We have already past the required 9.5k BTC minimum for the IPVO, I also have the fail safe of VC's for extra capital if required, but so far I am more than happy with our progress.

I fully expect the announcements on merchants, to create a vast amount of interest in Neo & Bee, unfortunately I cannot just release the news until all parties are ready to do so (I am the most eager to make these announcements, but it takes time).

TAT recorded the presentation and I am waiting for him to get a chance to upload the video, however he is snowed under with everything in relation to the transfer of shares. If an official video is not put online we have our very own TAT production.

Haha if it was photoshopped, I would be much better looking

I was the first speaker of the event on the Thursday morning, I am still waiting for the videos myself as I missed many of the speakers that I wanted to see, due to meetings occurring in the margins.

Through establishing a local rate that isn't reset with every trade completed on the public markets, the current market conditions we are seeing right now will provide many opportunities for us, this is also one of the predicted "what if crashes" that is now being played out before we launch.

I will always be around, however realistically I cannot be here over the coming months as much as I currently am able too, so there will be an account that is managed by our head of marketing, to keep everyone updated in relation to our progress. News releases will also be pushed out from more official platforms.

If I was in a position to answer hourly questions, the first thought I would have is that I am obviously not working hard enough. Something I can assure everyone will never be an issue.

What would you like an update on?

KPMG were announced as a strategic partner, they are participating in the lobbying efforts also.

The process we are undertaking to becoming regulated has been provided.

We have the first Bee merchant, however we know this will be huge news for Bitcoin in general, so it the news will be managed accordingly.

We have taken delivery of the offices.

The interior designer will be providing first drafts of their proposed designs for our branches within 10 days.

We are entering into both the insurance market (through a carrier) and the international remittance market (projections will be released when ready).

We have 2 seminars planned to introduce Neo & Bee to the merchants, with many surrounding interviews with the media (mid-november).

I am giving a presentation at the Cyprus International Institute of Business on both our businesses and Bitcoin, their conference is based around innovations in finance.

 

We will be partnering with a new merchant that we are very excited about. We feel this merchant will also bring confidence to additional new merchants in adopting the Bee payment network.

The answer is almost certainly No, not until there is a registered platform, where certain standards have to be met, that are set by a regulatory board. We have tried to raise the standards ourselves, however only time will tell if others follow suit.

Just had some HUGE news for Bee, need to get everything confirmed in writing, then we shall be making some headlines.

We will also be actively trading our own reserves across multiple platforms.

Finally back in the Cypriot sunshine!



Myself and the directors of Pittas & Valerkos Software, also a link to the conference that I am proud to be speaking about Bitcoin and Neo & Bee at here in Cyprus;

http://www.ciim.ac.cy/news-events/entry/innovations-in-the-financial-services-industry.html

As with anything that finds a price based on supply and demand, one could argue that those existing businesses would receive less BTC income if less people are using BTC. Which is the case when demand drops the price follows suit.

Not entirely reliable on the price of Bitcoin rising in price, we do know that we will be increasing demand and reducing the supply at the same time, however we are also developing alternate revenue streams based on additional services that we shall offer at the time of launch. To provide projected figures on these without solid decisions having been made is something that I just will not do, as someone with a financial background you will understand the vast amount of variables when considering an insurance carrier, this is also totally ignoring the fact that we are also entering into the International Remittance space too.

I do know that TAT is working on these transfers, he will be better placed to provide an update. I will speak with him later today, to push for an update in here.

I missed this part yesterday, yes the Cypriot people are conservative, as myself and you both know (having had/still live in Cyprus) that they have always operated under the terms of "old is good". Now that is changing, especially when you talk about the following percentages 6.9%, 47.5% & 100% then pose the question to them "is old still good?" the answers are somewhat different these days.

Many of the early questions posed were born out of misconceptions as to the way we are going to be operating. We have brought certain aspects of our plans forward to ensure that we can provide earlier clarification as to the platforms that we will have available to us for trading our own reserves.

Yes we will have our own reserves to trade with.

I am still leaving the job offer open to anyone that can buy €100m worth of BTC without applying any upwards movement in the price.

I believe that, I have demonstrated enough that I will provide answers to any questions or concerns when they are posed in a manner that makes any logical sense and will continue to do so.

Time based wallets are not one of the two instant access wallets.

There is more details in the prospectus surrounding these wallets, to summarize;

The buy €10,000 worth of Bitcoin and want to keep it locked away for anywhere between 6 - 60 months.
The will receive a percentage of any POTENTIAL growth, whilst we will protect them negative price movements.

Benefits to the customer:

No one can take their money without their permission.
They have the POTENTIAL to out perform the traditional banks offerings.
They know we are not trading with their coins.
All gains are tax free in Cyprus.

Benefits to Neo

We know those coins are not going to be dumped onto the market any time soon.
We know when those coins will become trade able again (if the customer decides they want to cash out at the end of the term).
We receive the remaining percentage of growth in exchange for taking the risk on negative price movements.

Yes it was a typo and now fixed, thanks for pointing that out.

Our path to regulation

As many people within Bitcoin assume the stance that the regulators have an agenda against Bitcoin, I can assure you this is not the case. The regulators are always two steps behind technology, their procedures towards making changes without external input can be very slow. Once you start asking questions many of them too see the potential of Bitcoin and wish to obtain a better knowledge of the protocol itself. This produces a situation where Bitcoin businesses get levied with the existing regulations that are enforced upon more traditional financial institutions, they fully understand that they cannot regulate the protocol themselves, however they can regulate the point of entry where government issued fiat can be converted into Bitcoin.

We are working with our lawyers and KPMG to provide the regulators with a knowledge base (in Greek) of the Bitcoin protocol. Both our lawyers and KPMG have assigned partners to our case to ensure that it is handled correctly from the outset.

Due to the fact that our business has so many intricate parts, we are proposing our own "new" framework to the regulators in Cyprus, that is more fitting than the traditional models. This framework will include the more traditional AML/KYC policies, with strict auditing processes along with many more smaller details.

The fact that we are using such reputable lawyers and KPMG we know for certain that the regulators will take a positive view towards our proposals, they will make amendments where they believe things need to be changed, that is both understandable and expected.

We have factored Central Bank Deposits and minimum required seed capital into our plans from the beginning, so this is not of grave concern to myself.

This process will be complete before we open the flagship branch (Yes lawyers can work quickly too   ), please also remember that this is Cyprus and not the US.

In a nut shell
We are using our Lawyers & KPMG to provide a knowledge base of Bitcoin to the regulators, we are also proposing our own regulatory framework directly to the regulators that is more fitting to Bitcoin and our business operations than the regular archaic legal framework. This is being positively received by the regulators because we are being extremely proactive whilst using reputable partners to achieve our goals.

As a side note to anyone starting a venture that could potentially fall foul of the regulators, ask the questions to the regulators through a reputable lawyer and tax advisers, every business is different and treated as such, they are not necessarily evil people and they offer 10x as much help if you are proactive and provide them with detailed information as to what Bitcoin is, how it works and what it is your going to be doing.

 

We would open up ourselves to more litigation risk, by having too many options, the scenario of "it wasn't clear" is a much stronger case when you have multiple and varying options. With just two options it is clear cut.

A pegged wallet provides access to the Bitcoin protocol for use as a medium of exchange, with the benefits of Bitcoin being felt through the inability of a central authority putting their hands into your wallet to take everything out against your will. This also provides a stable platform to enable commerce to occur, the benefits to the merchants accepting Bitcoin payments are speed and cost savings.

A BTC wallet provides all the aspects of the Bitcoin protocol with all increases and decreases felt by the customer, we receive the exchange fee, which will be similar to one of the traditional exchanges.

Time Based Wallets, hoard the coins for an agreed period of time and in return for the protection against negative movements and you get a percentage of any growth.

We are also adding the additional services such as international remittance, we are currently working towards having in excess of 1 million locations worldwide at the time of launch, where we can transmit the Bitcoin across the globe to these agents and the end user can walk away with the Government Fiat in their local jurisdiction, the transmission will be completed with Bitcoin instead of the slow banking systems currently used. The benefits of using Bitcoin for this process can reduce the costs in comparison to the traditional operators in this space.

We are also going to be making progress in relation to branded insurance products through a third party carrier from the beginning of November onwards, we will be in a position to provide more clarity on the projected income from these products, shortly after this time. I will not provide any projected earnings because there are too many contributing factors to consider until we have chosen our strategic partner and I do not want to mislead anyone.

We are also investigating the opportunity to add a European based Bitinstant style service to our offerings and also our own Bitcoin based securities market, the latter is only preliminary investigations to ascertain any legal/regulatory requirements.

I am a main speaker at a conference in Cyprus on October 9th which is organized by the Cyprus International Institute of Management, my speech is on both Neo & Bee and Bitcoin in general.

I shall have the first merchants ready to announce by the end of next week.

I shall be announcing the Operations Director once I return to Cyprus from Amsterdam.

I need to finish writing out the post that will detail our path to regulation and detailing our partners that are aiding us in this process and providing ongoing services. I need to ensure this post is extremely clear and accurate, so no misunderstandings occur. I will complete this first thing in the morning (Dutch timezone), as I am in desperate need of sleep (Apologies for this slight delay).