Decentralized futures: Rotam - A trustless vehicle marketplace & ecosystem

Ecosystem
1

Abstract:

Rotam is the Real World Vehicle Tokenization Protocol with a solid legal backup. The primary purpose of the protocol is to create an entire ecosystem for vehicle owners and businesses around the automotive industry.

The automotive industry is transforming, and Rotam is at the forefront of this evolution. With a platform tailored to the second-hand vehicle market, Rotam aims to revolutionize vehicle financing, buying, selling, and management. At its core, Rotam represents a paradigm shift in the automotive landscape, leveraging web3 technology to integrate truthfulness, honesty, transparency, and regulatory compliance in vehicle transactions with computational logic.

Problem:

The vehicle market is one of the most complex and prone to fraudulent activities by malicious actors within the ecosystem who hide or alter information. The second-hand vehicle market is plagued by several common issues, including altered or concealed prices, fraud, fake sales, impersonation, and the sale of stolen vehicles. These challenges are exacerbated by centralized marketplaces that impose high fees. Manipulated mileage, hidden reparations, and undisclosed debts further contribute to consumer financial losses. Additionally, intermediaries often face non-payment of commissions when transactions occur directly between the buyer and seller, bypassing the intermediary. Access to financial services and institutional loans is limited, forcing consumers to resort to informal lenders who demand vehicles as collateral and impose exorbitant interest rates. Consequently, consumers risk losing their vehicles when faced with liquidity issues.

Solution:

Rotam, a pioneering AppChain, is a second-hand vehicle marketplace that integrates legal, mechanical, and aesthetic verifications and valuations alongside liquidity pools for DeFi services. The platform’s solution includes escrow contracts, paired with off-chain legal services, to facilitate transactions between buyers and sellers in the second-hand car market; these contracts secure the off-chain delivery and sale paperwork, eliminating potential disputes and fraud.

Rotam operates as a blockchain-based vehicle hub, catering to owners of various vehicles, from motorcycles to boats, service and product providers, and investors. In the future, Rotam’s innovative approach will extend to its decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), which verifies credentials for ecosystem actors, involving them in protocol governance and decentralization.

The protocol aims to expand its reach through collaborations with key stakeholders across the ecosystem, including manufacturers, financial institutions, and distributors. By leveraging blockchain technology Rotam will transform the traditional vehicle trust-based economy into one driven by technological agreements. This shift provides greater legal security and benefits all parties involved, ushering in a new era of transparency and efficiency in the automotive industry.

Technical Architecture:

Rotam adopts an app chain model with a Tanssi Container Chain, providing custom MarketPlace, DEFI services, and DAO logic within its runtime; Planning to integrate Crust or Cess as decentralized storage provider, Unique network sdk for the vehicles nfts, and Kilt credentials; ensuring compliance with international regulatory standards with KYC and KYB, positioning itself as a pioneer in the automotive industry. This approach enhances interconnectivity, safety, transparency, and legal security.

Market Analysis:

Our first market is Mexico, where we have provided legal vehicle services for the last three years.

The automotive market in Mexico presents a significant opportunity, with millions of vehicles on the road and a thriving used car market. Despite competition from centralized services, Rotam’s decentralized approach offers a clear advantage. Operating without inventory, Rotam maintains agility and responsiveness while fostering community and empowerment.

Mexico Data:

  • Plus, more than 200,000 used cars are sold annually, most of them imported from the U.S.
  • Internet sales increasing 20% p/year.
  • 30 M cars in Mexico
  • 7k USD average price of a used car in Mexico.
  • 6M of sales in used cars p/year.

After Mexico, we will make the protocol open to different countries worldwide.

Competition in Mexico:

The biggest competitor in Mexico is Kavak, a Mexican Unicorn focused on the second-hand car market, with a valuation of 8.7 B USD. But they are a centralized marketplace; they take advantage of the consumers and do not provide proper service to the community. We are decentralized and secured by Polkadot.

Go-to-Market Strategy:

Rotam’s strategy focuses on collaboration with car lots, strategic alliances with differet actors of the vehicle ecosystem, and education to non crypto-users. By raising awareness of web3 and blockchain technologies, Rotam aims to solidify its position. Strategic partnerships, marketing campaigns, and ambassador programs are vital pillars that ensure widespread adoption. Also, we will onboard our current customers to the new model.

Business Model:

At the heart of Rotam’s business model is a direct-to-consumer (B2C) approach supported by a sustainable fee structure. Rotam charges a nominal fee for each service provided on its platform; a portion is allocated to the treasury, and the rest is distributed among verifiers and actors who play a crucial role in transaction processes. This ensures sustainability, community involvement, and fair compensation for all stakeholders.

Services:

  • Vehicle sales percentage.
  • Verifications of the Vehicle.
  • DEFI Services for vehicles as Loans and Insurance.

Roadmap:

Rotam at the moment is rebuilding its product with the substrate stack. It plans to shape its product over the next four months, followed by another three months of solid campaigns, community engagement,and IRL events expanding across Mexico.

Traction:

Rotam has provided legal verifications and services for vehicles in Mexico for over two years, with a web2 community and satisfied customers. Rotam started the web3 journey with the Polkadot Relayers Incubator Program by AngelHack and Polkadot Blockchain Academy Hong Kong Wave. This knowledge revolutionizes the company into a decentralized, transparent, and more secure protocol.

Conclusion:

Rotam is poised to reshape the automotive landscape, offering a transformative platform that combines innovation, transparency, and community empowerment. With its pioneering approach to decentralized technology, Rotam heralds a new era of truthfulness and efficiency in automotive transactions.

Thanks for the support.
Mario Andrade
X: @wolfhwario
PBA Alumi, Hong Kong
Founder

8 Likes
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I know Mario personally, and can attest to his dedication to Polkadot, as well as to solving real world problems with blockchain, that span legal and governmental services. This is an opportunity to bring Polkadot into a real-world scenario where the existing services are undermined by not having the trust that Mexican consumers can rely on, which blockchain can provide as a foundation. This can disrupt the web2 unicorn, while cutting costs for consumers and creating a local economy for verification based on blockchain. As a follow-up I’d love to know if the financial/Defi services require some legal compliance or regulation, or if that can be offered/consumed trustlessly, as the money presumably needs to be moved back into the fiat world to pay loans or insurance providers.

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Hello,

Regarding your follow up question about DeFi/financial services requiring legal compliance or regulation, the answer is yes, we must comply with the law. In the case of returning funds to the fiduciary world, especially for activities such as loans or insurance, compliance with financial regulations is crucial. It becomes essential to align with Mexico’s fintech laws and implement DIDs for KYC and KYB. It is a complex but necessary process to guarantee trust, legality, and reliability in financial services. Elaborating further on Mexican regulation, the Fintech Law has been a pioneer in the region since its first version in 2018, and we have the opportunity to license new types of business models.

Regards,

2 Likes
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I know Mario from the Hong Kong PBA, we are friends. I think Rotam is extremely interesting and I love when blockchain technology addresses real-life problems.
Knowing that the project has been up and running for 2 years, there are customers and a web2 competitor with almost $9B makes me confident that Rotam is here to stay and flourish.
I also suggest supporting Rotam due to Mario’s deep involvement in the Polkadot ecosystem.

3 Likes
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Mario is passionate person. The project already run for 2 years, and joining lot of Hackaton and prove that this solution give impact to Community in mexico. In my honest opinion, we need lot of real live adoption for Polkadot and Rotam is one of them.

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I met Mario at one of the biggest tech events in Mexico since we met 1 year ago he’s been proving his value to the Polkadot Ecosystem, not only by applying his legal knowledge to Rotam, but also by expanding his knowledge about all the solutions provided by Polkadot and the Parachains to build a remarkable product that is intended to be a bridge for Polkadot ecosystem and the second-hand market, with everything that implies on the regulation side and ops side. We were together at the PBA Hong Kong cohort and Rotam has been evolving regularly. No doubt, one dApp I will be using, and a technical approach for legality on RWAs that will showcase the power of the Polkadot Ecosystem.

3 Likes
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I met Mario at the PBA in Hong Kong. I can also attest to his dedication to Polkadot. Rotam is a good example of trying to solve a real problem of a real world use case.

This shows how the specific strengths of different parachains can be used to help build a dApp to solve real-world problems.

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GM friend, thank you for your comments. We are fully committed to addressing real-world problems with our solution. We strongly believe that a robust legal framework is necessary to link real-world-assets with the physical world, and our two years of experience in providing legal services for cars have given us a significant advantage in the market.

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Thanks, Edgar, for bringing to the post our past exposure in Talent Land 2023 Mexico; we tested our v1 version with 300 users then.

Also, spiderman visited our stand and tested the app, here is the proof of photo:)

IMG_0011
IMG_00111200×1600 282 KB

1 Like
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I met Mario at the PBA. He’s a phenomenal builder. His focus on the niche is superb, as I can understand from the proposed plan.

Blockchain was always meant to be a record provider for keeping verification of historic data, and Rotam seems to be leveraging that in the second-hand vehicle space.

Excited to see how it unfolds.

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I know Mario personally and he is undoubtedly one of the best developers in Mexico with knowledge of Solidity and Rust.

His RotamDAO :red_car: project will revolutionize the car leasing industry.

Therefore, Mario belongs to the Polkadot Mexico community and we have seen the growth he has had within the Polkadot ecosystem :mexico::fire::rocket:

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Thanks for your comments, Erick. The Polkadot Mexico community and ambassadors have been an enriching help for me and rotam. Together, we can increase the adoption of the Polkadot ecosystem.

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Sounds promising. Would like to see it succeed. :star_struck:

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This project sounds really good. I met Mario personally in Hong Kong. Not only is it about trying to solve a real world problem with blockchain, but Mario also has a very solid legal background, which is fundamental and a great differential in this type of solutions.
Keep building Mario!

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Mario and I were classmates at PBA, Hong Kong cohort. He is a passionate litigation lawyer with a strong sense of justice and empathy. I believe his project solves a major problem with fraud and trust within a broken second hand marketplace. Fraud is a big issue with the automobile industry and plagues not just Mexico but all parts of the world. I believe that Mario’s experience and passion will see this project through.

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I am proud of being a team member in this incredible project.

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Mario is exactly the type of person we need in the Polkadot ecosystem. He’s dedicated and has got the industry experience and technical know how to make this project a success. It’s obvious that the tokenisation of real world assets will open up huge new markets in the near future so I think the timing is great.

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I had the pleasure of meeting Mario at the PBA event in Hong Kong. From our discussion and his proposal, it’s clear that Rotam is well on its way to addressing the challenges of the second-hand market. Mario’s expertise in both legal and blockchain technology is crucial in developing a reliable history for used items, which simplifies the buying and selling process. I believe this initiative has tremendous potential and is a significant step forward in the industry !!