Summary of the latest AMA sessions with the CEO

MINEXCOIN ECOSYSTEM STATUS REPORT MAY 2019

In order to improve communication with the community, Boris Shulyaev started holding regular AMA sessions within Telegram. The first one took place on 21st March 2019.

In the first AMA, Boris apologised that he had not devoted enough time to being in communication with the community before, and committed to improving the communication between the community and the company. He expressed the hope that these regular updates would help the community understand what the team are out to achieve and keep them informed of the status of the project.

Below are Boris’ answers to the various questions that he was asked in the Telegram AMAs that were held between 21st March 2019 to 2 May 2019. Updated and compiled together, these responses provide a comprehensive state of the project as of 10th May when this article was completed.

COMMUNICATION

I believe that a community is, if you will, like the gearbox of a car with the team as it’s engine. The car will run only if the two units work together in synchrony and in harmony. I and the team value the community and hope that these AMAs will provide an opportunity for better communication. The team and I are aware of the comments that are made in the Telegram group. Every day the Support Team provide me with an update, and all important and relevant points are discussed by the team so we know what is going on.

We will continue to provide regular updates on the progress of the project through these AMAs as well as our other outlets.

For our Medium articles, we will have a native English speaker check them before they are published. We may also do AMAs on Youtube at some point in the future.

MARKETING AND BRANDING

We have put on hold for now any plans to rebrand the company. We are focused primarily on launching the cards at this stage.

Marketing and advertising of the cards, the swap and other wallet services will begin once the cards are launched.

PRICE OF MNX

The last year has been disappointing for us at Minexsystems. Three years ago when the project started, the crypto community consisted of pure crypto enthusiasts who were interested in blockchain technology. However as interest grew in 2017, and with the hype that followed, there was an increase in the numbers of people who got involved because they wanted quick, easy lucrative returns. They do not seem to be interested in the industry and have a poor understanding of what it takes to build a viable business in a start-up sector. Not seeing the long-term vision, many of them have sold their coins and left.

I want to make it clear that the price of the coin does matter to the project. It is a misunderstanding to think otherwise. If the price falls too low, we will lose our community. However, the price of the coin does not affect the work of the project as that is not dependent on the price. We are able to continue working for the foreseeable future, regardless.

MinexSystems never have, and never will take any action to manipulate the price. The value of MNX will increase with genuine market demand. This demand will lead to greater market volume and liquidity. This demand will only come from genuine real use case products such as MinexPay. Without any such products, Minexcoin’s only use case is for market speculation. What we are doing now is building the sort of products that we believe will create demand for MNX. Our immediate focus is launching the cards in June 2019.

Once there is an increased demand for MNX in the market, we will restore the stabilising effect of the MNX algorithm.

Incidentally, we do not have any plans for burning MNX at this stage.

The biggest risk to the project that I see is if we fail to generate demand for our products because the market is not interested in them. However, I am confident that the products that we are developing will create a demand for MNX.

MINEXPAY CARDS

The first card programme, that was launched in December 2018 with UPAY, will not be restored. UPAY is a payroll services provider. The company that we had engaged had a number of complaints and enquiries questioning the legitimacy of the structure we had created with them for MinexPay. They decided to suspend the card programme pending their own due diligence. Although we have not heard from them yet, I do not think that they will resume the card programme with us.

However, since December 2018, we had already been in negotiation with 3 other card providers to launch the card with. We have signed an agreement with one of them: Stylopay. They will provide us with China Union Pay cards. These will reach us in June 2019 and will be sent out to our customers shortly thereafter.

Our contract with StyloPay is clear about the crypto aspect of the program. Please note that the StyloPay contract is between Chain2pay and StyloPay. Chain2Pay is wholly owned by MinexSystems. Minexsystems is the company that has developed MinexCoin. There is no requirement or stipulation on Stylopay to make public their agreement with us.

With StyloPay we will have full access to the API. We did not have this with Upay.

We are in the process of refactoring the web wallet, in preparation for issuing the second batch of cards, so that it will work with CUP cards. We are also redesigning the web wallet to make it more intuitive and easier to use.

With the new cards, card holders will still be able to attach their own personal bank cards to use with the web wallet, as well as with their personal bank accounts for SEPA transfers. Crypto to fiat conversion will function 24/7, but it will not be by autoconversion as this is not yet possible with prepayment cryptocurrency cards due to current regulations.

As well as loading the cards with cryptocurrencies, holders will also be able to load them with fiat via bank transfer. The new cards will use Euros only.

We will activate a tariff plan that will give different perks and commissions according to how many MNX are locked into a card wallet. By locking more MNX, a card holder will pay lower fees and enjoy higher spending limits.

The CUP cards will be available worldwide with the exception of 31 countries including: Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Iran, Crimea region of Ukraine, Venezuela, Afghanistan, Liberia, Moldova, Sudan, South Sudan, Syria and Zimbabwe. Please note that this list is subject to revision. The full list will be made clear during the ordering and KYC process.

As well as StyloPay, we are in the process of agreeing contracts with 2 Mastercard providers to provide cards for Europe and Asia.

Current UPAY card holders will be sent replacement cards. Those cards that do not have any fiat on them will be cancelled. Those with fiat will have a certain time period to withdraw their fiat. This is standard practise when stopping any card programme.

The new cards will not be branded with the Minexpay branding. Minexpay branded cards will come later, possibly 6 months after launch.

Launching a card has been a challenging process. All cryptocurrency projects that aim to launch their own cards face these challenges. The main obstacle has been the absence of any clear regulations in different countries. There is no universal regulatory framework for the prevention of money laundering operations. Secondly, Visa and Mastercard consider crypto payment cards to be high risk.

All cryptocards have to operate within the existing regulatory framework. Often this can mean that a project can get approval from a partner only for their compliance to rule against it later. This is why those projects that have launched cards, have done so by region and not globally. Our plan is to make our card program available throughout the world.

We have no guarantees that our programme will be a success. All cryptocard project face the same risks. Even big and famous projects cannot avoid these risks. For instance, E-payments and Shift had to close their card programs. Some projects have had to close their programs even before releasing their cards. We hope that we have forecast and planned for all possible risks in our new contract with StyloPay. This is partly why we have spent 2 months customizing and adjusting the contract with them.

ROAD MAP AND WHITE PAPER

We are still working on rewriting the white paper. We will publish it once we are satisfied that is of sufficient quality. More details on why it is delayed and the sort of exacting white paper we want can be found here:https://medium.com/minecoin-blog/update-on-the-new-minexcoin-white-paper-f20630353d94

We do have a Road Map, however, we do not have any plans to publish it as we have found that people regard the road map as a promise, instead of using it as a guide. Many of the products that we are creating depend on factors that are outside our control so we can not give definite timelines. We will publish the Road Map once we are confident that we can implement it fully.

OMNI — RIFTERS

At time of writing, Rifters, the multiplayer augmented reality game is being soft launched in Australia, Ukraine, CIS countries and the US. It is available for IOS in those countries. We are still developing an android app for the game. We do not have any plans to launch a live streaming version of the game at this stage.

We are using the soft launch to collect data and KPIs which we can then use to present to institutional investors. We have had interest from a number of institutional investors. However, we need data to present to them and to allow us to work out an effective model for monetizing the game. We are using the soft launch to collect the required data.

Depending on what we learn from the data, we will look to integrate MNX into the game at some point.

We have already signed an agreement with a significant games publisher that has agreed to include our applications for free within one of their apps markets.

On April 17th 2019, we released version 4.0 of the Rifters game. This allows for tourneys and motivational advertisements.

As of early April, we have had approaches from 9 MNX holders about investing in Rifters. 7 of whom have confirmed their desire to invest in the game.

EXCHANGE LISTING

MNX is listed on 3 centralised exchanges: Exmo, Livecoin and HitBTC. We do not recommend that people use HitBTC due to their high withdrawal fees. We are still in the process of negotiating the delisting of MNX from their exchange. In the interim, we advise that you purchase MNX from the other exchanges.

MNX is listed on 3 decentralised exchanges: Xbits, Txbit, as well as Bitshares.

We were in negotiations with Coinbene about listing MNX, however, due to a change in personnel, we no longer have the connection to Coinbene that we had, and they are now requesting a listing fee which we have declined to pay.

We are not pursuing any more listings on any exchanges at this stage. However, once our products are developed and launched, it is likely that exchanges will charge lower listing fees, and we will look to list on more exchanges.

INSTABUY

Instabuy (the process by which people could buy MNX with BTC or BCH without going to an exchange) has been suspended since 24th March 2019. We have no plans to restart Instabuy, but reserve the option to restart it at some point in the future.

We do not think that the drop in value of MNX is because of Instabuy, but more to do with the first issue of the cards being suspended, and the delays in launching the 2nd issue, the web wallet and the merchant. Without these products, MNX lacks real use case utility.

Whilst the first issue of the cards were in operation, we did buy backs of more than 70,000 MNX, of which we sold 68,000 MNX through the Instabuy feature.

MINEXBANK

We will continue to reduce the interest rates periodically, otherwise there will be no funds to make the interest payments with.

The delays in making the parking payments in February happened when the 3 required signatories were not available to release the funds from the cold wallet. We cannot ensure that this delay won’t happen again, but we can ensure that the parking payments will be made.

SOFT FORK AND 51% PROTECTION

We have recently made a small change in the MNX blockchain code. The starting nodes were updated and these changes were accepted by two mining pools. We recommend that all MNX holders upgrade to the new wallet which they can download from the website.

In order to prevent 51% attacks against the network, we will be implementing Komodo’s Delayed Proof of Work mechanism. We do not have a deadline to do this by, but with the value of MNX as low as it is, I do not think that MNX is at risk of a double spend right now. This risk will increase when the value of MNX increases.

BANK LICENCE

MinexSystems acquired a bank registered in the Union of the Comoros. Under the terms of the contract, the previous owner had to sign contracts for the provision of correspondent accounts: two in USD and two in Euros. The American banks that were involved refused to do so and changed their rules that meant they could not work with offshore jurisdictions and financial institutions that were registered in the Comoros. This meant we had to terminate the contract and so no longer have a banking licence.

We will be buying a Payment Services Provider (PSP). We are still in the process of finalising the purchase and I can’t say at this stage when the PSP will be implemented.

SWAP

We have added the Swap function to the web wallet.This allows users to gain credit using their crypto as a collateral. Initially only BTC can be used as collateral. Once the card programme is relaunched, we will allow MNX to be used as collateral.

We think that the Swap function will be useful as evidenced by what has happened with Nexo.

Our rates and charges are far more competitive than Nexo. While Nexo gives 0.7 from the collateral, we will give 0.75. Nexos annual fee is 18% while ours is 10.5%. This is a considerable discount over Nexo’s charges.

The Swap function is being funded by Minexsystems.

We hope that MNX holders will use this service and will tell their family and friends about it. We will roll out the marketing and advertising once the web wallet has been refactored and the cards have been launched.

The swap function is explained fully here:https://faq.minexpay.com/article/299-swap-service-description

TEAM / DEVELOPERS / STAFF

MinexSystems are now a team of 12 people. We have 4 developers. They are all working on refactoring the web wallet currently. MNX is written in C++. We have one C++ programmer. The rest of the team are the support and office/management teams.

DECENTRALISED EXCHANGE

Currently MNX is listed on 3 DEXs named above. We have suspended plans for our own decentralised exchange for technical reasons. We no longer think that creating a DEX is a viable and necessary option for MNX.

PHONE APP

We will be developing a phone app for Minexpay after the cards are launched.

INSURANCE

We had originally intended to provide an insurance service as part of the MNX ecosystem. However, insurance is even more regulated than other financial instruments. We do not think that insuring against blockchain risks is possible within the existing regulatory framework.

MERCHANT

We are in the process of negotiating with some merchant service providers with regards to setting up the Minexcoin Merchant. Once we have agreed a contract with a partner, the technical implementation will not take long. Like the payment card and insurance, this is an also an area that is highly regulated, and is not supportive of cryptocurrencies.

FUNDING

We exhausted the ICO funds about a year ago. Our monthly project expenses had been more than $260k. In November 2018, we halved our costs. Currently, the project is being financed by my own funds and by investors in the card project through Chain2Pay. For MinexSystems to continue as a company, we need a minimum of $800k a year. This is to cover the cost of salaries (developers, support, legal, accountants, administrative, staff) as well as office rent, servers, marketing, bills and other business expenses.

While our costs may seem high, they are much lower in Ukraine than they would be in Europe or the United States.

We understand that a project cannot exist forever using only ICO funds. Our commitment has been to be profitable as quickly as possible. This is why, as well as keeping our costs low, we are focusing on the roll out of MinexPay cards as they will offer us an income stream. MinexSystems will earn from the sale of the cards, as well as from commissions from their use. We will sell the MNX that we earn from the MinexPay in order to fund the business.

We have launched the conversion function in the MinexPay web wallet. This allows clients to convert BTC to Euros and have those Euros deposited to their own personal bank cards which they have linked to the MinexPay web wallet. We are already earning commission from these transactions. As more people use this function, and as more people use the MinexPay cards that will be issued after June 2019, our income will increase. We intend that the business will be funded from this income. We will also be receiving dividends from OmniGames and intend to profit from investing in its ongoing development.

We are actively looking for investors in Chain2pay and OmniGames so that we can continue to expand and develop further the elements of the Minexcoin ecosystem. It is our intention to have all our ecosystem of products up and running in the autumn of 2019.

OUR COMMITMENT

Ever since we launched this project we have been committed to providing innovative products that act as bridges between the worlds of crypto and fiat. Some elements of our ecosystem are complete, some we have set aside, while others are still in development. However we remain committed to our initial vision.

FEEDBACK

If people want to offer support or suggestions, Boris can be reached via Telegram or the Support team (support@minexsystems.com) can forward your message to the CEO.

P.S. The team express their gratitude to Crypto Rich for his support and for compiling this article.