Hello,

I am a former shopper and I am grateful for all of the information that I was able to read on this site, even though I never posted. I stopped mystery shopping last year when I decided to trade cryptocurrency. (My professional background is in traditional investment management.)

For those not familiar with cryptocurrency, you may have heard of Bitcoin. Surprisingly, there are over 1000 "alt coins/tokens" that trade on exchanges. If you are familiar with Bitcoin, you have also likely heard of Ethereum. Ethereum uses technology similar to Bitcoin (blockchain,) but instead of being a transfer of the asset itself, the Ethereum blockchain allows apps, called dApps (decentralized apps), to be built on the platform. Companies that build on the Ethereum blockchain create their own crypto tokens.

One of the exchanges that I trade on just listed a new token called STORM. I decided to do some research and found the website, [stormtoken.com] . This is from the website, "Storm Market creates more earning opportunities for people all around the world by utilizing technology. We make it easier for members to find new ways to earn, engage, and advance with our gamified micro-task platform for STORM tokens."

It looks like they will be offering opportunities through their dApp similar to Gigwalk, Field Agent, etc. The company is going to be offer opportunities through Storm Play that has an existing market of over 250,000 players. The details are in the whitepaper:
[s3.amazonaws.com]

Anyway, I thought that I would share with the community. I want to mention that I am no way affiliated with STORM. I have yet to decide about investing in the tokens. Blockchain technology is the future. This could be very important for mystery shopping in the future because it is fast, highly secure, immutable (the ledger can't be changed,) and cost saving.

Watching Last Week Tonite about cryptocurrency. Illuminati confirmed?

What? Have you done any research? Do you know what blockchain technology is?

I'm pretty sure most people know what blockchain technology is. It's common knowledge by now.

TL/DR: Move along. Nothing to see here. This'll be gone soon.

I have completed thousands of shops. I qualified for a mortgage with just my shopping income. I thought that the information was a step in an interesting direction for the future of micro-tasks, and potentially mystery shopping. Just as people used to type reports and mail them in before the Internet, moving to tasking and mystery shopping to the blockchain will undoubtedly happen. The information I posted about is the first company to do so. I immediately thought that people who mystery shop, whether familiar with the technology or not, would be interested in knowing about it.
*Edited for grammar.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/12/2018 07:02PM by AggieAzalea.

I stand by my derision.

I actually took a lot of time to write that post with the idea that it would be interesting to people in this forum. I have not posted before because when I had questions, I was able to find the answer without asking. I did not have anything new regarding mystery shopping to contribute that hadn't already been said. I posted because I genuinely thought that people here would be interested in knowing about it.

How is this not a positive contribution to the community? What rule or rules have I broken?

So someone is setting up an app based mystery shopping service that pays in fake money? Doesn't interest me.

The technology of the blockchain for reporting is quite interesting. Details can't changed after the fact. This gives the company that is hiring micro-taskers and potentially shoppers assurance that the shop times and information is accurate.

The company I posted about is the first to use blockchain technology for something like this. Using a blockchain does not require that people be paid in cryptocurrency. This particular company is paying that way because it is tapping the gaming community first, and many of them will use the tokens received to play the games offered on the platform.

Details can't be changed by who after what fact?

Details of a smart contract cannot be changed. Even if it is unlikely, any app or program using a centralized server can have the information changed. Obviously, I realize that editors are involved with mystery shopping in the traditional sense. The original information on the smart contract cannot be changed, of course an edit can accompany the original information.

Ok. So, why? At what point in the history of mystery shopping have reports been changed by anyone between the shopper and the client where the changes weren't justified for one reason or another?
You're assuming that something nefarious is going on between the person writing the report and the end client. The only person between those two people are the editors employed by the MSC and those editors are totally within their rights to make edits. So why is this necessary?

Because nerdy gamers will do work for game credits this way.

I am not assuming anything. I just posted information about the first company using the blockchain for micro-tasking that could include mystery shopping in the future. I thought it was interesting. I am not an expert and I am not advocating for it. There are many reasons that any company in any industry might want information that was confirmed through decentralization rather than a centralized server. That would be up to the company itself to decide.

I made enough in cryptocurrency to pay off my house in only six months. Of course I traded it to USD before sending it to my bank, and I will pay taxes on the profits, but cryptocurrency can easily be traded to cash.

*This is a response to cryptocurrency only being used by "nerdy gamers". I guess if a mystery shopping company were to pay in cryptocurrency in the future, it would be up to the shopper whether they wanted to accept it or not.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/12/2018 08:28PM by AggieAzalea.

You have to see how, as someone who has never posted before, starting with something like this looks more like spam than an attempt at being helpful. I'm still not convinced that it's not spam. There is no reason for something like this to be utilized in this industry.
It's great that you were successful in dumping bitcoin before it plummeted, but that has little to do with what we're talking about here.

What would I be spamming?

Because that's what people do. They jump on here, promote some lame worthless crap, and bolt. The difference is that you haven't bolted.

Most of my crypto holdings were not Bitcoin. As I mentioned in my original post, there are over 1000 alt coins/tokens that are traded on exchanges. I have years on investment and trading experience, so I don't suggest that anyone try it without doing their own research, etc., but my point in the original post was that the blockchain is being used for the first time in this industry. Because I trade daily, I came across the information before most people mystery shopping probably would. I was excited about the cross application of crypto and micro-tasking/shopping, and came to the board that is best known for mystery shopping to tell people about it.

*Edit spelling...twice

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/12/2018 08:37PM by AggieAzalea.

I tried very hard to post in words that made it clear that I was not promoting it, and that it was something interesting and new in the industry. If I had been promoting it, I would get nothing from it because you have to go to an exchange to buy the token as an investor, and you would have to earn it through the app otherwise.

I have to sign off for now. I appreciate that my post was not removed. I was not aware that the information I posted could be considered spam. I truly posted out of intrigue about the idea.

I appreciate your explanations. It's tough coming in here as a new person. We get boatloads of trolls and spam and it's hard to keep them at bay.
The issue is that the technology is of little to no use to this industry. Sure there are plenty of uses for blockchain, this just isn't one of them.

I actually posted it because apparently one company does think that there are use cases for blockchain technology in this space.

Thank you for your reply. I wish the best to all on this site. I learned a lot here starting in 2013 as a lurker.

Aggie, I wanted to thank you for posting although I think your post would be better in the chat section. Although I have heard of block chain and it was carefully explained to me by my techy son who has also invested in a non Bitcoin company I really do not understand at all how any of this works. And despite what others may say I do not think most people know what block chain is. In fact if you walked down the street and asked people in my city, which is huge, I would bet most of them would look at you blankly. So I really do not think the general public is ready yet for this concept or would be able to fathom how it would be of help in our industry or many others. Just this morning I read that some, and very few, houses have been sold for bitcoin. In most of the cases the sellers decided to advertise that the house could be bought in "bitcoin" because they were not getting any offers in dollars. That is the extent of my knowledge. In my sons case, he is sure it will prevail and his investment tripled in value in a few weeks and now is back to double in value. Anyone who invested a month or so ago lost a lot of money. Most of us are not ready for that. Fortunately the house sellers all converted to dollars immediately or they would be out a bundle.

I got an email for a shop to test the app pay Aggie is talking about. I think. I appreciate the explanation and envy Aggie for understanding it. The whole cryptocoin thing is beyond me, though.

.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/13/2018 10:46AM by bocasman.

I do think many people have heard of blockchain and cryptocurrency, but that is not the same thing as understanding it. As a modest investor (TD Ameritrade account), of course I have heard of it, but it's not something I understand well enough to invest in. I believe the OP was just trying to enlighten us. I think the majority of current shoppers are in an age-range where being paid in this manner is not something they would feel safe in doing. It may be the wave of the future as more millenials begin mystery shopping. I do appreciate the information because although I do not personally want to be paid in this manner, I find it interesting. Thanks for sharing the info.

Thanks so much for your thoughtful response.

Thanks for the responses. We can let this thread die. I am not here to defend blockchain technology in mystery shopping. I made the post because it is already here on a limited basis and likely to expand.

As they (are supposed to) say in a certain shop, "be well" all.