Cosmo Coin

Cosmo Coin (COSM) is the cryptocurrency of the Cosmochain platform which aims to link consumers and content creators with the cosmetics businesses. It is also used with the South Korean beauty review dApp Cosmee.

What is Cosmochain?

The Cosmochain platform and its “beauty ecosystem” are built to connect consumers who buy cosmetics and beauty products and create content based on them (such as reviews, videos, blogs) with the manufacturers and brands operating in this industry.

The coin has recently made headlines based on the reports that the Korean tech giant Samsung will offer support for the COSM as part of its Samsung Galaxy S10 wallet. No matter the outcome of these developments, the Cosmo team promises to continue to work on linking the beauty community with the social media and the cosmetics market in an attempt to provide benefits to all participants in the developing ecosystem.

What is Cosmochain Trying to Achieve?

The team behind the Cosmochain has identified several fields in which their solution should help both the consumers and the cosmetics industry:

• Cosmochain should help with the personalization of the cosmetics products based on the collection of individual and highly actionable data. While the cosmetics industry records steady growth, there is a problem with the gradual saturation and micro-segmentation of this market. The product lines and brands are becoming less differentiated, leading to the need for personalized products which cater to the needs of individual users. Yet, going for a single user and his/her preferences requires access to the personalized data insights, which is exactly what the Cosmochain pools as its main resource and offers to the industry. Ultimately, the information left by the customer-participants in the Cosmochain should inform the manufacturing process and marketing strategies of the cosmetics companies involved in this scheme.
• Cosmochain wants to put an end to the attempts to misinform and manipulate customers with less reliable studies and paid promotions. With the cosmetics industry’s marketing and sales gradually switching to online channels, the trend of paid promotions and the availability of unreliable data puts customers at more risk of being misinformed about beauty products. With its focus on pooling personalized data, the Cosmochain wants to reduce the impact of doctored studies funded and sponsored by some cosmetics companies. The same goes for the reduction in the centralization of profits made by select few “power” influencers who get to receive the lion’s share of rewards in the existing model. Instead of this, the data reaching consumers will be sourced straight from a broad range of consumers and influencers who will be entitled to rewards for their contributions.
• The reward-based and customer-centric nature of the Cosmochain is supposed to incentivize the users to create and provide more quality information. As the created content may feature personal information, the data will be protected from the security breaches by being moved to the blockchain. Rewards in the form of token-based payments are distributed to the customers by the companies on the Cosmochain as the compensation for the use of the information they provide. At the same time, the customers get the proportionate ownership of the content they create. A portion of the rewards provided by the companies will be used by the Cosmochain platform to improve its functionality.

Cosmochain’s Architecture

Cosmochain’s service architecture is designed to provide insight into customer data as part of the internal “social network” developed on it. Information which are generated and shared on it are managed by the blockchain which is also tasked with the protection of the data ownership rights and the facilitation of payments for the sharing of content and data. Based on these requirement, the platform is divided into three layers:

1. Platform Layer
2. Database Layer
3. Application Layer

What is COSMEE?

The platform layer lies at the heart of the Cosmochain architecture and is home to the data provided by customers and stored on the blockchain. Considering that these data are made available to the companies, the platform layer has been divided into two main components:

• Cosmochain Community which focuses on customers; and
• Cosmochain Solutions which is focused on companies.

Cosmochain Community is also known by the name of COSMEE. COSMEE functions as the platform in which its members i.e. customers can discuss cosmetics and beauty products and share their experiences. At the same time, this is the place in which they can both create and curate content which makes the users eligible for receiving rewards for their work. The system roughly applies the model similar to the one used by Steemit in order to achieve sufficient decentralization paired with the dedicated reward scheme. The content creation process involves the creation of topically relevant posts or videos, with an option to vote the posts up or down, comment on and repost the content offered by the community members.

What Is the Role of Tokens on the Cosmochain Platform?

While each uploaded piece of content is treated as a contribution to the Cosmochain, the feedback provided by the community members is also evaluated by means of a special algorithm for the reward distribution. The incentive system is based on the distribution of three types of assets on the platform:

• Cosmo Power are the tokens which are used to facilitate activities on the platform. These tokens are acquired by making contributions to the community (posting reviews, voting for posts etc.) and can be subsequently used to purchase products offered on the platform’s dedicated Marketplace.
• In essence, the Marketplace functions as the place in which the cosmetics businesses can sell their products as part of the platform’s token-based economy. Payments are made with Cosmo Power which the participating companies can continue to use or convert it into Cosmo Coins and fiat currencies. Customers can also combine cash and Cosmo Power payments to make purchases.
• Cosmo Level reputation index is measured based on the user interactions taking place on the platform, such as in recognition of one’s reputation. Cosmo Level is determined based on the amount of Cosmo Power acquired within a flexible time window. As an indexed value, Cosmo Level cannot be purchased with Cosmo Coin or converted from Cosmo Power.
• Cosmo Coin is the main medium of exchange on the Cosmochain platform. It is an ERC20-based token that can be traded on cryptocurrency exchanges. The participating companies can use it as a means of payment for the use of solutions offered by the Cosmochain platform. Cosmo Coins can also be used by the individual users to purchase Cosmo Power or for the conversion of Cosmo Power into other currencies. Conversion of Cosmo Power into Cosmo Coins involves a 30-day period of authority confirmation for the users requesting it.

Cosmochain’s Commercial Solutions

Cosmochain Solutions are the second component of the Cosmochain’s platform layer and they encompass an array of solutions aimed at the companies looking to make use of the data circulating on the Community network. The Cosmochain platform offers several solutions to the businesses participating in it, in exchange for the fees charged for being given access to the data. If a company decides to make use of these resources, it is also obliged to reward the content and information creators, thus ensuring that all the parties involved can profit from this system.

The solutions on offer for the cosmetics businesses include:

• Collection, management and sharing of the customer data. The main data gathered here are those relating to the demographic information on the cosmetics users (such as information on their names, gender, birthday, location etc.) as well as information on their dermatological profiles, such as skin types (with an option to use photos) and recently used cosmetics products. The goal is to get the customers to share their data voluntarily based on the promise of rewards and thus broaden the customer base the companies can deal with. Instead of a restricted pool of users of a single product, dermatological insights from the whole network of customers are supposed to inform the design and mass customization of cosmetics products with no risk of unwanted data leaks.
• Pooling of data received from customers for the purpose of designing tests and surveys in the cosmetics industry. As the customers are becoming more educated about the products and marketing practices, they can become pickier when it comes to choosing their cosmetics products. The data supplied with the help of Cosmochain should help the companies design their tests and surveys without relying on third-party service providers such as agencies. The customers would apply for participating in surveys voluntarily instead of being sourced by the external parties. Removing agencies from this process should allow the businesses to reduce costs, acquire more accurate data and determine the desired sample sizes of customers more easily.
• Companies can also initiate sponsored projects in which the participation is ensured by depositing Cosmo Power tokens. Should the companies need additional data in addition to the basic information provided on the platform, they can launch sponsored projects. The companies may select the users whose reliability can be checked based on the amount of Cosmo Power or Cosmo Level they have. Upon the completion of the project, the participants will be rewarded with an agreed amount of Cosmo Power.

Personalized Advertising and Product Offers

In addition to helping the cosmetics businesses fine tune their products, the Cosmochain platform aims to extend its personalization features to the fields of advertising and marketing in the cosmetics and beauty products industry. The developers point to the inefficiencies plaguing online and mobile cosmetics ads shown to the customers, primarily in the domain of forcing them to watch irrelevant and unwanted advertisements. This issue stems from the fact that ad showing policies are determined solely by the owners of websites or apps the customers interact with.

Instead of this, the Cosmochain proposes the following model:

• Users on the Cosmochain platform will be given an option to watch or block ads shown on it, with the rewards being reserved for those who choose the watch option. To reduce the number of users opting to block the ads, the Cosmochain will also make use of the data and insights provided by the customers to show them highly personalized ads, thus helping the cosmetics businesses convert the users into actual buyers.
• Cosmochain will offer personalized commerce service, in which the customers will be offered only what is deemed as their most desired cosmetics product. The analysis of the customers’ preferences will be based on the authentic data provided by the users themselves. The accuracy of the prediction engine is expected to increase as more customers are drawn to the platform.
• Personalization of both ads and product offer will also rely on big data analytics. This approach entails a comprehensive analysis of all activities the customers may engage in while on the platform. Based on their upvotes and downvotes, for example, the analytics engine will be able to determine the customers’ buying preferences or extract keywords from a popular blog post.

Cosmochain’s Database and Application Layers

In addition to the core platform layer, The Cosmochain platform features a full-blown database layer whose reliance on data space within the blockchain is supposed to protect data integrity and minimize the network-related fees. The data featured on the platform are stored here, with all the information being separated into private and public categories based on the contributor’s intention. Private data can only be accessed by a specific user since they are stored in an encrypted layer.

At the same time, the platform’s application layer allows the participating companies to develop solutions and applications which have the potential to create new value for the ecosystem participants. This includes various use cases such as:

1. Personalized product development. This can be organized based on gathering ideas from the customers who share skin types and have similar requirements for personalized cosmetics products.
2. Shopping navigation system based on the big data analysis. Once the analytics get the job done, the application can select and present products based on the customer’s skin type, age, place of residence etc.

Cosmo Coin Availability and History

As of March 2019, the Cosmo Coin’s market cap was valued at just above USD 27 million. In the same period, more than 670 million COSM were found in circulation out of the planned supply of 923 million. In addition to the regular acquisition model, the users can lay their hands on this crypto by engaging in trading on cryptocurrency exchanges such as HitBTC, KuCoin and others.

Cosmochain completed its ICO on May 21 2018 with a hard cap of 50,000 ETH. The Cosmochain company launched its pilot project in August 2018, drawing about 30 000 users of its COSMEE app by November 2018. CEO of the Cosmochain project is Song Ho Won who heads his team of professionals together with Hyungang Yang (CSO).