CEO Report — Sep 2019
We have entered into blockchain market at the end of 2017 and officially started ICOVO, our ICO platform project, in January 2018. Spring in the same year of 2018, Swiss subsidiary ICOVO AG was established and also launched our own ICO during summer and fall months.
Crypto market hit a peak in December 2017 and started to slump down since then. We expected for a recovery, though as a result, it lost momentum at the end of 2018. Crypto investors had to face unrealized loss which declined their appetite for investment. Although ICOVO’s ICO had reached its soft cap, the total amount of funds raised was only 1/10(one-tenth) smaller than its initial planned goal.
For the time being, ICOVO experienced its success in ICO. However, ICO platform project had to face two unfavorable winds. One is, investor sentiment slump due to struggling crypto market. Second is, criticism toward ICO scams along with its tightening legal restrictions. Since January 2019 in such a situation, no one could hardly find high quality project to list. Although we were all set and ready to introduce DAICOVO (our new smart contract to activate the ICO platform: https://github.com/icovo )and ICOVO App (a wallet App: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/icovo/id1393849523 ), there were no actual project to list for.
In the United States, we see an obvious situation of STO (Security Token Offering) taking the new roll, shifting from ICO. Following this environmental change, ICOVO had expand its project policy to use NFT (Non-Fungible Token) for funding and also to start a new platform for purchasing digital contents.
Dapps game Crypt Kitty is one of the well-known NFT projects. As for us, Gene A.I.dols
(https://gene-aidols.io/) will be ICOVO’s first and original project. We had brought its idea and planned from the very beginning.
Gene A.I.dols is a pop star entertainment which had expanded its functions from Crypt Kitty by generating realistic pop star using AI technology GAN and tokenize by NFT.
In April 2019, we signed a contract to establish a joint venture in Tokyo with AI startup company in Kyoto and game entertainment company in Tokyo. June in the same year, we released open beta version. Following month in July, we had secured funding from one of the best-known angel investors. Gene A.I.dols project has so far been proceeding well.
Gene A.I.dols project is planned to be able to play not only with Ethereum but also with OVO, ICOVO issued token. Its official version is scheduled to be released in Autumn 2019.
Moreover, two projects, at their planning stages, are currently under consideration.
One is, ‘’Media × Blockchain’’ project. Our main media, Blockchain Insight https://blockchain-insight.ch/ which had been running since summer 2018, is planning to implement Token Economy in order to distribute profits to interviewee by posting fee-based articles on websites.
As of September 2019, Blockchain Insight is an official media partner with Japanese Blockchain Industry Organization BCCC (Blockchain Collaborative Consortium)
https://bccc.global/. It has so far been enjoying good performances.
Another is, ‘’Music × Blockchain’’ project. This is a challenge to install a new blockchain model into music industry whose market scale is extremely diminishing.
To be more specific, this is a project to provide economic incentives to the fans. We aim to increase artist’s loyalty by splitting and transferring the right of original recordings owned by the record label to them.
This enables record label side to sale the right of original recordings at the certain amount of price as of album completion. Possessing this right also plays an important role to the musical fans who initially were only consumers. By offering financial incentives to them, they will receive more economic return from the album sales in proportion to their cheer and support. This is an unprecedented structure we never had before.
We are proceeding a discussion for OVO tokens applicable services in every project. Currently, OVO is listed in several exchanges including IDAX. Unfortunately, we are still not satisfied with the current exchange volume and its price.
IDAX : https://www.idax.pro/
VHCEx : https://www.vhcex.com
Bluebelt : https://www.bluebelt.asia/exchange/
bitONbay : https://www.bitonbay.com/trade
Hanbitco : https://www.hanbitco.com
From our understanding, no use cases for OVO is the main reason for this unsatisfied situation. Having Gene.A.I.dols at the head of the list beginning this autumn, we are scheduling OVO applicable projects coming up one and after. We are expecting this will help improve OVO’s exchange volume and its price to increase. Our team will work hard on this to meet our investors’ expectations. We would greatly appreciate your further guidance and encouragement.
