Current — Mode Launch, Product, Token Unlock, Instant Access, Securitize Markets, Q1 2021 Royalty Dividends & More

2020 In Reflection

As we try to catch our breath in the final few weeks left of the year, it’s worth taking a brief moment to reflect on how far the company has progressed since the start of 2020. Looking back to the first two months of the year, just off the heels of an intensely busy Q4 2019 (as for anyone in the advertising business) it was unclear how Q1 would shape up.

Our plan for 2020 was to refine and improve the V1 of Current on Android from its 2019 beta launch and diversify the earning mechanisms for our target users. By mid-March, the challenges associated with the Covid-19 pandemic also introduced a few new obstacles: everyone on the team was now working remotely, we had to brace for uncertainty and focus on what key features we wanted to see through while taking into account how the inevitable economic slowdown would impact advertising partners and our company as a whole. By staying conservative and continuously iterating our development strategy in search of product-market fit, by Q3 the app was both showing early signs of traction demonstrated by increased user growth and retention; the compound effects of which provided some insulation against the impacts of Covid on the industry.

Things have progressed so dramatically month over month that it’s hard to believe that our team has been working completely remote for the last 8 months. Amidst these challenges, the team has been working relentlessly, seemingly around the clock, nailing product deadlines, month over month optimizations, launching new features, and working towards the beta launch of the Mode smartphone in late November — leading us to our biggest year thus far! A huge shout out to the team who have been sacrificing late nights and weekends to get us to where we are today.

TLDR; Key Announcements

• November 2020 was our best month by revenue since we launched the Current app as we finished the month with over $1 million in topline revenue, up nearly 22% since October.
• November 2020, we surpassed our entire revenue figure for all of Q3 2020 combined.
• Our number of daily active users that interact with our Apps has also doubled since Q3.
• More than $1M in rewards have been processed through the Current Rewards app and passed back to users. Last week, Current processed north of $75,000 in PayPal rewards alone. This is quite a milestone and uptick from the previous two months; bringing us closer to our mission as a company. We project we will be processing 40,000–50,000 unique payments each month in the coming quarter.
• The Current App has been trending #1 app overall in our category within the Google Play Store and in the Top 50–100 of all apps and recently surpassed 600,000 reviews and 5 million installs.
• Current Rewards app launched the “Charge Screen” feature at the end of November, which allows a user to earn while charging your phone. Early results suggest that the Charge Screen feature has been well received and that, like our lock screen feature, will become one of the most popular drivers of user earning opportunities and boost our per-user revenue figures even higher as we move into 2021.
• The Mode smartphone received its GMS certification from Google, which means we are now an official Android partner and allowed to resell our device in most countries around the world. The website, Modephone.com, was launched right before the American Thanksgiving holiday and the first batch of orders were shipped by the end of November.
• Launched the ability to redeem points for Bitcoin through a direct partnership with CoinList. All of our direct partnerships included in our “redemption” section are providing a diverse source of revenue that we will continue to optimize and eventually scale into tens of thousands of dollars of daily revenue.
• Given the increase in ad rates for the holiday season and the number of returning users that we serve each day, we are poised to have another revenue record in December 2020 with projections in the range of $1.2 million.

Mode Phone

In early November, the Mode smartphone became GMS approved by Google. This lengthy process begins with the manufacturer, where they do two different rounds of preliminary testing of the modified software on the device. Generally speaking, the manufacturer’s testing process mirrors the process done by Google. After the first round, you receive feedback on any potential issues and have an opportunity to fix anything ahead of the next round. If the manufacturer determines the software is unfit for GMS certification, you’re almost dead in the water. Luckily that wasn’t the case and the device was approved to be submitted for final GMS testing which subsequently passed and the device received its final certification. With GMS approval, we’re now an official Android partner and our device comes with the full suite of Google applications, as well as Mode’s ‘Earn UI.’

On November 23, just before the American Thanksgiving holiday, Mode soft-launched and began taking orders. Customers can make a direct purchase through the website and receive the phone within 5–10 business days. Most recently, the Mode team is testing a brand new subscription model for the device where customers can choose to pay a small monthly fee and upgrade to a new model at the end of the subscription period. During this initial phase, a good amount of time will be spent collecting feedback from users to make improvements for fast-follow iterations to the site and check out processes. Once these optimizations have been made, along with our logistics processes, we intend to scale further.

By the end of December, we are expecting to receive a prototype 5G device with the goal of launching the cheapest 5G device in the U.S. and abroad in November 2021.

Current Rewards App

A variety of product features were introduced over the course of the last few months. The largest feature to be released is the ‘Charge Screen.’ Once enabled, this allows a user to earn hundreds of points at a time by simply charging their phone. A user can earn more than that but is required to check-in periodically every few hours. It works in a similar fashion as the Lockscreen, but instead, ads are displayed on the screen while the device is being charged, turning the phone into a mobile billboard in your home. If the user chooses to use their device while it’s charging, the feature can simply be dismissed but will reactivate if the device is locked or the daily points caps are met. This provides the user with a substantial opportunity to earn points passively every day. We’ve already seen this feature provide positive boosts to retention and engagement.

Current’s Charge Screen Feature

Another important feature recently launched in November is an update that visually shows the user their music earning rate. The rate at which you earn is directly dependent upon how often you engage with the app, as well as the other earning features. Based on a recent research study completed by our product team, feedback suggested that users wanted more transparency around their music earning rate. The ‘Music Earning Rate’ screen was introduced to accomplish just that and included various incentives for users to engage with other monetized features in the product such as games, offers, and surveys. The more a user interacts with the product, the more the user earns from those activities, and the more it affects their earning rate. At any given point, the user has full control over their earning rate. Since introduction, we’ve seen a 5% increase in Day-1 retention, and nearly a 10% increase in engagement with other monetized features. This is the first step towards giving our users a great earning experience and this feature gives us a solid foundation to build on.

Current’s Music Earning Rate Feature

A feature that was initially launched back in September, called “VIP Offers;” which can be found on the redeem screen within the app, has received a variety of updates over the past few months. The aim of these direct offers is to provide our users with a curated selection of high-value offers for top products and services. While the focus for the initial batch of offers was around extended free trials, we’ve been experimenting with offers with high payouts to the user and provide some sort of bonus given out in points once they convert the offer. Just recently, we launched an exclusive offer through a direct partnership with CoinList for $3 in Bitcoin when a user signs to their exchange. The early results of these offers suggest an extraordinary opportunity at scale and add diversity to our revenue sources. This is planned to be a major focus moving forward to introduce the highest caliber of offers available for both our domestic and international users. In preparation for Q1 2021, we recently added a localization component that allows us to monetize localization data which can be used to offer users real-time deals based on location.

Current’s ‘VIP Offers’ Feature

The last major addition to the product has been our Raffle feature. Shown on the ‘Earn Screen,’ 1,000,000 point raffles are run Monday at 2 PM CST through Friday at 12 PM CST, and then Friday at 2 PM CST to Monday at 12 PM CST. Right now, raffles are set up with a 75,000 point first-place prize, a 25,000 point second-place prize, and a 10,000 third-place prize. One thousand users can win the 500 points fourth place prize and 1,560 users can win a 250 point fifth-place prize. To enter, all the user has to do is download and play the promotional game once, however, subsequent sessions earn the user extra entries. Occasionally, bonus opportunities to enter are provided through push notifications to users. It’s not surprising due to a large sum of potential points to be earned, but the vast majority of users engage with the feature. The initial challenge was due to a limited supply of offers, where most users could only enter into the raffle once or twice, limiting feature engagement to new users. Near future optimizations will open up this feature to all daily active users with a much larger supply of offers, as well as users in many more countries. We’re also improving the user experience to drive additional engagement and conversions through the feature.

Current’s Raffle Feature

These four major features that have been added over the course of the last few months are a large part of the reason we’ve been able to achieve our estimated revenue targets month-over-month in Q4 thus far, surpassing $1M in November, and being well-positioned to close out the year stronger than ever.

$CRNC Token Part 1: Token Unlock & Instant Access

It’s been a long road since we started the migration process to Securitize iD back in mid-September of this year. It has taken a coordinated effort between Current and Securitize to onboard the majority of Current’s SAFT investors. While this process did take longer than anticipated due to the higher volume of individuals and entities being onboarded, we are now at a point where we’re able to schedule a formal date for token unlock. The $CRNC Token is planned to be unlocked on Monday, December 28th, at 10:00 AM PST (UTC -8:00). At that time, the $CRNC Token can be sent between any Securitize iD registered wallet. In addition, and as previously discussed, Current plans to enable a feature upon unlock called Instant Access that allows tokens to be traded peer-to-peer amongst holders with zero counterparty risk. A more detailed look at exactly how these trades are processed can be found here.

In this initial phase, Current will have a cap in place which limits the token to 2,000 total holders, or 500 non-accredited holders of record as dictated by Section 12(g) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Only once the $CRNC token is listed on an ATS compliant exchange, is it planned to remove these caps, effectively making it available to retail investors. Once the cap is removed and subsequently exceeded, Current, will be compelled to formally register with the SEC as a “Form 10” filer and be required to file and publicly disseminate financial information (e.g., 10Qs and 10Ks) within 120 days of the end of a fiscal year and every quarter thereafter.

Part 2: ATS-licensed Exchange Listing & Trading Caps Removed

Back in October, Securitize announced its intention to acquire Distributed Technology Markets, LLC, (“DTM”) a FINRA registered broker-dealer with an alternative trading system (ATS) on file with the SEC. The entity, which will be renamed Securitize Markets, LLC, enables Securitize to offer a complete digital suite of services from primary issuance through secondary trading. By the end of November, Securitize had received formal regulatory approval for the acquisition. The official press release can be found here. It has yet to be announced when Securitize Markets will go live, but we are currently anticipating Q1 of next year.

Q1 2021 Royalty Dividends

The accumulation of royalties will commence on January 1, 2021, to coincide with our commitment to start making these payments for Q1 2021. With respect to the percentage amounts to be paid out to token holders as royalties, we have the go-ahead from our board to deploy up to 15% of our net revenue* (see below) to make royalty payments. While royalty/dividend payments are always discretionary and uniformly take the overall health of the business into consideration, our goal is to eventually make every royalty payment 15% of net revenue. Over the course of 2021, our tentative plan is to ramp up the percentage amount of royalty payments each quarter while we accumulate net revenues for this endeavor. As an illustration, we may make a royalty payment consisting of 7.5% of net revenues based on our current revenue projections. The payment would be made in USD, BTC, or ETH, in addition to an equivalent bonus amount of $CRNC tokens in the respective quarter, and then over the remainder of 2021, eventually ramping up the royalty payment to 15% of net revenue paid out solely in USD, ETH, or BTC as our revenues scale upward:

At our current revenue projections for 2021 and beyond, we feel that royalty payments to token holders up to 15% of net revenue represent a great first step for delivering value back to token holders.

Securitize “HyFi” (DeFi Functions For Securities)

As mentioned in our previous post, Current plans to hold Treasury tokens that could also be used for future liquidity rewards via yield farming balancer pools as long as they are above-board from a regulatory perspective. Securitize has continued its efforts to determine how Digital Securities can benefit from DeFi protocols bridging Decentralized and Centralized Finance in a Hybrid approach (“Hybrid”). They cover their thoughts and in-depth findings across three different posts since mid-October, which you can read their Introduction here, Part 1: KYC Controls & Asset Transfer Controls here, and Part 2: Smart Contracts as Token Holders. The next post in the series aims to uncover how Securitize technology solves the case in which the smart contract where tokens are deposited cannot be associated with a single owner because it pools assets from multiple investors. It’s becoming more clear over time that Securitize is inching closer to a solution to the benefit of token holders in conjunction with Securitize Markets, however, if a solution is not reached, the tokens would either remain in the Treasury for other use cases or burnt from supply.

While this year has been challenging and downright punishing at times, we’re extremely proud of everything we’ve been able to accomplish and grateful for all of our team members who made it possible. In the remaining weeks ahead, we’ll continue to focus on building sustainable value and push the envelope to ensure we close the year on target and build further momentum into the New Year. Every second, of every minute, counts towards realizing the potential of which we know Current can become.

How to Get Involved

• Chat with us on Twitter!
• Add Questions here for an upcoming Q&A.
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If you ever need to reach out to our investor relations, or leadership team, please feel free to email info@current.us, and we assure you that we will respond in a timely fashion. Please keep an eye on our Telegram Announcement channel or Medium for all future updates. If you’d like to ask a question specifically for an upcoming Q&A, drop a question in our Google Form.

[PLEASE READ] Important legal disclaimer: No money or other consideration is being solicited by this communique, and if sent in response, will not be accepted. Our discussion may contain forward-looking statements that are based on our beliefs and assumptions and on information currently available to management. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by the following words: “may,” “will,” “could,” “would,” “should,” “expect,” “intend,” “plan,” “anticipate,” “is designed to,” “believe,” “estimate,” “predict,” “project,” “potential,” “continue,” “ongoing,” or the negative of these terms or other comparable terminology, although not all forward-looking statements contain these words.

These statements involve risks, uncertainties, assumptions, and other factors that may cause actual results, levels of activity, performance or achievements to be materially different from the information expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. Although we believe that we have a reasonable basis for each such forward-looking statement, we caution you that these statements are based on a combination of facts and factors currently known by us and our projections of the future, about which we cannot be certain. Forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements about: developing and designing the Current network, including the $CRNC token and its future utility; the anticipated development and growth of the Current Network; maintaining and expanding our base of users; our anticipated growth and growth strategies and our ability to effectively manage that growth and effect these strategies; our expectations regarding regulatory developments and their effect on the Current Network, including the ability of applications on our network to develop a user base and a successful business model; and potential future listings on an exchange or ATS. We cannot assure you that the forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate. Furthermore, if the forward-looking statements prove to be inaccurate, the inaccuracy may be material. In light of the significant uncertainties in these forward-looking statements, you should not regard these statements as a representation or warranty by us or any other person that we will achieve our objectives and plans in any specified time frame, or at all. We undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statements publicly, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law.