First 50 days of 2019 | Founders Update
In this Founders Update, we will chronicle business, product, and token-related developments that have occured so far in 2019.
The Founders Update is a personal piece penned by Jamal and Christel, the founders of BOLT, to round-up strategic developments within the BOLT ecosystem. We also aim to provide a view on the focus areas that BOLT will be working on in the next 30–60 days.
1. Progress on building the BOLT Wallet
We are making good progress in build out the BOLT Wallet, which will be the hub for users to participate in the BOLT ecosystem.
We will release instructions at a later date on how you can apply to be one of our beta users as we move closer to the date of release. Our target date of release will be at the end of Q2 2019, with beta testing expected to begin at the end of April 2019.
You will be able to use the BOLT Wallet to:
- Top up your BOLT token balances (via telco redemption or external wallet address),
- Send BOLTs to other users (via phone number, username, or external wallet address),
- Trade BOLTs for access to other parts of the BOLT ecosystem — including the BOLT Marketplace and Premium Content access on BOLT+,
- Earn BOLTs from playing games on BOLT Play or through our user referral program
We will be providing support for these tokens to be stored, traded, and sent to other users in our initial roll-out within the BOLT Wallet:
- BOLT (BOLT),
- Zilliqa (ZIL),
- Binance (BNB).
A detailed product explanation on the BOLT Wallet will be explained in a separate post. This will include why we’re building out the BOLT Wallet, explaining our specialised BOLT Marketplace, and other crucial features to keep your tokens safe.
2. Video streams in the first 50 days
Sports is the pulse of the planet. If you love football and cricket, BOLT+ aims to be your stadium in your hand.
In 2019, we began streaming on-pitch replays to our users 2 hours after the final whistle, with us covering match-point highs, misses, and match commentary for English Premier League and La Liga matches.
Remarkably, we have recorded over 1.9 million viewers across the 58 videos that have been published since January 2019, and recorded a new high of over 957,000 monthly active users. Altogether, a total of 8.9 million streams were recorded in 50 days. We’ll be working even harder to get our coverage of your favourite sporting moments to more people around the world.
The stadium also welcomes complimentary voices, and we have streamed videos from our crew of BOLT Ambassadors to provide alternative voices from their local communities. This includes coverage from Safaricom’s International Jazz Festival in Kenya, the Bengali Language movement in Bangladesh, and a technology review from our ambassador in Indonesia.
3. Invited to attend Hisense’s Global Partners Conference in Qingdao, China
We were also invited to participate in Hisense’s global partners conference, held in Qingdao, China, in early February. If you may find the brand name familiar, Hisense is the official title sponsor for the FIFA World Cup in 2018, and the upcoming title sponsor for the Euro 2020. It also sells under multiple brand names including Gorenje, Hitachi, Toshiba, and Sharp, and records over USD15 Billion in revenue internationally.
We also had the privilege to meet with the CEO of Manchester City, Ferran Soriano, who had flown out to Qingdao after Man City’s resounding victory over Chelsea the previous day (sorry, Chelsea fans!!)
Getting a seat at the table with the big boys is an extraordinary privilege and honour for us. We can’t wait to share with you the details of what the BOLT-Hisense partnership would entail, and we promise that you would not be disappointed.
The Next 60 Days #BUIDLBOLT
It has been a remarkably busy first 50 days of 2019 for us. In the next 60 days, we have identified a few strategic areas of importance for us to progress with our vision of being the largest mobile wallet that is powered by content.
- Listing on Exchanges
Our Token Generation Event has finally concluded and we will commence with the listing of BOLT on Switcheo and other exchanges this month. Further announcements will be made on our Telegram channel by our core team and administrators.
2. Countdown to the Cricket World Cup 2019
With the Cricket World Cup just 100 days away, preparations are in full swing to ensure the best in class experience for our users and partners. This includes the building of our smart contract capability (on Zilliqa) to process BOLTs , allowing users to access official footage from the International Cricket Council.
3. Building out a new client side UI for BOLT+
We are also building out a refreshed user experience for our video streaming application, BOLT+, to incorporate elements of social gamification and the BOLT Wallet in time for the Cricket World Cup.
Thanks for being with us on this journey everyone — to BOLT!
Thanks for reading! Join us on Telegram to participate in discussions on how we can make BOLT a movement we can be proud of. Drop us a note at enquiry [at] bolt.global for suggestions on what you would like to read next.
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