In this review, we explain what Camino Network is, its goals within the travel industry, how it intends to achieve them, and how its technology could permanently change how the travel industry works.
That also includes the benefits offered to the project’s users, partners, and node operators. Along the way, we will also consider its pros, cons, and what it has to offer to those who choose to build within its ecosystem.
About Camino Network
What is Camino Network?
The project operates as a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO), meaning the community itself makes decisions by voting and submitting proposals. Camino Network is governed by the travel ecosystem, including technology developers, industry service providers, and travelers.
According to the Camino Network’s litepaper, “Camino offers a versatile development platform to map and expand the travel industry’s current business models and create new travel-related products and ways to interact with travelers.”
Camino Network offers:
- Low transaction costs;
- Significantly reduced risks;
- Blockchain finality that has dropped to mere seconds.
Brief History of the Camino Network
Camino Network is a travel industry blockchain fueled by the Camino token. Its mainnet went live in May 2023 and seeks to offer clients a versatile network for expanding the current business models and creating innovative touristic products for travelers and business partners alike.
The travel industry is largely based on archaic business structures and depends on legacy systems that are more akin to gatekeepers than anything else compared to some more recent sectors. In other words, there has been a severe lack of digital innovation, and the cost burden has been huge, discouraging travelers and burdening companies.
Seeing the potential of Web3, Chain4Travel imagined a shared network that would facilitate collaboration possibilities beyond anything that exists today. The company started by analyzing the market, the technology, and its own fresh ideas, with the team concluding that the existing Layer 1 (L1) was unsuitable.
Namely, L1 often proved not to be trustworthy enough to be implemented into the travel industry. Consequently, Camino intended to change that by offering a closed, much more secure environment for both travelers and businesses in the traveling industry.
It is important to note that the Camino Network and Chain4Travel are not bound to one another. Chain4Travel is designed to simply act as a validator for the network alongside more than 80 other travel firms. It transfers all rights to the Camino Network Foundation, based in Switzerland.
As a result, thanks to the company’s DAO system, the entire project is governed and operated by the community, which consists of travelers, businesses in the industry, and others, while Chain4Travel is simply one of many members of that community.
Why do users choose Camino?
Camino emerged to solve some critical problems the travel industry suffered from, such as the pace at which innovation has progressed over the last few decades.
A lot of the technology and the business models in use today are decades old, even though there are numerous better alternatives. For example, Camino seeks to soften the rigidness of the old oligopolistic structure in the travel industry by introducing digital solutions.
Also, with the power in the hands of the community, Camino aims to maintain reasonable transaction fees, and it will continue to work on the development of new and improved travel products.
Notable Camino Network’s Achievements
While the project is still in the set-up phase, it has already achieved several milestones. Primarily, it managed to gain the commitment of over 80 validators which will spin up the blockchain once the mainnet goes live later this month. Furthermore, it won the support of over 140 different travel companies that will use its technology to build dApp solutions for Business-to-Business (B2B) and Business-to-Consumer (B2C) models alike.
Moreover, the project has already managed to raise over 9.3 million CHF ($10.4 million). From the total amount, 5 million CHF ($5.59 million) came in private pre-sale, where 80+ companies from the travel industry participated, in addition to over 220 individuals. Some of the participants included names like Juniper, TUI, Eurowings, DER, Hotelplan, Miles & More, Lufthansa, Schauinsland, and others.
Meanwhile, the other 4.3 million CHF ($4.8 million) was raised in the project’s Seed investment, featuring investors such as firms in the travel sector who are in for the long run.
Use Cases of the Camino Network
The Camino Network has four main use cases:
- Hotel Explorer: A part of the ecosystem that users can turn to in order to get important hotel information. It also enables on-chain interactions between users and various hotels;
- GeoExplorer: A segment of Camino Network that allows users to identify various touristic items or points of interest geographically;
- Sleap: Sleap.io will let users use a blockchain-based hotel booking platform. It will seek to offer better rates by accessing innovative AI search tools and allow users to pay for bookings with digital currency;
- Booking.Travel-InBlock: A booking platform that allows users to select hotels on the map, decide on Check-in/Out dates, and enter the number of adults and/or children and see whether there are available rooms, the price, etc.
Camino experience for users and partners
Camino Network is a public permissionless Layer 1 network available for everyone. With that said, the team distinguishes three types of network participants — Users, Partners, and Consortium Members:
Users have permission to read all data recorded on the blockchain. They can also interact with the network’s smart contracts, which they can do every time they buy products or pay for services that the network’s ecosystem will offer.
Partners have to go through a Know Your Customer (KYC) or Know Your Business (KYB) verification, but they can deploy smart contracts on the network. They can also interact with them and read all the data on the chain, like Users. However, dApp developers can also check whether the wallet that is interacting with the app is verified. The verification result can be used by smart contracts to build business logic.
Partners can also become Consortium Members. To do that, the Partner has to be a company that operates in the travel industry. It also has to stake CAM — Camino Network’s native cryptocurrency — and gain admittance to the consortium by other members, who will vote on whether or not the new firm should be accepted into their ranks.
The majority vote decides what happens next. But, assuming that the company is successfully voted into the consortium, it will become a member and participate in further voting to govern the network, determine changes in the protocol’s base fee, make decisions that will affect the project’s roadmap, and so on.
Camino Tokenomics
The native token funds the consequent developments in the project. The majority of Camino tokens are kept in reserve, which can be used to incentivize the development of travel-related products and dApps.
The initial distribution has seen:
- 7% (70 million CAM) left for the founders, and this amount will be locked up for the first three years;
- Another 7.50% (75 million CAM) was dedicated to the project’s team, which will also be locked up for 3 years;
- 2.50% of the total supply, or 25 million CAM, goes to the project’s advisors — also only three years after the project becomes operational;
- That means that the team, founders, and advisors will get a total of 17%, or 17 million tokens.
Next, the project used:
- 4.30% (43 million CAM) for seed investment, which also comes with a 3-year lockup;
- The pre-sale has used 5% (50 million CAM), with the same lockup period;
- As for the final ICO, the project decided to dedicate 7.5% (75 million CAM) to it;
- That puts the total start investment at 16.80% or 168 million CAM.
Lastly, there are funds dedicated to marketing, development, and other similar purposes. For example:
- 20% (200 million CAM) goes into the dApp incentive pool;
- 5% (50 million CAM) is used for marketing;
- 7.50% (75 million CAM) is kept for the second sale;
- 10% (100 million CAM) goes into the Camino Network’s reward pool;
- The remaining 23.70% (237 million CAM) will be locked up for 3+ years as part of the project’s reserve;
- This puts the total incentives and reserve to 66.20%, or 662 million CAM;
In total, all of this makes up a 1 billion-large supply of CAM tokens which the project intends to use for rewarding the team and founders, as a start investment, and for incentives and reserve.
Network’s
The project has checked out many milestones and achievements on its initial roadmap, but it also has big plans for the future.
In the near future, the company aims to:
- KYB (for even more trustworthy B2B collaboration on Camino);
- Multisig (for companies effectively managing their funds on the blockchain);
- Voting System (for Validators to govern the Camino Network democratically);
- GeoExplorer (to identify touristic items/POIs geographically);
- HotelExplorer (to provide hotel information and enable on-chain interactions with hotels);
- T-chain (to distribute touristic data such as availabilities and prices to network participants);
- Decentralized storage, e.g., IPFS File Management (to enable Web3-powered data storage for network participants);
Why Camino
While Camino may be a young project, it already has a number of promising features, for example:
- Enables P2P: The network can enable P2P connections in the travel industry, which is critical for a sector that relies so heavily on cooperation from an entire network of suppliers and agents;
- Technological infrastructure: The infrastructure was designed to have fewer costs, be sustainable, and continuously add value, as it is in the hands of the community;
- Scalability: The crypto industry has come far in terms of scalability, but plenty of major projects still struggle with it. Camino Network has prepared for the need to scale up, and it can handle a high volume of transactions per second;
- Transparency: Transparency comes hand-in-hand with immutability, so a rogue agent cannot manipulate or change the recorded data. Any changes require the majority to agree;
- Community: The project has a very active community and that it is growing among developers and users willing to help improve it by building and using the network. This creates a supportive, collaborative environment and can even attract users who value community involvement;
- Low transaction cost and sustainability: The network displays all CO2 emissions and will provide and connect users with firms that directly offset these emissions.
It is also worth noting that Camino Network is fully compatible with Solidity, the programming language of Ethereum, and most likely the programming language of the entire crypto industry of the future.
That means that users can easily launch Ethereum dApps on Camino Network to enjoy its numerous features. One such feature is high scalability, which allows Camino to process thousands of transactions per second. Another very interesting thing about the project is that it uses multiple specialized chains, both private and public.
Is Camino Network safe?
Camino Network is relatively safe thanks to decentralization and the distributed nature of blockchain technology. All transactions are verified and recorded by the network’s nodes, meaning hacking the blockchain or altering its data is unlikely.
The project combines some of the industry’s best practices and highest standards when it comes to security. The blockchain is also, by design, a consortium chain, where validators have to go through verification even to become validators in the first place. Also, its entire source code and all components are being audited and checked by third-party cybersecurity specialists
On top of all that, the project announced it would hold a bug bounty program, where the total bounty will be set to $200,000, half of which will be rewarded in CAM tokens.
Camino Network’s three chains
According to Camino Network, the core is developed using the GO language. Thanks to the C-Chain, which is compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine, developers can quickly build applications on Camino. As for the dApps, they can be built on top of the Camino backend.
The project can maintain full EVM compatibility, keeping all common standards like ERC-20 tokens, ERC-721 tokens, and even ERC-2771, or meta transactions, while variants remain supported in the backend. Beyond that, it is very easy to adopt proven smart contracts and dApps that run on Ethereum’s network, and other compatible chains.
In total, the platform uses three separate chains:
- P-Chain, or the Platform Chain, which is used to manage and lock stake, validator, and network coordination;
- C-Chain, or the Contract Chain, which is the one that is fully compatible with Ethereum through an EVM, and it is where smart contracts are being built;
- X-Chain, or the Exchange Chain, which is used for fast asset creation and management.
The project explained that the philosophy behind the three specialized chains approach actually came from Avalanche. Camino uses Avalanche’s advanced technical base, so the same principle applies to its network. Each of the three chains was designed, optimized, and strictly considered a fully independent system, meant only for its own specific use.
That way, anyone with a role within the ecosystem has to work with a specific chain, depending on their role. For example, validators work within the P-Chain, while app developers work on C-Chain if they need to make more complex application scenarios that require EVM-compatible techniques, or on X-Chain, if it makes more sense to do their work there.
That can also increase the simplicity of understanding one’s role, as well as the area of the project’s ecosystem where work is being done and changes are being made. It all comes from the project’s desire to give ecosystem participants the opportunity to build something new and great.
Camino Network’s other services
Camino also offers a block explorer, which helps track network activity and available smart contracts on the chain. There is also a wallet that enables participants to stake their CAM tokens, and move or bridge funds between different chains.
In addition, there is data storage on IPFS. The idea of creating travel products requires low-cost data storage, which is why the project has created a cryptographic data storage implementation based on IPFS. That also includes a file browser, allowing for entangled data sets to be easily developed.
Camino Network Pros and Cons
Pros
- Scalable and low-cost: The Camino network is capable of scaling to match demand. Thanks to this, there is no waiting period, which ensures that transactions will always remain low-cost;
- Community-owned: Camino Network is owned and operated by its community, which includes individuals and partners who vote on various proposals and decide together what, if any, changes are to be implemented into the project moving forward;
- Innovative: Camino Network seeks to bring changes to the travel industry, starting with introducing far more advanced technologies than the outdated, decades-old systems that the travel industry still uses today;
- Caters to the needs of the travel industry: Camino is the first and only L1 chain built specifically to address the needs of the travel industry by using decentralized blockchain technology;
- Eco-friendly: Camino Network displays all CO2 emissions and connects users with companies that can help them to offset these emissions in the future.
Cons
- The company is fresh and does not have an extensive track record;.
- Camino does not allocate more validation tasks to validators who have staked more than the minimum stake amount.
Camino’s Community Support Channels
All the necessary information on Camino and its blockchain solutions is readily available on the company’s blog and website, as well as various social media platforms where users can get regular updates in regard to future project developments and engage with the community. Those include:
Website: https://camino.network
Medium/Blog: https://blog.camino.network
Camino social media platforms:
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@caminonetwork
Discord: https://discord.gg/camino
Twitter: https://twitter.com/camino_network
Telegram: https://t.me/caminoannouncements
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/caminonetwork/
Final thoughts
Camino Network is an exciting project tackling the problems and lacks in the travel industry. It has created a detailed and extensive plan to improve the industry, which still relies on heavily outdated, expensive, and slow technologies. Camino Network’s new blockchain system could go a long way in revolutionizing the travel sector, and potentially, it could someday become a global network that companies around the world would rely on.
For now, it is important to note that the network is still growing and trying to gather a strong and loyal community. Still, it has plenty of plans for the future, and with the launch of its mainnet, the roadmap is starting to look even more ambitious.
Risk Disclosure and Disclaimer: The information provided in this review should not be regarded as investment advice. Cryptocurrency assets experience high market volatility; therefore, buying, selling, and trading them exposes you to significant financial risks.
Frequently Asked Questions on Camino Network
What is Camino Network?
Camino Network is a Web3-based travel ecosystem. It is a travel industry-oriented blockchain fueled by the Camino token, and it offers a versatile network to expand existing business models of the travel industry while creating new touristic products to delight travelers and business partners.
Who created the Camino Network?
Camino Network was created by The Camino Network Foundation, which was, in turn, developed by Chain4Travel. Chain4Travel itself has three founders who are veterans of the travel industry — Ralf Usbeck, Thomas Stirnimann, and Pablo Castillo.
Who should use the Camino Network?
Camino Network is open to everyone, including individuals and companies. Partners of the network can also become node validators once they go through a verification procedure.
What does Camino Network offer?
Camino Network offers to transform the travel industry using blockchain technology and community capabilities. It offers low transaction fees, community governance, quick and easy payments for goods and services, and more.
