Cryptocurrency involved in ride-hailing subsidy war, this Web3 taxi app became famous in Singapore

Original author: Kaori, BlockBeats

Original editor: Jack, BlockBeats

During this Token2049, Grab no longer seems to be the first choice for participants in the cryptocurrency circle. This largest online car-hailing platform in Southeast Asia has been overshadowed by an application called TADA.

TADA invitation links are circulating in major cryptocurrency group chats. In Singapore, where the starting price per person is 50 yuan, the cost of choosing TADA is sometimes only a fraction of Grab. According to BlockBeats' actual test, taking an ordinary car from Changi Airport to Golden Sands Bay, using Grab costs about 112 yuan, about 20.5 Singapore dollars, and using TADA costs 84 yuan, about 15.4 Singapore dollars, which is about 25% cheaper.

Top: New users get a 60 SGD free ride; Bottom: 50% discount for the second and subsequent transactions

One million subsidies to divert traffic to the TG mini program

According to TADA’s official policy, the first 4,000 users who use the TADA Telegram Mini App to take a taxi during the Token2049 conference will enjoy a 60 SGD first order free quota, and will enjoy a 50% taxi subsidy like all Mini App users thereafter. According to preliminary calculations by BlockBeats, TADA’s subsidy cost in 5 days is at least 600,000 SGD, or about 3 million RMB.

For a small online car-hailing platform, it is rare to invest a million-level cash subsidy in a short period of time. Interestingly, however, the large subsidies did not drive traffic to TADA’s mobile app. To get the taxi subsidy, users must use TADA’s recently launched Telegram Mini App and pay with $TON or $USDT through the TON wallet.

The experience of using TADA’s Telegram Mini App is the same as using the WeChat mini program to take a taxi. Users can choose the car model and payment method. It is worth noting that the user cannot choose to pay by credit card, and the platform driver will display the user’s payment type as "bank card payment" on the application terminal.

Left: TADA's Telegram Mini App taxi interface; Right: TADA driver's mobile interface

According to TADA's official website, the platform does not charge a percentage commission from drivers. In addition to financial payment fees such as bank cards, all fares belong to the drivers. However, some platform drivers told BlockBeats that TADA actually still charges a certain percentage of commission, but its percentage is the lowest among all Singapore taxi platforms.

According to BlockBeats, TADA's charging standards for drivers are: no platform fee when the fare is less than 7 Singapore dollars, a platform fee of 0.6 Singapore dollars is charged for fares between 7 and 18 Singapore dollars, and a platform fee of 0.8 Singapore dollars is charged for fares exceeding 18 Singapore dollars. This means that drivers pay only 8.6% of their income per trip at most, and can keep a larger proportion of their income on long-distance trips. In comparison, mainstream online ride-hailing platforms such as Grab take a commission of around 20%.

The "zero commission" model has made TADA very popular among online ride-hailing drivers in Singapore. According to Channel News Asia, many drivers on Grab or Gojek platforms have said that their income has dropped recently due to low platform order prices. Although the number of orders for drivers on the TADA platform has decreased, their income has not been affected too much. During Token2049, the original price of using the TADA Mini App to go from the city to the airport was about S$30, which was 60% more expensive than the average cost of S$20 on the Grab platform. Users need to use a 50% discount to enjoy a more favorable price.

Left: Grab taxi fare; Right: TADA taxi fare

High platform revenue and low ride fare have also raised questions about the source and sustainability of TADA's subsidies, and many users understand that this will not be the case forever unless TADA finds a way to make money in other ways. As of writing, Singapore users can no longer enjoy the 50% taxi subsidy through TON network payment.

With an annual revenue of US$21 million, Web3 consumer applications have been successful?

Interestingly, many people mistake TADA for a traditional online ride-hailing platform when they first use it, until they see the TADA booth at the main venue of Token2049 and realize that it is actually a blockchain company.

TADA's parent company, Mass Vehicle Ledger (MVL), was founded in 2018 by Kay Kyeongsik Woo, who founded the Korean travel app easi6. Unlike traditional online ride-hailing platforms, MVL has positioned itself as a blockchain company from the beginning, exploring the online ride-hailing business through models such as TADA's no-platform commission and token economic incentives. With the growth of TADA's business, MVL has gradually grown into a company with more than 300 employees, with businesses in travel services, automobile manufacturing, energy, and data.

TADA's booth at Token2049; source: X

The online taxi market in Singapore is extremely competitive. According to data from the Land Transport Authority (LTA), the number of taxis has more than halved since it peaked at 28,736 in 2014, falling to a new low of 13,330 in May this year. At the same time, the number of private rental cars (including self-drive rentals and online taxis) increased by 347% from 18,847 to 84,413 during the same period.

Currently, the five online taxi platforms licensed by the LTA are Grab, GoJek (GoTo), Zig (CDG), TADA and Ryde. In the first quarter of 2022, Grab's market share reached 50%, while TADA only had about 10%.

Singapore's online car-hailing market share in the first quarter of 2022

However, TADA's market position has gradually found an advantage in the competition. In 2023, according to documents submitted to the Singapore Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority, TADA's parent company Mass Vehicle Ledger (MVL)'s revenue increased from S$6.3 million in 2021 to S$27.5 million in 2022, and the company's losses also fell from S$9.7 million in 2021 to S$5.4 million in 2022, a reduction of nearly 45%. More than half of the revenue comes from travel and delivery services, while the crypto business accounts for 37% of the total revenue. In the first quarter of 2024, with its entry into the Thai market, TADA's CEO Sean Kim announced that TADA has become the second largest online car-hailing platform in Singapore in terms of trips. In addition, TADA's expansion plans also include the Hong Kong and Korean markets.

MVL is one of the pioneers in the exploration and promotion of application scenarios for cryptocurrencies. However, TADA's business is far from smooth sailing on the road to the development of "Web3 consumer applications".

Telegram Mini App is a successful attempt by TADA to launch a new project in recent months, with a clear target of participants in various Web3 events in Southeast Asia. Prior to this, TADA had tried a variety of new user activities such as "Take TADA and Earn Bitcoin" and "Invite Friends to Join TADA and Earn Bitcoin", but the team found that it was extremely difficult and costly to convince a user who had never been exposed to cryptocurrency to buy cryptocurrency just for a taxi.

Before launching the Telegram Mini App, MVL considered providing Web3 services to online car-hailing drivers as its main business, including providing multi-chain wallets and DeFi products for drivers, DePIN data maps that provide better routes through data analysis, and RWA vehicle projects that provide drivers with reasonably priced vehicles, but it has always been difficult to make a splash in the market.

Therefore, starting with Web3 users, promoting the adoption of on-chain payments has become the core appeal of the MVL team in launching the Telegram Mini App during the TOKEN2049 conference. As the saying goes, demand leads to the emergence of applications. On the one hand, the demand for travel increased significantly during the conference. On the other hand, the pricing of platforms such as Grab is higher than TADA under the subsidy policy, and users have the motivation to pursue cost-effectiveness. However, with the end of the subsidy activity, although the taxi price higher than Grab will bring higher income to drivers, for consumers, what is the competitiveness of TADA?