ICONOMI Reddit Ask Me Anything Summary: December Edition
Thanks for joining us for our December AMA! As we approach the end of 2017, we are also approaching the $200M AUM we predicted by the end of the year in our May AMA, which wouldn’t have been possible without the ongoing support and enthusiasm of the ICONOMI community.
As promised, we will be archiving AMAs here on Medium. There were some great questions, and we hope we provided you with more insight into our vision, goals, and procedures.
Happy holidays, and see you next year!
Previously it was stated that iconomi will start advertising with the full platform release late in 2017. However, it has since been communicated to shareholders that the release will not go from 0 to 1. With the recent surge in crypto will iconomi consider advertising immediately, to get AUM up?
Communication activities began the day we opened our ICO. Since then, ICONOMI has been covered in numerous media outlets and attended dozens of events to spread our vision of building a bridge between the old and the new economy via word of mouth.
With every new DAA manager we’ve added to the platform it becomes clearer that going through the process of setting up a DAA and sharing this experience with others through word of mouth is the best possible advertising for ICONOMI, and this is our priority. In addition, we are focusing on below-the-line activities like events, media relations, and building our social media presence. Of course, we will continue to increase our activities in the future, namely below- and above-the-line activities that will be in line with appropriate content, target groups, and goals. In the coming months, we would like to focus on planned publicity in traditional media.
Typically an investor update recaps past performance and outlines direction moving forwards. Right now the investor updates from ICONOMI only recap past publicly available information. For the next investor update and investor updates moving forward will you consider also providing forward looking information about ICONOMI?
In general, we prefer to communicate once things are finished, since realization is what counts. We want to find the right balance and method of informing all target groups at the same time. We intend to provide more future-oriented information in our reporting beginning in 2018.
As always, we appreciate any suggestions on this topic from the community.
What ICONOMI releases and/or features is the team most excited about for 2018, and why?
We are most excited for four releases in particular:
- Fiat ramp-up: This feature is key to simplifying the user onboarding process and enabling those new to crypto to easily begin using the platform and buying into DAAs.
- DAA manager interface: A custom user interface for DAA managers will simplify the DAA management process.
- Platform: The variety of DAAs, diversification, and management experience will be virtually limitless.
- New exchanges: Supporting new exchanges and coins will give our DAA managers greater flexibility for DAA structuring.
In one interview it was mentioned that ICONOMI may be growing to 150 employees in 2018. What are you planning to do with so many people?
Our medium-term goal is to disrupt the asset management industry as we know it today. In addition to expanding and improving the core management platform and the team behind it, which will be focused on backend fund administration, asset storage, execution, and the fiat ramp-up, we will need dedicated teams for our new 2018 initiatives: additional trading venues, smarter execution algorithms, sales and marketing, outreach and education, ongoing research, etc. A genuine disruption of the asset management industry will take time, effort, and major resources, and we are prepared to make the necessary investments to achieve our goals.
In Q3 report it was stated that CCP’s portfolio was made up of 62,778ETH. On the CCP dashboard however there is currently a total of 72,074 uninvested ETH. Can ICONOMI clarify why there’s almost a 10k ETH difference between those two figures?
Pinta is a special case on our platform because of the way it is managed. Because it involves investing in ICOs, it is not managed through our platform and involves manual work. Additionally, ICO investments are added to the dashboard for Pinta with a delay in order to avoid disclosing the investment before the ICO is finished. Due to ICO activity, some transactions were not correctly added to the dashboard data. The figures released in our Q3 financial report are correct.
We are considering publishing regular reports on Pinta’s structure and investments rather than displaying the data on the dashboard, which may be misleading. At that time, we will also publish the updated numbers. Quarterly reports are a unique aspect of our transparency and communication procedures that many other companies don’t provide, and they are the best place to report information about Pinta.
Who pays for the rebalancing fees and how?
Transfer costs when moving from cold to hot storage, exchange fees, and other fees associated with rebalancing are borne by the DAA. This is reflected in the DAA price.
Is fiat gateway scheduled for 2017?
The fiat gateway will be released in several phases:
- Manual processing for onboarding DAA managers and for Tier 3 users who want to deposit large amounts (e.g. $50,000–$100,000). We plan for this phase to be ready in Q1.
- Semi-automated processing for Tier 2 users who want to deposit large amounts (e.g. $20,000). More details about this phase will be available after Q1.
- Automated processing for Tier 2 users with a lower deposit minimum.
- Automated fiat deposits for all users.
We are in contact with major banks and financial institutions, and the process is moving forward as planned.
If you can already talk about it, how will the affiliate system look like?Will it be similar to Binance where you get parts of the fees the user generates or is it more like getting a fixed amount of ICN per new registered user or even both?
We have begun exploring potential options for our affiliate program, but nothing has been finalized and the process is ongoing. We are considering a number of possibilities, from revenue sharing to direct support of DAA managers’ marketing activities. We like the Binance affiliate program, in which users and promoters earn rewards for referring new users.
Will it be possible to create a closed private DAA on the platform, and if so could you estimate when it will be available?
We already have private DAAs on the platform. If you meet the criteria and are interested in managing a private DAA, contact us at daa.manager@iconomi.net.
Why do you allow DAAs to represent themselves as indexes on your platform?
Thank you for pointing this out. We are currently revising our policy regarding DAA names and descriptions to address the concerns you mention. It is also important to recognize that the digital asset world, in which the top 20 coins change on almost a daily basis, is different from traditional markets with relative stability, and DAA classification should reflect that difference. In other words, because of the unique nature of digital assets, the concept of a digital asset index has yet to be defined in a widely accepted way. We plan to play an active role in creating that definition.
What are the possibilities for added utility for ICN?
We have noticed a lot of discussion in the community about ICN utility and value. The main value of ICN currently comes through our repayment program, better known as buybacks. We are also considering options for providing additional utility, as outlined in this comment from a past AMA:
“…we foresee ICN being used to stake DAA creation, and any premium services we add to the platform will be payable exclusively in ICN (such as ICN holders being able to invest in ICOs from the platform, tokenizing DAAs, featuring your DAA on the platform and ICONOMI website, etc.).”
We are also investigating other coins’ models for token utility, such as Binance Coin, and we stand behind our answer to this related question in the September AMA.
Are there any plans to add another identity provider besides IDnow to support more countries where cryptos are legal to use?
We are currently in the process of integrating Jumio into our platform for Tier 1 verification, which will increase the number of supported countries to 189. More information will be available in the coming weeks.
Can you give us an outline of exactly what you have completed since the last AMA, if any of the answers in the last AMA have changed or are not valid, or expect a delay or are moving faster than previously thought, and what we can expect in Q1 of 2018.
Since the November AMA, we have:
Our road map will be released by the end of the year with more details about our plans for 2018, including the fiat ramp-up and third-party auditing.
We are also happy to announce that we are on track to reaching the $200M AUM we predicted by the end of the year in our May AMA.
With the ETF on the horizon, does Iconomi cover the risk of delayed sales between ETF spot and crypto market as well as crypto sale slippage and will this impact the ICN price?
The ETF will be traded in the secondary market, so selling shares of the ETF on an exchange will not lower the number of issued tokens of the DAA. The underlying assets of the DAA will only be sold when tokens are sold on the ICONOMI platform.
Does CCP hold OMG and Bitcoin Gold?
CCP will include all coins received via hard forks and airdrops. The holdings for CCP will be updated in the near future. We are considering changing the way we report holdings for CCP.
In a world where crypto is booming almost exponentially, people are worried are arriving in bubble territory. What is Iconomi’s opinion on a possible bubble burst and are you taking any precautions to overcome a massive loss in assets?
We believe one of the best ways to address a possible bubble burst is to provide diversification. As we continue to add new DAA managers and move toward opening the platform, the diversification options on our platform will continue to improve and expand.
Will Iconomi try to partner with exchanges such as CoinBase to list BLX or other indexes?
Columbus Capital will primarily be responsible for whether or not BLX will be listed on exchanges.
Five DAAs have reached an AUM of over $1M, making them eligible for tokenization. Once a DAA has been tokenized, it can be listed on exchanges. While it is up to DAA managers to negotiate with exchanges to get their DAAs listed, we will be happy to leverage our partnerships with exchanges to help them achieve it.
Are there additional security features on the roadmap that will make institutional investors/DAA managers feel more comfortable using the platform?
We will be arranging a Big Four audit in the near future, which is a crucial aspect of attracting institutional investors. We are constantly updating our safety protocols and improving our cold storage methods. Because we believe legislators will move toward regulating crypto in 2018, we also intend to become a fully licensed and regulated business.
If not in 2017, can we expect public DAA in Q1 2018?
Right now, we have 17 DAAs available to the public. Currently, the process of adding new DAA managers is manual, and it is likely to remain this way during Q1. We have been adding new DAA managers since August, and every new onboarding helps us streamline the process and work toward a publicly accessible, automatic system.
Anyone interested in becoming a DAA manager who meets our criteria can contact us at daa.manager@iconomi.net.
What strategic benefits for Iconomi there is to incorporate in Malta?
Incorporating in the EU will allow us to take advantage of passporting, allowing us to do business anywhere in the European Economic Area with a minimum of regulatory burden. We have incorporated in Malta, which has a blockchain-friendly regulatory environment, but we are also continuing to explore other options.
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