BOLT Community AMA | 2 March 2020
Summarised transcript of the live Zoom interview
Watch the Zoom interview here: https://youtu.be/QOEqzRn6AJo
Introduction to BOLT, by BOLT Co-Founder Christel Quek:
BOLT is an interactive media platform that converts your media experiences into monetary value. Our mission is to open up the power of information to all, with a vision to create an inclusive economy that will be powered by the world’s stories. We do that through two applications — BOLT+ and Pegasus.
BOLT+: interactive media platform, with a focus on sports and educational content.
Pegasus: a gateway converting a user’s media experience into monetary value.
Welcome to our AMA with BOLT Founders Jamal Hassim & Christel Quek. Hosted by DavosCryptos — BOLT Community Manager.
Question: Why the name BOLT?
It was to symbolise two things:
- the app being bolted to your hand
- fast content delivery
Question: What kind of ideas do you have in mind that can give a positive boost to BOLT ?
Here’s what you will see in 2020:
- New token utility features Stake and Lightning Round on BOLT+
- New content offerings on BOLT+
- Refreshed BOLT branding, website and white paper
- New partner portal for content and advertising partners
- Brand new Pegasus platform and rewards system for the BOLT token
- Improved user experience on BOLT+ and Pegasus
- Loyalty programme for BOLT’s avid supporters (Olympus)
- BOLT+ launched on new digital platforms with Hisense
- White-labelling of BOLT’s platform for commercial uses
- Mainstream awareness of the BOLT ecosystem
- More live AMA’s
Question: What are we expecting in terms of building developments in Q2?
In Q2:
- BOLT TV with Hisense
- Olympus program
- New Website and Partner Portal
Question: I want BOLT to be the sports and entertainment app for the 3rd world- unique premium content (subscribers) — this was the original vision — why do I get the impression that this is no longer the long term goal.
Inclusivity and global reach has always been our main goal and this has not changed. While we have our eye on developing communities around the world, we are also open to other markets. This does not mean we are neglecting developing communities. We appreciate your feedback regarding presenters from unbanked countries and look forward to creating more localised content in future.
Question: What do you consider the best way of measuring your success? Amount of users? Partnerships?
Four ways:
1. Aggregating more content and business partners
2. Number of users viewing/using our content across all platforms and channels
3. Interactions and engagements from our content
4. Number of transactions on Pegasus
Question: How will you introduce BOLT to non-crypto users?
Through gamification and blockchain invisibility. Aside from Stake, we are soon debuting Lightning Round, a time-based sports quiz game that rewards avid sports fans with BOLT tokens. Currently, Stake requires users to possess BOLT tokens in order to Stake. With Lightning Round, users will be able to win BOLT tokens just by answering questions correctly.
We also have, in the pipeline, other features such as offering BOLT tokens as a reward for friend referrals to grow the number of users in possession of BOLT tokens. With these BOLT tokens, users will be able to soon redeem rewards on Pegasus. We will also be preparing collaterals to educate users about blockchain and the BOLT token.
Question: We see a lot of the UK team on social media but what are the Singapore team working on and how is the work split?
The content team is based in London, while the user experience, data, comms and dev teams are largely based in Singapore. The business development team is split across London and Singapore.
Question: When is the equity raise due to be finalised? Please provide an update on it.
We will announce in due course.
Question: How does BOLT make revenue?
Almost 90% of our revenues are from sponsorships, advertising and licensing. The balance is from support services.
Question: Can you release audit results that verify stated operating profits are accurate?
As a BVI company, we are not in a statutory obligation to share financial results or company reports. However, again as a gesture of goodwill to the community, we can release an abridged version of it for public perusal which will be independently audited.
We ask the community though to trust us and not always second guess what we do and our intentions.
Question: In the latest VAULT, it is stated that MB Malik will acquire BOLT tokens for subsequent sponsorship campaigns as part of the strategy to create organic business demand for BOLT tokens. When a business pays for a certain service with BOLT tokens what will happen with those tokens? If the team sells those tokens back on the market without any kind of burn then this wouldn’t add much value to the token itself right?
Best to refer to our upcoming one-pager with our latest (updated) details.
Question: How does the partnership wallet exactly work ?
Each partnership is different. We operate on a case by case basis, adapting and customising towards the partner and the goals we want to achieve together. Actually most of our partnerships do not revolve around the BOLT token.
Question: Is there any information regarding more exchanges?
We are looking at all options and what is best for the community.
Question: When will the Q4 token burn happen? Please provide an accurate date.
We will announce when the burn is done this month.
Question: Can you tell us the motivation and benefits for investors to hold the BOLT token for long term? What are team’s plans to make BOLT a top project?
We are launching Olympus, a loyalty programme for BOLT’s avid supporters that will offer benefits and incentives for those who hold BOLT tokens for a longer period. More details will be released soon.
Ambitious goals to make BOLT a top project:
- Entering as many markets as possible (localisation of content)
-Creating and integrating a BOLT+ presence across all digital platforms
-Identifying synergistic partners to raise brand and content awareness
-Increasing and maintaining a high quality and inspirational content offering
Question: Why is the team selling some of their tokens, at all time low, when the company is making revenue and profitable? Blockchain transactions can prove it.
What we can say is that the circulating supply is approximately 450M tokens, which is reflected on both Coingecko and CMC. Both Coingecko and CMC track our wallets and are able to note large transfers and active wallets into new wallets or exchanges. We have been through this cycle before where we get questioned on our wallets and transfers because the price is down. Nothing has changed about what we do or the business. We have bought over 20M tokens over the last year and our own personal team members have additional BOLT token holdings of their own which they purchased off the market. We are happy to share more information on the wallets for transparency later this week, but in reality, before people cry foul that we are making things up, it will be quite difficult to misrepresent numbers to two different tracking websites (i.e. CMC and Coingecko)
We have noted a post by a community member who has dug up blockchain transactions claiming that the team has been selling tokens. In his post, most of these transfers had occurred last year and came from a Binance wallet straight into Bitmax, with 1–2 transfers this year for that. Unfortunately, the Blockchain only tells part of the story. We have several large holders from ICO who have swapped their tokens from ERC-20 to BEP-2 and had preferred to send their tokens to Bitmax to store. That had also coincided with our last bonus issuance last year which was completed successfully. We know our large holders personally and they are not as crypto-conversant as most and they are in no hurry or interest to liquidate their tokens. We also note that a transaction was pulled out and questioned over a transfer of 416,000 tokens into Bitmax which is worth about USD 1248 today. In any case, the team has already been openly purchasing more tokens so there is no need to keep second guessing us. We know the token price is down so people naturally get nervous, but nothing about the business has changed.
Question: Token can still have utility regardless of its price, so does price really matter to the team?
Of course it does. Our team gets vested tokens quarterly since Q4 2019. (We did not distribute tokens to the team for over 6–8 months after listing, as a form of goodwill.)
Question: What are the news about Zilliqa and BOLT?
We are utilising Zilliqa’s Smart Contract system for our partnership portal and will announce the details when ready.
Question: Transparency is key- new and existing investors seek information to make their own judgements and the recent Audit summed up the seriousness of the project. Bearing this in mind why was a partnership with a company (BritPharm) created where no information is available and that which is looks suspicious. There are no sales, their own accounts are not what you expect from a pharmaceutical company. The directors are not UK nationals and seem to have a history of working with unsuccessfully dissolved companies. Instead of answering the questions, long term investors are treated with hostility- words we did not use are held against us. Companies House does not lie but from the face of it BritPharm do. If this is a small business that wishes to grow then just say this — by making them into a global pharmaceutical super player, it is only damaging credibility.
We will be releasing more information about BritPharm via a comprehensive 1-Pager. BritPharm is a real company, with real premises and a fully comprehensive processing facility and both Jamal and Christel have personally been on site and seen the facility for themselves, including their work supplying medication to the NHS. It just goes back to whether you trust us as a business and as founders. We cannot comment explicitly on how another company files their returns or how their corporate history has been entirely like. Often we have our community admins and team to be second guessed on what we do and say. If we didn’t think this was a good partnership, we won’t have even wanted to look at working together with BritPharm. As part of our ongoing educational initiative, we will issue a one pager explaining the partnership this week.
Question: Any plans for real live sports events ? Because Youtube is also offering free highlights. Staking would also make more sense with live videos.
Live sports events are ridiculously expensive to procure and stream, and licensing rights are very restrictive and normally confined to the traditional broadcasters of a particular country or region. We do curate highlights and also had agreements with the Cricket World Cup (International Cricket Cup) and the Rugby World Cup (World Rugby) that allowed us to secure and publish additional footage around the entire league.
We are also developing our own BOLT Interactive proposition which aims to create more engaging, interactive media formats for users to enjoy- such as the Gameshow, aptly named Lightning Round; Stake, which incorporates match predictions; and our 3D replays, which overlays match statistics on animated match highlights for football and cricket. We want to be a full-fledged platform. All these will specifically include token utility for sponsors and users to create a truly inclusive economy which will be powered by the world’s stories.
Question: Almost a year ago, the team announced a strategic partnership with Binance which resulted in a token swap and listing on DEX. Is that it?
We are also exploring Binance Dex cross-marketing activities this year.
Question: What is your plan moving forward to incorporating different communities in different languages?
We are launching a community growth campaign this month. Community managers have been selected in new target language markets including India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Africa, Turkey, Japan, Korea and the Middle East. We will not only push our English announcements in these new language communities across all social media platforms, but also actively grow community members. The primary objective will be to drive awareness of the BOLT Project and to get users to register for our BOLT+ and Pegasus services as well as to join the BOLT social media channels.
Question: Why is there no Turkish language support?
Localising our content is a mid-term goal that we are working towards, with Turkey being one of the markets we are keen on advancing into. Please be patient with us as we continue to work towards bringing BOLT+ to new markets.
Question: Do admins in BOLT original and trade groups get any form of compensation ? And if yes did they disclose this?
Our admins get BOLT tokens for their efforts as admins. Also they’re big believers of BOLT and hold BOLT tokens by themselves.
Question: What is BOLT Olympus? I read it in your Medium update.
BOLT Olympus is BOLT’s loyalty programme to incentivise and encourage avid supporters to continue to hold on to their BOLT tokens for the long term. It is scheduled to be launched in Q2 2020.
Question: How to be BOLT ambassadors?
We are always looking for additional members who are excited about this project and willing to educate others about the vision we have for BOLT. Most of our community admins/moderators for the community growth campaign have exceptional fluency in English as well as a native language. For more information on how you could get involved DM Davoscryptos on Telegram or email dave@bolt.global.
Question: How do you attract millions of users, with just 1 or 2 videos uploaded per day at best ?
BOLT has created an ecosystem where our users are distributed across different mediums besides the BOLT+ app, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and etc. For example, last year we had over 7M Active Users just on Facebook.
Going forward, we will be exploring all avenues for increasing content output whilst ensuring content is of an uncompromisable quality and in line with our values. Stay tuned as we look to develop a suite of original content programs in-house and with content partners, across the coming period.
Question: What percentage of users come from which countries?
In the last month, our distribution from our Top 10 Countries was:
South Africa 11.82%
United Kingdom 8.67%
United States 7.84%
Turkey 3.45%
Germany 3.29%
Bangladesh 3.23%
Pakistan 3.07%
United Arab Emirates 2.91%
India 2.31%
Nigeria 2.24%
Question: Will you increase the number of radio and TV channels available on BOLT+? All these channels are in English. What about the Francophone community?
Yes, we have been steadily increasing our live TV and radio offerings. Majority of these channels are in English. However, we do have channels broadcast in their native languages such as Arabic, Turkish, Thai, Chinese, Bengali, Swahili, Portuguese and Malay. Some examples of channels in French include NRJ 100.3 and Radio Jam.
Question: How will the BOLT TV App attract users, it will be next to the likes of YouTube and Amazon Prime. What will make users choose BOLT, especially as the data issue will be negated?
We’re working on designing a differentiated experience for our entire suite of products (TV included). While videos make the foundation of the content offerings and experience, we are working on other interactive media content offerings to complement video content and package it into a new experience for our users.
Question: People are saying that Staking should require a gambling license. How can you resolve this issue going forward?
Stake is a game of skill not luck. Users are required to have a high level of knowledge of their sport in order to succeed (by also correctly answering a question). The skill element of Stake negates the need for a gambling license.
Question: How are you going to fight a user who has created multiple accounts to stake on different outcomes and guarantee almost a 100% success rate ? This is one major issue of the pool prize system. You can easily get around it with multiple phone numbers.
We cannot guarantee that there will never be users who will attempt to do this. The unfortunate reality of having a publicly accessible service is that people will seek to take wrongful advantage of it. We will look into solutions to resolve this, such as banning multiple accounts using the same IP address.
Nonetheless, statistically speaking, as the number of players and pot increases, this strategy will actually result in losses for the perpetrator. Which is why our team is focused on building the numbers for Stake.
Question: Please why are major big matches of other leagues not included?
We are refining the Stake experience and will explore enabling Stake for more matches of other leagues. If you have a suggestion for what you would like to see, drop us a note on support@bolt.global.
Question: Are there plans to make Staking even more transparent?
Every month, details about the number of winners, total prize pool and highest amount won is made available in the Debut newsletter https://medium.com/bolt-global/tagged/boltdebut.
Moving forward, we are also refining the Stake experience and will take this feedback into consideration.
Question: Will the questions to be asked in the Lightning Round be about sports only? Will there be questions about the crypto market?
Lightning Round will be kept sports-focused for the foreseeable future. This is in keeping with BOLT’s vision of being the premier go-to sporting platform and a hub for heightened sports engagement. Stay tuned for the addition of more of your favourite sports.
If you have a suggestion for what you would like to see, drop us a note on support@bolt.global.
Question: Do you have any plans to work with a Football Club?
We have taken steps towards expanding our reach into the global footballing community by signing on Wes Brown as our global ambassador. We will continue to explore more opportunities to expand our reach and user base; including the possibility of working with clubs.
Question: I’m from India… So basically I’m never played football but I like so much cricket sports.. when will you add cricket Staking?
We are looking to enable Staking for Cricket matches soon. Users and community members will be notified on the inclusion of new sports and/or leagues in future.
Question: Will Pegasus Wallet support tokens on BEP2 network?
Yes, in the future we will do so. We are also looking to do a brand refresh and integrate more features for Pegasus this year.
We are constantly evaluating our token utility and burn program to see the best tokenomics to achieve optimum velocity and usage in our ecosystem. I say we revisit this subject once Lightning Round and Stake are launched.
