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In 2017, people have invested more than $4 billion in Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs), surpassing traditional venture capital investments.

What’s an ICO? It is a way to raise funds bypassing the rigorous procedures required by banks and venture capitalists. During an ICO campaign, early backers buy a share of a new cryptocurrency or crypto-token in exchange for established cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin or Ethereum.

ICO campaigns have made access to financing widely available, regardless of the country one lives in or the project one is building.

In the final article of the year 2017, we would like to talk about ICOs in the dating and matchmaking industry.

Matchmaking

A vast majority of single people choose matchmaking services over dating apps. For instance, the number of dates organized by professional agencies in Singapore rises by at least 20% every year.

This is happening due to disappointment that can be caused by dating services where people create their own profiles and may be dishonest in doing so. Besides, some people do not want to draw unwanted attention by putting themselves online. It means that matchmaking services become relevant again.

Let’s take a look at Matchpool, a matchmaking platform powered by cryptocurrency.

Apart from the traditional advantages of cryptocurrency such as privacy and security, with modern matchmaking, a person is not left to their own devices. They receive guidance from professionals — a skilled matchmaker helps them find the right person.

This is how Matchpool works:

The protocol of the platform combines elements of traditional matchmaking with the transparency of smart contracts. Users set their own rules for pools they create. They are able to choose a business model and ask for an entrance or subscription fees. All payments will be handled by an Ethereum based smart contract platform through the specially created Guppies (GUP) tokens. This internal cryptocurrency works as a stimulus for matchmakers to make more matches and earn real money.

Each new user of the Matchpool provides a number of factors, which is used for offering them preferable custom pools. Authors of the platform compare it with eBay, where anyone is able to open their own store. Anybody can become a matchmaker now.

Casual dating

sexService is a casual dating service that also uses blockchain for increased safety and convenience. This platform enables sexually active people to earn money with dating or selling visual content. One of the parties receives tokens at the start of the conversation and commits the transaction before providing the services — there is no need for intermediaries any more.

Thanks to the blockchain technology, the platform is secured and encrypted — even the developers do not have the access to private data of users. In order to use the service, a person buys special tokens (SSIO) with Bitcoin or Ethereum. Right after the registration, one can start looking for dates and making offers. The history of blockchain transactions, which can’t be deleted, establishes the person’s reputation, making them a more preferable and reliable user.

DateCoin, dubbed the “hottest ICO ever“, is based on an existing dating service, leader of ‘pragmatic dating’. It combines artificial intelligence and a profitable business model to let participants find best dates. What’s interesting about DateCoin is that it uses face recognition to find people who look similar to one’s ‘type’, and it does a semantic and morphological analysis of dialogues to determine the best matches.

Dating and machine learning

Luna is a blockchain dating platform that uses machine learning algorithms for advanced sorting. It has its own tokens and does not require any subscription.

A user is able to set the desired quantity of conversations each day which works as a payment system because messages with the most Stars get prioritized. The more Stars a message has — the more likely it will be read. The platform targets attractive people who don’t want to waste their time on low-effort suitors.

Viola.AI is set to be the first dating and relationship service that evolves with the users – “creating a global and borderless full loop solution from dating, courtship, relationship to marriage”. Its goal is to fight off dating scams, dating fatigue, and other dating and relationship challenges of today.

Viola is going to employ personalised machine learning and natural language empathy to provide highly personalized and discreet relationship advice. A typical interaction might involve Viola reminding a person about their anniversary, helping them buy a present and book a table at a restaurant.

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Have you made an investment in a blockchain project yet? What are your thoughts on where it’s all going? What are your predictions for the year 2018? Let us know in the comments!

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