Part 3 of 3 — 2018 in Retrospect; 2019 and Beyond
In this final leg of a three-part interview series with Dan de Sa, we try to look back into the journey of CoinMirror from inception to the release of the platform’s beta in 2018 and what the project has in store for us going forward.
A happy new year to you, Dan! Can you share with us some of the achievements and learnings that the CoinMirror team had over the past year?
Dan: Happy New Year to you too, John! As I’ve mentioned previously, the CoinMirror project has been an entirely bootstrapped business ever since the project’s inception in February 2018. We launched our MVP with upgradeable Smart Contracts in May, and have launched a limited public beta as of August. We currently have 22 SmartFund Leads who have deployed onto the platform, and 60 backers have deposited sums ranging from 1–200 ETH. We also have 550 active members in our Telegram group, albeit small, they are very interested in the product we are building but concerned with regulatory uncertainty. The total sum of funds deposited onto the platform is ~€65,000. Additionally, we have locked in key strategic partners such as Elementus.io, BrickBlock, and Esoteric Capital, that provide a suite of services to our SmartFund Managers. Our team is comprised of a veteran entrepreneur, strategy and digital transformation consultants, and an experienced venture capitalist, and has expanded to 6 people, across 4 countries.
There are three major realizations that we got over the past year. First is that bootstrapping the entire project proved to be a logical path for the growth of the product. It allowed us to be very flexible for potential partnerships and enabled us to pivot quickly on iterations to accommodate our ever-growing business strategy — nimble and agile, if you will. Second, while researching on various global financial markets, we realized that the idea of accommodating mass investment for wider asset arrays has a lot of potential especially for developing market segments. The idea is that investment vehicles that are normally accessible only to people with high levels of capital can actually be provided to regular retail investors — in large part due` to the blockchain and tokenization. The concept of financial inclusion is now within our reach where everyone can now access exciting investment opportunities and leverage our experts to invest into formerly exclusive asset arrays. This leads to our third major realization over the past year — the platform that we built can do much more than just startup tokenized investing. Though the MVP was designed to cater to ICO investments on the Ethereum blockchain alone, the infrastructure of the platform supports all ERC-20 compatible cryptoassets and has a lot of potential to tap into other practical use cases beyond the current set up.
Given these insights, would you mind sharing CoinMirror’s strategy for 2019?
Dan: We acknowledge the challenges faced not only by us, but by the entire blockchain industry in general. These challenges include regulatory compliance and the emergence of new financial instruments such as STOs. To address these challenges, our strategy right now is to identify the right regulatory segments of financial institutions and partners who have significant expertise in this field. By “marrying” the innovation of the CoinMirror project with expertise in the traditional financial landscape, we will be able to mitigate risks involved with digital retail investments.
On the other hand, we are also exploring the angle of social impact through financial inclusion on the consumers’ side. By lowering barriers to entry to risk-managed financial products, CoinMirror will be a gateway for developing markets to have access to exclusive investment opportunities.
To wrap up, how can the community help and contribute to the success of the CoinMirror project?
Dan: Right now, what we truly need are insights and feedback from the community. Suggestions on what you want and what you need from the platform are very valuable to the overall development of the project. We welcome any input and can be reached at our Telegram chat.
