AMA Session With TokenStars CEO Pavel Stukolov

TEAM token sale is successfully completed! TokenStars CEO Pavel Stukolov answers all the hottest questions about the project and draws the line on the achievements on Q1 2018 in Ask Me Anything session.

Hi guys,
I’m Pavel Stukolov, CEO of TokenStars.
Welcome to the March Q&A session, that draws the line of developments in the first quarter of 2018.

The first and the most frequently asked question — On which exchanges do you plan to list TEAM?

1. OKEx proved to be a good option for listing because of the high audience, developed infrastructure and liquidity.
2. Nevertheless, OKEx modified their listing rules and requires making an airdrop campaign with the tokens worth about $500,000, that would cause significant pressure on the token price. We understand that at first, we should strengthen our communications with the traders, especially Chinese community, and list TEAM token on OKEX only when the participants will fully understand it’s utility value.

Also, we’ve decided to strengthen our exchange listing strategy. We’re planning to gradually list on different exchanges, and increase the liquidity, rather than go to the top exchange straight away.

Why did the price of the ACE token fall, and what’s your price forecast?

In January, the price for ten thousand ACE tokens reached 1.49 bitcoins, which are equivalent to 20,000 dollars. Even without taking bonuses into the account, this would give ACE token holders 49% return in bitcoins and approximately 400% return in US dollars from the actual time of purchase.

Starting from the mid of January, all the cryptocurrencies started to fall following the drop of the bitcoin. Market conditions are the main reason for the fall.

Another possible reason is that we have not yet learned to work closely with the Chinese community of the OKEX exchange. It seems, all the news of the project (the launch of our first module, the blockchain based Auctions, signing new stars and partnerships) weren’t reaching them. Our marketing team is aware of the issue and is working hard to solve it.

Fundamentally (systematically and for a longer period of time, not as a temporary peak), the token price can increase only if the tokens are frequently and in large volumes used on the platform. When that happens strong demand for the token is created. We understand this fundamental principle and it’s our highest priority to build such an ecosystem.

For example, we really like the case of Cindicator project (by the way, the Russian team is behind it). The token is actively used inside the platform, and it has the community of more than 50,000 participants.The users buy tokens to make predictions on the platform and the price naturally grows. Currently, the project is among Coinmarketcap top 100, based on market capitalization.

One of the modules that will ensure the active use and the high demand for the ACE token will be our betting module. The market for the online sports betting is actively expanding. Blockchain and the community wisdom can drastically improve the efficiency.

Right now, we’re actively exploring the opportunities of the sports betting module, looking at the commissions, arbitrage opportunities, APIs for existing players, empty niches, user acquisition costs, community wisdom mechanisms, betting syndicates, possibility for pooling the bets. We’ve raised this modules’ priority in the roadmap. We hope to share the details will you soon.

Will the price of ACE and TEAM correlate?

Most probably, yes. But in the end of the day, the market decides the price of both tokens. The key tendency right now is high correlation with the whole cryptocurrency market and lagged reaction to any project news and updates. In the longer term, we hope the situation will change, when the track record and company achievements will influence the price dynamics more.

We can’t and we won’t give recommendations on whether to buy the ACE token right now (before TEAM listing) when it costs relatively low. Everyone should decide for themselves.

How will you use blockchain on the platform?

Blockchain is already implemented in TokenStars platform. It is currently used in Auctions module to transparently store all the bids history and to accept bids in cryptocurrencies, including ACE and TEAM tokens. Our developers wrote an article with a detailed explanation of blockchain and smart contracts implementation in TokenStars auctions.
Please find the links to the article and TokenStars Github in the video description.

It is essential that the module accepts payments in tokens, creating some demand for them. The soon-to-be-released voting module requires tokens as well. As we’ve already told, the betting module does.

Which modules will require active tokens usage (and how it will affect the token demand on the market)?

Well, as we’ve said before, the fundamental demand for tokens will grow proportionately to the token internal usage on the TokenStars platform.

We have raised the development priority of particular platform modules which are forecasted to significantly scale up the token usage on the platform (besides the up and running Auctions module and the Voting module, that will be launched soon).

We have three major hypothesis which need to be tested.

First of all, we continue the work on signing marketing promotion contracts with the players. The brands pay their commission in tokens, buying them in the market. Currently, we’re negotiating the terms with several more PRO-stars and hope to share the results soon.

The second line of work are “Stars-related” activities on the platform, which will bring sports & showbiz fans to the platform.

By the way, A few days ago Michael Owen announced the launch of somewhat similar model, which proves that more and more celebs will be joining the bright side of the force and experimenting with blockchain. The Cointelegraph article mentioned us as the existing competitor.

Working with stars a lengthy and time-consuming process, but it’s worth it. That is the reason for signing the contract with Redfoo, who has millions of followers and will share his broad experiences in launching communication activities between stars and fans. For example, previously he experimented with “time tokenization” by selling the “One Day with a Star” to his fans. Again, fans have to pay for those activities in tokens, creating demand.

The third business focus is to create the engaged community where participants share their wisdom and gain benefits from it. Collective Predictions model was successfully implemented by other blockchain projects like Stox, Cindicator, Augur and it may be transferred to the sports betting. It’s over-regulated but fast-growing space and smart contracts may sufficiently increase the business efficiency. We are currently studying the opportunities in peer-to-peer betting, betting exchanges, and arbitrage signals discovery.

Does the product development follow the path of the roadmap? Did you change some modules of the platform?

There is nothing wrong in startup rearranging the order of launching modules, if it the result of a logical business decision process and not because the deadline was too tight to deliver, or the IT team weren’t capable to do so. We believe that the solid and fast implementation of Auctions module confirms that TokenStars’ developers are capable of delivering high-end blockchain products which have both nice UI and solid backend.

So let’s talk more of the business logic behind rearrangement. As a startup we have to focus on the ‘North star’, move towards it as fast as possible and ignore all the rest. That is exactly what we’re doing. Our North star is the volume of tokens spent daily on the platform. We have 3 hypothesis on what levers to grow this metric.

So the team is focused on developing and testing three hypotheses to increase the demand for the token. We’ve already mentioned the key modules which we want to launch (Voting. Advertisers. Betting.) and several business directions that we wanna follow (Advertising. Celebrity. Betting).

What did the ACE team do after listing on the exchange?

A lot. 17 stars were involved in TokenStars activities — check this impressive list on the website. We’ve become partners with insurance companies such as Rega and Nomadic Capital. The Auctions platform module was launched. We’ve analyzed 13 tennis players and with some of them, we’re negotiating the possible contract. Here is the link to the latest news.

Thanks for your support and joining our Q&A session!

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