An interesting Interview with Yassir Hankir was published today - unfortunately only in german:
„Müssen uns dafür aufrichtig entschuldigen“ – So erklärt der Savedroid-Gründer seine missglückte PR-Aktion
Headline in english:
"We have to genuinely apologize" - This is how the Savedroid-Founder explains his failed PR-Stunt
I'll not translate everything but point on some interesting things he said during that Interview:
At one point he is asked why they've done an ICO. His answer is this - german original:
"Wir haben kurz vor dem ICO 1,5 Millionen Euro Eigenkapital von Investoren eingesammelt. Insgesamt haben wir nun 3,5 Millionen Euro Eigenkapital bekommen. Mit dem ICO konnten wir gleichzeitig eine neue Nutzergruppe auf uns aufmerksam machen, schließlich wollen wir mit dem Kapital eine Plattform zum Sparen in Kryptowährungen aufbauen. Die Zielgruppe ist eine ganz andere. Aktuell haben wir etwa gleich viele weibliche und männliche Kunden, die zwischen 18 bis 40 Jahre alt sind, sehr konsumfixiert sind und sehr schlecht mit Finanzen umgehen können. Die Mitglieder der Krypto-Szene sind älter, sehr technologieaffin und zu 95 Prozent männlich."In english: He explains that they've collected 1.5 mln EUR before the ICO selling real shares and that they got 3.5 mln EUR in summary. The interesting part is:
"Due to the ICO we were able to get the attention of a new user/target group, since we want to develop a money-savings-platform in Crypto. The (this) target group is very different (...)"Why I point on this is: Actually he says that the ICO itself was about marketing/PR, to get attention in the Crypto space and more users for the App under the line. It's not what I'm critical about per se. But good projects always try to create win-win-situations. To do that it's about the whole context and exactly that is totally distorted when it's about Savedroid:
Purpose of the token:
Utility tokens were invented by decentralized networks and have two or even three purposes: 1. Financial incentive to secure a decentralized network (mining for example). 2. Payment for services / Fees 3. Sometimes Utility tokens are also government tokens
SVD is about two: Payment for services / Fees. But:
1) That would not just be possible but much easier to do without the token at all, just to collect fees in whatever Currency they may offer in future.
2) He says that they want to develop a savings-App for Crypto. The offered service would be about helping Users to put money aside using algorithms that initiate automated transactions which follow some fancy rules - like whenever Trump pushes something out on Twitter, money is transferred from User-Address 1 to Adress 2 (savings-address). The problem with that is: It's a total contradiction in itself because each transaction costs fees. If somebody wants to put money aside he does exactly that, but he doesn't pay for unnecessary transactions that cost money having less money as result. How does it help anybody to save money if the whole business idea is about tricking the mind into tiny transaction that cost a lot of money under the line?
3) To do that Savedroid needs control about the used addresses. It's not possible to make automated transactions (or any transaction) from an address without having the private keys. That means: A user additionally pays to keep the money he wants to put aside in an online environment (unsecure) and to give up control about his private keys ---> money (unsecure!!!). Result: Savedroid-Users would pay for having less control and weaker security.
4) Economics of the ICO: They've believed it would be good to have a total supply of 10 bn tokens at a price of 0.01 EUR each. That makes obvious what they believe or want to make others to believe how valuable their economical system is or will be: 100 million EUR = 129 million Dollar. They wanted to sell 6 bn tokens but sold less while the exact numbers are nowhere to find. At least I didn't find them. But it's said they got about $50 mln. That is insane in itself. There are much better projects who not just didn't get that much money but didn't even ask for so much money because they know they don't need it. ICO's with experienced teams can be very attractive because they simply act honest and rational, also and especially when it's about the economics. That gives room once a token hits the exchange. But Savedroid took all the money they could get, leaving not much or even no room but a lot of potential that this could really sink like a stone. Experienced Guys would have stepped back only seeing the economical design.
Marketing
Considered the context above (and sure: nobody needs to agree with my view on it) Savedroid has showed real commitment only in two aspects:
1) Creating a buzz, using everything for marketing
2) selling as much of their token to a ridiculous high price
Yassir now apologizes but in my opinion that is more in regards to the german Fintech-Community. If it was about their Crypto-Investors this apology can not be considered as honest, because otherwise he would have agreed to refund those who want get out. It's not possible to honestly admit "I have done something wrong" while saying "No, actually I don't want to repair the situation for those who are likely pay the bill".
And actually that's not just a mistake others are likely to suffer from. It's also not good for the project itself to start with such a high token valuation. They wouldn't ever need so much money to start. Software Development is not about building tons of infrastructure. They undermine their own credibility with that as well. Even without the PR-disaster Savedroid has to be seen as a hype-project without any interesting fundamentals. I personally see no potential at all because there are contradictions on all important aspects.
Plus: They've pushed themselves into a very bad position. Yes, they are millionairs now but that comes along with a lot of pressure. I consider it as a safe bet that no one of the team is happier now than he/she was before they've pulled of this ICO and especially their PR-Stunt. They will earn pressure each and every day and that will cut between them and their own Community while there is only one connecting aspect: The lack of experience. Team and their Investors seem to have that in common.
And just btw: Those who bought with
Credit Card are the ones who are really fucked in this game.
Reason number 1: They have to wait 180 days after the payment was made until they will be able just to move their tokens
Reason number 2: Once they can it will be about significant supply flooding the markets and others will anticipate that. Just imagine you hold SVD and you know: "In three days first Credit Card buyers will be able to move and therefore to sell their tokens". What would you do? More supply flooding the market means pressure on the price and because ppl will anticipate that, the price is likely to tank some time before.
Another interesting point of the Interview:
The Interviewer calculates:
"You speak of 200,000 App-Downloads but you don't give numbers about actual Users. Marketing-Experts expect that only 20% really use an App after downloading it. Therefore you would only have 40,000 Users. (...)" The interesting part is: Yassier doesn't reject that. He answers that it typically needs some time to get new users and more attention and so on. And yeah, that's probably true. But what he can't say there is, that it's also about trust. And besides everything else which I personally totally dislike: They've targeted trust with their PR-Kamikaze.
Plus: Their business model didn't work that well with Fiat until now while that actually makes much more sense, because it's not that much about security like in Crypto and it wasn't about high fees yet (or any fees).
What he says about exchanges:
"At the moment we're coordinating the trading-start of our token so that it will start at the same day on all exchanges. It should start in a few weeks."
Original: "Im Moment koordinieren wir den Handelsstart unserer Token, sodass dieser für alle Krypto-Börsen auf den gleichen Tag fällt. In wenigen Wochen soll es so weit sein."If that quote is correct it doesn't seem to be about hitting exchanges "end of april or early may" anymore, but about weeks.
If so, the question would be why...? My guess is: Exchanges backed off after their PR-Stunt, but of course, I can't know that for sure.
What he speaks else about is that they will put some effort in becoming better... also regarding communication etc. To read the whole interview in english Google Translator might be helfpul.
I don't even want to blame Savedroid for everything because in my opinion everybody should show some self-responsibility and think about projects and potential Investments. What I'm really eager to see is the due-diligence-list Savedroid has promised to put out, to help people to invest in a rational way. Because they'll find themselves in another paradox:
If that due-diligence-list should be high quality, it would have ruled out their own project. It will have to be superficial not to do that.
