CONDA pioneers digitalization of company shares

By Press Release
September 06, 2018
CRWD Network

DACH and CEE crowdinvesting market leader CONDA pioneers the digitalization of company shares

Fintech Trends or Future of Fintech
By Dusica Lukac
July 18, 2018
Blockchain

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I was staring at this blank piece of paper and I was thinking, “What an ambitious title for a blog.” However, 2017 and 2018 were so busy and transformative for financial services, I feel another blog on this topic will not hurt. Before I start, I want to address important comments from all the naysayers. People do not like change in the essence. To a certain degree, I have to agree with this fact; but we always forget that today, we are building companies and tech solutions to be used by tech-savvy, young, new generations that are slowly stepping into the scene and carrying the legacy of inheritance of the baby boomers; and here, we are talking about serious trillions of dollars. That is why the financial services are going to change inevitably. Even today, we can see the discrepancy between the clients who prefer online advice – a staggering 60% per EY research of 2016, and those working in financial services that prefer face-to-face interaction - 66%. Both clients and service providers agree that execution should be digital – more than 70%.

With all this in mind, I have to say that users warming up to technology are pushing financial service companies deeper into Fintech’s territory. I strongly believe that financial service providers of today and tomorrow are technology companies, per se. Customer pull with lower fees, better user-experience and performance combined with regulatory changes — like GDPR, MiFiD – and higher transparency of fee structure. All this is inevitably drawing us closer towards the technology push, including but not limited to: Platformization of the services, Robo-advisory, and two stars of the new Fintech trends: Blockchain and AI.

The new technologies changing the face of the financial services and being integrated by Fintechs are:
Blockchain technology,

famous for its peer-to-peer currencies, came into the focus of financial service companies some time ago due to a long list of business benefits. These benefits are too long to be summed up here and do not only include cost savings, but the efficient and lean processes, immutability of records, built-in cryptography for secure transactions and tamper-proof transfer of value, and also, the automation of processes and validation. Blockchain moved a bar from the Internet of information to the Internet of value.
Artificial Intelligence (AI)

is another technology that is bringing enormous change to financial services and is defining clear Fintech trends. The advanced AI technology helps us automate existing processes — something I am sorry we did not have while I was building my decades-long career in financial services. The technology that automates mundane, repetitive, error-prone processes would have saved me many headaches and made back-office processes seamless, in return, making clients’ lives easier, too. Due to multiple levels of added value, AI is seen as even more transformative for financial services than blockchain.
Platforms

are the next big Fintech trend or even the current, big trend. I cannot leave them out, as they are bringing new angles to the term “financial services.” And I have to be honest, that’s to my satisfaction. Let me mention here only: Yu’e Bao Alibaba’s asset management arm is the world’s biggest money market fund with US$ 50 billion of assets under management bigger than the second one - JP Morgan. Almost all significant platforms now offer financial services of some kind: from payments to wealth management, such as for example, Chinese WeChat.

There are many growing, new technologies, like Internet of Things (IoT), virtual or augmented reality (AR or VR), etc., that will find their way into Fintechs’ world in the near future. Many new trends are clearly growing, thanks to the push from customers, competitors and regulators. Markets seem to be ripe for the shift and deep change.

An important change in the world of finance that is fuelling new blockchain or blockchain & AI ventures is a new form of crowd investing – using blockchain and enabling peer-to-peer investing – is popularly called Initial Coin Offering or Initial Token Offering (ICO or ITO) which mimics the Initial Public Offering (IPO). Apart from cutting out the proverbial middleman, bank or arranger of the funding, the ICO brought a novelty in the investor’s ownership, or even new asset class. In the case of the ICO, the investor actually owns a token that is funding product development, but does not own the part of the company which is developing the product. This was a major shift in the field of financial services offered in this area. As the ICO market matures, the shift towards so-called security token offering, or STO, is significant. Depending on how the security token is structured, the offering can continue circumventing the investment in the management company of the product.
The latest Fintech trends

To sum up, let me mention a few trends that we have identified as the latest Fintech trends:

    Digitalization is still key.
    New technologies, such as blockchain and AI, are increasing efficiency of the systems as well as number of choices for the end users and are inevitable.
    Higher automation means lower costs and more affordable financial services, and has to be implemented.
    A movement from mass adoption towards profitability is expected.
    The new forms of peer-to-peer and crowd-funding services are emerging, and there is a strong place for them in the market.
    However, all Fintech participants share the end-goal: a seamless, affordable and comfortable user experience; and they will do everything to achieve this.



I support Conda CRWD Network token sale. If you want to benefit from the pre-sale favorable conditions be so kind to purchase tokens directly by clicking on this LINK or send me an E-Mail for more details.

Why have I decided to join CONDA’s CRWD Network?
By Dusica Lucac
July 18, 2018
CRWD Network


I have spent most of my career in financial services. I rode the banking wave of the 90s and 2000s. I also saw the same industry slowly die in our hands by becoming a huge, inefficient system of bureaucrats. Well, it was good while it lasted, but that also taught me a valuable lesson. If market players do not develop and evolve with the market, they will become obsolete. Market change and progress cannot be stopped, ever. Only those who recognize change and add value will, in the long run, survive and thrive.

After only-so-many structured deals, equity, debt and convertibles, it was absolutely natural that something new and interesting, like ICO (initial coin offering), would draw my attention. I have no shame in admitting that it was love at first sight. I loved the dynamics, the shift from the old paradigm, and the fresh air that came with bringing decision-making closer to those who actually own the money. On the other hand, my entrepreneurial side could not believe the amazing way to help great tech ideas grow from 0 to series B in one stroke. It all looked like a win-win situation.

However, the weakest link in the blockchain world, the human link, has proven to be a challenge again. All sorts of people were attracted to officially unregulated space. Many good players tried to bring in self-regulations and succeeded, but the space remained to be perceived as generally unregulated. At the same time, some individuals used this amazing new form of financing for their own ill-gotten gains. We have all witnessed the pump-and-dump game that exploded around January. Sure, the regulators woke up and started coordinating this space; but still, the hype of the ICO market was still there. This was damaging for the industry, and at the same time, such an amazing breakthrough of a financial instrument in its infancy. The ICOs suddenly shifted from tech to the marketing and PR side. Don’t get me wrong; I do appreciate good marketing and PR. How else would anyone hear about one’s product, if there were no good marketing? But still, the marketing experts and whole ecosystem were driving the cost of the ICO beyond the reach of those for whom it was invented. Should I mention the legal costs as well? On the other hand, you do want to do your homework and check all legal angles. In the end, no one wants to spend the rest of their days in jail. “Startupy” office sounds much better than jail, doesn’t it? Should I mention the cost of the various advisors, rating experts, listings, Ryan Gosling-developers, and so on and so forth?

At one moment, while being approached by hundreds of potential upcoming ICOs, I wondered how it’s possible for a young and smart team with good tech solutions to do an ICO. The initial investment seemed to be skyrocketing, and it is not going down with the rise of the security token, on the contrary. I have met dedicated teams with great ideas, and high ethical standards that would prefer to get step-by-step funding in order to raise funds for the growth phase. That sounds so logical; but sometimes, it seems an almost impossible idea with the way the ICO market has been shaping up.

And then, I met Daniel Horak from CONDA. CONDA is a successful crowd-investing platform that deployed more than EUR 20 m, and helped several-hundred companies fundraise in its five years of existence. Impressive, isn’t it? Daniel introduced me to the CRWD Network concept, and I loved it from day one. That’s exactly what was missing in the current market development phase!

CONDA has already developed a protocol that will enable the teams with great ideas to issue security tokens in an absolutely regulated and friendly environment. To add to the value, the CRWD Network also developed an ecosystem that will validate all participants: from token issuers, service providers to investors. It will be easy to reach good, quality service providers of all forms to power your ICO. And on top of everything, while the crowd sale of CRWD Network is in preparation, Daniel and his cofounder, Paul — together with the whole team – are getting all relevant licenses and regulatory approvals which may be needed.

CRWD Network is your gateway to fundraising at your own speed, and with all the help you might need, to make that great idea come true. You will do all that in a regulated and compliant-friendly environment with vetted peer projects and an approved investor’s network. To me, this seems attractive, not just to the companies, but also the investors. It removes many problems blockchain ventures are facing with the cacophony existing in the market now.

Now, you can see why I could not wait to join the team that is bringing something so needed to this new world. Going back to my start, CONDA team has recognised the trend and decided to move, grow and develop while helping others do the same. I have no doubt they will thrive!

I support Conda CRWD Network token sale. If you want to benefit from the pre-sale favorable conditions be so kind to purchase tokens directly by clicking on this LINK or send me an E-Mail for more details.

Investor Key & the CRWD Network

By Daniel Pichler
July 17, 2018
CRWD Network



CRWD Network - investor key contracts

Your investor key is your unique ID verification on the Ethereum blockchain. Its main control key, the management key, is tied to your identity and is your key to hold and trade asset tokens on the CRWD Network.

The investor key was created by combining two EIP standards in an Ethereum smart contract; if you’ve tried out the demo, you’ll notice the investor key as the first large transaction on the Ethereum blockchain. The investor key allows you to add personal data to your address to make it compliant to be able to hold asset tokens.
The Ethereum Contract - Identity

Ethereum’s contract allows KYC providers to store your KYC status after having checked your credentials; that is, you and your address are now associated to one another. In regards to identity management, several keys are required to approve changes to your identity as well as access to your verification data. The main key is the management key, which holds the funds you own and can verify your identity and create additional keys. So long as this key is secure, nothing can happen to your funds. It should be kept in a hardware wallet or be handled on another secure device.
Want to know what the other types of keys can do for you?

Management Keys - Highest level, can sign claims and generate new keys

Action Keys - Can sign and approve claims that should be added to the investor key

Claim Signer Keys - KYC providers can use these to add identity information to the account

Encryption Keys - Can de-/encrypt unconfirmed claims sent to the investor key

Asset Token Consumer Keys - Can grant access to your ID documents
The Ethereum Contract - Claim Holder

Through the second part of the Ethereum smart contract, third parties (or in the case of the CRWD Network, KYC providers) can add your identity data to your key. These additions are automatically approved if they come from KYC providers on a verified provider list. These claims can contain various pieces of information. For investing into CRWD Token in Austria, the different types of claims look like this:

Passport verification necessary for investments up to €5000

Video identification necessary for investments over €5000

Proof-of-fund origins verification necessary for investments over €100.000

The claims are written into your investor key by the KYC provider in an unreadable but verifiable format. The information on the blockchain contains nothing that can be publicly interpreted, but gives some people the right to look up your ID information from a secure third party service.

Before a new project can access your personal information, you have to approve their data access with your management key. You are also be able to revoke access to projects you previously gave consent to in case you sold the asset tokens you owned from them.

Want to learn more about the investor key? Find all the information in the CRWD Network technical whitepaper.

CRWD Network use case #2: Special Taste Brewery



By Karin Turki
July 11, 2018
CRWD Network

We are going to give you some use cases of the CRWD Network, so that you get a better understanding of its entire capability and its unique features:

- use case #1: a (fictional) SME in the B2B sector, which needs fundings for further growth and therefore runs a crowdinvesting campaign on different local platforms (in Germany) in the CRWD Network

- use case #2: a (fictional) SME selling consumer products, which needs fundings as well as promotion to enter new markets. Therefore the company runs an international crowdinvesting campaign on various platforms in the CRWD Network - to get the required equity plus the marketing effect which come along with the campaign.

CRWD Network use case #2: Special Taste Brewery
Company Profile:

• Category: Small/Medium Enterprise

• Year of Founding: 2008

• Revenue 2017: €20 Mio.

• Industry: FMCG

• Headquarters: Rosenheim, Germany

• Subsidiaries: Budvar, Czech Republic (production facilities)

• Total Employees: 28

Special Taste Brewery produces flavored craft beer for the retail and hospitality industry (hotels, restaurants and catering). Founded in 2008 as a small backyard brewery, the company was able to establish its own production facilities in the Czech Republic due to increasing demand of its niche products and consistently good sales.

Today, 10 years after entering the market, the company has the experience, team and knowledge to enter the European specialty beer market and needs €20 Mio. for enlarging production facilities, marketing, personal and market entry fees.

Step 1: Preparation

Special Taste Brewery approaches CONDA.de with its project to raise the necessary funding and expand into markets in Austria, Switzerland, Slovenia, Slovakia and Hungary.

CONDA.de sets-up a fundraising campaign with international focus, based on the CRWD Network protocol.

Special Taste Brewery creates tokenized security offerings (profit participation agreement) for a maximum of €20 Mio. by using the CRWD Network protocol.

Step 2: Placement in the CRWD Network

Because Special Taste Brewery wants to use the marketing effect of their fundraising campaign to enter new markets, the company approaches several crowdinvesting platforms in the CRWD Network where it can place its campaign. Five local platforms agree to the terms and conditions, and with one click, the fundraising campaign of Special Taste Brewery goes online on the same day.

All of the five platforms use the same standardized process for using smart contracts and offer the same company tokens to the public. Investors can get whitelisted on any of the platforms prior to making investments. 100% of the tokens represent the whole €20 Mio. tokenized security offering by Special Taste Brewery.

Step 3: Launch of International Fundraising Campaign

For the start of the campaign, the smart contracts are deployed on the Ethereum blockchain and are used by all platforms, which present the campaign to their existing networks and earn commission for brokering the project (everything is automatically done by the underlying smart contracts).

All investments are transparently settled on the blockchain. Users are able to invest in common cryptocurrencies as well as in Euros. As soon as an investor sends Ether to the crowdsale contract, it will receive the desired tokenized equity offering.

Step 4: Successful Funding and Thousands of New Brand Ambassadors

After its successful campaign, Special Taste Brewery pays dividends to all investors on the blockchain through a single “click”. Investors receive the security tokens in their wallets and get additional investor benefits such as craft beer coupons, invitations to music festivals sponsored by Special Taste Brewery, merchandise material etc. Such perks help turn Special Taste Brewery investors into enthusiastic brand ambassadors for the brand.

How CONDA chose the blockchain for CRWD Network
By Daniel Pichler
June 14, 2018
CRWD Network

In the beginning, it was clear that creating a new blockchain on which CONDA should build the CRWD Network is not the best option.

So, the task of choosing the right existing blockchain for it required several things to be taken into consideration. For creating CRWD Network, CONDA needs a decentralized and public blockchain that is both reliable and has proven itself.

There is a wide variety of networks to choose from, such as Ethereum and Ethereum Classic, through NEO, NEM, and Tezos. Each of them would be a good choice for CWRD Network, considering that all of them are in constant development and they rely on proven PoW or PoS algorithms.

Apart from the mentioned blockchains, other blockchains, such as the most famous one that stands behind Bitcoin, do not natively support Tokens or Smart Contracts. It is important to note the development solutions to this issue, such as RSK. However, this option is not ready for production.
CONDA’s blockchain of choice is Ethereum

Ethereum is chosen due to the fact that it has 66k+ token contracts deployed so far and has the most reliable Smart contract language, Solidity.

While alternatives exist, it is safe to say that they are, in the current state of development, lacking in either scalability, the level of decentralization or community trust. With the latter two being the most important for the CRWD Network, Ethereum became the blockchain of choice, and CONDA will be paying close attention to its development.

In case Ethereum fails, for any reason, the fallback option is Ethereum Classic.
Volatility issue

When using Ethereum as the blockchain for CRWD Network, the only natural option is to have Ether (ETH) as the cryptocurrency of choice for investments. Considering the volatility of cryptocurrencies, this solution should be addressed again in the future, and currency compared to a more stable asset.

This is possible to happen in the future iteration of the network, by introducing a stablecoin as a replacement for ETH. Currently available stablecoins are Tether, Digix Dao, Maker DAO, Carbon or Saga, with each of them having different risk profiles.

Their development will be closely monitored, as CONDA is hoping that one of them could become developed to fit the CRWD Network.

We are super happy to announce that Dusica Lukac joined the CRWD Network as advisor!Dusica is a seasoned professional and MBA-qualified Financial Investment Strategist with a wealth of transferable skills honed from a progressive and accelerated career trajectory operating within the pan European region throughout the last 20 years. With her experience in fundraising and investing from the alphabet funding, via M&A to ICOs.Welcome to the team Dusica!

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