LockTrip FAQ
Please press ctrl-F to search, or click on the questions below.
1. The Marketplace / General Questions
Why are the prices displayed in LOC and not local currencies?
Won’t rooms become more expensive if the value of LOC goes up? Or vice-versa?
What if large booking sites such as Booking.com launch their own blockchain platform?
How is LockTrip any different to other blockchain travel companies?
How many bookings were made last month?
Where can I find your latest roadmap?
2. The LOC Token and Economy (Tokenomics)
How does LockTrip make money if there’s no commissions?
What are the use cases of LOC?
What is the smart contract address for bookings?
3. The LockTrip Blockchain
When will mainnet be launched?
Is there a minimum staking amount?
How and when can I swap my LOC tokens for the new LOC coins?
What wallet can I use for the new LOC coin?
Why is LockTrip making their own blockchain?
Can I stake using a Raspberry Pi?
4. Affiliate Program
How do I become an affiliate, and what are the rewards?
Where does the 3% reward come from?
Will there be an affiliate program for accommodation providers too?
1. The Marketplace / General Questions
I compared LockTrip’s prices with another website and LockTrip’s are more expensive. You claimed your prices were 20% cheaper?
LockTrip claims to provide prices on average 20% cheaper than competitors. This means that sometimes our marketplace prices will be higher. You can find some analysis and evidence of LockTrip’s cheaper prices here and here.
Why are the prices displayed in LOC and not local currencies?
This is a result of rate parity agreements; legally binding clauses that ensure hotel owners cannot offer cheaper prices than those shown by OTAs. LockTrip is forbidden from showing its prices in public because they are too cheap. Please register and login to view prices in fiat currencies.
Won’t rooms become more expensive if the value of LOC goes up? Or vice-versa?
No. Prices in the marketplace are fixed to the fiat price, not the LOC price. The LOC values are constantly updated to reflect this. Please register and login to view prices in fiat currencies. Payments on the marketplace are settled immediately. Once you make payment via LOC, all volatility risk is transferred to the accommodation provider and/or LockTrip. Paying via credit card does not require users to hold any LOC, therefore they are never exposed to volatility risk.
Of course if you are holding LOC and its value increases against fiat, you will have more money to spend on your accommodation!
What if large booking sites such as Booking.com launch their own blockchain platform?
It is impossible for such OTAs to adopt the LockTrip business model. Cutting commissions to zero would destroy the majority of their income, which is required to pay their massive workforces and shareholder dividends etc. See this post from LockTrip’s CEO for more information.
How is LockTrip any different to other blockchain travel companies?
As opposed to other blockchain-related travel companies, LockTrip is building an entire decentralised infrastructure comprised of a marketplace, distributed database of accommodation (the LOC Ledger), and its own business-oriented blockchain that will enable a true shared economy for LOC holders.
Other companies have chosen to simply develop marketplaces that only buy and resell existing accommodation inventories (without connecting hosts directly with customers), or to just provide the option to pay in cryptocurrencies (without fully removing commissions, etc.).
The LOC Ledger will allow accommodation providers to list their properties and manage their customers for free. It will connect providers directly to their customers, while protecting all parties involved (hosts, guests and marketplace managers) by handling payments and disputes, and by creating a public, immutable record of transactions and fees.
In addition, the LOC Ledger will be freely accessible for anyone to connect to and build their own marketplace or travel business on top of. Marketplaces utilising the LOC Ledger will act as interfaces, with the ability to offer the complete accommodation inventory in real time, without the need to purchase it from a middleman. As this inventory grows, it will become more and more valuable to travel companies and entrepreneurs around the world, especially due to it being free and not controlled by any single entity.
The LockTrip blockchain is a tailor-made solution being developed in house in order to make the complex environment described above possible. The LockTrip blockchain will also make the LockTrip economy a true shared economy, by rewarding LOC holders who help maintain the network with block rewards and a portion of the network transaction fees (see LockTrip Blockchain Manifest for more info).
How many bookings were made last month?
LockTrip currently releases quarterly booking reports. You can find them here. A community member has also created this website for tracking booking numbers. You can check the booking activity for yourself by looking at the bookings smart contract.
Where can I find your latest roadmap?
LockTrip no longer uses a roadmap format. Now that the marketplace is nearing its final form, we have moved to focus on marketing. Our marketing strategy can be found here.
2. The LOC Token and Economy
How will LockTrip deal with the price movement of LOC that is locked in the smart contract between booking and checkout?
With the introduction of the LOC Economy 2.0, only 5% is locked up in the bookings smart contract. The lock up period has been extended to six months. Decreasing the lockup amount and extending the time greatly reduces the impact of volatility, almost removing it from the equation.
How does LockTrip make money if there’s no commissions?
In two ways:
- Through appreciation in value of the LOC token. The team holds half of the supply of tokens for future expenditure, development, etc.
- LockTrip works on the freemium business model; basic functionality is provided for free, with the option of paying a little extra for premium features such as credit card payment.
What are the use cases of LOC?
- Paying for accommodation, flight tickets and other yet to be announced services on the LockTrip Marketplace. All accommodation payments made on the marketplace by credit card, Bitcoin or any other currency are used to automatically purchase LOC from an exchange. Those LOC are then escrowed in a smart contract for six months, reducing the circulating supply for this time period.
- Other travel marketplaces can connect to the LockTrip DApp and take advantage of our inventory for free. All bookings originating from those marketplaces will also be paid for with LOC, which will also be locked up in the smart contract.
- Premium features such as credit card payment and volatility protection are paid for with LOC.
- In late 2020, the LockTrip Blockchain will be launched. LOC tokens will be converted to LOC coins and become the native coin of the blockchain, which will be used as gas by all the projects building on the blockchain (Evedo will be the first project to migrate to the LT Chain).
- As the LockTrip blockchain will be proof of stake, you will be able to stake LOC and receive a portion of the transaction fees. This will also decrease the circulating supply.
- LOC will be used for voting on the blockchain (which will burn them), for decisions such as transaction fees.
- LOC will be burnt at protocol level for each transaction being made on our PoS blockchain (the burning rate will be voted on).
- Many more use cases are envisioned.
Where can I buy LOC?
- KuCoin
- Bancor (recommended due to good liquidity)
- HitBTC
How do I store my LOC tokens?
The LOC token is an ERC20 token and can thus be stored in any wallet compatible with that standard. The Ledger Nano S or Trezor is recommended. Once the LockTrip blockchain reaches mainnet, you will need to exchange your LOC tokens for LOC coins and store them in the LockTrip wallet.
What is the smart contract address for bookings?
https://etherscan.io/address/0x2ab4dc0c85d909296dd6631fdcb73f3680f9da09
3. The LockTrip Blockchain
When will mainnet be launched?
Late 2020.
How do I stake?
Staking will be possible after mainnet is launched. Simply keep your LockTrip wallet online and staking rewards will be paid to you automatically. For now, you can try staking using the testnet.
Is there a minimum staking amount?
No.
How and when can I swap my LOC tokens for the new LOC coins?
The swap (1:1) will take place around the same time as mainnet launch. The swap will be done via a smart contract provided by the team. There will be plenty of notice and time for you to exchange your tokens.
What wallet can I use for the new LOC coin?
The LockTrip wallet. Support for the Ledger Nano S and other hardware wallets is planned.
What does LRC mean?
LRC20 is the token standard for the LockTrip blockchain, analogous to ERC20 on the Ethereum blockchain. The new LOC coin is not an LRC20 token. It is the native coin of the blockchain. If other projects want to build on top of the LockTrip blockchain, they will become LRC20 tokens.
What are the staking rewards?
Please refer to this article to calculate your staking rewards / ROI.
Why is LockTrip making their own blockchain?
LockTrip identified that most blockchains are not geared toward real-world business application and therefore presented problems for building the truly business-capable decentralised application that the project requires. Making their own blockchain will allow LockTrip to fully customize their consensus model, transactional economy and more, in order to create a real shared economy, with predictable transaction costs, that will benefit LOC holders and also the other projects that choose to utilise the LockTrip blockchain. For more information please read the LockTrip Blockchain Manifest and the LockTrip Blockchain Series.
Can I stake using a Raspberry Pi?
Yes. There’s a guide here.
4. Affiliate Program
How do I become an affiliate, and what are the rewards?
You become an affiliate by introducing people to the website. When somebody registers using your affiliate link (found on the Affiliate page within your marketplace account), you will then receive 3% of all their future booking payments, for ever. Then, if they also refer people, you will receive 0.1% from each of those second level referral bookings (up to a maximum of 10 per first level referral). Please note that referral bookings must be made via credit card for you to receive the reward. If instead a user signs up directly to the platform, without a referral, the 3% reward will be paid to the LockTrip company. Please see this post for more info.
Where does the 3% reward come from?
It is funded via the credit card payment fee. This is why rewards are only received when referrals pay via credit card.
Will there be an affiliate program for accommodation providers too?
Yes, although it will likely be structured differently.
