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https://twitter.com/KarlKarlsson_/status/823172746209267712Incent Update 22 Jan 17 G’day Cent’urions!
So it’s been a little over one working month since our ICO closed and I wanted to take a moment to update you all on where we stand.
We’re Building... As we continue to sweep up the ICO distribution tail it won’t surprise any of you to learn that we are in ‘build’ mode, and you will be pleased to learn that work is advancing nicely on the core product. Contextually, the task before us looks like this…
As you will see, we conceptualise the build as 4 distinct components, and have targeted the end of 2017 Q1 to have a working MVP together. That’s just 10 weeks away….(!).
You will also note that this diagram probably looks very similar to what BitPay might have drawn back in the day (and their wallet has just emerged from Beta!). I don’t say this to court butterflies or sympathy as we have absolute confidence that we can build it, but I do want you all to be clear about the scope of the task before us. It’s a big job.
To help us get across the work, we have taken on a second, very experienced and capable dev, Kyle Hengst, who is very well known to both Peter and I. The two of them are currently working on the Ops Management component and Peter is working separately with Waves’ ‘Hawky’, to prepare the path for a switch of focus to Crypto Integration with the Waves platform. This is clearly vital as it is the means by which the front end interacts with the underlying market for Incent to settle transactions. Once this component is complete we’ll be able to hook it up to a slick consumer wallet, which we will likely commission to a third party - most probably an outfit like Crew. Finally, the exact nature of the first merchant API will depend on who is the first cab off the rank.
In the Meantime… Many of you will be aware that I have made the decision to offer the ICO deposit technology we built for our own ICO to others. The first to use it has been the Tokes team and we are finalising arrangements to support a far bigger ICO 2017 Q2. Some of you have been critical of this decision so I wanted to take a moment to explain my rationale for making it;
1. It is consistent with our overarching vision for Incent, as a means for anyone to incentivise whatever commercial activity they are prepared to pay for. In this case an ICO ‘merchant’ is no different from a mainstream merchant.
2. By baking Incent into the platform and reflecting issuance back into the market, we can support the market price of our token before and independant of the core product build.
3. We’ve already been able to deploy the revenue from this side project to improve the code base and incorporate new, groundbreaking functionality that will bleed into our core products moving forward. More of this later...
4. The ICO tech product has forced us to forge a deep understanding of the Waves infrastructure and an even stronger relationship with the Waves Team - who are so energised by its potential to drive business to their infrastructure that they are marketing it on our behalf.
5. It allows us to forge early commercial relationships with industry projects which presents the opportunity to bake Incent into their core offerings.
Hopefully, you can see that having already built this technology, it made sense to leverage it in this way, especially since doing so presents little distraction and actively assists us in pursuing our core vision and goals.
Cutting a new Edge... By way of an example, I want to expose you to an initiative that began with us exploring redundancy contingencies on the Ethereum blockchain (in order that we will always be able to settle commercially).
We deployed our revenue from the Tokes ICO to contract a senior Ethereum developer to help us advance this concept. Together we have since devised and coded a way to create and distribute a token that can reside on both blockchains simultaneously and be switched from one to the other instantly thereafter. A concept demonstrator for you all to try will be available very soon...
It is this cutting edge technology that has attracted the big ICO project I spoke of earlier, with all the price support for Incent that it will generate. Think about it for even a moment and you will appreciate that this specific technology has way broader commercial implications still - all of them good for Incent and Waves price support moving forward.
Core Business DevFor those mainstream entities already keen to integrate Incent, this build period is demanding patience but you can rest assured that we are keeping those relationships warm. I need you to understand that before we have a core product live in the market, I need to tread a careful line between building commercial interest out further and overwhelming my devs. Notwithstanding, you’ll be heartened to learn that over the last two weeks we have been approached unsolicited by two very different entities to explore potential integrations.
Ju Feng Bao are a Chinese company that allow employers to part-pay their employees with tokens that can subsequently be exchanged for partner merchant goods and services. It is, perhaps unsurprising that they see potential in outsourcing to the blockchain. The other is
Sri-Marks, a global affiliate marketing operation, for whom incentivization would be infinitely simpler were they to incorporate an open value token.
You should take huge confidence from the fact that these prospects are seeking us out before we have deployed any resource on the marketing of the core product. It further convinces us of the huge breadth of the opportunity we are striving to exploit and of the implications this will have for the value of Incent as we do so.
Liquidity and Exchanges I want to close be tackling a subject that I know is particularly close to your hearts. While it confuses me that anyone would seek to liquidate their holding of an asset that has not had an opportunity to demonstrate its potential, I absolutely understand the need for Incent to be liquid by the time our core product is live.
Where this is concerned I want to be open with you that I have pitched Incent to both Bittrex and Poloniex, neither of whom indicated an intention to list Incent until demonstrable demand for it is broader and deeper. While this may disappoint you I want to be clear that I understand it - and that I am not concerned by it. Allow me to explain…
In no more than a few weeks Waves will have launched an exchange facility of their own. Since we are running 4 full-nodes and hold a lot of Waves, it makes sense for us to support the core market for Incent through this channel - not least because Waves will be the primary counterparty currency against which Incent trades.
This in turn will allow us to execute a commercial operation with fiat transactions completely separate from crypto settlement - zero’ing the risk of unforeseen ‘banking failure’ - which would be catastrophic for our business.
Channeling all our commercially driven demand for Incent through Waves infrastructure will likely draw the attention of other exchanges - at which point they will list Incent, because it will make commercial sense for them to do so. In the meantime, it is not in my nature to go to anyone on bended knee and I don’t think that it would make the slightest difference even if I did. With this in mind I would counsel that you hold your nerve and your Incent.
But… Having said this, I do see the same utility for exchanges to incorporate Incent in their platforms as I do for mainstream merchants, i.e in its primary role, as an incentive to transact. Some of you may know that Retail FX exchanges offer rebates, based on the interest rate differential (called a Swap rate) between trading pairs, to encourage trading. Crytpo cannot offer Swaps because interest rates don’t exist but my contention is that rebates could, if a small portion of a third party token was bought ‘at market’ from a portion of spread profit and passed back to the trader as a reward for taking a trade. And this token could be Incent, right?!
You will be pleased to learn that we have pitched this concept to 2 of the smaller exchanges and both are interested in moving forward. If implemented this would, in my view, have a significant and positive impact on trading volume for the partner exchange, and a similarly positive impact on the market price of Incent. Better still, implementation requires no development effort on our part.
Get Involved... This last point brings me to the thought I would like to leave you with. As you can tell, we are interested in exploring any concept where somebody is happy to pay to incentivise the activity of another - because this is where open-value, like Incent, just thrashes the closed-value options that preceded it. As I have often said, this opportunity is way bigger than conventional loyalty. My point here is that you guys are better placed to identify these use cases, within your own professional niches, than we are. So if you do spot an opportunity, get busy! Do some groundwork and connect us up with your counterparty; we will make it well worth your while to do so!
In the meantime, I hope that this update finds you in good health and heart. We are immensely excited by the opportunity to get stuck into this project and hope you feel as upbeat and energised as we do.
On! On!Rob Wilson
CEO Incent
Level 5 155
Clarence Street
Sydney 2000
NSW.
rob@incentloyalty.com +61 450 967 128
