Winding Tree Mission

Many people are confused by the novelty of the Winding Tree offering and in this short article I would like to clarify what we do, why and how.

Goal: Fostering Innovation in the Travel Industry

Winding Tree is more like a movement than a company. Legally, Winding Tree is a non-profit organization that pursues one goal: to foster innovation in the travel industry. Along with Travel Tech Con, Winding Tree goal is not to make a profit, but rather to enable innovation in travel through various collaborative projects. We are convinced that without open data innovation in the travel industry won’t be possible, therefore the first project that the foundation created is an open-source blockchain-based marketplace for travel inventory (hotel rooms, airline seats, etc.). This is just the first step and in the next few months we will be announcing more projects that the foundation will be backing.

Winding Tree Fundraiser or Token Generation Event (TGE)

Winding Tree Foundation will receive its funding through the sale of the Lif token. The structure of the TGE is thoroughly described in our white paper.

Winding Tree Foundation Business Models

Despite that it’s a non-profit, Winding Tree has to fund its efforts and we plan on getting to sustainability (after the TGE) by employing a few open-source business models:

• consulting travel companies on technology in general and blockchain and Winding Tree platform in particular;
• building proprietary extensions for travel companies.

Obviously, all the proceeds from the efforts outlined above will be reinvested into the foundation.

Why Should You Back Us?

Quite a few people, especially those that aren’t too familiar with the new developments in the blockchain space, are confused about the feasibility of backing our project. After all, they say, you are a non-profit! It’s all too weird for them, yet our model is not new, nor it’s complicated. The popular Ethereum blockchain platform, for example, was also created by a non-profit foundation. And, as you know, ETH token went up in price 750x in the past two years. How? Very simple: if our platform proves to work well, then there will be more demand for the LIF token and it will drive its price up. Therefore the team behind the platform (that holds 20% of all tokens) is motivated to do one and only one thing: trying to make the marketplace an attractive place for buyers and sellers through delivering great software, APIs, standards, etc.

Tragedy of Commons and DAO

We believe that the tragedy of commons can be tackled (along with all sorts of inequalities). In regard to the travel industry, we strive to do it by distributing the ownership and control of the platform, that’s why we’re building a DAO (“Distributed Autonomous Organization”), where all participants of the marketplace — not just hotels, airlines and travel agencies, but travelers as well! — will have a say.

Please leave your feedback in comments and we’ll try and answer your questions and update this text with the best of them.