REQ (Altcoin)

Most of you by now may have heard of Request Network, but you may be unfamiliar with the specifics or dismissed it as it fell below ICO price upon hitting the market.
I think we should talk a bit about the project and what the're trying to accomplish. If you're unaware, they're backed by Ycombinator (ctrl + F Request on their website) and also have backing from ING. These two things should be enough to divert your attention for 5 minutes to learn a bit more about Request.

THE TEAM
The team is made up of 6 people, I won't go into their names as it wont mean anything to most of you but they've already worked together in the past on a successful project called Moneytis. This project was also backed by Ycombinator and ING and has since become independant and no longer requires their involvement to function. You can see Moneytis for yourself here

THE VISION
From the whitepaper - "Request is a decentralized network that allows anyone to request a payment (a Request Invoice) for which the recipient can pay in a secure way. All of the information is stored in a decentralized authentic ledger. This results in cheaper, easier, and more secure payments, and it allows for a wide range of automation possibilities." This is a brief summary of what Request aims to be but it goes far more in depth than that.
They will aim at both business and consumer use. For example - I will be able to use Request as a payment method on my favourite website, cutting out the need for Paypal and it's fees. But businesses will also be able to use Request to create payments between them (as well as much more functionality) and account for all of the costs and excess paperwork that comes with standard business invoicing. You can read more about this in the whitepaper as linked above.

WHY WOULD I USE REQUEST?
For me I'd rather focus on the consumer side as that's what would benefit me. One of the benefits of paying for your goods from a retailer through Request is that your payment information will never be shared or stored on the retailers side, which isn't currently the case.
This would make it much quicker and straightforward for making payments but the real kicker is obviously the lack of cost. "No third-party like Paypal, Bitpay or Stripe, all of whom are providers that charge between 1% and 7% of the amounts sent. Request reduces the cost." Compare this to the 0.05-0.5% fees that Request would be charging and you have a clear choice, provided it's user friendly and receives some adoption.
I'm just going to add in a little segment about how I can imagine Request benefitting me.
Right now if I purchase a used car part from a Facebook group, the easiest method is to pay with Paypal. People try and get around fees by asking for that money to be paid as a friend (no fees), but the problem with this is that if you never receive the goods - you cannot dispute it. The other option is to pay for goods and services which charges 3.4% plus 20p on any transaction, which obviously the buyer has to cover as the seller wants to receive the full listed amount. I have to do this every time I make a purchase this way. Many people also have bad experiences with Paypal freezing accounts and making it impossible to access and use your funds, with you having to wait on them to reenable it at their convenience.

Now take this example:
I want to buy a pair of headlights from someone on a Facebook page. They send me a Request for the money, I oblige and that money is held in escrow (he is notified of this) I'm given the tracking details for my headlights and upon successful delivery, the funds are released to the seller, all with minimal hassle and minimal fees. Now this is advanced functionality (escrow) but it will be possible.

INVESTMENT INCENTIVES
Obviously being excited about the projects potential is all well and good, but you don't need to invest in the project to use it, but considering we're a sub full of Crypto investors - we should discuss it as an investment choice.
Request tokens will be paid as fees. The user will not need to hold these tokens, but they would be held by the API owner who charges the fees for whatever service you're using. Now, these tokens would then be burned - reducing the overall supply of Request tokens. This will happen every time there is a transaction, therefore increasing the value of the tokens. This is a great incentive as it makes sense and doesn't require any effort or supremely elaborate mechanism.

COMPETITION
Now admittedly I don't know of all the projects in the Crypto space but I do know that people are trying to draw comparisons with OMG. Fortunately, they're not actually designed to be competitors. They could actually compliment each other, Request created a blog post outlining the differences here

THE FUTURE
Since the ICO the Request team have had their heads down and have been cracking on despite the FUD circulating due to the price dropping. In their previous Project Update they announced that they're currently ahead of their Roadmap and intend to release the business invoice side of the product in Q4 this year.. "The website will also support the first of our use cases: business invoices. We’re looking forward to sharing a sneak peek of its UI/UX in a few weeks." Their latest project update answered a lot of the communities questions as well as showcased some screenshots of the Request website, you can read that here
They also recently posted about Continuous Payments Another interesting concept that could change the way people are paid.
Now I wish I could elaborate more on the business side of Request, it seems like they have a lot of use cases for businesses for auditing and what not - the truth is, I don't know enough about it to make any informed statements - so if you're interested I suggest you read their blog posts and Whitepaper to make sense of it yourself, but I imagine most of you would see the benefit from the consumer side.
Bit of a lengthy post, but I'd love to discuss this more with you so feel free to ask any further questions and I'll respond or I'm sure other people from the community will be able to answer.