UPDATE:I think it's time to give an update on where we are with things. There's stuff going on behind the scenes and I'm always unsure how much of our strategy to post here, but lack of updates is not a good thing.
If you think the initial plan is rubbish then please say so. Your comments will help us to tighten up what we're offering.
The android wallets have been cobbled together and released, but I'm still in the process of getting the Exchange Rates added to the wallet. It's a silly problem. The Bittrex and Cryptonator public APIs do not provide data in the format expected by the wallet modules, so it doesn't work without major code alterations (which haven't been done yet). On the other hand, the Yobit API works perfectly, but volume is non-existent on Yobit so the price displayed on the wallet is not the latest price.
Forgive me for saying this, but it's ironic that in terms of wallet development, it's better for us to lose Bittrex (that we're fighting to stay on) and start using Yobit. Then the exchange rates would be correctly displayed without hours of new coding, and still have CoinmarketCap and Cryptonator being updated, so apart from the Bittrex name we'd actually (technology wise) be in an possibly better place. But, again, it is what it is.
I'm in the process of farming this specific exchange rates work out to a third party rather than stopping other progress just to get this resolved.
The next step may take some time to implement but we're in the process of getting things organized. This is step 1 of market penetration.
Remittance ServicesAs was said in the OP, the remittance market is worth over $80bn. One thing that people who have downloaded the wallet have been asking is "What can I do with them?". We are aiming for the first step into the market to be in the area of remittance services.
As well as the traditional money transfer services, there is also a massive trade in global currencies happening on a lot of street corners in Africa. People returning home or visiting Africa, generally carry foreign currency with them, which is changed by these traders into local (or foreign) currency. We aim to try and become a part of that market (over time).
We are aiming to build a distribution channel which allows those traders on the street corners to trade and exchange other FIAT currencies with kobocoins, as well as cash out their traded kobocoins into local currency. We aim to have a central hub that facilitates those traders without us having to open multiple kiosks for this purpose. Of course, it will be a very small operation at first. I won't give details of the channel (it already exists, but is not being used for cryptos - yet!) because it's obvious (to us anyway) and can also be used by the competition!
Once the channel is setup and open, we'll then perform a few publicized tests, i.e. ask someone locally in the UK to send a relative some kobocoins, which we, as Kobocoin, will redeem for them at the receiving end. Our initial service will be a closed loop (only kobocoins bought from Kobocoin will be redeemed at the other end - officially). That way, people who are used to sending $100 to family, only for the family to get only $60 after fees will see the real difference. $100 will net them more than $95. The hope is that this will encourage others to use our services. Why? Because it's cheaper. We are aware that other services are cutting fees, but we believe we have as much flexibility, if not more, to achieve this.
Just like any currency service we intend to set daily buy/sell values.
This may sound risky at first glance, but we are not looking to service high value transactions when the service first starts. A suitable upper limit on daily volume will allow us to maintain a float without breaking the bank. Hopefully it will raise awareness and highlight the crypto USPs of minimal fees and also being transferable between individuals. We're hoping to encourage people to keep, stake, and transfer their kobocoins between themselves, without going for the default cashing out option. This is how we hope to stimulate it's use as a currency.
These things take time to organize but we've been making steps in the right direction.
Regulation is resolved. At the moment it's all about money laundering and terrorism. We have to be vigilant in our dealings. Pleading ignorance is not an option.
There's also other things in the pipeline:
We're finalizing what we want to see in the upcoming merchant POS wallets. Development will start later in the year. It will allow competition between traders (for customer business) but I'm not giving away exactly how we'll be achieving that. It's an option that some traders have asked for.
There's the iOS wallets. Needs to be done, but I'm very wary of using web wallets for kobocoin (the default option with iOS). I personally don't think they're secure enough. I'm in discussion with other devs about the iOS wallet. There may be a solution later in the year from another team, I'm discussing using a white label version of their offering for kobocoin. I'm just hoping the solution doesn't utilize a web wallet.
Technology wise, I need to resolve the hashing url for the mobile wallets. The server has crashed a few times which in turn has stalled syncing on the mobile wallets. I'm looking into the possibility of load balancing the validhashes url to avoid this situation, but this is more tech and hardware, and not something that can be implemented immediately.
Other than that, we now have an elevator pitch. Let me know if you think it works, or how you think it needs to be altered.
Elevator Pitch
Part one:
Kobocoin is an electronic currency that can be transferred without a central bank or clearing house. Currency transactions are person-to-person, near instant, worldwide, and incur minimal fees, if any. No financial or credit history, or any form of registration, is required to use the kobocoin currency.
Part two:
Kobocoin offers currency services concentrating, for now, on the African continent where remittance services alone is a market worth over $80bn. Sub-Saharan Africa is the global lead in mobile financial services. Gallup data show that, currently, an average of 54 percent of adults in sub-Saharan Africa make one or more long-distance payments in a given month, totaling approximately five billion transactions annually. The total volume of these flows is approximately $760 billion, and 50 to 60 percent of the transactions are in cash. With a conservative estimate of revenues at 2 percent of volume, this results in annual revenues of about $6.6 billion from electronic payments.
Part three:
The Kobocoin organization creates free, and paid for, services and applications that utilize the kobocoin currency, as well as building services and solutions for other electronic currencies.The finalized elevator pitch will form the main basis of the business plan.
There's more going on, but remittance is the main push now to encourage usage. Again, thanks for your continued support.
