This is the first article in the Bitpost Internals series, where...
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Delivery company reinvented
Bitpost is a decentralized protocol that connects independent couriers, parcel lockers, sorting facilities and customers to create a global parcel delivery network. Open to everyone. Beyond anyone's control. Powered by blockchain.
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The Bitpost Network
Hub
Bitpost Hubs form the network’s backbone. The hub is responsible for sorting parcels and handing them over to the appropriate couriers. Any Bitpost courier can bring a parcel from the sender to the nearest hub. Then other couriers take it and transport to the next hubs, up to the closest hub to the recipient. Anyone can open their own hub in their neighborhood as long as they own some building. Handle Bitpost parcels at your home or expand your business to operate a Bitpost Hub and and earn money on every shipment.
Courier
Anyone can become a Bitpost courier and earn money for each carried parcel. Install the app, find transport orders on the map of your neighborhood and hit the road. Are you going on a trip to a distant city? Take a few parcels along the way, get paid by Bitpost and minimize fuel costs. Do you ride your bike around town? Take and deliver few small envelopes and get a profit from your hobby.
Parcel Locker
Bitpost has also support for parcel lockers – in a completely open way. Anyone can purchase or even build their own device equipped with many lockable compartments that are opened by a signal from a computer. After installing our open source software on it, it will become a full-fledged Bitpost Locker, available for all couriers and customers. The device provides constant passive income to its owner.
Warehouse
In the future Bitpost will redefine fulfillment services for e-commerce. Bitpost Decentralized Logistics will distribute your product in hundreds of tiny warehouses
that anyone can open in the area where your customers are located. And when you sell the product, your customer will receive it from the nearest one. Not in days – in minutes.
Tokens
BPX
The official and sole Bitpost currency used for:
- paying shipping fees
- rewarding hubs, couriers, lockers and BPG holders
- security deposits
- compensation for lost or damaged shipments
BPX as the native coin of BPX Chain is a general purpose cryptocurrency and can be used in applications other than Bitpost. BPX is already circulating and tradable. When the Bitpost network goes live, you will be able to use already possessed BPX coins for all the purposes listed above.
BPG
The Bitpost governance token. BPG token allows its holders to:
- participate in votes on changes to the Bitpost protocol
- propose changes to the Bitpost protocol
- share in the profits generated by the project
BPG will be an ERC-20 token running on the BPX Chain. The emission and public offering will be scheduled after launching the minimum viable product.
Bitpost Concepts
Always on the move
Traditional delivery companies have their transports between sorting facilities usally once a day. Regardless of the distance between the sender and the recipient, a parcel shipped today will be delivered at least tomorrow.
The Bitpost works very differently. An unlimited number of independent couriers can transport parcels between neighboring hubs even every few minutes, if there are enough parcels to make it profitable. In principle, parcel delivery time will continue to shorten as Bitpost network develops and gains popularity. Ultimately, the delivery time should be only as long as it takes to physically cover the route between the sender and the recipient, without any waiting time for the shipment to be transported.
Bitpost never sleeps
Traditional delivery companies do not work on Sundays, public holidays and in the middle of the night.
Bitpost is not a company, it does not employ any employees, and it does not know the term “out of business”. At night, on Sundays and holidays, the number of active couriers should be much smaller, which means that the rewards for a single courier should be much higher than normal. Such a mechanism naturally encourages to be active all the time.
Do you know that feeling when you’ve ordered your dream product and you can’t wait for it? Would you rather have the courier deliver it to you in the middle of the night so you don’t have to wait until the next day? No problem with Bitpost.
Zero-knowledge security
Traditional delivery companies know the full personal data of their employees, sign contracts with them and can take legal actions against them.
Bitpost network members are completely anonymous and the only thing known about them are their crypto wallet addresses. How can we deal with people with bad intentions? For example, someone might become Bitpost courier only to pick up some parcels and disappear with them forever.
When sending a Bitpost parcel you can set the amount of the required security deposit. Then each party involved in the delivery of this parcel must lock an equivalent amount in the Bitpost smart contract before the shipment is entrusted to them. In case of theft, loss or damage of parcel, the locked amount will be paid back to the sender. Such a mechanism makes any abuses unprofitable, and the Bitpost network safe.
An honest courier, hub, etc. receives a refund of the deposit immediately when the package is handed over to the next party. A parcel with a too high deposit amount may be ignored by couriers so its delivery may be delayed. Therefore, setting the appropriate deposit amount will be governed by free market mechanisms.
Perfect tracking or no traces?
Bitpost has reinvented the parcel tracking system.
Instead of a table with a few general statuses, you get a map showing exactly where your shipment is, with an accuracy of a few meters. You get speed at which it’s moving, traveled distance, route forecast and much more. This is all brought to you thanks to the aggregation of data from mobile applications of all couriers and other parties involved in your parcel transportation.
On the other hand, with one click you can send a parcel in such a way that no one on the world knows the address of the sender and recipient at the same time, and figuring it out is technically impossible. The sender does not know who the recipient is, the recipient does not know who the sender is, and each member of the Bitpost network along the way knows only from which other member they received it and to whom they should hand it over.
Invisible hand of the market
Bitpost services do not have fixed prices. You can pay as much as you want.
However, how quickly your parcel will reach the recipient depends on how much you offer for shipping. A parcel with a higher fee will be attractive for couriers and will certainly reach the recipient quickly. On the other hand, a parcel sent with a minimal, almost zero cost will wait longer, but sometime the courier should pick it up “by the way” anyway.
When your shipment gets stuck somewhere in the network due to a too low fee, you can make an additional payment at any stage of transport. Do you see an analogy to the fee of crypto transaction?
Additionally, small, lightweight envelope shipments can be delivered by couriers on bicycles and electric scooters, so they can arrive just as quickly as large packages, with significantly lower shipping costs.
Ecosystem
Bitmarket is our official marketplace platform where you can shop for anything with crypto, with delivery by Bitpost.
BPX Chain is an EVM-compatible blockchain based on an innovative consensus algorithm. It provides a runtime environment for all Bitpost smart contracts. Its native token (BPX) is the sole currency of Bitpost network.
Synapse is a decentralized peer-to-peer network relaying, storing and delivering off-chain messages of arbitrary data. Used by Bitpost as a real-time communication layer.
Roadmap
January 2022
The idea of Bitpost was born. Start of work on the project.
May 2023
Launch of the BPX Chain mainnet in its current, final version.
April 2024
Launch of the Synapse network.
August 2024
Deployment of Bitpost smart contracts.
December 2024
Launch of the Bitpost dApp. Minimum viable product.
February 2025
Release of the software for parcel lockers.
December 2025
Launch of the Bitmarket official marketplace platform.
April 2026
Launch of the Bitpost decentralized logistics services.