[ANN] - OAX Foundation

[Kalo12]

Should I sell guys?

I mean it has been going down ever since, no reaction at all. Should have held eth damed 
This was supposed to pay for my daughters school, thats the thought I had when I participated in ICO.

[1714773076]

1714773076

[1714773076]

1714773076

[zigerat]

Should I sell guys?

I mean it has been going down ever since, no reaction at all. Should have held eth damed 
This was supposed to pay for my daughters school, thats the thought I had when I participated in ICO.

This up to you Kalo - really need to take in all the info about OAX that you can find and sort out what is credible and what is not to form your own opinion.

[zigerat]

The OAX coin project tries to provide a out of chain dispute resolution mechanism that can be carried out according to law so as to provide urgent consumer protection. This feature is distinctive and worth looking forward to.

Agreed, this is an interesting feature. But the white paper wording on this is far too vague. Note - the white paper doesn't specifically say that this process will legally binding in all jurisdictions, it just says internationally accepted whatever that means. A good feature nonetheless.

[zigerat]

Hmm...
This seems to be a slam, but then it's not even referencing fact in some areas, but I will do my best to address it.

What is the #1 reason that crypto is not mainstream right now? Because of banking. Even large exchanges like Kraken and Bitfinex and Gatecoin are having real problems maintaining banking relationships. Why is that? Because when they initially launched they did not consulting industry experts (Like PwC, EY and lawyers) and hence they are now having real issues maintaining effective relationships. If you want to build a solid foundation of these relationships, you need to start from Day#1.


If you want proof of this, consider that the only thing growing faster than the cryptomarket right now is the Tether market. (It is up 100x in the last 12-18 months) Again, why? Because it is the only channel for moving USD/fiat between crypto only exchanges. Even with a $31 million dollar hack it is still booming. Lots of exchanges cannot get banking so using Tether allows them to at least peg to the USD.

"Why do you post useless stuff about PwC, EY and KWM (our lawyers)?"

In response I ask "Why are some tokens sales/ICO's now having huge problems in terms of are they a security or not? Because they did not consult with a legal team or understand regulation."

Also, if you want us to use best practice in terms of managing the money we raised, ensuring a governance structure that is fair, impartial and recognises token holders, best to bring in some experts.

Who is blockbonds?
Did you read the website? https://blockbonds.io/
They have legitimate banking relationships in a number of countries, including the Philipines and Africa. If you are considering using crypto as a valid means of providing value to millions of people who do not yet access these markets, working with a firm with relationships and expertise in these markets seems wise.

I notice that you did not reference NetKi or Trusted Key, our other Working Group members. The reason for that is they are both legitimate, well respected industry leaders?

If you intend to build a decentralised platform that is different than the dozen other DEX platforms (EtherDelta, Bitshares, Bitsquare, 0x, District 0x, Waves, LocalBitcoins)you need to offer something new. In our case, this is to handle fiat, and provide consumer protection. To handle fiat you require KYC/AML, as KYC/AML are the basic level of compliance required from banks before they will do business with any organisation. Who are experts on KYC/AML, companies like KWM, EY, PwC, Trusted Key,Netki and Blockbonds.

You referenced Steemit, we don't use Steemit. We do use Gitlab. You can Google our code base over there.

On the prototype. I think that we communicated clearly from Day#1 the timeline for delivery. Apple puts out a phone every year, so a year seems a reasonable timeframe and again, was communicated clearly during the sale. We may be early, we may hit an overrun. At this stage we are on time.

Hope this helps

Edit: Grammar and tone.

Bear with me, this is going to be a long post. Hopefully it will give you and the rest of the community some insight into my thinking and my expectations based off the career I have had and the people I have worked with.

Yes, that was a slam. And yes it was aggressive - I'm not happy with OAX so far. They are my observations as a business guy who has been around capital markets, hedge funds and VC funding for over 14 years plus another 11 years in strategy gigs in banking. So all up 25 years if you're counting, most of it in entrepreneurship and business building. To put some context behind this, I have personally been involved in launching and growing 8 ventures in the past 10 years. 1 was a spectacular success, 3 were a good successes, 4 failed. With our VC business, I would guesstimate 70% of our investments fail, 20% return as expected, the rest will outperform with a few outliers being huge hits. So there's a lot of learning here on what works and what doesn't and the qualities displayed by exceptional business leaders vs the rest.

I'm not sure what "facts" you feel I am not referencing - they are my perceptions of OAX, it's what I see in the public domain and how I interpret  it.

Before I dissect your post, let me first address your post from a branding perspective. I am afraid your response reads incredibly unprofessionally. It lacks structure, lacks poise, lacks command and control, displays defensive desperation, is combative and is rambling -  at times I don't even know who you are addressing and who you are quoting.  It simply lacks the maturity and professionalism that is expected of an A grade player looking to make a mark in this space. I couldn't imagine your blue chip partners responding like this. It's this lack of professionalism that has me doubting your capabilities as seasoned business guys and serves to confirm my opinion of the leadership team. Like I said to Hullo above, signals.

While you have been good at responding to feedback and criticism throughout this thread, to date this has only been "soft" pressure. With the first sign of being pushed with hard pressure this is the response we get. It's a very telling indicator of how you guys handle pressure and crisis and a good indicator of your future behaviour. This is already manifesting itself in the way the OAX project is panning out and serves to confirm prior suspicions about your execution capabilities.

Finally, can you clarify who "shadowlpb" exactly is? Is it an OAX employee, is it Liam, is it Hugh, is it a major investor, an advisor....?
I accept you guys are trying to communicate but there's a lack of transparency with a lot of your posts. I don't spend much time on here so can't go looking through all your posting pseudonyms from OAX representatives to work out who is actually posting. Yes it's the internet but you should either personally stand behind your business or don't bother at all. This is even more pertinent given that you have taken funding from the public. Be clear in real names who is actually posting from OAX. As it stands I am just confused as to who's who and what's what with OAX.

Now to the specifics of your post.

What is the #1 reason that crypto is not mainstream right now?

I don't need convincing of the importance of banking relationships. It's a pretty obvious observation for anyone who has spent any time in capital markets. Heck you don't even need capital markets experience to grasp this, anyone with a business mind will quickly see the fiat and banking bottleneck in cryptos.
 
I am by no means a crypto expert but I do know the key difference between centralised and decentralised exchanges and the need for fiat currencies. I do, however, find amusing your hypothesis that Kraken, Bitfinex et al don't have (or can't maintain) banking relationships because they haven't tied up with an industry expert (a Big 4 or law firm as you assert). I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt (i.e. that you know that having a big 4 relationship is only but a small factor in your ability to build banking partnerships), but I am afraid the way you expressed this as a singular root cause problem is just plain amateurish and comical.

Even more worrying is your quote:

"...... having real problems maintaining banking relationships. Why is that? Because when they initially launched they did not consulting industry experts. Because when they initially launched they did not consulting industry experts (Like PwC, EY and lawyers)....".

Excuse me, but aren't you guys supposed to be the experts in crypto? Banks are turning to Fintech startups to learn this space and they are actively seeking partnerships with crypto/DLT and Fintech startups to learn about this new world and to co-develop solutions. Of course, they are incredibly selective as to who they work with but it's the banks who are actively encouraging Fintech/Crypto/DLT startup engagement and opening up invitations for partnerships. You guys are supposed to be the experts in cryptos, not the banks and most certainly not the Big 4s.

With regard to PwC and EY being the industry experts, can you point to any individual person from PwC or EY in your working group, or the firm itself, that brings in more than 1 year of experience in crypto, blockchain, DLT? I know they have deep experience in KYC/AML, governance, compliance etc advisory across BFS. This will be useful for working out how the compliance regime impacts in this new crypto trading world. But how much real world, and tangible, work have they done in the crypto space? How much real fee paying work have they done with regulators, how much real fee paying work have they done with other crypto players (compliance and/or general advisory across the crypto world)? If cryptos is too much of a stretch, then at the very least how much real world fee paying work have they done in the Fintech space? This will help to validate your assertions that you are working with crypotcurrency industry experts.

Oh, and a few PDFs, online event videos, retrospective talk about the year that was in crypto, presenting Fintech surveys, interviews with Fintech/crypto leaders etc doesn't count as real world fee paying work by PwC, EY et al. Being a commentator in an area you had no involvement in just a year or two ago doesn't all of a sudden make you an industry expert.

As to my "useless stuff about PwC, EY and KWM".

Having said the above, I do agree that it's a good strategy to get Big 4s and other brands on board to give validity to the project. However, my concern is your over reliance, and spruiking, of these brand names as your USP.  As it stands now you are leaning on the Big 4s for your credibility. This speaks volumes for your mentality about business growth, brand building and execution. The clear message from OAX is that you choose to buy credibility rather than invest in building your own foundational, and long lasting, credibility.

This brings me to what exactly this Big 4/KWM relationship is? Correct me if I am wrong, but as you have described it the Big 4s have merely joined your working group? I assume it's just a couple of their mid level employees, maybe a partner or a director, turning up for a monthly chit chat about regulatory issues!?!? I also assume that this is gratis, they are not formally doing any advisory work for you (re governance, risk mgt, compliance, business/ops strategy etc), they are not regulatory lobbying on your behalf, they are not introducing you to regulators, they are not opening up banking relationships en mass and they are not endorsing you to their banking clients or the market??

From all I have read, no where do I see endorsement by the Big 4s, or any other Blue Chip firm, of the OAX business or OAX leadership team. Please correct me if I am wrong on this!? And also please confirm that if I were to ask my FS partner contacts at EY and PwC in Hong Kong they will confirm that they are backing, supporting and promoting OAX?

From my experience with working groups, it's a lot of talking with very little action and follow up. No different to the many internal meetings company people bemoan on a  daily basis. For these big consultancies it just serves as a marketing avenue for them to post straight to linkedin or twitter immediately after attending with headlines like "proud to working with the team at ....". The big consultancies are notorious for this - every Fintech event, they're there. The simple reality is 2 years ago these Big 4s wouldn't have acknowledged you unless you wanted to pay them a fee. In 2017 though, the year of the crypto, they're all over it with no meaningful experience in this space. Who knows what latest trend they'll be chasing next year and whether they'll still be with you.

Having said that, and as mentioned above, I do think that the Big 4s, and your law firm partner, are valuable for wading through the regulatory points, setting up your governance practices, helping with KYC/AML etc . Hopefully you are using this opportunity to build your own capabilities here.

By all means if you don't have credibility yourself then feeding off their brand name is a good strategy. It's a good strategy that the masses will buy into but critical minds will see through. I would imagine your crypto audience would be made up of more of the latter personality types.
 
from "Day#1"

Your comment from Day#1 doesn't fly. Day 1 was 8/9/10 months ago when you were drafting your white paper, not today. My problem is that you went out to the public, got investment in your ICO and only now are trying to work it out. Now admittedly the ICO and Crowd Funding world is different, but in my VC world businesses don't get funded off business plans or seeds of an idea for the reasons you are displaying - an unfounded team with no meaningful exits who haven't shown execution capabilities who are now meandering in the hope of hitting quick surface level wins. Not much has happened for the first few months after the ICO. All we saw was your global travelling on the ICO's dime. You are fortunate the ICO world allows fund raising without even a proof of concept. But in the VC and IPO world, only the best management teams, who have built validated business will get funding. You could have used the correct Day 1  (have all the bits and pieces in place at the time of white paper publication) to really differentiate yourself from the other ICOs out there but squandered it with a lack of a foresight into how the market will react, lack of focus, lack of speed and now a lack of transparency.

"Why are some tokens sales/ICO's now having huge problems in terms of are they a security or not? Because they did not consult with a legal team or understand regulation."

100% agree and this where your law firm (and also the Big 4s) can help. While I didn't out KWM specifically in my original post I did say "the law firm you keep trotting out" which is inferring KWM. Lumping them in with the likes of the Big 4s was wrong on my part and I apologise for that. KWM's legal expertise in unpacking new products and their applicability to existing laws (and how laws need to change) can, and will, add significant value for you and the industry as a whole. I hope this is successful partnership for you.

Who is blockbonds?

No I didn't look them up. Why? There are far too many of these cyrpto startups coming and going on an almost a daily basis. A lot of fakes, a lot of frauds, a lot of incompetence and a lot of companies with simply nothing to add. I didn't criticise them but asked who they are. As your credibility is already low in my eyes, I am not going to assume that the startups you are working with are all A grade game changers.

I notice that you did not reference NetKi or Trusted Key, our other Working Group members. The reason for that is they are both legitimate, well respected industry leaders?

As with Blackbonds.

And once again, a comical, amateurish and just plain immature response. I ignored them because I realised they were legit and well respected!!! Really - I'm really not sure of your logic behind that conclusion!

We don't use Steemit

I don't know about this but some of the posts on Steemit read like they could be coming from OAX, or someone associated with OAX. They certainly do read incredibly positive and glowing of OAX. As mentioned, with all the posting pseudonyms you guys use I really don't know who's who and what's what. If they genuinely aren't your posts then that's fine but it is your job to be on top of and monitor your social media mentions. Steemit (along with Medium) is probably the site that has the largest collection of articles about OAX. It just reads strange when you flat out say that you don't use Steemit yet don't acknowledge, or maybe realise, that a lot of OAX info for your investors most likely came from Steemit articles.

On the prototype. I think that we communicated clearly from Day#1 the timeline for delivery. Apple puts out a phone every year, so a year seems a reasonable timeframe .....

Not arguing with you on this. My concern is here is your use of ICO funds to build a prototype. Yes I do realise the way of the ICO and Crowd Funding world vs the traditional funding world i.e. fund to produce vs funding off production. My point here is two fold. Firstly, this was an opportunity to differentiate yourself from the rest of the ICOs )(i.e. actually show something tangible at white paper time, at 2 weeks, at 4 weeks etc). Secondly, it's very naive of you, and shows lack of business experience, to think that you can say Q2 2018 and expect the market to keep quiet until then.

Oh and don't compare yourself to Apple. You just sound like amateurs. Apple is a hardware manufacturer that embeds software capabilities into a vast API and App ecosystem. They have an incredibly complex global supply chain, operations, logistics and vendor ecosystem made up of independent contractors and vendors that need to tie into a global hardware and software ecosystem. Their business model and  ecosystem is in orders of magnitude more complex than anything OAX is building.

The ventures I have been involved in and the startups we fund through our VC business are all software and tech companies. None of them take anywhere near the time you think is necessary to build a prototype. Admittedly, I don't spend my days looking at just crypto exchanges, but from what I have gathered, it looks like your crypto exchange competitors also don't require the time to build working models that you think you need, let alone do they need to go through an ICO to do it.

[the_thing]

Frustrating to see investments go down. When I bought OAX I also Bought DRP. One has already skyrocketed

Trust me I know how you feel. And the bad thing is I don't know whether to sell off my tokens or keep them.

[zigerat]

Hi Zigaret

Thanks for the interest in the project, sorry that you have such a dim view. We have the new website in testing right now, up early next week. You'll see that we do have industry heavy hitters, including Will Barkshire (Chair of the Working Group) and Amanda L, Acting GM. Both are 20+ year veterans of the banking industry.

Also, you are totally mistaken, we are not a marketing driven project, we are delivery focused project. If we were marketing driven, I would hire 10 guys in India to manipulate the price, which is not something we do. We'd have pricing like Tezos (right up until they got sued...twice) we are cautious and conservative and focused on delivering a great project. When the hammer falls on scam ICO's, it is our intention to be nowhere near that list.

Is the token price down? Yes. I am sorry for that, I cannot control market sentiment.

I would ask what specific examples you see of a lack of business judgement? Just curious.

Will Barskhire - I assume you referring to William Berkshire? Googling I could only find a few 2 references about Will's association with OAX. Looks like he's a seasoned guy in building out non crypto markets exchanges. What does he actually do for you, is he an employee of OAX, is he an advisor, is he a board member, is he in the working group? Please advise, his LinkedIn doesn't anything about OAX at today's date - I assume his relationship with you is via one of his other companies. He looks like a great asset to your team and we look forward to hearing his thoughts on, and his endorsement of, OAX.

Now - Amanda L??? Again - why the lack of transparency? You can't even give a surname for Amanda!! And what does veteran of the banking industry mean? What exactly did she do previously, what exactly does she do for you now and how does her prior banking experience help you? As mentioned in my original post re David Tee (CFO? Legal Head?), be clear on who your leadership team is and what they do. Don't give some some hazy, unable to be fact checked, description of their background. Why is this important? Investor confidence - triply so given the cowboys coming and going in the ICO world. If you take funding from the public expect to give full and complete disclosure of who your leadership team is and what they do.

Even more disappointing - it now turns out that all along you have a GM looking after OAX! Yet all this time we neither heard anything of it nor heard anything from her. The first we hear of this Amanda L is now (I am assuming she didn't join OAX in the past week)!

So now we can assume it's not just Hugh pulling the strings but also this Amanda L. The last I heard a GM is a business leader, a key decision maker and a key public face of the company. Yet somehow, all this time we have heard nothing from her and have heard nothing from you about her. Given her storied background in banking I am amazed you didn't roll her out earlier to improve your waning investor confidence.  If you have a press release or have mentioned her elsewhere previously, please do let us know.

Finally, you have a habit of jumping to nonsensical conclusions. So to be patently explicit with you - the above comments are not attacks on the individuals, they are commentaries on OAX's leadership team and their inability to display sound business logic.

Also, you are totally mistaken, we are not a marketing driven project, we are delivery focused project. If we were marketing driven, I would hire 10 guys in India to manipulate the price,
Good to hear but I am not seeing it.

Your missing my point. Marketing is critical, it is expected, you need it. You're just not doing a very good job of it. I can see the effort but you're missing the mark. I'm not here to write you a marketing strategy, that's something you need to work out.

Your short term token price is not relevant to me as a professional investor. I have been around long enough not to buy into market valuations which bare little correlation to fundamentals.
Like I said a number of times, I am not accusing you of scamming or fraud. My concern is your lack of business and commercial sense and the lack of maturity coming from OAX. Frankly it's all just looking rather amateurish right now - your posts are reading liking 15 year olds rather than seasoned business leaders.

I would ask what specific examples you see of a lack of business judgement? Just curious.

See my above posts. This is just from what I have publicly seen. I shudder to think of the terribly bad business practices that may be happening behind closed doors.

[shadowlpb]

The OAX coin project tries to provide a out of chain dispute resolution mechanism that can be carried out according to law so as to provide urgent consumer protection. This feature is distinctive and worth looking forward to.

Agreed, this is an interesting feature. But the white paper wording on this is far too vague. Note - the white paper doesn't specifically say that this process will legally binding in all jurisdictions, it just says internationally accepted whatever that means. A good feature nonetheless.

Hi guys. Thought I'd jump in and provide some info. In terms of dispute resolution, the mechanism is looking pretty straightforward. Each Asset Gateway will post some ETH to a smart contract (the exact amount if up to them, there will be some guidelines based on volume) then if while you are trading with them, they fail to pay, or are hacked or suffer an IT failure etc, the end user (you guys) can use an automated process (think something like an online form) to submit your grievance. Once the evidence is evaluated, the amount you are owed will be released (likely to the same address that you used for the payment - for ID confirmation)

So the ETH collateral is there to protect users. At this stage we are not confirmed which resolution body we will lock in ( or more than one) but HK or SG based resolution bodies are being considered first.

[shadowlpb]

Hmm...
This seems to be a slam, but then it's not even referencing fact in some areas, but I will do my best to address it.

What is the #1 reason that crypto is not mainstream right now? Because of banking. Even large exchanges like Kraken and Bitfinex and Gatecoin are having real problems maintaining banking relationships. Why is that? Because when they initially launched they did not consulting industry experts (Like PwC, EY and lawyers) and hence they are now having real issues maintaining effective relationships. If you want to build a solid foundation of these relationships, you need to start from Day#1.


If you want proof of this, consider that the only thing growing faster than the cryptomarket right now is the Tether market. (It is up 100x in the last 12-18 months) Again, why? Because it is the only channel for moving USD/fiat between crypto only exchanges. Even with a $31 million dollar hack it is still booming. Lots of exchanges cannot get banking so using Tether allows them to at least peg to the USD.

"Why do you post useless stuff about PwC, EY and KWM (our lawyers)?"

In response I ask "Why are some tokens sales/ICO's now having huge problems in terms of are they a security or not? Because they did not consult with a legal team or understand regulation."

Also, if you want us to use best practice in terms of managing the money we raised, ensuring a governance structure that is fair, impartial and recognises token holders, best to bring in some experts.

Who is blockbonds?
Did you read the website? https://blockbonds.io/
They have legitimate banking relationships in a number of countries, including the Philipines and Africa. If you are considering using crypto as a valid means of providing value to millions of people who do not yet access these markets, working with a firm with relationships and expertise in these markets seems wise.

I notice that you did not reference NetKi or Trusted Key, our other Working Group members. The reason for that is they are both legitimate, well respected industry leaders?

If you intend to build a decentralised platform that is different than the dozen other DEX platforms (EtherDelta, Bitshares, Bitsquare, 0x, District 0x, Waves, LocalBitcoins)you need to offer something new. In our case, this is to handle fiat, and provide consumer protection. To handle fiat you require KYC/AML, as KYC/AML are the basic level of compliance required from banks before they will do business with any organisation. Who are experts on KYC/AML, companies like KWM, EY, PwC, Trusted Key,Netki and Blockbonds.

You referenced Steemit, we don't use Steemit. We do use Gitlab. You can Google our code base over there.

On the prototype. I think that we communicated clearly from Day#1 the timeline for delivery. Apple puts out a phone every year, so a year seems a reasonable timeframe and again, was communicated clearly during the sale. We may be early, we may hit an overrun. At this stage we are on time.

Hope this helps

Edit: Grammar and tone.

Bear with me, this is going to be a long post. Hopefully it will give you and the rest of the community some insight into my thinking and my expectations based off the career I have had and the people I have worked with.

Yes, that was a slam. And yes it was aggressive - I'm not happy with OAX so far. They are my observations as a business guy who has been around capital markets, hedge funds and VC funding for over 14 years plus another 11 years in strategy gigs in banking. So all up 25 years if you're counting, most of it in entrepreneurship and business building. To put some context behind this, I have personally been involved in launching and growing 8 ventures in the past 10 years. 1 was a spectacular success, 3 were a good successes, 4 failed. With our VC business, I would guesstimate 70% of our investments fail, 20% return as expected, the rest will outperform with a few outliers being huge hits. So there's a lot of learning here on what works and what doesn't and the qualities displayed by exceptional business leaders vs the rest.

I'm not sure what "facts" you feel I am not referencing - they are my perceptions of OAX, it's what I see in the public domain and how I interpret  it.

Before I dissect your post, let me first address your post from a branding perspective. I am afraid your response reads incredibly unprofessionally. It lacks structure, lacks poise, lacks command and control, displays defensive desperation, is combative and is rambling -  at times I don't even know who you are addressing and who you are quoting.  It simply lacks the maturity and professionalism that is expected of an A grade player looking to make a mark in this space. I couldn't imagine your blue chip partners responding like this. It's this lack of professionalism that has me doubting your capabilities as seasoned business guys and serves to confirm my opinion of the leadership team. Like I said to Hullo above, signals.

While you have been good at responding to feedback and criticism throughout this thread, to date this has only been "soft" pressure. With the first sign of being pushed with hard pressure this is the response we get. It's a very telling indicator of how you guys handle pressure and crisis and a good indicator of your future behaviour. This is already manifesting itself in the way the OAX project is panning out and serves to confirm prior suspicions about your execution capabilities.

Finally, can you clarify who "shadowlpb" exactly is? Is it an OAX employee, is it Liam, is it Hugh, is it a major investor, an advisor....?
I accept you guys are trying to communicate but there's a lack of transparency with a lot of your posts. I don't spend much time on here so can't go looking through all your posting pseudonyms from OAX representatives to work out who is actually posting. Yes it's the internet but you should either personally stand behind your business or don't bother at all. This is even more pertinent given that you have taken funding from the public. Be clear in real names who is actually posting from OAX. As it stands I am just confused as to who's who and what's what with OAX.

Now to the specifics of your post.

What is the #1 reason that crypto is not mainstream right now?

I don't need convincing of the importance of banking relationships. It's a pretty obvious observation for anyone who has spent any time in capital markets. Heck you don't even need capital markets experience to grasp this, anyone with a business mind will quickly see the fiat and banking bottleneck in cryptos.
 
I am by no means a crypto expert but I do know the key difference between centralised and decentralised exchanges and the need for fiat currencies. I do, however, find amusing your hypothesis that Kraken, Bitfinex et al don't have (or can't maintain) banking relationships because they haven't tied up with an industry expert (a Big 4 or law firm as you assert). I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt (i.e. that you know that having a big 4 relationship is only but a small factor in your ability to build banking partnerships), but I am afraid the way you expressed this as a singular root cause problem is just plain amateurish and comical.

Even more worrying is your quote:

"...... having real problems maintaining banking relationships. Why is that? Because when they initially launched they did not consulting industry experts. Because when they initially launched they did not consulting industry experts (Like PwC, EY and lawyers)....".

Excuse me, but aren't you guys supposed to be the experts in crypto? Banks are turning to Fintech startups to learn this space and they are actively seeking partnerships with crypto/DLT and Fintech startups to learn about this new world and to co-develop solutions. Of course, they are incredibly selective as to who they work with but it's the banks who are actively encouraging Fintech/Crypto/DLT startup engagement and opening up invitations for partnerships. You guys are supposed to be the experts in cryptos, not the banks and most certainly not the Big 4s.

With regard to PwC and EY being the industry experts, can you point to any individual person from PwC or EY in your working group, or the firm itself, that brings in more than 1 year of experience in crypto, blockchain, DLT? I know they have deep experience in KYC/AML, governance, compliance etc advisory across BFS. This will be useful for working out how the compliance regime impacts in this new crypto trading world. But how much real world, and tangible, work have they done in the crypto space? How much real fee paying work have they done with regulators, how much real fee paying work have they done with other crypto players (compliance and/or general advisory across the crypto world)? If cryptos is too much of a stretch, then at the very least how much real world fee paying work have they done in the Fintech space? This will help to validate your assertions that you are working with crypotcurrency industry experts.

Oh, and a few PDFs, online event videos, retrospective talk about the year that was in crypto, presenting Fintech surveys, interviews with Fintech/crypto leaders etc doesn't count as real world fee paying work by PwC, EY et al. Being a commentator in an area you had no involvement in just a year or two ago doesn't all of a sudden make you an industry expert.

As to my "useless stuff about PwC, EY and KWM".

Having said the above, I do agree that it's a good strategy to get Big 4s and other brands on board to give validity to the project. However, my concern is your over reliance, and spruiking, of these brand names as your USP.  As it stands now you are leaning on the Big 4s for your credibility. This speaks volumes for your mentality about business growth, brand building and execution. The clear message from OAX is that you choose to buy credibility rather than invest in building your own foundational, and long lasting, credibility.

This brings me to what exactly this Big 4/KWM relationship is? Correct me if I am wrong, but as you have described it the Big 4s have merely joined your working group? I assume it's just a couple of their mid level employees, maybe a partner or a director, turning up for a monthly chit chat about regulatory issues!?!? I also assume that this is gratis, they are not formally doing any advisory work for you (re governance, risk mgt, compliance, business/ops strategy etc), they are not regulatory lobbying on your behalf, they are not introducing you to regulators, they are not opening up banking relationships en mass and they are not endorsing you to their banking clients or the market??

From all I have read, no where do I see endorsement by the Big 4s, or any other Blue Chip firm, of the OAX business or OAX leadership team. Please correct me if I am wrong on this!? And also please confirm that if I were to ask my FS partner contacts at EY and PwC in Hong Kong they will confirm that they are backing, supporting and promoting OAX?

From my experience with working groups, it's a lot of talking with very little action and follow up. No different to the many internal meetings company people bemoan on a  daily basis. For these big consultancies it just serves as a marketing avenue for them to post straight to linkedin or twitter immediately after attending with headlines like "proud to working with the team at ....". The big consultancies are notorious for this - every Fintech event, they're there. The simple reality is 2 years ago these Big 4s wouldn't have acknowledged you unless you wanted to pay them a fee. In 2017 though, the year of the crypto, they're all over it with no meaningful experience in this space. Who knows what latest trend they'll be chasing next year and whether they'll still be with you.

Having said that, and as mentioned above, I do think that the Big 4s, and your law firm partner, are valuable for wading through the regulatory points, setting up your governance practices, helping with KYC/AML etc . Hopefully you are using this opportunity to build your own capabilities here.

By all means if you don't have credibility yourself then feeding off their brand name is a good strategy. It's a good strategy that the masses will buy into but critical minds will see through. I would imagine your crypto audience would be made up of more of the latter personality types.
 
from "Day#1"

Your comment from Day#1 doesn't fly. Day 1 was 8/9/10 months ago when you were drafting your white paper, not today. My problem is that you went out to the public, got investment in your ICO and only now are trying to work it out. Now admittedly the ICO and Crowd Funding world is different, but in my VC world businesses don't get funded off business plans or seeds of an idea for the reasons you are displaying - an unfounded team with no meaningful exits who haven't shown execution capabilities who are now meandering in the hope of hitting quick surface level wins. Not much has happened for the first few months after the ICO. All we saw was your global travelling on the ICO's dime. You are fortunate the ICO world allows fund raising without even a proof of concept. But in the VC and IPO world, only the best management teams, who have built validated business will get funding. You could have used the correct Day 1  (have all the bits and pieces in place at the time of white paper publication) to really differentiate yourself from the other ICOs out there but squandered it with a lack of a foresight into how the market will react, lack of focus, lack of speed and now a lack of transparency.

"Why are some tokens sales/ICO's now having huge problems in terms of are they a security or not? Because they did not consult with a legal team or understand regulation."

100% agree and this where your law firm (and also the Big 4s) can help. While I didn't out KWM specifically in my original post I did say "the law firm you keep trotting out" which is inferring KWM. Lumping them in with the likes of the Big 4s was wrong on my part and I apologise for that. KWM's legal expertise in unpacking new products and their applicability to existing laws (and how laws need to change) can, and will, add significant value for you and the industry as a whole. I hope this is successful partnership for you.

Who is blockbonds?

No I didn't look them up. Why? There are far too many of these cyrpto startups coming and going on an almost a daily basis. A lot of fakes, a lot of frauds, a lot of incompetence and a lot of companies with simply nothing to add. I didn't criticise them but asked who they are. As your credibility is already low in my eyes, I am not going to assume that the startups you are working with are all A grade game changers.

I notice that you did not reference NetKi or Trusted Key, our other Working Group members. The reason for that is they are both legitimate, well respected industry leaders?

As with Blackbonds.

And once again, a comical, amateurish and just plain immature response. I ignored them because I realised they were legit and well respected!!! Really - I'm really not sure of your logic behind that conclusion!

We don't use Steemit

I don't know about this but some of the posts on Steemit read like they could be coming from OAX, or someone associated with OAX. They certainly do read incredibly positive and glowing of OAX. As mentioned, with all the posting pseudonyms you guys use I really don't know who's who and what's what. If they genuinely aren't your posts then that's fine but it is your job to be on top of and monitor your social media mentions. Steemit (along with Medium) is probably the site that has the largest collection of articles about OAX. It just reads strange when you flat out say that you don't use Steemit yet don't acknowledge, or maybe realise, that a lot of OAX info for your investors most likely came from Steemit articles.

On the prototype. I think that we communicated clearly from Day#1 the timeline for delivery. Apple puts out a phone every year, so a year seems a reasonable timeframe .....

Not arguing with you on this. My concern is here is your use of ICO funds to build a prototype. Yes I do realise the way of the ICO and Crowd Funding world vs the traditional funding world i.e. fund to produce vs funding off production. My point here is two fold. Firstly, this was an opportunity to differentiate yourself from the rest of the ICOs )(i.e. actually show something tangible at white paper time, at 2 weeks, at 4 weeks etc). Secondly, it's very naive of you, and shows lack of business experience, to think that you can say Q2 2018 and expect the market to keep quiet until then.

Oh and don't compare yourself to Apple. You just sound like amateurs. Apple is a hardware manufacturer that embeds software capabilities into a vast API and App ecosystem. They have an incredibly complex global supply chain, operations, logistics and vendor ecosystem made up of independent contractors and vendors that need to tie into a global hardware and software ecosystem. Their business model and  ecosystem is in orders of magnitude more complex than anything OAX is building.

The ventures I have been involved in and the startups we fund through our VC business are all software and tech companies. None of them take anywhere near the time you think is necessary to build a prototype. Admittedly, I don't spend my days looking at just crypto exchanges, but from what I have gathered, it looks like your crypto exchange competitors also don't require the time to build working models that you think you need, let alone do they need to go through an ICO to do it.

Hi Zigerat. This is Liam.  I use this name on all our channels. I appreciate the time you spend writing this out, you feel pretty strongly about it and that's understandable.

First, I will answer you as best I can, but I shall not be posting a page and a half over here. I'll try to keep it short.

#1 - Let's skip the personal attacks, they serve no purpose.

#2 - Apologies if you thought my answer was terrible. I answered on my phone because I thought it was important to respond sooner rather than waiting until I was back in the office.

#3 - You've talked up your experience and cast suspicion on the use of alias' then done the same yourself. I doubt I'll find "Zigerat" on LinkedIn. So, let's just agree that it's pretty common practice to use names on the internet and it neither reflects badly on us or you.

#4 - We don't use Steemit. We post our updates via official channels. Here, Medium and Twitter + website. I cannot control what's posted on Steemit. If it's good it's probably because someone likes what we are trying to do.

#5 - Many new ventures fail, yes. We are working hard to deliver a project that works and is viable. If 70% of ICO's fail to deliver (As per your number quoted above) we plan to be in the 30%.

#6 - RE: Advisors. We do not need PwC and EY for their crypto expertise, but instead for their KYC, complaince and goverance expertise. As for your question about "If I ask my contacts" sure, feel free. Or you could just read what we have put out on our official channels.

"PwC Hong Kong, adviser to the Foundation with respect to governance, risk management and internal control matters" - Yes, PwC is engaged.

"EY, adviser to the Foundation in relation to taxation and accountancy matters; " - Yes, EY is engaged.

You can see this info out in the wild here http://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/oax-foundation-launches-digital-asset-industry-working-group-in-hong-kong-657655343.html

Do all members of these companies know our project and are they actively promoting us? of course not.

As you know both these organizations are huge and have many departments and thousands of employees. Do the relevant Partners there know who we are? Yes. I don't have permission to post the name of the partner here and I'd rather not upset them, if you want his name, PM me. I can tell you that apart from the Working Group he was in our lobby the other day buying Bitcoin for his kids through ANX.

#7 - As for "no meaningful exits etc." Hugh, Ken and Dave are pretty well known in the space. Dave was on Bloomberg the other day, invited back because he predicted (accurately) the Bitcoin price 6 months ago. I'm not claiming any special powers, but they have a track record of building businesses.

They have a successful business in ANX that has in the ballpark of 20 corporate clients for their exchange platforms, they founded Octagon Strategy - Asia's largest crypto OTC desk, to name a few of their businesses.

#8 - Blockbonds, Trusted Key and Netki - You did no looking at all but just assumed they were crap/fake or "something". If you were back in your VC days and that was the level of due diligence a junior analyst displayed, how would you react? Your question showed you hadn't looked, so I treated it as such.

Sorry if you thought my answer was immature. A quick Google search will show Justin Newton sits on panels at Consensus and is consider pretty legitimate in the field of Blockchain KYC. As is Pradesh at Trusted Key, and Blockbonds have agreements signed with a number of banks worldwide, this is all info in the public domain.

#9 - (I think this is the last one) I wasn't comparing us to Apple. I was communicating that a 1 year development time is not unreasonable.

Did we communicate that during the sale? Yes.

Do we have code updates, a roadmap and have we met the milestones we established? Yes

Is the price down? Yes, but as we have said from Day #1, we do not speculate on secondary markets. The reason for this is because a project could go like Tezos or have channels filled with speculation and pump and dumps, but where are they in terms of delivering a project now? We are focused on doing the work. Could the market for OAX be better? Certainly. It's a shame, but as we get closer to an exchange with a working Asset Gateway and a banking aligned channel to bring fiat in/out, we think people will begin to pay attention.

I hope that helps answer some of your questions.

[hengar]

#3 - You've talked up your experience and cast suspicion on the use of alias' then done the same yourself. I doubt I'll find "Zigerat" on LinkedIn. So, let's just agree that it's pretty common practice to use names on the internet and it neither reflects badly on us or you.

Are you seriously comparing the responsibility of an anonymous investor to a key member of the project team? The guy you are replying to has no responsibility here, you do.

And I agree with him that the lack of transparency is seriously worrying. You do not mention this "Amanda L". Who is she? I also have not heard anything about her, and I did a fair bit of due diligence before investing. She was not listed on the Team page or in the whitepaper, and now you are saying she is acting general manager?

As you know both these organizations are huge and have many departments and thousands of employees. Do the relevant Partners there know who we are? Yes. I don't have permission to post the name of the partner here and I'd rather not upset them, if you want his name, PM me. I can tell you that apart from the Working Group he was in our lobby the other day buying Bitcoin for his kids through ANX.

You can probably justify the inclusion of every individual in the original marketing campaign. However, I agree with the general message - at ICO time, you guys showed a huge team of people, all smiling wearing OAX t-shirts. Now all of that has disappeared, and it's just 4 guys making 1 or 2 minor commits to Gitlab each day. Not knocking those guys at all - I've inspected the code and I have no problem with their work. But what about the (literally) dozens of other people? Why do we not get any kind of basic update of what they're working on?

Some rough numbers. You can get a decent dev for $100k p/a. A good dev for for $150k p/a. Let's be generous with overheads and take that to $250k p/a. I only see activity from 4 devs, that puts you at $1m per year development, inc overheads. Let's say you go behind schedule and it takes 3 years, and you ramp your development up 50% in the final year. That still only puts your total dev costs at $4m.

What did you raise? $18m? And that's not including your significant token reserves (partially earmarked for development in the whitepaper).

Development is obviously not the only expense, but $4m out of $18m is a very small proportion, and that's being overly generous in my calculations. Where am I going wrong with this estimate?

Let's be realistic - this is not VC funding, I do not expect the same level of reporting you would give for that. But I expect maybe 10% of that level of reporting to the investors (the general public essentially), and at the moment we actually get more like 0.5%.

[zigerat]

Hmm...
This seems to be a slam, but then it's not even referencing fact in some areas, but I will do my best to address it.

What is the #1 reason that crypto is not mainstream right now? Because of banking. Even large exchanges like Kraken and Bitfinex and Gatecoin are having real problems maintaining banking relationships. Why is that? Because when they initially launched they did not consulting industry experts (Like PwC, EY and lawyers) and hence they are now having real issues maintaining effective relationships. If you want to build a solid foundation of these relationships, you need to start from Day#1.


If you want proof of this, consider that the only thing growing faster than the cryptomarket right now is the Tether market. (It is up 100x in the last 12-18 months) Again, why? Because it is the only channel for moving USD/fiat between crypto only exchanges. Even with a $31 million dollar hack it is still booming. Lots of exchanges cannot get banking so using Tether allows them to at least peg to the USD.

"Why do you post useless stuff about PwC, EY and KWM (our lawyers)?"

In response I ask "Why are some tokens sales/ICO's now having huge problems in terms of are they a security or not? Because they did not consult with a legal team or understand regulation."

Also, if you want us to use best practice in terms of managing the money we raised, ensuring a governance structure that is fair, impartial and recognises token holders, best to bring in some experts.

Who is blockbonds?
Did you read the website? https://blockbonds.io/
They have legitimate banking relationships in a number of countries, including the Philipines and Africa. If you are considering using crypto as a valid means of providing value to millions of people who do not yet access these markets, working with a firm with relationships and expertise in these markets seems wise.

I notice that you did not reference NetKi or Trusted Key, our other Working Group members. The reason for that is they are both legitimate, well respected industry leaders?

If you intend to build a decentralised platform that is different than the dozen other DEX platforms (EtherDelta, Bitshares, Bitsquare, 0x, District 0x, Waves, LocalBitcoins)you need to offer something new. In our case, this is to handle fiat, and provide consumer protection. To handle fiat you require KYC/AML, as KYC/AML are the basic level of compliance required from banks before they will do business with any organisation. Who are experts on KYC/AML, companies like KWM, EY, PwC, Trusted Key,Netki and Blockbonds.

You referenced Steemit, we don't use Steemit. We do use Gitlab. You can Google our code base over there.

On the prototype. I think that we communicated clearly from Day#1 the timeline for delivery. Apple puts out a phone every year, so a year seems a reasonable timeframe and again, was communicated clearly during the sale. We may be early, we may hit an overrun. At this stage we are on time.

Hope this helps

Edit: Grammar and tone.

Bear with me, this is going to be a long post. Hopefully it will give you and the rest of the community some insight into my thinking and my expectations based off the career I have had and the people I have worked with.

Yes, that was a slam. And yes it was aggressive - I'm not happy with OAX so far. They are my observations as a business guy who has been around capital markets, hedge funds and VC funding for over 14 years plus another 11 years in strategy gigs in banking. So all up 25 years if you're counting, most of it in entrepreneurship and business building. To put some context behind this, I have personally been involved in launching and growing 8 ventures in the past 10 years. 1 was a spectacular success, 3 were a good successes, 4 failed. With our VC business, I would guesstimate 70% of our investments fail, 20% return as expected, the rest will outperform with a few outliers being huge hits. So there's a lot of learning here on what works and what doesn't and the qualities displayed by exceptional business leaders vs the rest.

I'm not sure what "facts" you feel I am not referencing - they are my perceptions of OAX, it's what I see in the public domain and how I interpret  it.

Before I dissect your post, let me first address your post from a branding perspective. I am afraid your response reads incredibly unprofessionally. It lacks structure, lacks poise, lacks command and control, displays defensive desperation, is combative and is rambling -  at times I don't even know who you are addressing and who you are quoting.  It simply lacks the maturity and professionalism that is expected of an A grade player looking to make a mark in this space. I couldn't imagine your blue chip partners responding like this. It's this lack of professionalism that has me doubting your capabilities as seasoned business guys and serves to confirm my opinion of the leadership team. Like I said to Hullo above, signals.

While you have been good at responding to feedback and criticism throughout this thread, to date this has only been "soft" pressure. With the first sign of being pushed with hard pressure this is the response we get. It's a very telling indicator of how you guys handle pressure and crisis and a good indicator of your future behaviour. This is already manifesting itself in the way the OAX project is panning out and serves to confirm prior suspicions about your execution capabilities.

Finally, can you clarify who "shadowlpb" exactly is? Is it an OAX employee, is it Liam, is it Hugh, is it a major investor, an advisor....?
I accept you guys are trying to communicate but there's a lack of transparency with a lot of your posts. I don't spend much time on here so can't go looking through all your posting pseudonyms from OAX representatives to work out who is actually posting. Yes it's the internet but you should either personally stand behind your business or don't bother at all. This is even more pertinent given that you have taken funding from the public. Be clear in real names who is actually posting from OAX. As it stands I am just confused as to who's who and what's what with OAX.

Now to the specifics of your post.

What is the #1 reason that crypto is not mainstream right now?

I don't need convincing of the importance of banking relationships. It's a pretty obvious observation for anyone who has spent any time in capital markets. Heck you don't even need capital markets experience to grasp this, anyone with a business mind will quickly see the fiat and banking bottleneck in cryptos.
 
I am by no means a crypto expert but I do know the key difference between centralised and decentralised exchanges and the need for fiat currencies. I do, however, find amusing your hypothesis that Kraken, Bitfinex et al don't have (or can't maintain) banking relationships because they haven't tied up with an industry expert (a Big 4 or law firm as you assert). I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt (i.e. that you know that having a big 4 relationship is only but a small factor in your ability to build banking partnerships), but I am afraid the way you expressed this as a singular root cause problem is just plain amateurish and comical.

Even more worrying is your quote:

"...... having real problems maintaining banking relationships. Why is that? Because when they initially launched they did not consulting industry experts. Because when they initially launched they did not consulting industry experts (Like PwC, EY and lawyers)....".

Excuse me, but aren't you guys supposed to be the experts in crypto? Banks are turning to Fintech startups to learn this space and they are actively seeking partnerships with crypto/DLT and Fintech startups to learn about this new world and to co-develop solutions. Of course, they are incredibly selective as to who they work with but it's the banks who are actively encouraging Fintech/Crypto/DLT startup engagement and opening up invitations for partnerships. You guys are supposed to be the experts in cryptos, not the banks and most certainly not the Big 4s.

With regard to PwC and EY being the industry experts, can you point to any individual person from PwC or EY in your working group, or the firm itself, that brings in more than 1 year of experience in crypto, blockchain, DLT? I know they have deep experience in KYC/AML, governance, compliance etc advisory across BFS. This will be useful for working out how the compliance regime impacts in this new crypto trading world. But how much real world, and tangible, work have they done in the crypto space? How much real fee paying work have they done with regulators, how much real fee paying work have they done with other crypto players (compliance and/or general advisory across the crypto world)? If cryptos is too much of a stretch, then at the very least how much real world fee paying work have they done in the Fintech space? This will help to validate your assertions that you are working with crypotcurrency industry experts.

Oh, and a few PDFs, online event videos, retrospective talk about the year that was in crypto, presenting Fintech surveys, interviews with Fintech/crypto leaders etc doesn't count as real world fee paying work by PwC, EY et al. Being a commentator in an area you had no involvement in just a year or two ago doesn't all of a sudden make you an industry expert.

As to my "useless stuff about PwC, EY and KWM".

Having said the above, I do agree that it's a good strategy to get Big 4s and other brands on board to give validity to the project. However, my concern is your over reliance, and spruiking, of these brand names as your USP.  As it stands now you are leaning on the Big 4s for your credibility. This speaks volumes for your mentality about business growth, brand building and execution. The clear message from OAX is that you choose to buy credibility rather than invest in building your own foundational, and long lasting, credibility.

This brings me to what exactly this Big 4/KWM relationship is? Correct me if I am wrong, but as you have described it the Big 4s have merely joined your working group? I assume it's just a couple of their mid level employees, maybe a partner or a director, turning up for a monthly chit chat about regulatory issues!?!? I also assume that this is gratis, they are not formally doing any advisory work for you (re governance, risk mgt, compliance, business/ops strategy etc), they are not regulatory lobbying on your behalf, they are not introducing you to regulators, they are not opening up banking relationships en mass and they are not endorsing you to their banking clients or the market??

From all I have read, no where do I see endorsement by the Big 4s, or any other Blue Chip firm, of the OAX business or OAX leadership team. Please correct me if I am wrong on this!? And also please confirm that if I were to ask my FS partner contacts at EY and PwC in Hong Kong they will confirm that they are backing, supporting and promoting OAX?

From my experience with working groups, it's a lot of talking with very little action and follow up. No different to the many internal meetings company people bemoan on a  daily basis. For these big consultancies it just serves as a marketing avenue for them to post straight to linkedin or twitter immediately after attending with headlines like "proud to working with the team at ....". The big consultancies are notorious for this - every Fintech event, they're there. The simple reality is 2 years ago these Big 4s wouldn't have acknowledged you unless you wanted to pay them a fee. In 2017 though, the year of the crypto, they're all over it with no meaningful experience in this space. Who knows what latest trend they'll be chasing next year and whether they'll still be with you.

Having said that, and as mentioned above, I do think that the Big 4s, and your law firm partner, are valuable for wading through the regulatory points, setting up your governance practices, helping with KYC/AML etc . Hopefully you are using this opportunity to build your own capabilities here.

By all means if you don't have credibility yourself then feeding off their brand name is a good strategy. It's a good strategy that the masses will buy into but critical minds will see through. I would imagine your crypto audience would be made up of more of the latter personality types.
 
from "Day#1"

Your comment from Day#1 doesn't fly. Day 1 was 8/9/10 months ago when you were drafting your white paper, not today. My problem is that you went out to the public, got investment in your ICO and only now are trying to work it out. Now admittedly the ICO and Crowd Funding world is different, but in my VC world businesses don't get funded off business plans or seeds of an idea for the reasons you are displaying - an unfounded team with no meaningful exits who haven't shown execution capabilities who are now meandering in the hope of hitting quick surface level wins. Not much has happened for the first few months after the ICO. All we saw was your global travelling on the ICO's dime. You are fortunate the ICO world allows fund raising without even a proof of concept. But in the VC and IPO world, only the best management teams, who have built validated business will get funding. You could have used the correct Day 1  (have all the bits and pieces in place at the time of white paper publication) to really differentiate yourself from the other ICOs out there but squandered it with a lack of a foresight into how the market will react, lack of focus, lack of speed and now a lack of transparency.

"Why are some tokens sales/ICO's now having huge problems in terms of are they a security or not? Because they did not consult with a legal team or understand regulation."

100% agree and this where your law firm (and also the Big 4s) can help. While I didn't out KWM specifically in my original post I did say "the law firm you keep trotting out" which is inferring KWM. Lumping them in with the likes of the Big 4s was wrong on my part and I apologise for that. KWM's legal expertise in unpacking new products and their applicability to existing laws (and how laws need to change) can, and will, add significant value for you and the industry as a whole. I hope this is successful partnership for you.

Who is blockbonds?

No I didn't look them up. Why? There are far too many of these cyrpto startups coming and going on an almost a daily basis. A lot of fakes, a lot of frauds, a lot of incompetence and a lot of companies with simply nothing to add. I didn't criticise them but asked who they are. As your credibility is already low in my eyes, I am not going to assume that the startups you are working with are all A grade game changers.

I notice that you did not reference NetKi or Trusted Key, our other Working Group members. The reason for that is they are both legitimate, well respected industry leaders?

As with Blackbonds.

And once again, a comical, amateurish and just plain immature response. I ignored them because I realised they were legit and well respected!!! Really - I'm really not sure of your logic behind that conclusion!

We don't use Steemit

I don't know about this but some of the posts on Steemit read like they could be coming from OAX, or someone associated with OAX. They certainly do read incredibly positive and glowing of OAX. As mentioned, with all the posting pseudonyms you guys use I really don't know who's who and what's what. If they genuinely aren't your posts then that's fine but it is your job to be on top of and monitor your social media mentions. Steemit (along with Medium) is probably the site that has the largest collection of articles about OAX. It just reads strange when you flat out say that you don't use Steemit yet don't acknowledge, or maybe realise, that a lot of OAX info for your investors most likely came from Steemit articles.

On the prototype. I think that we communicated clearly from Day#1 the timeline for delivery. Apple puts out a phone every year, so a year seems a reasonable timeframe .....

Not arguing with you on this. My concern is here is your use of ICO funds to build a prototype. Yes I do realise the way of the ICO and Crowd Funding world vs the traditional funding world i.e. fund to produce vs funding off production. My point here is two fold. Firstly, this was an opportunity to differentiate yourself from the rest of the ICOs )(i.e. actually show something tangible at white paper time, at 2 weeks, at 4 weeks etc). Secondly, it's very naive of you, and shows lack of business experience, to think that you can say Q2 2018 and expect the market to keep quiet until then.

Oh and don't compare yourself to Apple. You just sound like amateurs. Apple is a hardware manufacturer that embeds software capabilities into a vast API and App ecosystem. They have an incredibly complex global supply chain, operations, logistics and vendor ecosystem made up of independent contractors and vendors that need to tie into a global hardware and software ecosystem. Their business model and  ecosystem is in orders of magnitude more complex than anything OAX is building.

The ventures I have been involved in and the startups we fund through our VC business are all software and tech companies. None of them take anywhere near the time you think is necessary to build a prototype. Admittedly, I don't spend my days looking at just crypto exchanges, but from what I have gathered, it looks like your crypto exchange competitors also don't require the time to build working models that you think you need, let alone do they need to go through an ICO to do it.

Hi Zigerat. This is Liam.  I use this name on all our channels. I appreciate the time you spend writing this out, you feel pretty strongly about it and that's understandable.

First, I will answer you as best I can, but I shall not be posting a page and a half over here. I'll try to keep it short.

#1 - Let's skip the personal attacks, they serve no purpose.

#2 - Apologies if you thought my answer was terrible. I answered on my phone because I thought it was important to respond sooner rather than waiting until I was back in the office.

#3 - You've talked up your experience and cast suspicion on the use of alias' then done the same yourself. I doubt I'll find "Zigerat" on LinkedIn. So, let's just agree that it's pretty common practice to use names on the internet and it neither reflects badly on us or you.

#4 - We don't use Steemit. We post our updates via official channels. Here, Medium and Twitter + website. I cannot control what's posted on Steemit. If it's good it's probably because someone likes what we are trying to do.

#5 - Many new ventures fail, yes. We are working hard to deliver a project that works and is viable. If 70% of ICO's fail to deliver (As per your number quoted above) we plan to be in the 30%.

#6 - RE: Advisors. We do not need PwC and EY for their crypto expertise, but instead for their KYC, complaince and goverance expertise. As for your question about "If I ask my contacts" sure, feel free. Or you could just read what we have put out on our official channels.

"PwC Hong Kong, adviser to the Foundation with respect to governance, risk management and internal control matters" - Yes, PwC is engaged.

"EY, adviser to the Foundation in relation to taxation and accountancy matters; " - Yes, EY is engaged.

You can see this info out in the wild here http://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/oax-foundation-launches-digital-asset-industry-working-group-in-hong-kong-657655343.html

Do all members of these companies know our project and are they actively promoting us? of course not.

As you know both these organizations are huge and have many departments and thousands of employees. Do the relevant Partners there know who we are? Yes. I don't have permission to post the name of the partner here and I'd rather not upset them, if you want his name, PM me. I can tell you that apart from the Working Group he was in our lobby the other day buying Bitcoin for his kids through ANX.

#7 - As for "no meaningful exits etc." Hugh, Ken and Dave are pretty well known in the space. Dave was on Bloomberg the other day, invited back because he predicted (accurately) the Bitcoin price 6 months ago. I'm not claiming any special powers, but they have a track record of building businesses.

They have a successful business in ANX that has in the ballpark of 20 corporate clients for their exchange platforms, they founded Octagon Strategy - Asia's largest crypto OTC desk, to name a few of their businesses.

#8 - Blockbonds, Trusted Key and Netki - You did no looking at all but just assumed they were crap/fake or "something". If you were back in your VC days and that was the level of due diligence a junior analyst displayed, how would you react? Your question showed you hadn't looked, so I treated it as such.

Sorry if you thought my answer was immature. A quick Google search will show Justin Newton sits on panels at Consensus and is consider pretty legitimate in the field of Blockchain KYC. As is Pradesh at Trusted Key, and Blockbonds have agreements signed with a number of banks worldwide, this is all info in the public domain.

#9 - (I think this is the last one) I wasn't comparing us to Apple. I was communicating that a 1 year development time is not unreasonable.

Did we communicate that during the sale? Yes.

Do we have code updates, a roadmap and have we met the milestones we established? Yes

Is the price down? Yes, but as we have said from Day #1, we do not speculate on secondary markets. The reason for this is because a project could go like Tezos or have channels filled with speculation and pump and dumps, but where are they in terms of delivering a project now? We are focused on doing the work. Could the market for OAX be better? Certainly. It's a shame, but as we get closer to an exchange with a working Asset Gateway and a banking aligned channel to bring fiat in/out, we think people will begin to pay attention.

I hope that helps answer some of your questions.

Hi Liam

Thanks for responding. Good to know it's you. Disappointing though to see that Hugh still hasn't the temerity to address the community.

Re your comments:

#1. None intended. I do have high expectations and can be scathing in my assessment but none of it is said with malice.

#2. It took a week to respond so I'm not sure about the sooner rather than later comment. I understand you are on the road. But if it were me and an issue of importance came up I would ditch the phone and get on a full screen to carefully craft a deeply considered response.

#3. Correct, I am posting anonymously. I am not an activist shareholder. I am not an industry representative.  I haven't gone out to the public making promises on what I can deliver and I haven't raised funding off the back of these promises.

I am yet to come across a public, IPO'ing, crowd funded company that doesn't have full disclosure on its management team. This doesn't mean all your employees, just the senior representative leaders.

Internet pseudonyms are fine but just make it clear who's who. And for all your leadership people on your masthead, webpage, whitepaper etc complete, fact checkable information about who they are, what they have done, what they will do at OAX. And only include those actually involved in OAX (If Dave and Ken aren't involved on a daily basis please remove them from the leadership team).

#4. That's fine. Good to hear independent views, supporters and detractors alike.

#5. Good to hear. Hope you guys pull through.

#6. Again, good to hear. Like I said my concern here is your messages seem to be coat tailing off their brand names for credibility rather than attempting to build your foundational, and long lasting, creditability.

We use EY, HK for our tax structuring so most likely may be dealing with the same tax FS partners. They are good, as is PWC, HK for compliance. Just please don't say you are using JL at EY.

#7. Agreed, ANX seems to be doing well as a collective. But we don't hear or see from Dave or Ken re OAX (if they are in fact involved at all or just backers).

Prior success is a good indicator of future success but not always so - we need to be careful of falling into the trap of fundamental attribution error. I have learnt very quickly that a lot of our success has to do with environmental factors, I would be grossly misguided and simply a fool if I thought my successes were just down to me.

It looks like Hugh is the only one from ANX actively working on OAX. So far I am seeing good ideas, good understanding of the crypto and capital markets issues and a good general view on what OAX should be. But this is what hit paper and has run it's course. Since then we have seen no development or evolution of these ideas and have seen very poor execution and even poorer leadership abilities. He may have done well with Ken and Dave on his wings at ANX but as a solo attempt he is scoring very low.

#8. Again, at no point did I call them out as fakes or frauds. Please reread my posts.

Well I did make a comment that may be interpreted as me inferring they are crap. But as I already clarified to you, if OAX has built no credibility in my eyes I am not going to assume that the startups you are working with are ground beaking trail blazers who will lead the way in cryptos.

To your point on our VC busines. As a VC we get thousands of proposal a year. 90% of these won't get to first screening. For the ones we do look at in detail or choose to invest in, we most certainly do not go through the minutia of partnership, supply contracts, vendor relationships etc (unless it's a pivotal contract/relationship that their business is dependent on). Plainly and simply - we invest in management teams and execution capabilities. The product and business space is ancillary (as long it's a growth area) as are the fine details of all their partnerships. Our dude diligence is on the management team not the contracts. As long as they are showing extraordinary month on month growth and have a clear path to commerialisation, all that matters is the strength of the leadership team to prove that a. it wasn't a fluke and b. that the management team can repeat the success. I strongly suggest you read up on how the VC investment world works before commenting.

#9. We will have to differ on this. If you were a slow, lumbering incumbent MNC bank then 1 year is a fantastic time frame. But if you're a hyper speed startup looking to disrupt the face FS and capital markets then 1 year just luxurious.

And one final point - where the heck is Hugh? This guy is supposed to be CEO and he has all but disappeared leaving it to others to sort out the mess he has created.


Anyway Liam thanks for your response. I understand the pressure you may be under and feel for you on this. Balancing the community with the business and OAX leadership is not an easy thing to do.  

[IhateICOs]

Hey Hugh and Liam, how much money did you spend on flights, suits, drugs and hookers you scammers? Show us the receipts and how much money you have left from the ICO. Show investors exactly where the money went, or else we will assume you stole the money and are scammers.

[shadowlpb]

Hi Zigerat, Let me think and clarify my thoughts before responding.

IhateICO's - I think you have the wrong impression, first off I don't drink, I fly coach with layovers and I don't do hookers and I wish I had a new suit. I collect a salary and have a fair number of tokens locked up until June 2019, in addition to buying a fair amount in the pre-sale.

Carol, our VP of finance and Amanda, our Acting GM are working on budgets as we speak. We are looking at working with a group such as project transparency or ICO governance in addition to PwC on our governance and reporting, as soon as I have some concrete to report, I will let you guys know.

[shadowlpb]

Hi Zigerat, I can answer one thing quickly, on the team members and exec group.

Amanda Liu is acting GM of OAX, and is ex-MD Banco Santander with over 20 years experience in the banking space.

Will Barkshire (it's definitely Barkshire, I mail him 50 times a day.) Is the Chair of the Working Group and Senior Advisor to the project.

The delay on deploying our latest website is definitely an issue (it's on the tech side) and once that's done you will have all that info in front of you, apologies for that. It's out of my hands but I am chasing daily)

Also, I cannot fault your Dev costs, they are pretty close to fact. Instead, I'd refer you to Hugh's comments on the roadmap, which were essentially that building a small competent team and then ramping up is more effective in development than simply throwing bodies at a project. You can read more here

https://medium.com/@OAX_Foundation/oax-project-q4-roadmap-update-technology-stream-120a8ef3046b

[snakey]

This is shit coin?

[bitvoyager]

This is shit coin?

No, you're mistaken, snakey.
It's like a sleeping giant, as said one of the OAX supporters.

[hardalisas]

This is shit coin?

No, you're mistaken, snakey.
It's like a sleeping giant, as said one of the OAX supporters.

Totally agree. openANX is a solid project.
I am just curious while people are so easy to lose their patience.

[bitvoyager]

Devs journal, current week:
https://www.notion.so/2017-12-01-journal-d1b2880da41143c28fcc9e3937dfae03

You can monitor the OAX development process here:
1. Gitlab - https://gitlab.com/oax (choose "Watch" in notifications settings and you'll be notified about activity)
2. Mockups - https://modao.cc/flows/InUGhKMaeHp7XgJDYv1yweIAKLJ8u0N


OAX ON EXCHANGES - NEW BOUNTY PROGRAM - WEBSITE - PROJECT DECK - WHITE PAPER - TECH WHITE PAPER - TEAM  
SLACK - TELEGRAM - FACEBOOK - TWITTER - REDDIT - LINKEDIN - GOOGLE+ - MEDIUM - YOUTUBE - STEEMIT - GOLOS

[Kalo12]

any idea why I cannot move OAX from MEW to MEW??? it says transaction error and the most ridiculous thing is MEW wallet assistance say, sorry we cannot keep up with all coins coming up, contact the OAX community

[CageKennylz]

hOAX

[bitvoyager]

any idea why I cannot move OAX from MEW to MEW??? it says transaction error and the most ridiculous thing is MEW wallet assistance say, sorry we cannot keep up with all coins coming up, contact the OAX community

Hello Kalo12,
Have you registered on the site in order to get your OAX token "activated":
https://oax.org/en/assets/documents/openANX_User_Guide-OAX_Token_Activation_ENU.pdf
Also please email to projectstallman@openanx.org with description of your issues.