Understand cryptos means understand moneys, so what is money?

Money is the most marketable good.

How long has money, as we know it, been around? We don’t know. Or rather, there is no history of human kind that doesn’t also include the concept of “arithmetic” in its most rudimentary forms. We could argue that money is as old as language or writing, so we can say that it’s at least 5,000 years old. But what is money exactly?

Friedrich August von Hayek once said that money is “a medium of exchange for people who want to hold it until they wish to buy an equivalent for what they have supplied to others”. In this sense, money is whatever good is the most marketable. It is the best commodity available as a store of value.

Humans have always been very interested in money, and have been trying to improve it for centuries. Technologies have varied over the course of history though, and it hasn’t always been easy to obtain good results.

To understand if Bitcoin really is the new money, we must understand what money is. Let’s cover some basic history on money, or rather on commercial trade, and see how money has solved a number of problems. This is will be an extreme synthesis. A 5,000-year journey in just 10 minutes! Let’s start from the beginning, with barter.

Barter

In antiquity, the first form of exchange was barter. I had something you needed, and you had something I needed. The double coincidence of matching needs. We would reach an agreement on the exchange and voilà… It sounds easy enough, but it was actually quite difficult to find someone who had something I needed, and at the same time also have something that they happened to need. Then there was the problem of “giving change”. If I have extra goods, or if the value of my goods resulted in some left over credit, how much credit is it exactly? A sheep’s worth? 2 hens? The accounting involved was a nightmare. Then there’s the fact that the debt wasn’t always paid.

Debt is as old as money, even older, and it has always been difficult to collect on.

Obviously, a barter-based economy had severe limitations. Mostly people were forced to trade with a little of everything and do a bit of everything. Procuring food, building homes, defending the community, etc…

Then there was the problem of preserving the goods for future exchanges. Some products had to be consumed immediately or they quickly lost value.

There was no specialization of labor. Calculating value in trade was difficult because there was no common medium (money), and people couldn’t afford to concentrate on just the one thing they did best. Work was generalized instead of specialized, “value” was unclear, debts were difficult to collect, and it was therefore difficult to create wealth. Later though, someone realized that certain goods were more in demand than others: salt (where the word “salary” comes from), wheat, coffee, and other types of assets that transformed “direct” barter into “indirect”, or “mediated”, exchange. This was the birth of what economists call commodity money.

Commodity money

This particular type of good had to have at least three characteristics:

• It had to be convenient from a logistical point of view, and therefore had to be nonperishable and easy to transport
• It had to be widely distributed
• Verifying its value had to be simple, i.e. quantity had to trump quality (for example, one gram of salt is pretty much the same as any other gram of salt, whereas different diamonds can have vastly different values).

The necessity of exchanging goods required a widespread, easily requested commodity that could be saved for later use, for a future exchange.

After a long period of using commodity money, natural selection took over (I’m summarizing thousands of years of trade), and some goods turned out to be more suitable than others as a medium of exchange. Metals, especially precious metals, proved to be particularly effective.

They had excellent characteristics, such as their durability through time, their portability, their exceptional interchangeability (one gram of gold can be replaceable any other gram of gold), the ease of assigning a value, etc…

Precious metals thus ended up being elected as a true currency for trading, and soon after people began minting coins out of precious metals.

Using something as currency obviously assumes that the good itself (in this case metal) has a higher value used in exchange than if it were simply used as a material (such as being used to make a metal sword or other object). We’re not talking about intrinsic value because humans are the ones who assign a value to things. Nothing, not even gold, has “value” in and of itself. If gold were only used to make jewelry, it would have a lower value than if it were used as a bargaining chip. This is a concept that evades most economists, but it is critical in order to understand the value that cryptocurrency could have.

With the passage of time, these precious metals, along with other “precious” goods, were usually taken to a deposit bank. This provided a service of security, which could then be guaranteed by a “note of deposit”, and which soon lead to the birth of the banknote.

Paper money

Paper money is more or less the modern day banknote that we all know and still use (at least for now). It has changed radically over time, but it has always had these three characteristics:

• It expressed a value (money was already being used as a unit of value by that time)
• It could be used as a method of payment, as a medium of exchange
• It was a “store of value”, though this function has been jeopardized in recent times (previous banknotes were better at retaining their purchasing power).

It is important to note that, in its first phase of life, paper money was an expression of a deposited value. In the modern period, this function was carried out by gold. This means that 10 dollars (or pounds, or marks, etc…) expressed a bill of deposit, an equivalent value in gold, in the coffers of a central bank. At least, that’s how it worked until the end of World War II (again, I’m synthesizing hundreds of years of history). The 1929 crisis had already devalued various currencies, which in turn jeopardized the gold standard; so in 1946, after the Allies defeated the Nazis, it was decided that the world monetary system needed a change. With the Bretton Woods agreements, allies surrendered their gold standard, which used gold as the equivalent to all of the money out on the market, and instead chose the dollar as the value against which all currencies would be compared. This meant that each national currency could be converted into dollars, and the dollar (and only the dollar) could be converted into gold. At this stage, much of the world’s gold ended up in the American coffers (and a large part of it disappeared, but that’s another story). We had moved from the era of the “gold standard” to that of the “dollar standard”. But it didn’t end there.

If there’s one thing we learn from the history of money, it is that anyone who manages money on behalf of others, or who operates a monopoly, simply ends up taking advantage of it. It happened in the past with the deposit bank, and it still happens today with hedge funds. It also happened in the era of the dollar standard.

Americans ended up injecting an excessive amount of dollars into the system, even more than the gold in the central banks could cover, creating inflation. This was back in the ’70s, and when the situation could no longer be “hidden”, the United States unilaterally decided to terminate the so-called dollar to gold “equivalent”.

On August 14, 1971, President Nixon, a man who had the “guts” to do difficult things, announced that, due to a poorly understood speculation, the United States could no longer ensure the exchange of dollars into gold. And that was that.

Other countries had actually been concerned for quite some time about the loose management of the “dollar standard” and, starting with the French, began to demand their gold back. This, in turn, threatened to undermine the entire system.

Since then, virtually every country and every central bank has been allowed to print as much currency as they want, because it is no longer fixed according to either dollars or gold.

Thus “fiat money” was born, i.e. a currency that exists simply because we say so. With no equivalent.

Fiat money

Fiat money is the medium of exchange that we use today. It has a face value, which determines the purchasing power. This means that if the piece of paper says 10 dollars, then it can be exchanged for ten dollars’ worth of merchandise. This is because the people who printed it decided to write that number on it. If they had written 100 instead, then that piece of paper would be worth one hundred US dollars on the market. Fiat money is, essentially, “forced” money. If you’re planning to open a store, you will be forced to accept the currency that is used in the country at that time. You cannot accept gold in exchange for your goods and services. In some countries, it is forbidden to even own gold.

Some say that fiat money is based on trust, but it is actually based on coercion. We are forced to use it because we have no choice.

The central bank can’t give me anything else in exchange for fiat currency. I can only trust that someone else, who is forced to use it just like me, will continue to give me goods or services in exchange.

This transition, from a currency that expresses a gold reserve to one that is fiat, radically changed the rules of the game. Without a fixed quantity of gold as an equivalent for the money supply in circulation, certain policies of convenience could then be put into practice.

Before, if a government had irresponsibly squandered its funds or resorted to cronyism, their budget would have been in the red and they would have to try to save money where they could or increase taxes. After all, they couldn’t just print more money out of thin air… Now that money can be infinitely printed from nothing though, all kinds of fraudulent and convenient policies can be cheerfully implemented, and they still are on a regular basis.

Governments began to continually print money, either directly or through central banks, to cover up inefficiencies, cronyism, corruption, and social policies, in order to gain favor. This has always had, and will always have, a serious consequence: inflation.

Prices are determined by supply and demand, but also by the amount of money circulating in the market. When you increase the money supply, you also increase prices. You can prove this just by thinking of how much cheaper everything was when you were a kid: how much did a house cost? A bicycle? An ice cream? Prices have risen dramatically, even though production techniques have improved tremendously and given us the ability to produce more and more with fewer resources. For further discussion about price trends, inflation, and currency devaluation, I suggest you read my book, Matrix Economy.

The transition from currency as an expression of a value in gold, to fiat currency (an expression of purely face value), has radically changed the market and our society. A change, without us even realizing it, from a currency based on trust to a currency based on coercion.

Things are always manipulated and corrupted in the same way. First, society creates something according to its own needs, something that works and has a recognized value, but then that thing is taken, changed, and distorted. Fiat currency didn’t just pop up out of nowhere. If that’s how it had happened then no one would ever have trusted a simple piece of paper with a number written on it. Manipulation must involve something you trusted at first before it was distorted. This is always how it works.

To make matters worse, new technology arrived, which, as we know, can be used for either good or evil. We’ll talk about this more when we get back to cryptocurrency.

Now, in recent history, we have witnessed the transformation from paper money to digital money. Don’t forget that it is still all fiat currency though…

Digital money

The concept of fiat money has been expanded and enhanced by computer science. No more need to “print” money, just type a few keys on a computer and that’s it.

That is how it’s done, and now more than ever. It is estimated that 98% of the money in circulation is in digital form, not paper. However, it is still always the same “old” fiat money, infinitely created out of thin air, and it is being produced faster and faster. It costs virtually nothing; it’s just bits on a computer. These bits are radically different from Bitcoin though. We’ll talk more about this later.

The consequences of all this money being injected into the system are there for all to see. Prices constantly rising, government debts reaching unimaginable levels, making those debts technically non-refundable (unless you print even more money out of thin air), and finally, the latest surprise our crippled economy has for us: negative interest!

Negative interest is a recent aberration of the economy. It’s a contradiction of terms: I shouldn’t have to pay someone in order to lend them my own money. By lending out money, I not only give up my ability to use that value, I take the risk that it might be worth less when it is finally returned to me, and there is also the risk that I will simply never be repaid. I shouldn’t have to pay for the privilege of taking such a risk. The whole point of taking that kind of risk is if there’s a potential for future gain.

After forty years of this monetary system, our economy is in shambles. There are no other words to explain the current situation. Economists (always be wary of economists!) will tell you that the macro economy is a complex thing, that it is difficult to understand, that it requires experts. But of all the people who don’t understand the economy, they themselves are right at the top of the list. Mainly because these “experts” lack any practical experience, they only know theory. If we asked them to put their theories into practice, all of their shortcomings would quickly become obvious. Then there is bad faith. The monopoly of money, and therefore the ability to infinitely print from nothing, is very convenient for those who have established power. Obviously!

This money monopoly has created paradoxical situations. Once again we have proof that when someone manages the money of others, they just end up taking advantage of it. It is a tailor-made economy for debtors, who continually take new money, using it to buy at the old prices, and thus inflating it. It is a world where those who work for money are poor, and those who make money work for them (by borrowing it) are rich. The world has turned upside down.

But (there’s always a “but”) people are resourceful. They fall and then get right back up again. They make mistakes and learn from them. When all seems lost, they redeem themselves. So more and more people, tired of this situation, started thinking of a solution. If there is a problem, there is always a solution. After several attempts with new technology, just a few years ago someone invented something that would change our society forever. Just like electricity, the telephone, and the internet. You probably think I’m exaggerating, but as you’ll see by the end of this book: I’m not. This invention was cryptocurrency.

Cryptocurrency

In 2008, a scientist (or a team of them, we don’t know) under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto, invented an algorithm to solve a need. Namely, the need for a value of exchange that we can trust. Decentralized, secure, and with no intermediaries. A new type of money that people can use to exchange value. That can be used to benefit everyone, and not simply managed by a powerful few. That cannot be manipulated, devalued, or falsified, and cannot be turned into a monopoly. One that is transnational, and yet also retains the classic features of money. That can act as a unit of value, to give a price to things, to serve as a medium of exchange, and as a store of value (a trait that has now been distorted by fiat currencies). Is this too much to ask for? Is it too good to be true?… Believe it or not, they made it. It happened. Such a thing was invented. These days there is no longer any doubt, and that’s why I wrote this book.

The technology that underlies cryptocurrency is called Blockchain. The first cryptocurrency ever created, the founder of a new era and by far the most popular, is called Bitcoin.

Blockchain technology isn’t just about transferring money; its main function is actually its ability to designate the ownership of each individual digital coin (each string or sequence of bits), unequivocally and verifiably, in a large archive that cannot be falsified. This sequence of bits can express not only money but also the ownership of a house, a car, a purely digital or legal entity. It is more of a service than a currency. A service can indeed be money, but it can also be the ability to handle a land registry, the public registration of a car, or the delivery of digital music. Some cryptocurrencies (also known as “tokens” in computer jargon) can also be issued exclusively for a specific service, like Spotify, eBay, or Uber. That is, to use that particular service platform, or to listen to music in that particular database, you will need that particular currency. And I can buy that particular coin by exchanging it with another currency like the bitcoin.

Later we will discuss this new technology in more detail, and all the social and economic implications that it brings with it. But the theory I want to establish from the very start of this book, and I believe I am also the first to do so, is that we are entering the new age of service-money. After commodity money and fiat money, there is service-money. A currency linked to a particular service.

Service-money

Obviously, the most requested services are those that function like money itself, but first it’s best to clearly understand a new concept about the Crypto Economy: the technologies are all open source. All of the programs are written in clear code that you can study and copy! This means that it isn’t possible to demand payment for the service, instead you have to issue money. Allow me to explain. The developers of these services don’t sell their software (which is free and can be copied); they simply make it so that it requires a special token (i.e. cryptocurrency) in order to use it. So the programmers issue the token (money), and the more the service is requested, the more money (in the form of tokens) is needed to use it, causing it to appreciate relative to other currencies, and consequentially increasing the spending power of the token holders. It becomes more and more rewarding to participate in that service and more and more people will want to contribute.

Let’s use an example with the Bitcoin system, which we will then elaborate on later in the book.

Bitcoin money is a cryptocurrency. It is a certificate of value. Those who work to support this service (meaning that they make their computing power available to support the network) receive some money (a few bitcoins) in exchange. If these bitcoins are in high demand from the market, their value with respect to other currencies (such as the dollar) increases (as has been the case so far). So the value of a bitcoin in dollars will rise, and my remuneration in bitcoin will have greater and greater purchasing power. In other words, I contribute through my work (programming, the computing power of my computer, or making memory space available) the provision of a service that requires a particular money (cryptocurrency) in order to be used. The more this money is requested, the more it is worth, and the better paid my work is.

If you’re having trouble understanding, don’t worry. Things will make more sense later on!

For now, suffice it to say that you can have and use one or more currencies, which are not issued by any central body, but which you can trust because their functionality is transparent, decentralized, and disinter-mediated.

The result of all this is an efficient, cheap, and reliable currency. It may sound like a fantasy, but it’s true: all this was invented just a short time ago. Welcome to the world of cryptocurrency.

Welcome to the Crypto Economy!

Extract form the book “Crypto Economy” 2017 — www.robertogorini.com

Originally published at Noku Blog.

What is money? was originally published in Noku on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Noku Wallet 1.0 with the Noku Hyper Server (NhS) technology built-in is finally available.

From now on, every Ethereum network-related errors and warnings will not show up in the platform. Also, loading of Ethereum and Token balances will be faster.

NhS is a geth node with a slight improvement in managing pending transactions. These transactions were the most critical to handle until now.

In addition to the Ethereum database, NhS implements a secondary database with both incoming and outgoing transactions lookup to boost overall performances. This database processes redundant data to easily retrieve account details, tokens and contracts. Each NhS server is connected to a hundred different peers.

Let’s go together to the Moon.

Originally published at Noku Blog.

Noku Hyper Server  —  NhS was originally published in Noku on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The ERC-721 is a token standard for the Ethereum blockchain and presents different features from the most well-known ERC-20 tokens. While ERC-20 tokens can be exchanged between themselves and are so-called fungible, the ERC-721 standard is used for non-fungible or “unique” items.

ERC Tokens and Collectibles

• ERC20 tokens: A common standard for creating smart contract-based tokens on Ethereum. A token that can be exchanged to any other token of the same type. If we make an analogy with the fiat currency — such as a dollar bill that can be exchanged for any other dollar bill and makes no difference for the holder.
• ERC721 collectibles: is a more advanced token that is “non-fungible”. In ERC-721, each token is completely unique and non-interchangeable with others. Example: crypto-collectible assets like CryptoKitties and digital art. Such a token integrates a unique series of metadata related only to that specific unique asset. Therefore, a non-fungible token cannot be replaced, since no other token cannot substitute its metadata.

Noku wallet now supports ERC721 tokens and collectibles was originally published in Noku on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Imagine a physical object, like a painting (work of art) and convert it into a token that can be redeemed, fractioned, transferred along a blockchain system. Thanks to Blockchain, and using the concept of fractional ownership, an investor could invest in a portion of digital assets, without the need to rely on a third party or to trust the other co-owner. It’s the technology itself that acts as trustee.

When it comes to the Art market, even though its value is priceless (in particular in a country like Italy), it encounters many problems:

• Lack of Liquidity
• Lack of transparency and information
• Limited efficiency in terms of bureaucracy, time, cost and third parties involved
• Limited Accessibility for the masses

However, considering the technological improvement Blockchain Technology and exploiting the above-mentioned concept of fractional Ownership concept of we could now overcome these problems:

• Increase the liquidity due to the possibility to trade a fraction of artworks like shares
• The Blockchain increases the level of trust into the system, ensuring more transparency and the same level of information for everyone
• The distributed ledger, as we said, remove the needs for third parties, increasing the efficiency level
• Lowering investment thresholds increase exponentially the accessibility to the market, which in turn contribute, again, to put liquidity into the system.

Possible Implementations

There are many ways in which the Blockchain can improve the actual Art market:

• Tokenization of Artwork

It allows to buy and trade a fraction of artwork. Such fraction, that will be translated into a digital piece of information (token) will represent the real Ownership of it. In this case, the token represents a real Security. The co-owner will be entitled to receive an economic benefit (revenue share etc.) due to the monetization of the artwork.
The first auction of artwork on Blockchain took place in 2018. The fractional ownership of 49% of Andy Warhol’s 14 small electric chairs was sold for a value of 5.6 million dollars.

• Certification of authenticity/uniqueness

It is possible to certify the status of an artwork, his uniqueness, and authenticity through the association of the physical object to a piece of unique digital information.

Technically speaking the artwork will be associated with a particular token standard, called Non-fungible token (ERC 721 standard). Meaning that every token is unique and different from another one. These certificates can be traded in the same way as fractional Art ownership.

• Tokenization of services

It can be created also another kind of token, called Utility token (ERC-20 standard) that could be used as an alternative currency for the Art-market.

Each token, or fractions thereof, can also be used to purchase goods and services in the art world, such as having privileged access to museums or artistic sites in the world, avoiding queues and making use of services rendered to create an experience of a unique visit. Thanks to Blockchain technology, these tickets tokens cannot be falsified or duplicated and can be easily spent with just a smartphone.

How the Art Market will benefit from Blockchain was originally published in Noku on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Our users are requested to provide us with a copy of their ID and/or with proof of their residential address to use many of our services. We understand that, in some cases, such measures are bothersome and might be perceived as an intrusion in our customers’ lives.

Why are KYC measures in place?

The vast majority of our activities is regulated. This means that financial Regulators supervise us, to check that we comply with the applicable law and regulation to contrast money laundering and terrorism financing. Because of that, we are requested to take measures to avoid the use of our tools for illicit purposes.

To be sure about your identity and/or address is a vital aspect of our business. In some instances, that is what the law imposes us to do. Our Know Your Customer (KYC) measures represent our commitment to compliance, much far beyond the ‘tone.’

We want to reassure you — Being asked for identification does not mean you are under suspicion. The identification requirements apply to all our clients when they ask us to access certain types of services or when they reside in or a citizen of some countries across the globe.

We are not the ones who decide which services, jurisdictions or users have to be considered at ‘high risk.’ International independent bodies and national lawmakers and Regulators are responsible for these rules, and we comply with their precepts because we believe that conducting our business lawfully and ethically is, first of all, the right thing to do.

Our customers can benefit from such rules, too.

We believe that KYC measures favour our customer, too.

First of all, legitimacy means that we are doing business trustworthily and, in this way, we attract more reliable clientele. When you operate inside our system, our KYC models guarantee you that you will always deal with users as much honest and dependable as you.

Then, our KYC best practices help us to gather useful data about your profile. In full respect of the applicable data protection regulations, we can offer you customised solutions, to better serve your needs.

Finally, while our Compliance unit guarantees the compliance of our business with the law, the rest of our team can focus on designing awesome applications to make the most complex technology accessible for everyone, and valuable resources are not funnelled away from our core business.

We strive to make our KYC measures more and more rapid, painless, straightforward. And we sincerely appreciate our users’ cooperation in complying with them.

Why we apply KYC measures? was originally published in Noku on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Take time to educate yourself.

In this video, we will cover the basic process for sending/receiving tokens, what transaction fees are and how to check the status of your transaction! Store your cryptocurrencies, Ethereum and ERC20 Tokens with Noku and stay always in control of your funds.

Try out our web wallet: wallet.noku.io

IOS wallet: https://itunes.apple.com/it/app/noku-...

Android Wallet: https://play.google.com/store/apps/de...

How to send a transaction on Noku Platform was originally published in Noku on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Noku TokenRaise need to verify the identity of all of their users, including organisations and investors. Yoti will help to streamline and simplify part of this process by letting individuals prove their identity in seconds, and share their verified details at the scan of a QR code or at the click of a button. This streamlines the onboarding process, creates a frictionless experience, and removes the need for individuals to present paper ID documents, which can be easily lost or stolen.

Here is a tutorial on how to get KYC Level 3 of Verification within Noku Platform. With KYC Level you can exploit every function of Noku! Start by downloading Yoti app and creating an account on accounts.noku.io

Noku announces a partnership with Yoti for Noku Platform KYC was originally published in Noku on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

We believe that they can.

Token Sales and Initial Coin Offerings provide unprecedented access to the world of crypto finance. This phenomenon has resulted in huge market capitalization in just a few years. In 2017, Token Offering funding into start-ups has already surpassed Venture Capital funding with more than $3B worth of investments against the VC’s $500M in the same year.

Moreover, less than 1% of start-ups seeking traditional funding get capitals from angel investors and just 0.05% receive venture capital funding. When it comes to Token Sales, percentage skyrocket since 25% of startups meet their funding goals. (source Forbes.com)
Even if access to the Blockchain world has been facilitated by Blockchain Crowdfunding Platforms such as TokenRaise, launching your token sale is still a large investment in terms of Marketing, since technology alone might not attract investors. Excluding the technology part, which can be easily realized with Tokenraise at a fraction of the real cost for hiring developers, conducting a Token offering may easily cost from $ 500K to $ 1M.

However, since the Blockchain world is being built as we speak, through a process of trying and experimenting, there is definitely still room for your ideas and projects.

So, how can smaller player enter into the crypto-space?

First and foremost, create your token! ERC20 is the most used token standard, built on the Ethereum Blockchain. Most of the token sales running now or in the past used the ERC20 standard.

Noku Custom Token service is designed for all those who don’t possess coding skills and have no idea of the syntax required to create an ERC20 function: in fact, the most unmistakable benefit of the Custom Token interface is the possibility of releasing a token simply deciding its name, logo and few other info.

For every ERC20 token created, you choose the following characteristics:

Ticker (ex. “Ethereum”) and ticker (ex. “ETH”)
Name
Logo
Total supply, limited or unlimited (ex. 100,000,000 tokens)
Mintable and burnable, or not. (increase or decrease your supply)

Creating a token might be the best way to get a little practice and issuing a token for your business.

Raise your game

We have said already that tokens can represent basically any asset:

• An hours worth of your work
• A promise for a product in a Token Sale
• A future download of a movie from your favorite director
• A ticket to a concert

One of the best examples for a token model is the discount token, which is a better version of something we already use in our everyday life. To mention some “discount token” examples from the physical world, we are quite familiar with collecting points at a shop. Owning shop points allows me to purchase other products at a discounted price. Another analogy is the Spotify premium membership. Being a Premium member grants the user unlimited listening of Spotify’s playlist and artists.

A discount token is a good model since it’s already proven and can be used for engagement and gamification purposes. Moreover, data shows that nearly two-thirds of millennials have reported an interest in getting rewards not just for purchases but also for engagement with brands. Companies can use gamification marketing to drive engagement, which is the key to loyalty. (Source forbes.com)

Custom tokens could be integrated into a pre-existing loyalty program that compensates customers for leaving reviews, making referrals or purchasing frequently specific items. There is really no limit for Custom tokens use-cases and every business might have a very different framework and approach. What worked successfully for one company may not necessarily work for you and vice versa.

To start creating your first token, remember that you can take advantage of the free token ERC20 creation on TokenRaise and ask for Token Model design support to our Blockchain management team.

Once you have a fairly strong idea of what to do with your tokens, think about a good distribution method and see what gets the attention of your existing customers. In short, think about creating a need for your tokens and the market will take care of the value. In other words: observe, research and experiment.

LIke what we are doing? Contact us at Info@noku.io or join our community:

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Can small businesses get a slice of the crypto cake? was originally published in Noku on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

We’re excited to announce the official launch of our newly re-designed website which reflects both the evolution of our company as well as our vision for the future.

Our goal with this newly designed website is creating a fresh user-friendly browsing experience for users and business partners alike. We’ve re-shaped the site from the bottom up so that our core message, features and benefits would be loud and clear.
We hope you enjoy our new uncluttered design that is easy to navigate and more accessible to everyone.

Some of our newest implementations include:

Homepage

The place where you can access our main services. There are direct links to TokenRaise, Noku Wallet, Noku Research and Noku Swap.

Academy

One of our upcoming projects for the next months. Many compare the present significance of Blockchain technology to the dot-com boom that revolutionized businesses and created industries worth millions and billions of dollars. For this reason, Blockchain education should not be restricted to IT but it should be applied to other areas as well, particularly managerial ones. Noku Academy offers a learning framework on Distributed Ledger and its underlying technologies, developed by Blockchain professionals, allowing companies and individuals to fully enhance the opportunities of this complex industry.

Swap

Our newest developed service is the platform that allows you to access your Noku tokens without an Exchange. The platform enables crypto to fiat and fiat to crypto conversion of a selected number of tokens, against Euros or Swiss Francs.
In addition to these updates, you’ll also be able to browse the features you’ve come to know and expect from our website, such as:

TokenRaise

The most challenging and ambitious project ever developed by Noku. An all in one platform to create tokens or launch a crowdfunding campaign on the Ethereum Blockchain without having to write a single line of code. The platform allows you to select among multiple options: create a token and immediately distribute it to the market or otherwise set-up a “private sale”, gather funds through a Smart Contract and subsequently distribute the token.

StableCoins

Back in 2017, Noku created the first stable EUR token (EURN). In the cryptocurrency world, having a fiat money-substitute helps. In fact, it isn’t always easy to transfer fiat money due to regulations and restrictions. With Noku Stable Coin, you gain the opportunity to convert your original crypto into another crypto, but a stable one: a coin whose value is pegged to a fiat coin. So you own a real value without the need of a physical coin, because our stable coin is not in the physical world, but it’s still on the Ethereum Blockchain.

Research

Our team is looking for new ways to enhance Blockchain utility in various sectors, starting from financial and industrial applications. We are convinced the new wave of Blockchain development will be focused on creating efficiency and diving into use case scenarios for Blockchain technology that can be commercialized.

The website will be updated regularly with new features, articles and the latest developments from Noku Platform.

Let us know what you think … we’re pretty happy with it and hope you are too.

Of course, and as always, if you have any questions, comments, or just want to chat, let us know … we’ll keep you updated.

You can view the new website at Noku.io. You can also leave us your feedback on Telegram too.

Announcing the launch of the re-designed Noku website was originally published in Noku on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Dear Noku Community!
Noku is delighted to announce the launch of the TokenRaise Platform 1.0. As of today, we have officially completed the development phase and are now releasing the first complete version of the service, to kick start projects and create any kind of Crowdfunding campaign on the Ethereum Blockchain.

You can start creating your tokens and kick start your blockchain campaign at this link

How does it work?

TokenRaise significantly cuts the entry barriers to the Blockchain world, making possible for everyone to create Tokens and Crowdfunding campaigns without the need to be an IT expert and without any Blockchain related experience. In addition, for the launch of the product, Noku decided to offer the Custom Token Creation service for free, for the first time. This is an amazing and unique opportunity for everyone to create their first token: no programming experience is needed. Consequently, no code audit is required, minimizing overheads and being able to launch a token in under a few minutes.

What can you do with TokenRaise?

TokenRaise allows everyone to fuel Business ideas, startups by creating Token sale campaigns: ICO (Initial Coin Offering) or STO (Security Token Offering); essentially moving on Blockchain platforms all crowdfunding rounds that are now managed by centralized platforms, with all the benefits deriving from the nature of technology in terms of savings, security, and transparency. The result is a new breed of high-end analytical products and new levels of effective Crowdfunding management. This product is built on top of Ethereum and runs in parallel to the pre-existing Custom Token Creation Service.

Which Features are included in the TokenRaise Version?

• Whitelist your Contributors
• KYC Management
• Reservation Contracts
• Multiple Presales available
• Tailored for Partners -Ready to scale
• Exchange Listing
• More than 100 Custom parameters available

What’s the final product?

The result is an elegant and Friendly User Interface, with intuitive navigation enabling any user to access all of the platform’s powerful features, regardless of whether they have any previous background of blockchain softwares or Dapps.

Originally published at Noku Blog.

The Most advanced Blockchain Crowdfunding Platform is now live! was originally published in Noku on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.