How blockchain can solve the flaws of Tinder and other dating apps

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This article is part of Tech in Asia’s partnership with Bitcoin.com where we publish the revised transcripts from their podcasts. This is heavily revised from the original show’s transcript. For the full episode, go here.

In this episode, we discuss online dating in the context of blockchain. There’s been a lot of things in the news about fake profiles and hacks. There are also a lot of companies right now that are trying to get into the space.

Nick Cuttonaro (a blockchain advocate and the founder and president of The Link Builders, an online reputation management agency) and I dive deep into the topic.

Let’s talk about the current industry and your own experience.

Online dating is a huge industry. It’s totally acceptable now compared to the early 2000s, where it had a bit of a stigma. People were reluctant to put themselves out there, create a profile, and look for a partner using the internet.

In 2011, I met my wife on a dating website called OkCupid. The reason why I created a profile was because my buddy, Jay, had success with the website and encouraged me that it’s good. Interestingly, Rose, my wife today, was the first date that I went out on using OkCupid.

I think that the rise of mobile devices and how we use them have really changed the landscape a little bit. When I was using OkCupid, I was using their browser interface with my Blackberry. It really wasn’t an app play at the time.

But with Tinder and other similar services, there’s no doubt that people are using dating apps today, and they are actually getting married from these types of connections. I was reading a poll from 2017 on The Knot. It said that 19 percent of brides met their spouses online.

How could blockchain disrupt online dating?

The obvious component is the cryptocurrency play within a network or an ecosystem. Users can transact with the dating platform itself using cryptocurrency. They can be incentivized through the platform for performing certain types of actions. For example, if you provide more data to help you find a mate, you may be rewarded in that blockchain company’s native currency (i.e. in tokens).

You could also be punished. Let’s say you flake out on showing up for a date; you could stake a coin before committing to a date. Staking a coin means you’re just letting the network hold the coin. If you don’t show up, they or your date takes the coin. Ultimately, there’s a penalty for demonstrating poor behavior on the network.

How can blockchain address fake and scammy profiles?

When it comes to validating identity, you don’t need an entire dating network to be on the blockchain. You can take any existing network (e.g. Tinder, OkCupid, eHarmony, Match.com) and just integrate an identity management solution like Civic or Persona on the blockchain application as a layer to validate who people are.

With the technology today, there are many different ways to validate humans. So, users of these dating sites are less likely to be in a position where they can be scammed or deceived.

Some people don’t look as good as their pictures. Do you think blockchain can help in this area?

For sure. Images can be time-stamped and validated. It’s very possible to take what Po.et is doing with content and authorship and just apply it to validating images on dating sites.

When it comes to proving whether a photo has been photoshopped, I think that’s difficult. I don’t know if blockchain can solve that. However, there are many other validators that blockchain can help with to determine if people are who they say they are, and these people can be rewarded for providing accurate data.

Let’s talk about some blockchain dating apps.

How about Loly? It’s an interesting AR dating app where users can log their sexual consent on the blockchain.