How Traipse Wants to Tokenise America’s Historic Main Streets
By: Wouter Verhoog
Tags: Ethereum, Cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, Blockchain, Tech

Staunton is just one of the many cities one can explore with Traipse, for the team of six, based in Washington D.C., is on a mission to put America’s downtowns back on the map:

Traipse lets people discover historic business districts in a playful manner. We work together with local tourism departments and downtown business associations to create fun walking tours that highlight a city’s one-of-a-kind stores, historic sites, art installations and other points of interest. — Darren Smith, Founder and CEO of Traipse

Not your typical city exploration app

Inspired by a local radio station in his childhood that would send its listeners on a treasure hunt and the Washington Post’s annual puzzle hunt, Traipse Founder and CEO Darren Smith believes their app can help revive the thousands of charming but often overlooked downtowns across the United States.

Traipse hopes to draw new visitors to historic business districts in small towns like Staunton, but also to those within bigger cities such as Washington D.C. and Baltimore. Darren explains:

We fully intend to incorporate big cities, partly because that’s where the users are, and if someone uses Traipse in Washington D.C. and likes the experience, they may be more inclined to travel an hour or two to discover smaller towns they normally wouldn’t visit.

Whether you select one of the predefined walking tours or you want to plan your own trip based on your interests, Traipse makes sure every tour highlights the locally owned businesses, historic buildings, colourful murals, monuments, and parks while adding a little element of fun.

Here’s a clue: The answer rhymes with ‘money’!

Every Traipse tour has at least one “location dependent challenge”, activated by a user’s current GPS location. So if you just passed this oil and vinegar shop in Staunton, you’ll be encouraged to enter the store in order to find the answer.

Now, you may ask for a hint, but that’ll cost you two Traipse Points! And believe me, you’ll want to earn as many points as you can. More on that below.

Darren believes these challenges make you more aware of your surroundings and it puts the spotlight on the locally owned stores without blatantly advertising them.

Gamification at it’s finest, if you ask me.

So, why would one want to earn Traipse Points in the first place? Well, because they can be exchanged for redeemable tokens, and those tokens are instrumental to Traipse’s grand vision of tokenising America’s downtowns.

Says Darren:

We expect to be the go-to travel experience app for travellers who enjoy visiting historic business districts and believe in supporting locally owned shops.

Boosting local economies through tokenisation

Traipse wants to create local currencies for every downtown, something which many business associations have tried in the past: Paper coupons, wooden nickels, plastic city cards. These initiatives came from a good place, but were often hampered by transaction fees, limited exchange venues and a low adoption rate by businesses and consumers alike.

OST CCO and Co-Founder Chris Dark wrote an excellent thought piece on why blockchain tokens should and will replace old-school loyalty programs:

With the dawn of blockchain, Darren believes Traipse can create a web of tokenised downtowns that spans across the entire United States, allowing local businesses to attract new costumers in a playful way while cutting down on transaction fees.

Traipse seems to be onto a “win-win for all” type of business model: Its users get to explore and appreciate historical commercial districts while the locally owned businesses can tap into a new niche of potential customers by joining Traipse’s mini-challenges free of charge.

For every riddle solved, the user gets rewarded with Traipse Tokens which can immediately be redeemed at the store, at any other participating business in town or even in a different downtown hundreds of miles away!