WELL: A Global Health Blockchain Protocol

What is WELL

Hello, friend! I’m glad to chat with you about a project in the blockchain world. Before we dive in, I should clarify that there are several projects in the blockchain space called “WELL,” or with the token ticker WELL. Today, I’ll mainly introduce a WELL project focused on the healthcare sector, aiming to transform how we access medical care and manage health data through blockchain technology.

You can think of this WELL project as a global “health data superhighway”. This highway is decentralized (Decentralized: meaning there’s no central authority in control, but rather the network participants collectively maintain and manage it), designed to connect doctors, hospitals, and patients worldwide. Its core goal is to break down geographical barriers, enabling medical services and health data to flow more conveniently and securely across the globe.

The project aims to solve key issues such as: the complexity of cross-border payments, difficulties in sharing and accessing health data, and risks in medical payments. For example, if you get sick while traveling abroad, WELL hopes to help you easily find local specialists and securely share your medical records, without worrying about privacy leaks.

It also features a very interesting use case called “Proof of Walk.” Through a mobile app, you can record your healthy activities, like walking or cycling, and earn WELL tokens as rewards. Just like leveling up in a game, the healthier you are, the more rewards you get. These tokens can be redeemed for goods or services in WELL’s “health marketplace.”

Project Vision and Value Proposition

WELL’s vision is to build a borderless global healthcare ecosystem. It aims to leverage blockchain technology to make high-quality medical services accessible worldwide, allowing patients and doctors to interact directly and efficiently.

Its value proposition includes:

• Solving core pain points: Addressing current healthcare challenges such as cross-border payment difficulties, data silos (where data between hospitals or systems isn’t interoperable), and payment risks, by providing a unified solution.
• Data privacy and security: Using advanced encryption technology to ensure patient health data meets strict privacy standards (like HIPAA), and making data immutable once recorded on the blockchain, guaranteeing authenticity and integrity.
• Incentivizing healthy behavior: Through the “Proof of Walk” model, encouraging people to actively participate in healthy activities, improving their health and earning real token rewards.
• Open data pool: Instead of patching together different medical systems for data interoperability, WELL chooses to build an open and secure data pool, allowing patients and healthcare providers to interact on a unified platform.

Technical Features

WELL has some unique technical aspects:

Technical Architecture

WELL has built a blockchain based on Proof of Authority (PoA) and “anchored” it to Ethereum. It’s like WELL has its own dedicated lane, built alongside Ethereum’s main highway, leveraging some of Ethereum’s infrastructure.

Proof of Authority (PoA): This is a special consensus mechanism (Consensus mechanism: the rules by which all blockchain participants agree on the validity of transactions and blocks). In PoA, not everyone can participate in block production; instead, a few pre-selected, known “authority” nodes (validators) verify transactions and generate new blocks. These validators are usually reputable entities with legal and reputational responsibilities to maintain the network. The advantage is fast transaction processing, high efficiency, and lower costs, as it doesn’t require massive computational competition like Bitcoin.

The WELL blockchain initially runs in a permissioned and controlled environment, but the project plans to gradually transition to a more decentralized, trustless system. Currently, the WELL network is supported by 6 validator nodes, with plans to expand to 16-18. It uses Parity Ethereum technology and the AuRa consensus algorithm.

Data Security and Privacy

To protect patients’ sensitive health information, WELL uses advanced encryption methods to ensure all data stored on the blockchain meets healthcare privacy standards, such as the US HIPAA regulations. This means your health data on the blockchain is secure, private, and immutable.

Tokenomics

The core of WELL is its token called “WELL Coin,” ticker WELL.

Token Basics

• Token symbol: WELL
• Issuing chain: Initially an Ethereum-based ERC-20 token (ERC-20 Token: a technical standard for creating interchangeable tokens on the Ethereum blockchain), but its PoA blockchain is anchored to Ethereum.
• Total supply and issuance: According to the 2018 ICO, the total supply of WELL tokens is 1,500,000,000. The whitepaper states the WELL blockchain itself has no inflation.
• Inflation/Burn: The whitepaper clearly states there is no inflation on the WELL blockchain.
• Current and future circulation: In the 2018 ICO, 600,000,000 WELL tokens were allocated to investors.

Token Utility

WELL tokens play multiple roles in the ecosystem:

• Means of payment: It’s the main payment tool within the WELL system, used for various service fees.
• Service pricing: WELL tokens help determine the price of services on the WELL platform.
• Advanced features: Some premium or special features may require WELL tokens to unlock.
• Incentive rewards: Users can earn WELL tokens by achieving health goals (like improving blood pressure) or participating in healthy activities (like walking).
• Redemption and discounts: Earned WELL tokens can be redeemed for goods, services, or discounts in WELL’s health marketplace.

Important note: The whitepaper clearly states that WELL tokens should not be used for investment purposes; they are not designed as investments and should not be considered as such.

Team, Governance, and Funding

Core Team

The WELL project has a team covering various professional fields, including:

• Ildar Fazulyanov: Founder and CEO
• Alex Prokhorov: Co-founder and Chairman of the Advisory Board
• Dr. Matthew Lefferman: Clinical Director
• Nate Flake: Project Manager
• Josh Fonger: Process Architect
• Yetkin Timocin: Developer
• Istvan Csatari, PhD: Designer
• Roque Espinal-Valdez: Chief Medical Information Officer

This team composition shows the project is led by professionals in healthcare, technology, and management.

Governance Mechanism

Due to the use of Proof of Authority (PoA), WELL’s governance is relatively centralized in the early stages. Validators are pre-selected and have legal obligations to fulfill their duties. The whitepaper notes that this mechanism helps ensure more prudent network upgrades via hard forks (Hard fork: a major blockchain protocol upgrade that makes old and new versions incompatible, requiring all nodes to upgrade to continue participating), as validators’ legal responsibilities ensure their fiduciary duty to the network’s future.

Funding

WELL raised $15 million in its 2018 initial coin offering (ICO). The whitepaper and available materials do not provide details on current funding reserves or operational runway.

Roadmap

Key Historical Milestones

• June 26-30, 2018: ICO completed, raising $15 million.
• September 16, 2020: GitHub activity began, currently with 2 public repositories.
• Launched: Mobile app (Beta) available on Google Play and Apple App Store.

Future Plans

• System upgrade: Plans to gradually migrate the PoA blockchain from the current permissioned environment to a more decentralized, trustless system.
• Ecosystem partnerships: Negotiating with potential partners to attract more institutions to join its blockchain and jointly incentivize healthy behaviors.
• Node expansion: Plans to expand the number of validator nodes from 6 to 16-18.

Common Risk Reminders

All blockchain projects carry risks, and WELL is no exception. Here are some common risks to note:

Technical and Security Risks

• Centralization risk: While Proof of Authority (PoA) is efficient, compared to Proof of Work (PoW) or Proof of Stake (PoS), its limited and known validators may lead to some degree of centralization risk. Although the whitepaper emphasizes validators’ legal and reputational constraints, this potential impact should still be considered.
• Smart contract risk: Any project based on smart contracts (Smart contract: self-executing computer programs stored on the blockchain that automatically execute agreements when preset conditions are met) may face code vulnerabilities or attack risks.
• Ethereum dependency: WELL’s PoA blockchain is anchored to Ethereum, so any major issues or security vulnerabilities in the Ethereum network could indirectly affect WELL.

Economic Risks

• Non-investment statement: The whitepaper clearly states WELL tokens should not be considered investments, indicating the project does not encourage speculation; participants should fully understand this.
• Market volatility: Like all cryptocurrencies, WELL’s price may be affected by market sentiment, macroeconomic changes, and regulatory policies, and is highly volatile.
• Adoption risk: The project’s success largely depends on its actual adoption in the healthcare industry, including attracting enough device manufacturers, app developers, and users.

Compliance and Operational Risks

• Healthcare compliance: Health data is subject to strict regulatory oversight (such as HIPAA), and ensuring global compliance is an ongoing challenge.
• Regulatory uncertainty: The global crypto regulatory environment is still evolving, and future policy changes may impact project operations.
• Team dependency: Changes in core team members may affect project development and direction.

Due Diligence Checklist

If you want to research this project further, pay attention to the following:

• Block explorer contract address: Ethereum mainnet contract address:
  0x684e2dcb12bb755237e07242529c82f78a84ea61
  (Block explorer: an online tool to view all transactions, blocks, and address information on the blockchain)
• GitHub activity: Project GitHub activity started on September 16, 2020, with 2 public repositories. Monitoring code updates and community contributions can help track development progress.
• Community and social media: Follow official social channels (e.g., Telegram has 4,044 members, X has 202 followers, and 696 tweets since April 2020) to stay updated on community discussions and project announcements.
• Website traffic: Currently, the website’s monthly organic traffic is 0, with low Ahrefs ranking and domain rating. This may indicate room for improvement in marketing or user acquisition.

Project Summary

Overall, the WELL project (specifically the healthcare blockchain project) presents an ambitious vision to reshape global healthcare services through blockchain technology. It seeks to address many pain points of traditional healthcare systems—such as data privacy, cross-border payments, and information sharing—via decentralization. Its Proof of Authority (PoA) consensus mechanism aims to provide an efficient and controllable blockchain environment, complemented by the innovative “Proof of Walk” incentive model to encourage active health management.

However, it’s important to note that the whitepaper clearly positions WELL tokens as utility tokens, not investment products—an important reminder for anyone considering participation. Additionally, although the project successfully conducted an ICO in 2018, current public information shows limited GitHub activity, website traffic, and social media influence. Blockchain applications in healthcare face strict compliance requirements and complex marketing challenges, which are ongoing obstacles for the project’s future development.

Friend, the blockchain world is full of opportunities and risks. I hope today’s introduction helps you gain a preliminary understanding of the WELL project. Remember, this is not investment advice; any decisions should be based on your own thorough research and risk assessment. Happy exploring!