Winding Tree COO: Talent and Effort in Blockchain Industry Will Pay Off [Interview]

While blockchain is certainly helpful in for-profit businesses, it is also beginning to make headway into the non-profit world as well. With opportunities to remove third-party trust systems becoming more clear, the nascent technology is making peer-to-peer connections a reality in a variety of fields. One such company is a non-profit travel agency group called Winding Tree. Built to allow consumers direct access to service providers, Winding Tree is seeking to replace the legacy travel agent with blockchain-based technology. BeInCrypto sat down with Pedro Anderson, COO of Winding Tree, to get his take on the future of blockchain technology, Ethereum, and cryptocurrency in general.   BIC: Hello Pedro. Thanks for taking time out of your schedule to meet with us. For starters, why did you choose blockchain technology for developing your platform? PA: We were looking to fix the bottleneck to innovation hurting the travel distribution space and replace it with an open platform with no central control so that innovation could happen from the ground up. Open sourcing of the code was a big part of it but we had to provide a way to list suppliers without us controlling them or mediating agreements or transactions in any way. We wanted to create a permissionless marketplace for B2B travel and blockchain allowed us to do this for the first time ever. BIC: How does the blockchain protocol fit in with a non-profit system? PA: We chose Ethereum (ETH) as it is, in our opinion, the most decentralized computing platform and operating system. Despite the bad rap resulting from all the overhyped Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) and many outright scams, Ethereum provides a vehicle for funding projects that would have traditionally been at odds with strictly profit-only/VC funding. The community can support development that they see as critical to progress, society or industries. BIC: Are you concerned about the future for Ethereum, particularly in light of the recent price fluctuations? PA: I’m quite impressed really, with the solid focus on development from the Ethereum community and continued progress. In my eyes, technology and utility are the only indicators of anything at this point. It is just too early to be swayed by price fluctuations as it is all based on hype and speculation until we start to see mass adoption and utility. BIC: Where do you expect blockchain technology to grow most rapidly in terms of overall use? PA: I don’t know. I can speak only for the value we see, and for the vision and goals we have for the technology. Our platform is completely decentralized and open source. The real value of blockchain is the very specific role in our architecture as an index of all the inventory, and the smart contracts that allow hotels and airlines to interact without having to trust us. With the first transactions on the platform around the corner, we hope to contribute to the acceleration of use, but only time will tell what the first mass utility will be. BIC: Again, Pedro, thanks for taking the time to sit with us. One last question for the readers – where do you see the overall crypto market going in 2019? Will we be positive by year’s end? PA: I’m very positive in the future of crypto. You just can’t have the level of talent and collaborative effort going into something like this, that won’t pay off in the long run — but whether it’s at the end of 2019 or ever, I can’t say. Do you think Pedro is right about the bright future for cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology? Let us know in the comments below!

---