Some Time With the TokenCard Team
In London. Update from my perspective.
I flew to London on the morning of the 15th, and arrived in city center at 4:30am. After taking a short nap, I ventured to the TokenCard offices to meet David and Mel for the first time in person.
Context
If you are unfamiliar with the TokenCard project, the team raised about $14.5mm through a token creation event last month to bring debit cards to the Ethereum community. Those who are already in the crypto world know that shifting back into fiat to pay for things can be a time consuming and complex process. Debit cards pulling directly from your Ethereum wallet that you control keys to is a big deal. The team is set to have a beta released around September.
After the sale, there was a bit of controversy around a few items like:
- Issue with SNGLS depositers receiving 10x the TKN — Resolved
- Visa logo removal from debit card — Resolved
- Questioning of partnership with official card provider — Resolved
- Limited updates from team
- Limited presence from Mel and David
The last two points are the focus of this article as it seems like the only real thing that isn’t going smooth, which the team would like to remedy.
The Key Stuff
First and foremost, price speculation (short term price bumps in TKN) is not the focus of the TokenCard team. Building long term value through the creation of a meaningful business that solves a problem people are experiencing is the main thing.
The first step towards this goal is getting to a working beta which, as I mentioned, is currently scheduled for September. Mel and David have been extremely focused on this goal — some might say to a fault. Their position is that the only meaningful update is the working application, which in a lot of ways I agree with. If you don’t have a working product, partnerships, community management, and really any other items are ultimately irrelevant.
Office
I can confirm that the team is real and active. They got a new office in London. It’s pretty nice. Here are some pictures.
Community
I have had the privilege of working with a few crypto projects, and a good portion of my time has been spent on managing community interests, engaging with people about projects, finding partners for projects, and answering questions on public channels.
Needless to say, the combination of public token launches combined with the rise of instant messaging channels like Slack and Telegram has created a level of project scrutiny never before seen in a public company (which I could probably write a whole post about). In a lot of ways this is good because it keeps projects in line, but there must be a balance found where posts are not created all the time for purposes of price speculation that are basically fluff.
My current position is that the most important piece is consistency — setting a frequency of post releases, and sticking to that schedule. The updates should be far enough apart so as to not rehash information or have a bunch of fluff. Crypto moves fast, but not that much happens in 24 hours usually when building a business. They should also be close enough to make sure that all token holders and parties interested in the application are tuned in to what’s going on.
TokenCard Community
Mel and David are the first to admit that they are not great at communicating to the community. Dwight and I have been having trouble relaying relevant information to active community members because we don’t have enough insight to know what’s going on. We have set up times to have two calls a week so Dwight and myself can inform the community between updates.
So, my second suggestion to the TokenCard team was to commit to a weekly blog post every Monday. They have agreed to this, starting on June 19th. These updates will have up to four sections:
- Development updates and project goals
- New hires
- New partnerships
- General crypto/project thoughts
They will be put out on Medium and spread through across social channels including Reddit and Twitter.
One thing that I must stress here, per Mel’s request, is that not all information can be released all the time. There are a lot of things happening behind the scenes to create impact in this community. Sometimes, it is best kept under wraps until everything is completely ready. Competition can (as we’ve seen) imitate rather quickly.
Bigger Team
The TokenCard team is currently quite small. It is comprised of David, Mel, the team from New Alchemy, Dwight, and myself. With the recent success of the token launch — remember it was only one month ago — it is time for the project to grow.
There are a lot of deals in the works with high profile individuals and teams to come onboard and collaborate on the TokenCard project. These people include more developers, a highly reputable PR firm, an epic design team, social media people, advisors, and more.
Over the next month, announcements regarding team additions will be made in the updates.
Conclusion
So overall, I am happy to say that the team is active, working, and will deliver the best Ethereum based debit card to the market. Obviously this article should not in itself fully restore community sentiment. Only action and consistency in messaging will allow for this to truly improve over time, and we will restore this faith over the next few months leading up to beta.
If there are any questions, please feel free to reach out to me on Slack @jake.
Look forward to sharing more updates with you all on June 19th.
