Peer-to-peer freelance network Humans Net Inc. today announced the global launch of its distributed ledger blockchain system that provides an immutable reputation-based scoring system for workers to promote themselves and find employers.

The maker of Humans.net claims that the current state of online search engines is highly inefficient and that data monopolies allow these providers to collect, analyze and monetize user data without any benefit to the users – generating tremendous profit in the process.

“Existing online platforms have pricey membership fees or high commission charges,” said Vlad Dobrynin, founder and chief executive at Humans.net. “Their search processes are time-consuming and complex payment systems create barriers and deter people from using them.”

To help them compete in the market and attract membership, the platform will give access to members completely free. There are no fees, no commission charges and no hidden costs, the company said. The company also intends to distribute 25 percent of all advertising revenue back to active users as an incentive to keep using the system.

“The compelling attraction for users is that there is no middleman to scrape off money because there are no fees whatsoever,” Dobrynin said about the monetization and compensation model intended to be used on the platform.

“Users have real-time direct conversations with one another, data privacy is not violated, and there are zero hidden costs,” he added. “If users wish to earn revenue, they can permit their data to be used for advertising, all within a safe and protected environment that is free from fraud.”

Current freelance and employment search systems are cumbersome and do not take advantage of user information in order to streamline the system and largely use it to make money off the membership. According to Dobrynin, that hinders the basic function of these systems for people seeking work.

“Humans.net turns this around and completely recreates how people work with one another and utilize services,” said Dobrynin.

On the surface, Humans.net net operates a lot like any other employment market for freelancers. It provides a sign-on, a way for members to display a profile along with skills and work experience, a payment network and a method to put people seeking workers with people seeking to do work.

Under the hood, the system uses a blockchain ledger to provide a tamper-proof and historically verifiable record for tracking all the transactions triggered by the activities described above.

When a person makes a profile and adds skills and experience, that event is recorded on the blockchain and becomes publicly viewable by all. Whenever an employer contracts a freelancer, that also gets recorded, as would each step of that relationship, forming a unique, trustworthy and searchable record of past jobs on the platform.

All of those transactions form a trackable record of transactions connected to all participants that third parties can verify without necessarily revealing any private information about the participants beyond what is needed to show the transaction happened. Payments from employers to freelancers can also be executed using the blockchain system, which uses its own internal automated protocols to provide contracts for exchanging money and protecting the privacy of the participants.

Blockchain technology has become a significant market in the past few years, global revenue during 2016 was estimated at $604.5 million in a report from Grand View Research Inc. The market is expected to continue to expand due to how blockchain can help reduce settlement times for financial transactions, increase privacy between participants and reduce errors.

In the case of Humans.net, the blockchain would automate the market and allow participants to interconnect without the need for costly middlemen, thus also reducing costs.

Blockchain systems have been explored across numerous industries including finance and banking such as Vulcan from PriceWaterhouseCoopers and Chain Inc.’s Nasdaq stock exchange securities transaction. Big companies such as IBM Corp. have put the blockchain to use verifying supply chains for supermarket food safety and to lower costs on global shipments. Blockchain technology also provides enough security to be used for tracking insurance contracts and settlements, such as used by the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group, or for securing and sharing health care records as implemented by Health Wizz Inc.

Humans.net recently completed a successful initial trial run of its platform across the United States, during which the service reached more than 200,000 members. The company was founded in 2015 but only emerged from stealth as a startup in early 2017. According to a press release, the company has also raised $10 million in seed funding in that time.

The success of this trial of the blockchain-based network will be used to add further enhancements to the platform and expand its reach globally.

Signups are currently available publicly on the Humans.net website and members can get the service on the web or on mobile — both at the Apple App Store for iOS and Google Play for Android.

Image: Humans Net