credits Annual Report 2019

The year 2019 is coming to a close and every organization is in a hurry to tally up the results of its activities and its achievements that have been reached throughout the 12 month reporting period. The Credits platform is also tallying up its achievements and the development team is proud to present the 2019 Annual Report, which lists the main milestones the platform reached over the year.

Credits is a fully decentralized, blockchain-based infrastructure platform operating on the basis of the innovative Proof of Agreement protocol. The infrastructure is designed to allow various industries to take advantage of blockchain technologies and issue tokens or launch decentralized applications.

The main goal of the project is to popularize the use of blockchain technologies among small and medium-sized businesses and ensure the permeation of the Credits platform’s solutions throughout various industries. The use of Credits platform-based solutions will allow businesses to make use of smart contracts and high transaction speeds for refraining from the services of intermediaries and increasing the effectiveness of doing business. By reducing expenses through the use of the versatile Credits blockchain platform, businesses will be able to reduce the end prices of their products and services for buyers and thus contribute to the growth of their domestic economies in the long-run.

Regions

The Credits platform is a global undertaking that operates around the world in multiple countries. The main focus of the platform’s management in 2019 was placed on the countries of Europe, the US, and Russia.

Currently, the platform is actively developing its business line of products in the Netherlands and China to introduce its solutions on the local markets.

A team of regional representatives currently works with the project and covers 12 countries. Their main roles include the development of sales channels of blockchain solutions offered by the project.

Business

The company’s focus in 2019 was largely placed on the development of solutions for industries that rely heavily on effective database management. The logistics sector with its supply chain management models, the oil and gas industry, the loyalty program market and others were targeted by the project development team with a set of solutions offered for catering to interested clients.

The Decentralized Applications Market

In the first half of the year, the company focused on attracting developers capable of implementing simple, easy-to-use decentralized applications based on the Credits protocol. This step allowed the team to prove the viability of the platform’s operational activities within the framework of a decentralized infrastructure and generate the necessary volume of transactions inside the network. In addition, close interaction with the developers allowed the team to identify certain shortcomings in the operation of the smart contracts and eliminate them. To date, 21 products are available in the list of decentralized applications and services using the protocol.

IoT
The IoT industry, as a system of interrelated computing devices, mechanical and digital machines, objects, animals or people bearing identifiers capable of transferring data over a network, is one of the fastest growing sectors of the modern economy. The Credits platform made efforts to integrate its solutions into the IoT industry in the course of 2019 by collaborating with IBM.

The IBM Watson infrastructure, IBM cloud system and the Credits blockchain platform have merged for ensuring the processing speeds and the storage capacities needed to handle the immense amount of transactions involved in IoT. The hashing of data and the consequent storage of the hash on the Credits blockchain platform with its immutability and high-end security characteristics in conjunction with the IBM cloud system allows businesses to solve the issue of data manipulation. It is not difficult to imagine the application of such a system in retail and logistics databases that involve sprawling networks and massive amounts of user data.

The Supply Chain Market

The supply chain market is a vast sector of any economy, serving as its backbone. Given the immense amounts of data being analyzed and stored by the industry’s systems, and considering the human error factor, the use of blockchain-based solutions is an important advent for the industry that is already being applied by such retail giants as Walmart. The Credits platform is developing decentralized solutions for the supply chain market as well and has focused on advancing its products over the course of the year 2019.

The most significant partnerships signed in the given sector over the year 2019 were with the following companies:

Alibaba cloud
The given partnership allowed Credits to enter the Chinese market with its blockchain solutions for the logistics industry and the supply chain management sector.

The decentralized blockchain network and cloud service of Alibaba will allow clients to learn the current delivery status of their product, as well as the temperature conditions in which the goods are being transported along with other information necessary for proper product delivery. All the data pertaining to the delivery process will be recorded, verified, transmitted and displayed via the decentralized blockchain network and cloud service of Alibaba in a specialized app designed for the customers.

Thanks to the data transmitted by the sensor and its verification on Credits and Alibaba Cloud, the client will have irrefutable facts to prove infractions in the delivery process and will be able to receive compensation. Given that blockchain data cannot be deleted or edited, this will allow recording all changes in the data from the sensors without any interference from third parties.

IVHIMPROM - Russian Leading and Oldest Chemical Producer
The given partnership involved the launch of a pilot project on the implementation of blockchain technologies into the chemical manufacturer’s supply management and sales systems. The solutions developed by the Credits platform allowed IVHIMPROM to track supplies, shipments and deliveries to facilitate the production process. Automation of the process was also foreseen to avoid the risk of human error and to exclude the possibility of tampering with database records by third parties.

"There are immense, untapped prospects for the development of supply chain management solutions based on blockchain and we aim to strengthen our positions on this promising market together with Credits ," as stated on behalf of IVHIMPROM company.

GlobalTechExport - Russia's largest construction-engineering Co.
The partnership with GlobalTechExport foresaw the launch of a pilot project for the management, transmission, and storage of sensor data based on the public blockchain network.

Mina Stones - a large supplier of gemstones for jewelry, decorative, and industrial purposes.
The partnership entailed the implementation of a blockchain-based solution based on the technology utilized by the Credits platform, thus fundamentally transforming the current supply chain by introducing mechanisms for tracking, validation, and complete transparency. The new system allowed all gemstones mined in Nigeria to be traced through the use of blockchain as materials pass through the hands of couriers to the Mina Stones workshops. An immutable audit trail is created on the blockchain, which includes corresponding data to provide evidence of the gemstone’s production from mine to the manufacturer and eventually to the buyer.

The Loyalty Market

The loyalty market was undeservingly neglected for years until major retail chains realized that retaining customers through the use of bonus programs is a profitable long-term investment in ensuring return customers. Leading market analysis reported surprising statistics, as 57% of loyalty program members did not know the balance of their reward accounts, 25% felt that earning rewards took too much effort, 33% stated difficulties with the conditions of earning rewards, and 36% claimed that they did not have the chance to use their points before they expired.
Due to the relevance of blockchain solutions in this niche, a decentralized application based on the Credits protocol was developed in the form of the Bonoox Loyalty Platform.

The current list of platform users includes:

Zoom Hizar Restaurant Chain Loyalty Program
Fitness Loyalty Program
Sevastopol Hotel Loyalty Program
"Our plans for 2020 are grand as we see the growth of this market and the demand for viable technologies. Leading companies in IT and other industries are joining forces with us and we are determined to capitalize on this collaborative basis by proving the effectiveness of our solutions," as stated by Jennifer Trelewicz, Chief Business Development Officer of Credits.

In general, the company signed partnership agreements with over 50 companies from around the world over the course of 2019.

Technology development

The main technological milestone of the company in 2019 was heralded by the release of the final form of the platform consensus model – the Proof-of-Agreement.

The Proof-of-Agreement is a new type of consensus algorithm that has been first deployed on the Credits platform. The concept of the algorithm is quite effective at reaching consensus, despite being seemingly complex at first glance. The process consists of transaction formation and consequent distribution among network nodes. The distribution takes place through cyclical rounds, during which the Trusted Nodes, or TN in short, are given the authority to ensure consensus. The result is a common resolution, which includes transactions issuance and block generation.

The transaction packages consist of up to 500 ordered transactions. Each of the packages is assigned a header with a hash calculated using the Blake2s algorithm. The nodes then start checking the presence of the packages in the local buffer once the full list from the round table is received.

Staking
The introduction of staking was another important development, which positively affected the security of the network and its economic component.
Staking is the process, where a user’s wallet uses to validate transactions and award them with tokens. When the wallet is staking, it is checking transactions to make sure everyone who sends tokens actually owned those tokens and had the right to transfer them.

Mainnet release
The release of the mainnet together with the code on GitHub allowed the project to become fully public and open source. The release of all the code on Github allowed the Credits platform to be catapulted into the Top 15 projects by level of development activity on Github.
Other releases

The Credits development team was also engaged in releasing a number of other products over the course of the year. One of the undertakings involved the launch of the development of a decentralized exchange that will allow companies and customers to support the economic model of the project by trading tokens on the exchange.

The Credits Browser Extension was also released in 2019. The browser extension for Google Chrome & Opera – CESER allows users to connect directly to the Credits blockchain network without entering their private keys on the websites. The Credits Browser Extension source code is also available on Github. CESER is a decentralized application that manages accounts and connects users to the Credits blockchain. It enables users to manage their wallets, make transactions and interact with decentralized applications in the most secure and easy way.

The release of the mobile version of the wallet for iOS also marked another important milestone for the Credits platform in terms of universality. The Credits Mobile Wallet provides secure and simple methods of sending, receiving, and storing digital assets issued on the Credits blockchain. The Credits Mobile Wallet meets the highest requirements of the crypto community in terms of usage, privacy and security. It is a free application whose functionality is implemented strictly according to the latest safety standards. The key feature is that the private keys are encrypted and stored locally, thus allowing users to use the app with confidence.

The release of the first decentralized application on the Credits platform in the form of the Dice game mark an important step for the project as a host for Dapps. The first Dapp, the Dice game, is purely based on luck and is incredibly simple. All the users have to do is place a bet and to choose a chance of winning. The Win Chance and Payouts are adjusted manually by using the slider. The user has full control of their bets and is capable of managing their own risks. If the lucky number is within the selected area, they receive a payout. Other decentralized applications followed Dice and were placed on the Credits platform.

The Bug Bounty also took place in 2019 and involved a vast number of participants, all of whom were involved in hunting for bugs and vulnerabilities in the Credits platform. The overall prize fund of the first stage was set at $500,000 with all payments made in BTC/ETH/CS coins accounting for developer’s taste.

The Token Swap also took place in 2019. The swap procedure involved the exchange of ERC20 for Credits (CS) coins. The process was carried out manually via MEW or other wallets and through the Kucoin exchange. The essence of the migration of tokens was the transfer of the balance of token holders from Ethereum wallets to new wallets compatible with the Credits platform.

The successful migration of tokens from the Ethereum protocol to the Credits protocol via the Kucoin exchange was another important milestone for the project that allowed thousands of users to receive their coins. Such implementations were vital in bringing the Credits platform in line with the most popular and mainstream trends in the blockchain industry.

In total, the project’s developers implemented over 20 major technical updates over the course of 2019 and dozens of smaller improvements that went unnoticed.

Marketing & PR

The year 2019 was extremely fruitful for the development team in terms of product popularization and presentation on the global market via media channels. The team took part in a large number of events and established working relations with dozens of contacts thanks to the constant highlighting of the platform’s achievements in the media.

Over the year, the team participated in over 30 conferences. The year 2019 gave crypto community over 300 publications about the Credits platform’s achievements on various popular media resources like NewsBTCCointelegraphAMBCrypto and many others.
Digital marketing tools were extensively used to attract the attention of the crypto community to the project. In addition, the team actively communicated with the project community and the communities of other crypto projects like MaticHolochainQuarkchainFusion, Electroneum through Ask Me Anything sessions on YouTube and the Telegram channels.

The team had also presented the community with the opportunity of watching project reviews on the YouTube channels of famous bloggers like ChicoCryptoCryptoRevolutionDataDashAltcoin DailyIvan on Tech and others.
The project also became part of the Oracle for Startups program, which will definitely yield great benefits to the development of the company in the long-run.

Summary

This year 2019 was a breakthrough for the Credits team in all respects, as the developers proved their professional competence and the ability not only to follow trends, but also to create trends.

"We have achieved great results over the course of 2019 and are not about to stop on what has already been attained. On the contrary, we intend to redouble our efforts in 2020 in our push to making Credits a leading blockchain-based solutions provider for businesses from a broad range of industries," as stated by Igor Chugunov, CEO of Credits.

The project’s infrastructure is developing rapidly and the team is confidently looking forward to 2020 with great hopes and expectation. It is the sincerest conviction of the development team that the year 2020 will witness the world’s recognition of the need for blockchain technologies and the usefulness of their application, especially Credits Blockchain Technologies.

Credits Infrastructure

Network Node for Windows
Network Node for Linux
Credits Mainnet Explorer
Credits Mainnet Web Wallet
DApp Map
Mobile Wallet
Browser Wallet Extension