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Bringing Democracy to the World Through Blockchain
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December 10, 2018

Bringing Democracy to the World Through Blockchain

Fake news, voting frauds, a rise in populism and divided public opinions — democracies around the world are under constant pressure online from the digital revolution. With the increased presence of technology in our daily lives, it is suffice to say that our personal data and privacy are both a concern, especially when it comes to elections. Too often we hear how governments are able to intrude on our privacy through the internet, social media, mobile phone data and much more.

The solution

On the bright side, technology can also be used to improve an election and make it fairer. Agora, a project spun out of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne, has created a blockchain voting platform dedicated to ensuring transparent and verifiable elections around the world. This is done by anonymously storing votes in an immutable ledger, thereby offering instant access to election results.

The Swiss-based company provided unprecedented insight into the Sierra Leonian Presidential Election process in March of this year, by demonstrating the benefits of a blockchain-based system, meaning safe storage and public availability of election data, as well as a fast tallying process that allowed results representative from the area, 4 days ahead of the manual count, to be delivered. Agora has since been in talks with several universities and reputable organizations to expand their auditing network and potential clients base.

 

Overview of Agora’s ecosystem

Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) are flawed by their centralized design. In fact, during the Voter Hacking Village at Defcon in Las Vegas last year, hackers were able to penetrate the standard EVMs used in US elections in just over an hour (CNET). Agora has taken the first step towards enabling a more trustworthy voting process and is constantly developing and improving their blockchain solution, as they plan on rolling out their service to other organizations from the public and private sectors.

Why we decided to partner with Agora

Blockchain is a novel technology, which everyone is still exploring to see if it is applicable to their business model. Many recent ICOs or even a couple of ICO project inquiries that come to us for help, are those who do not necessarily need a decentralized distributed ledger, but would be better off sticking to their traditional system.

The biggest issues that blockchain naturally solves are trust and transparency, which are indispensable in a functioning democratic election. It’s a clear and obvious problem that we want to see tackled in a world where democracies are often taken for granted, and democratic principles are constantly being challenged.

Agora not only has the necessary technology and knowhow to disrupt how we vote, but also has the right network of politicians and institutions who are interested in returning trust back to a vulnerable ecosystem.

How will our community benefit?

As part of our partnership, trade.io community members are able to enjoy an additional 5% bonus when purchasing Agora tokens (VOTE). There will also be an opportunity to purchase VOTE using the trade.io token (TIO) once Agora tokens are listed on the trade.io Exchange after the end of their ICO.

Pre-sale is currently open and you can join the whitelist today to enjoy a 5% additional bonus: https://goo.gl/forms/rb0k9xYlRRpUCXYz2 (only whitelisted participants are allowed to join the pre-sale).

Agora’s CEO, Leonardo Gammar commented on the collaboration, “We are thrilled to be working together with trade.io, who has demonstrated their knowledge and expertise in completing their own successful ICO, as well as advising many others. Together with their support, we hope to deliver a fair, democratic voting process to all of the world through blockchain technology.”

trade.io’s Director of Consulting and Strategy, Will Corkin, mentioned, “It is exciting to see a blockchain-based solution pave the way for safer, more transparent and immutable elections. We are working very closely with the team at Agora and have full confidence in the capabilities and expertise of the Agora team in disrupting the way we vote, through blockchain technology.”

Finer details of the ICO:

● Ticker: VOTE
● Total token supply: 1 Billion
● Soft cap: $1.25M
● Hard cap: $20M
● ICO Price: $0.051
● Presale start: 1st July, 2018
● Crowdsale start: 1st October, 2018

About trade.io
trade.io is a next-generation financial institution based on blockchain technology, providing the ultimate in security and transparency. By leveraging decades of experience in the investment banking, trading & FinTech sectors, and combining them with the power and transparency of the distributed ledger, trade.io has created a truly unique product that will revolutionize asset trading and investment banking.

For more information on the trade.io ICO Consultancy services, please reach out to consulting@trade.io

About Agora
Agora is a Swiss voting protocol company building a decentralized digital voting ecosystem based on blockchain technology that ensures security, end-to-end verifiability and support for new devices. By creating an immutable and publicly viewable digital record of elections, Agora’s technology allows both private and public organizations to eradicate fraud and corruption, reduce costs and engage voters in a modern, convenient and accessible way. Agora is also building an election supply chain tracking app and will provide decentralized application hosting on top of its custom, fair and token-free consensus mechanism.

https://medium.com/@trade.io/bringing-democracy-to-the-world-through-blockchain-with-agora-ec360b92f28a

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