What Is Zeebu
Zeebu is a blockchain-powered payment ecosystem tailored for the telecom carriers industry, where payments are made using the ZBU tokens, and users earn loyalty rewards for transacting using the platform. To date, Zeebu has facilitated over $1.25 billion in settlements in the telecom space.
Key Takeaways
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Zeebu is building a blockchain-powered payment platform for wholesale telecom carriers and associated businesses.
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Zeebu enables transparent, fast, and scalable financial communication between wholesale telecom carriers and their customers to foster prompt delivery and enhanced business performance.
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The Zeebu token (ZBU) is the native token of the Zeebu platform, where transactions on the platform are processed using ZBU. ZBU also functions as a loyalty and reward token for users.
This article is sponsored by Zeebu.
Wholesale carriers play a principal role in facilitating digital communication. Voice, text, and data communications are only possible thanks to resources provided by firms in the wholesale telecom industry.
However, the wholesale telecommunication industry has a financial problem. A 2021 CFCA (Communications Fraud Control Association) report claims that telecommunication firms lost over $30 billion, consisting of B2B and B2C defaults or compromises on payments.
This is where Zeebu comes in. Zeebu is developing a platform for wholesale telecom carriers to communicate financially with retail telecom service carriers. At the time of writing, Zeebu has forged partnerships with more than 100 telecom carriers, including Broadband Telecom Inc., Novatel, d.o.o, and Qatama Ltd.
Zeebu has over 350 registered users, of which 100 are active telecom carriers. Making up the list includes notable firms like BBT Voice Limited, Broadband Telecom Inc., and BridgeVoice Inc.
According to Nakul Rege, Chief Growth Officer, at Broadband Telecom Services
"The telecommunications industry is fast-paced. Keeping up with advancements is challenging. Zeebu's blockchain platform empowers us to innovate, expand our reach, and deliver exceptional value to our customers."
In what is a milestone achievement, the platform has reportedly executed over $1.25 billion in financial settlements between wholesale carriers and retail service providers.
Zeebu and the Telecom Carrier Industry
Zeebu is a blockchain-powered settlement hub for wholesale telecom carriers and retail telecom service providers. The project leverages blockchain technology to develop an immutable layer for payment, where retail telecom service providers can pay for digital communication resources supplied by wholesale providers using a borderless payment infrastructure that utilizes crypto.
By adopting blockchain technology and cryptocurrency, Zeebu hopes to improve the way telecommunications businesses transact. The platform is designed to offer financial transparency and a number of other advantages including
Platform Efficacy: Zeebu claims to be a simplified and borderless payment instrument that cuts off the central middleman and allows firms to transact in a zero-trust environment. This is meant to save businesses resources in terms of time and cost, translating to additional benefits for their end users.
Scalability: Zeebu has successfully facilitated $1 billion in settlements on its custom-built Web3 payment platform, showcasing its ability to handle high transaction volumes efficiently.
Convenience and Ease: Zeebu not only simplifies payments and settlements for wholesale and retail telecommunication providers, but it also reduces the procedure involved in making financial transactions by removing the complications of traditional centralized financial systems. By settling with its native token ZBU, telecom businesses can streamline operations and focus on growth, eliminating delays associated with traditional remittances.
Industry Transformation: Zeebu offers a strong use case for blockchain and Web3 technologies to replace existing models with a more advanced and user-centric decentralized payment system. With a paperless settlement experience, businesses that use Zeebu can streamline operations.
“Zeebu is the first blockchain-powered telecom loyalty platform for the wholesale voice business. It enables instant settlements anywhere globally. With its secure, rewards-based ecosystem, we believe it will significantly boost margins for all industry players."
- Nickey Peshwani, Chief Revenue Officer, BridgeVoice
Blockchain adoption: Upon crossing the $1 billion in settlements milestone, Zeebu has proved telecom businesses’ growing acceptance of blockchain-based settlements, encouraging other telecom carriers to join the Zeebu network and experience the benefits of utilizing blockchain technology in the telecom space.
How Zeebu Works
Zeebu simplifies invoicing and transaction settlement for telecom carriers, utilizing the Zeebu Payment Processor to enable crypto-to-fiat and fiat-to-crypto transactions. Through the Zeebu platform, telecom carriers enjoy a singular business view with a unified transaction system, making cross-border operations smoother and more transparent.
ZBU tokens are the consumptive tokens of the platforms; businesses make payments in Zeebu tokens (ZBU) for the corresponding value in USD, and both merchants and customers can earn loyalty rewards in ZBU tokens for each successful transaction on the Zeebu platform. These ZBU tokens can then be used to settle future invoices, creating a rewarding ecosystem that incentivizes participation.
Zeebu runs on the Ethereum mainnet and the BNB Smart Chain, using smart contracts to facilitate invoice settlements in a decentralized and transparent manner. As transactions are settled on the blockchain, users can rest assured that transactions are tamper-proof and transparent.
Zeebu also uses non-custodial multi-sig wallets, which gives users complete control over their Zeebu tokens. The platform uses the public address of each wallet to send ZBU tokens to receivers from the respective invoices. As a decentralized wallet, users are responsible for the safekeeping of their private keys.
Problems Solved by Zeebu
Zeebu enables telecom carriers to overcome traditional problems faced by the industry, which include:
Remittance Delay
Processing funds through a traditional financial institution requires several processes, most of which are important for the safe transfer of the transacted amount. However, these procedures can also cause significant delays for the concerned parties and form a bottleneck, which can be critical for businesses when this involves large sums of money.
Wholesale telecommunication merchants have reported remittance delays with payments taking several weeks to be settled due to issues with the financial institution. With Zeebu, payment settlements are as fast as the blockchain’s speed. Depending on the state of the blockchain at the time of the transaction, this could take a couple of minutes or hours. With a frictionless transaction settlement platform, merchants can concentrate on other aspects of their operations.
Cost of Cross-Border Transactions
Crypto payments are borderless. Accounts on the blockchain can receive payment from another account on the same blockchain at any time and from anywhere in the world. Zeebu platform inherently scores this advantage over other centralized alternatives. For telecommunication merchants, this is an important advantage due to the high cost of cross-border transactions.
Charges for international transactions can be as high as $50 per transaction. For merchants that process millions of transactions per year, this could easily run into significant extra costs. With Zeebu, merchants have an opportunity to cut these costs and save time in the process as well. Fees charged for blockchain transactions are the same, regardless of the location. Transaction fees on the Ethereum blockchain can get as low as $2 depending on network conditions.
Low Profitability Margin
The profitability margin for SMS telecom service sits around 10%; for voice carriers, this is as low as 2%. For businesses with such low margins, it is easy for these margins to shrink further due to reasons like the volatility of local currencies against the USD. In this instance, the fluctuations in currency exchange rates can cause their earnings to decrease in USD even if their local currency remains constant. Through facilitating payments with the ZBU token, Zeebu aims to reduce these issues and, at least, sustain the profit levels for merchants in this sector.
What Is the ZBU Token?
According to data from the Zeebu dashboard, over 500 million ZBU tokens have been transacted on the platform as part of the payment settlement process. ZBU token is the primary settlement and the consumptive token of the Zeebu platform. It serves several purposes for the project including,
Transaction settlement: Merchants using Zeebu to pay for telecommunication resources received from wholesale carriers must satisfy the issued invoice by using an equivalent in ZBU tokens. This creates the first demand opportunity for the ZBU token.
Transaction fees: Fees for remittances on the Zeebu platform are paid in ZBU tokens. Zeebu charges 1% of the amount transacted as the payment processor fee.
User incentives: Merchants on the ZBU platform receive ZBU token rewards when they successfully settle a payment on the Zeebu platform. 2.5% of the amount transacted is sent as reward to the wholesale carrier and the retail provider who received the resources. Wholesale carriers will receive 1.1% while retail customers will receive 1.4% of the transacted amount.
A total of 5 billion ZBU tokens were minted. 980 million tokens were released at launch for merchants and customers. 25% of the total supply was allocated to payment settlement and loyalty rewards, 6% was reserved for the project team and advisors, and Zeebu treasury holds 15% of the total supply. ZBU tokens are available on the Ethereum blockchain and BSC. ZBU token can be purchased on centralized exchanges like MEXC and Lbank. See active trading pairs for ZBU token.
ZBU Token Burn
To stabilize the ZBU token and minimize significant fluctuations, Zeebu has introduced the ZBU burn program. ZBU tokens are burned when they are redeemed for fiat based on this formula: Burned Tokens = Total Quarterly Consumption / Closing Day Token Price. To date, over 550 million ZBU has been burned.
Final Thoughts
The wholesale market for connectivity resources is dynamic. Changes in the way firms in this sector operate are not only influenced by technological developments in this area but also by global and regional regulatory specifications. Sometimes, these changes implement an involuntary squeeze on the operations of these firms. As it concerns financial transactions, the wholesale telecom industry has room for improvement, and that is where Zeebu comes in, offering users transparency, rapid settlement, and borderless payment.
Zeebu not only benefits telecom wholesale operators but also the users of their end products. Possible improvements include enhanced telecom service delivery and cost-efficiency for customers. Zeebu claims to not only cut down transaction costs but also introduce an incentive system for companies that use its platform. By saving costs and offering cashback in the form of rewards, Zeebu could contribute to relatively cheaper telecom communication. As the platform develops, it will be interesting to see how mainstream firms leverage these services and promote blockchain adoption.
Having said this, note that this article is only meant to educate readers about the Zeebu project and is not financial advice. Featured projects are not endorsed.
CoinGecko's editorial team comprises writers, editors, research analysts and cryptocurrency industry experts. We produce and update our articles regularly to provide the most complete, accurate and helpful information on all things cryptocurrencies. Follow the author on Twitter @coingecko
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