Yeah- we absolutely will have TRU on exchanges after the ICO- discussions on-going presently, and it's why we have put aside large reserves in the raise and token budgets.

I don't think EOS has that capability simply because to get to what they're proposing they've sacrificed a lot of decentralized consensus for centralised control- in the same way that Ripple is never going to seriously challenge Bitcoin. They'll co-exist for a time and one will be more dominant than the other, but it's not going to be a binary market solution of winner/loser.

It's all about the cryptography algorithm- there are Quantum resistant encryption algorithms that aren't being used widely, but are being used by some organizations (namely intelligence organizations and research labs)- mainly because the overhead isn't worth it. Even AES can be Quantum resistant given a large enough key size. Sorry to burst the science fiction- QC will greatly increase computational capability but it won't lead to the ability to calculate all possible solutions to all possible mathematical problems instantly.

The decision is made by the Advisory Board who will comprise of 3 people from Tru Ltd (the founders), and 4 Non-Executives Directors who are legally obliged to act in accordance with the refund mechanism- it will include direct investors (with equity). That board will make the decision of whether we've gated or not based on the goals as outlined in the white paper on a simple majority- the Advisory Board may well survey network partners as well in part of their decision making. Refunds will be made proportional to the burn down as per the gates to the wallet addresses given during the token sale. If you want to change your address, email kyc@tru.ltd at any time, but they will require you to prove ownership of the old address and the new address via signed message before making a change to the records.

The easiest example I've found that works is Arcade Tokens: you go to an Arcade, you have to buy tokens to use the machines, you can't use those tokens for buying pizza around the corner- they have defined utility. You also don't get a share of the revenue made by the Arcade by owning their tokens. If you gain speculative value from owning those tokens or can use them for anything beyond a defined utility- it's a security.

Trubador is a full platform- it's way beyond a Minimum Viable Product now- Over 8,000 businesses are on the platform with over 17,000 customers in NY & London. Right now, without an invite (sorry, current invite round is closed), you can't access the live data, but if you download the app from the iOS App Store or Google Play you can access the demo environment to get a feel for how it all works (just set your targeting to NYC for the Geo Search for the demo).

Yeah, absolutely We'd prefer partnership with an authentication- right now the entire Tru Reputation Profile works off the idea of verifying the claim to an identity/wallet and linking that claim to a profile (like Green Listing). We've implemented this in the Trubador private build and that handles OAuth2, local auth and PK signatures- so their really isn't anything to stop it integrating with any authentication provider on the market.

True- but only if the Token Sale counts as a Security. That comes down to the Howey Test and how the token is designed. Coinbase did a great overview of the Securities Perspective in the US, and they have a questionnaire that gives you a finger in the air assessment of what a prospective company is planning vs Howey (NOTE: it's not a substitute for legal advice, always get a qualified opinion, but scoring high will tell you that you need this resolved before even thinking of planning a CrowdSale).

The Securities legislation also only applies to public Token Sales, not if you accept investment from 'Accredited Investors' only- they're allowed to make at risk investments, but again, that means vetting them rather than throwing open the doors for capital. Same rules apply for crowdfunding of any startup in the US- not really that much of a minefield if you plan properly, and get legal advice. If you end up spending $500k, you're going to need to be a pretty significant project (Greater than $100MM valuation) to make that even vaguely worth the effort.

Filecoin is done by the guys who came up with IPFS- and they raised over $250MM last year (so around a $500MM Market Cap). IPFS is the protocol, Filecoin is the economy on top of that. Compare that to a Market Cap on LBRY of $90MM.

Great and noble sentiment- and the merit system may work if more than just people like you do this. I like to think I'm being constructive, and I think my history shows that.

If the mechanic was more graceful than it is, sure- but from a UI perspective, it's actually a lot of effort to award merit, and that means it's likely to only be used for merit farming- essentially a digital circlejerk probably coordinated on Telegram channels.

I don't think it solves the problem it's trying to address, and may actually make it worse. I get the need to lessen administrative burden (and I totally agree with that, it's becoming a bit of a shitshow for them), but I actually think this might have the opposite effect. If they'd opened the proposal to public scrutiny (say as a Request for Comments), this would have been a lot smoother and likely would look and function a lot differently. Instead, it's now become technical debt that'll be hard to redesign effectively.

Yeah- exactly. You're opinion of the Howey Test isn't what the SEC uses

It isn't expensive to get a lawyer to do the initial check. It is expensive to get a lawyer to get your ass out of trouble if you do breach the regulations.

You're basically toying with an idea that occurred to me.

Give you a example: Token Sale X has a minimum buy of 1 ETH. Users A,B & C don't have 1 ETH each to spend, but do when combined. So, you could build a payable contract that accepts them buying their 'stake' in the contract, and the contract then turn acts like a multisig wallet and performs the purchases on Token Sale X. Token Sale X transfers the tokens to that wallet contract, and once any release lock on the tokens is released proportionally distributes the tokens to the participates, less say a 5% fee for the contract creator.

That's an idea that's got some merit. Not necessarily easy to execute (well easy to code, but would need a lot of auditing to make sure it's really secure, otherwise I could see a Parity wallet situation occurring). Right now I could only see it working on Ethereum, but it might be possible to do it on other chains as well. I can certainly help if you'd like but I've got a full time job so it'd be sporadic if you wanted to go this route.

Depends on what they're offering. If it's a true utility token and passes the Howey Test, then it already complies- it's when they're a security they don't and need to get SEC licensing. Ours is based in the UK, but we've got our team split between the US & UK (I'm currently in Manhattan, my wife is American, I've split my time between London & NYC for the last 5 years)- and because of that we got legal advice and structured our Pre-Sale, Crowdsale and token economics to not require SEC licensing- it's not hard, just requires a bit of forethought. Coinbase did some good work publishing an overview of securities framework here.

Ok- so the fundamental volatility is down to a lack of market depth- money tends to be 'sticky' because it links into an asset in the long term. Right now, most of the value of Bitcoin is speculative and not linked to an actual use case- it's not a good payment system at the moment because of Tx time vs cost, 'Store of Value' is a misnomer because it's too volatile to store anything least of all value. BTC needs to solve it's scalability issues, reduce tx costs and increase tx volume- when that happens, and it becomes easier to use then it'll get more use cases and then the value will breach the current speculative cycle. Right now, that's not looking to happen in the short term- and alternative chains like Ethereum are showing more utility by doing different things (computation validation & asset linkage in Ethereum's case). It's not enough to be 'first'- BTC needs to keep evolving, that's the nature of digital technology.

As everyone has said- check the PSUs- 5 years of experience has taught me not to cheap out on PSUs and that the math isn't linear. Cheap PSUs are essentially a waste of money, and more than GPUs they're where you should put the majority of your planning. Also applies to PCI-E risers/extensions- don't cheap out on them if you're going to stack on a motherboard and A/B test as you scale up.

I suppose it depends on whether you feel there was any value in those clicks (and you'll know if there was or not). The market is absolutely throwing money around- pretty classic hype cycle bubble- and that'll stop when the spending outstrips new capital entering the market. Nothing is immune from gravity, and eventually all things correct. Right now there is a lot of hope and hope drives initial value- but hope has to give way to real economic value, or the price will drop. It was one reason I saw the Ethereum price staying near $300 for a good time last year as a good thing (not for traders, but for the project)- it meant it was consolidating it's value. But now we've gone parabolic again without a substantial increase in utility or economic value.

It's also the biggest risk for Bitcoin as the grandfather- it needs to be more useful than a 'Store of Value' or it'll eventually die. Technically that means a lot lower fees and better scalability at a pace far, far faster than has been agreed to date.

Hey

Addressing your questions:

1) Market Impact- $2,290 Billion market, with at least 70% of spending being influenced by reviews (it's actually higher in Western countries- up to 92%, but we chose the conservative estimate)- that gives you $1,603 Billion each year that is influenced by reviews. If 20% of reviews are fake, then 20% of $1,603 Billion is $320.6 billion, or rounded to the nearest billion $321 billion. If you take the 92% figure, the affected market $2,106.8 billion, and market impact of $421.36 billion. Big old impact.

2) If by SOM you mean Serviceable Obtainable Market- Total Addressable Market is $321 Billion, Total Obtainable Market is $16 Billion, Serviceable Obtainable Market is $1.2 Billion within 4 years.

Does that answer your questions?

Yes and no- Trubador has a hard limit on the number of users in the private beta of 50k- but they will all go over when the cut over happens. The limit is there because:

1) it's a beta, it's designed to gather feedback and improve ahead of a wider public release in the US & UK
2) The public release needs to use the Tru Reputation Network- really don't want to have to cut after the fact.

and no, Trubador isn't getting any advantage other than Tru Reputation Token for the feedback it injects into the system- which is valuable in and of itself. Same rules for all platforms in the Tru Reputation Network- no exceptions.

Yes, absolutely. We've hit 25,000 users on Trubador as of this past Monday -a big milestone  - and Trubador will be an inaugural member of the Tru Reputation Network and will exist under the same rules as any other member of the Network (pay for queries/earn for data). We're talking to other platforms already as well to add more to the network on launch, and if any others are interested and reading this, feel free to reach out to discuss a partnership agreement.