One of the first lessons most freelancers learn when they first strike out on their own is about counterparty risk. In essence, it’s the ever-present threat of not getting paid for your work. This isn’t the old canard about ‘being paid in exposure,’ although that is annoying and common. Instead, it’s literally that after you submit your work through whatever online medium you’re using, you won’t see any cash rebound back to you.
Yes. It’s happened to me. Back in 2017, I put in a twelve hour workday on a series of projects for which I was anticipating a few hundred dollars. The third party site (rhymes with Spreelancer.ca) that was supposed to act as an intermediary registered the money in escrow, ready to be released upon mutual acceptance. Then after I submitted the work I got an error message indicating that something went wrong on “their end” and I should take it up with the other party. Meanwhile, they ran off with the work, which I ostensibly did for free.
Yes, I lodged a complaint. No they didn’t do anything about it. I could’ve lawyered up and gone after my money, but it wouldn’t be economically feasible. Why pay a lawyer $300 an hour to chase after a bill for $250? So I ate the loss and learned my lesson about online freelancing.
Needless to say, that was the first and last time I ever worked for that site. Whenever you do any kind of business on the internet, that’s the risk you run. It’s also one of the problems that proper implementation of a blockchain could resolve.
Let’s consider Global Cannabis Applications (APP.C) and their recently signed letter of intent to partner with Israel-based integrated solutions provider, Cannabis Mercantile Trading Exchange (CMTREX). The problem they’re aiming to tackle is authentication, and best trading practices for the global cannabis and hemp markets by the implementation of the Citizen Green blockchain.
“CMTREX’s integration into the Citizen Green blockchain adds huge value to GCAC as a cannabis data company. This partnership supercharges our ability to gather a vast array of data we will utilize, and commercialize, through AI outputs,” said Brad Moore, GCAC’s CEO.
Citizen Green
The Citizen Green platform is a medical cannabis data solution that integrates mobile applications, artificial intelligence, regtech, smart databases, blockchain and digital reward tokens, normally to help qualify candidates for clinical studies. In this case, the blockchain layer will be used to augment the CMTREX trading platform to eliminate the necessity of trust between trading partners, while providing validation of the products being traded through the platform.
If this were my experience with spreelancer.ca, then we would have entered into a smart contract by which their money would be held in an escrow account (rather than a third party service) verified on the blockchain, and released to me when the conditions of the contract were met. For Citizen Green, the timestamped blockchain could be used not just to ensure counterparty authentication but cannabis quality. There would be no nonsense from dispensary workers recycling old weed by stripping off the date it was packaged and replacing it with a new date when the cannabis entry point has been logged on the blockchain.
“This joint offering will provide a crypto-based financing mechanism for expanding CMTREX listed companies and an integrated market platform where those same investors can purchase cannabis products & solutions, such as the Inteligenta watch, using a dedicated Citizen Green digital coin. Not only there will be revenues from user fees and transactional commissions but a quicker path to our goals of capturing consumer data,” said Moore.
The parties have agreed to act in goodwill, and due to the complex nature of the planned cooperation, also agreed to provide a clear timeline for the planned technology integration.
—Joseph Morton