ECHO merges blockchain and social media to enable global communications

Rage Review : ECHO, a distributed, peer-to-peer encrypted communication and digital payment platform, wants to use blockchain technology to achieve 100% private chat and an easy-to-use payment platform that can provide instant, cheap, and secure chat and fund transfer services. ECHO said that its company can use decentralized blockchain technology to prevent all texts, videos, and pictures from being censored, and its goal is to provide a wide range of customized functions that can meet all cultural needs for stickers, animated pictures, and emojis.

Translation: Nicole

ECHO is a distributed, peer-to-peer encrypted communication and digital payment platform that allows people to exchange text, audio, video and picture messages. This means that users can send funds and even make payments at places like Starbucks.

CEO Christoph Hering told Bitcoinist.net:

“We can enable anyone to exchange text, audio, video and photo messages, while making digital payments as easy as taking a photo.”

The CEO said that users can send digital fiat currencies such as US dollars, euros, and pounds, as well as advanced digital currencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Litecoin, through email, phone number, or ECHO ID. ECHO made many promises, including 100% secure private chats and providing an easy-to-use payment platform.

Christoph Hering

Hering said:

“Our users will benefit from instant, cheap, and secure chat and fund transfer services based on the BitShares blockchain. ECHO can remotely control your personal blockchain cloud wallet.”

ECHO claims that all funds are 100% guaranteed, with a 24-hour compensation insurance plan every week, so ECHO user funds can be effectively prevented from being stolen. If ECHO goes bankrupt, the team said that user funds will not be in danger because these funds are stored in the user's private wallet. ECHO claims that it will not hold or control user private keys.

Christoph Hering says:

“ECHO’s founding team was fascinated by the potential that blockchain technology brings to the world. We believe that all people have an inherent right to free speech and the freedom to dispose of their own assets. Our goal is to provide a universal private chat and digital payment platform where people can store their assets in a private blockchain cloud and freely exchange text, pictures and voice messages without interfering with third parties. People can freely store their assets in dollars, euros, bitcoins or gold.”

Is ECHO the future of social communications?

Hering said:

“Social media platforms are the best tool to connect with like-minded people. You can easily reach out to your friends, share your stories and have fun online. Most people feel the social pressure to start using the social communication platforms that everyone else is using. But if you don’t have a Facebook or WhatsApp account, you’re in trouble.”

ECHO acknowledges that:

"Such social pressure has led to many concerns about security and privacy. Either you give up your privacy and join an unsafe platform, or you stay alone at home forever."

ECHO seeks to provide a free, peer-to-peer encrypted chat application, and the project is promoting its model from a political perspective.

Hering said:

“In some countries, governments censor content on social messaging platforms on a daily basis, deleting critical text, images and blog posts.”

ECHO said that its company uses decentralized blockchain technology to prevent all texts, videos and images from being censored:

“Free speech and personal opinions are being suppressed, and it’s surprising that only a few platforms are paying attention to these issues and trying to help.”

Social messaging apps often develop in unexpected ways. While WhatsApp is popular in most Western countries, it has yet to gain traction in Asian markets. Line and WeChat are popular in Asia, but are underdeveloped in Central Europe and North America.

Hering explained the reasons for the success of previous applications:

“We believe that most social messaging apps are limited in their UI/X customization capabilities and, therefore, fail to meet the cultural needs of consumers for emojis, stickers, and UI/X experiences. Our goal is to provide customization capabilities at scale that meet all cultural needs for stickers, animated images, and emojis.”

The current network trend is very suitable for the application of social communication blockchain

Hering said:

“Consumers are moving away from social networking to more interactive and fun social communications, with mobile messaging apps quickly reaching a billion users. This growth has been so rapid that it has eclipsed most social networking sites, as smartphone activity has gained traction with young people, most of whom are chatting via Instagram, Snapchat or Facebook Messenger.”

The ECHO digital payment platform is based on the BitShares 2.0 blockchain technology. Hering explained:

“Think of BitShares as a decentralized universal financial platform, where companies share the same financial blockchain for transactions and value transfers.”

There are different markets for different assets or currencies (such as EUR/USD, USD/CNY, USD/BTC), and anyone can enter the global network just like entering the Ethereum network.

Noting that the transaction volume is larger than MasterCard and Visa combined, Hering said:

“The core advantage of the decentralized financial platform is its industry-leading high performance, three-second block expansion time, and 100,000 transactions per second. Another very special thing is the price-stable digital currency on the BitShares blockchain. ECHO is selling these price-stable cryptocurrencies (Smartcoins) to its users, so ECHO does not control the users’ funds.”

ECHO claims that the "compensation plan" can protect user funds, as well as the BitShares DPOS security system. Bitcoin plays an important role in ECHO, and ECHO users can choose and manage their preferred currencies, including US dollars, euros or Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dash and other digital currencies.

Hering said:

“All ECHO users can use ECHO to transfer, trade and pay at any store that currently accepts digital payments. This means you can use ECHO as an alternative Bitcoin wallet while also having highly secure chat capabilities.”

Hering said:

“The world is evolving into a more connected, online world where everything can be done in seconds. With billions of mobile users globally and the potential for increased decentralization, the potential to directly engage consumers at scale is extremely attractive to businesses and organizations of all sizes looking for social messaging applications. Most of the popular social messaging applications in Asia are experimenting with messaging applications that offer the first personal assistant (AI) services based on the distributed and customer engagement capabilities of chatbots.”