BlockTalks x DRIFE AMA Transcript!

Hello! BlockTalkers & Blockchain Enthusiastic!

We recently hosted an AMA with DRIFE, on June 11th at 2 PM UTC. Many of you might have participated or many of not. But we make sure no one missed out from the knowledge shared by Firdosh Sheikh, CEO & Co-Founder of DRIFE. So here we are up with the AMA transcript, for those who missed the live session, this blog post will be a saver & feeder of knowledge for them.

Introduction Questions Asked By Team BlockTalks!

Q1. Could you please introduce DRIFE to our community in layman’s term?

Ans — The transportation and logistics industries have evolved, and with them has the face of privatized public transport. Beginning way back when rides were ferried across horse carriages, to the first generation of formalized Government-regulated metered taxis, and then the advent of Ride-hailing platforms mediated by the second generation Transport Network companies. We claim that this is not the pinnacle of evolution yet, as we present before you Drife - Taxi 3.0.

Drife is a blockchain-based mobility platform that seeks to decentralize the Ride-Hailing ecosystem. Consumers’ privacy is reinforced and drivers’ rights' and remuneration levels are transparent and fairly distributed. Drivers retain their rights to unionize while the system allows local regulations and compliance to be upheld.

Drife aspires to disrupt the existing business model dominated by Uber & Lyft with a fairer, more efficient, and transparent ride-hailing economy and transportation marketplace, built on the Blockchain.

✔️Ride-Sharing App that removes centralization by allowing ALL cars to become ride-sharing vehicles

✔️DRIFE allows Drivers the ability to keep 100% of their fare.

Q2. What are the advantages of DRIFE to other alternatives in the Blockchain field?

Ans — Our USP are as follow:
No Commission

Shifting the focus from the existing commission-based platforms to a new subscription-based economic model.

Market-dictated Pricing

Price flexibility through Drife’s patented auction-based dynamic pricing model and removal of the middleman’s profit leads to a lower price for riders and higher income for drivers. This also replaces platform controlled “surge” prices.

Transparency &
Freedom to choose

Drivers will have freedom of choice in subscription plans, the rides to accept and the fare they quote.
Riders have the freedom to choose the driver based on driver rating, fare price, time for pickup driver.

Incentivized participation

Both the drivers and riders can earn incentives in the platform’s native DRF tokens for their active participation within the platform through ride activities, referral bonuses and bounties.

Q3. What are the major milestones DRIFE achieved so far & what are in the future pipeline?

Ans — As of now when I am talking to you all, I am not just talking about a concept, We have already built an app both for drivers and riders, We have also done closed group of testing with drivers and riders.

We also have a network of 1000+ drivers in Bangalore, India alone.

We started working for the Bangalore launch in India as we have a very good network of driver and rider and the App was supposed to launch on the 20th of April last month are we had everything in place from testing the application internally.

But because of the second wave of Covid and city undergoing lockdown we have to stop everything in the first week of April as we could see things getting worse from there and we don't want to start with something and then we have to stop in between because things are getting worse and again its something that's not under our control.

Now we are waiting for things to get better and normal in Bangalore so we can resume with application launch in Bangalore India.

We are also working on Drife Franchise in Brazil and Paris, So there is two very interesting partnership that we are working on one is in Brazil another is in Paris.

And two teams that we are working with have played a very important role in the launch of one of the biggest ride-hailing platform in the world.

Questions Asked on Twitter For DRIFE Team!

Q1. Drife's services definitely put small users as well as large companies in an extremely attractive position for growth, could you explain how your peer-to-peer network works, what are the payment methods, and who can use them?

Ans — Drife is a very seamless app similar to an Uber app, We have Fiat payment integration, Look we are aiming for mass adoption, that’s why we don’t want to hard push people to pay using crypto only.

It works like any other ride-hailing platform.

Q2. Regarding your decentralized taxi service, could anyone really become a driver of your platform? If so, what are your requirements? Will it only be to participate in stake of tokens?

Ans — Not everyone can become a driver, we follow local regulations, and have a rigorous onboarding process, where you have to go through background verification to be a Drife partner.

Q3. In your roadmap you talk about the pilot launch in Bengalore, India. According to the news the Covid situation in that country has grown, has this caused any limitation in its launch? How has this situation affected the development of your plans in that country?

Ans — Covid has impacted the mobility ecosystem the most, But for us, it was all positive developments, We were able to get connected with larger numbers .of drivers and understand their pain points and implement it, to make our drife a better place for both the driver and riders.

As per the roadmap we are still on track, it just we have to postpone the app launch, but that’s not under our control, but once we see situation is getting better, we will be able to launch the app in 10 days.

Q4. Being a DRIFE driver you earn 100% of the fare paid by the passenger, so how does Drive generate and receive income if the driver receives the full fare? Does the revenue for Drife come from passengers, drivers, or both?

Ans — Rather than charging the driver-partners commissions to cover the costs for operating the platform and for the services provided, Drife instead adopts a subscription model to provide them with access to the platform. These driver-partners pay recurring subscription fees to the franchisee controlling operations at their location. The Franchisee in turn shares a fraction of the generated revenue with the Foundation.

Q5. Unlike classical staking methods, what is the difference in the rate of return to be obtained by transferring DRF to Franchise candidates and how will we gain income from operating DRF here?

Ans — To get the franchise rights in a particular unit of operation, the franchisee needs to stake more than 10 Million DRF. The maximum staker wins the FNFT (Franchise NFT) and his stake gets locked.
Here’s the catch
To become eligible to get the franchise rights in a particular unit of operation, the franchisee contenders need to stake more than a minimum DRF threshold amount as specified by the Drife Foundation for that particular location. A franchisee contender wins operation rights in a location by staking the maximum amount of DRF tokens.

Once the franchise has won by staking the maximum number of DRF tokens, it will need to pay an upfront License/Integration Fee to the Drife Foundation to cover the fixed costs (including costs for infrastructure setup, development & operations). Therefore License fees will differ from one operation unit/NFT to another.

Staking Pool opened by Drife supporting Customisable Crowdsourcing of DRF needed to participate in the auctions by potential franchise contenders. Different franchise contenders can propose different shares of profits between themselves and the community stakers.

This whole model where you can earn profit sharing from operations will keep everyone motivated to hold and stake drf for the different upcoming franchise.

Questions Asked by our BlockTalks Community Members during live Session to DRIFE Team!!

Q1. Is your project a local project or a global project? Can anyone joint your services from anywhere in the world? Is there any restrictions of using your services?

Ans — It’s not a local project, We are working on launching Drife in India, Brazil and Paris this year, The launch across the globe will take place in phases.

Q2. Kindly Please give a brief explanation .How can We get real life drivers to use this kind of technology specially your platform? Does your App is more user friendly with the likes of Uber, Lyft, Or Grab?

Ans — Yes, Drife is a very seamless app like any other ride-hailing app, SO drivers don’t have to be bothered about blockchain at all.

Q3. What is the advantage of blockchain based auction mechanism for drivers and drivers to control their rides? What privileges does this mechanism give drivers?
What features do you offer drivers and riders for their self-interest and self-government? What are your platform commission rates?

Ans — Drife with its patented solution using smart contracts and blockchain technology enables real-time dynamic pricing through an auction-based mechanism involving fare quotation, counter-quotation with premiums and discount offerings to bridge the demand-supply gap in a decentralized ride-hailing economy.

By the use of this unique fare negotiation model, Drife provides a decentralized marketplace for drivers and riders to connect and transact, eliminating the reliance on a middleman to control the transaction and set prices. Drife allows each market participant to set the price that makes the most sense for them and negotiate where necessary. Therefore, unlike the existing centralised transport network companies that ostensibly claim to be marketplaces for rides, Drife strives with integrity towards building a genuine, fair and efficient marketplace of rides.

Q4. NFT is considered the next trend so HOT right now of the crypto industry after DeFi. Could Drife share your opinion about NFT? Where do Drife see the future evolution of NFT features and capabilities in the next few years?

Ans — Drife is bringing for the first time, a franchise model to the ride-hailing industry, enabled by NFT technology. This will usher a new paradigm of doing business in the ride-hailing industry in particular and the transportation industry at large.

With this unique model, Drife brings a lucrative business opportunity to run the operations of a highly efficient and transparent blockchain-powered taxi service anywhere in the world without worrying about the platform infrastructure.

It will also help the network scale very quickly and make the Drife brand reach places across the globe in no time.

Q5. What difficulties did you face when starting to develop your project? And what drives Drife to compete with so many other projects?

Ans — The biggest challenge is to build a ride-hailing platform in itself, and building a ride-hailing app in itself was a very exhaustive process, and then we wanted to use blockchain and added another level of difficulty to it.

But thanks to my CTO and tech team we were quite successful in building what we vision for.

Another problem was building it in a way that a driver and rider who will use the app and don’t know how blockchain or crypto works, will be able to use it seamlessly. And I guess that's where my outsider perspective helped us, I made sure that if won’t use Drife as a rider I won’t let that app release, That’s where we spent a lot of time building a seamless application.

Here are some important links of DRIFE👇

🌎 Website: www.drife.io
📱 Twitter: twitter.com/Drife_official
📢 Telegram: t.me/Drife_officialchat
📚 Blog: blog.drife.io