Spend AMA — April 1, 2020

As we face a global pandemic and trying times, Spend is pleased to inform our users that operations have remained unhindered. We have been working remotely and have efficiently been able to implement all of our processes to continue business in this fashion as long as necessary.

It has been quite some time since our last AMA and a lot has changed since, for Spend. We have begun our transitions from consumer focused products to business focused products, which has gained an extraordinary amount of interest. Spend Business is a platform that offers industry-leading authorization and payment systems to help companies build and/or improve their financial products.

This transition has confirmed to Spend that it can excel greatly in the B2B sector as the B2C sector is becoming quickly saturated by industry leaders such as Binance and Coinbase. By watching these companies launch their consumer cards and bringing heavy traction into this topic, we have concluded it’s a strategic move for Spend to wind down all international consumer card products. The Spend App will still be available to users globally for a multi-asset wallet where they can buy, sell, exchange and manage their digital assets. Spend will continue to support card and banking products for our USA consumers and will offer Spend Business products globally. Any international customer that has purchased a Spend Card will be eligible to receive a full refund for the membership price of the card (between $25.00 — $100.00 USD).

Spendchain will continue to be developed by our independent foundation in Europe and will focus its efforts solely on working with the community and open source developers to build out the roadmap of our blockchain based ecosystems that are powered by SPND. Spendchain will power both consumer-base decentralized apps and business/merchant products that deal directly on-chain.

For more information on Spend’s Business to Business (B2B) approach, visit the brand new website at Spend.com.

Questions from Reddit:

What are the updates on the US Black card? I still haven’t received any emails or mail with any cards yet, and my old one stopped working.

Spend is working closely with the issuing bank to expedite the process and improve the enhanced KYC required for the higher tier cards. Users will receive a free Spend Essential (blue) card (when applicable) in the interim and their rewards back percentage will be the same as their current tier is. For example: Black cardholders whom have a temporary blue card will still receive 6% rewards back.

The next set of questions are from one user:

Here are my questions:

1. ⁠Questions about the card rollout:

US: Can you provide an approximate percentage of users in US that have received their new cards. Is there a target date for this to be 100% complete?

As a private company, this data is not made available publicly.

Canada: Who is the new banking partner and when can we expect new cards will be sent out to existing users who have been without cards for 3 months now?

As mentioned in the AMA, we are no longer focusing on this from a consumer standpoint, as we are now establishing these global relationships for Spend Business corporate clients.

Europe: Can you provide an approximate percentage of applicants who have received cards?

As mentioned in the AMA, we are no longer focusing on this from a consumer standpoint, as we are now establishing these global relationships for Spend Business corporate clients.

Asia: Is there a target date for the Asia rollout to get underway?

As mentioned in the AMA, we are no longer focusing on this from a consumer standpoint, as we are now establishing these global relationships for Spend Business corporate clients.

Are there any other card program updates such as progress on Spend VIP, metal card, etc.?

Spend VIP & Spend metal cards are close to launch in the USA. We will share updates on this when ready.

2. Questions about running nodes on Spend mainnet:

Is there information on the business case for running a node? I can easily assess the cost of the required stake, but I don’t have a good sense about the expected financial benefits. Other cryptos that offer node staking provide expected annualized ROI figures. E.g. with a financial note requiring stake of 5M SPND would cost approx. $3,800 USD today, what return could be expected from running a financial node on the Spend mainnet?

Not at this time. However, Spend Foundation will be opening a forum where the community can interact on a wide range of topics including this.

Are there instructional guides, videos, automated scripts to help get nodes set up on the Spend mainnet? I was trying to look into set-up for a financial node but could not find good instructions on what this entailed, and whether there were options to run on a unix cloud based server instead of a local PC?

At this time there are no financial or merchant nodes. It does remain on our roadmap, which Spend Foundation is working on.

Update on progress of the migration from ERC-20 to mainnet in the wallet and at major partnering exchanges. When will SPND swap be activated in the Spend Wallet again?

Spend Foundation is working with current exchanges to help assist in this migration. There should be an update on this soon.

Is there an updated roadmap for what comes next in 2020 now that the initial mainnet phase (ie. launch and migration) is nearly complete?

Spend Foundation and Spendchain related updates will be made soon.

3. Spend liquidity related questions:

Now that mainnet is live, can we expect SPND to be listed on more exchanges?

We do not have any comments or assistance on this. It’s best for the community to promote this in a decentralized fashion.

Are there any improvements in development targeted and reducing/minimizing slippage for coin exchanges done within the Spend wallet?

This is an area that we are constantly trying to improve. At this time there are no updates on this.

4. Spend B2B questions:

Update on progress on getting “white label” solutions out to interested businesses?

We do not share publicly our progress in this topic due to the competitive landscape of this business. However, we can say we are very pleased on the progress and interest we have on our commercial products.

Update on progress getting Spend tools out to merchants?

There has been a lot of progress on our merchant tools, nothing to publicly update on, but there will be announcements on this soon.

5. Spend eco-system tools related questions:

Are there any updates on new tools for the Spend eco-system (e.g. desktop wallet, integration of SPND with hardware wallets, other)

Spendchain and Spendcoin are focused on their own independent developments. There will be many new updates regarding Spendchain products soon. Spend.com will focus on USA consumer products and Global business to business (B2B) products.

6. Customer service related questions:

Some users have experienced slow responses from email and app chat inquiries for support. Are there any plans to bolster this as the rollout across regions ramps up?

As we begin to bring our focus for Spend.com to USA for our consumer products, we are implementing new strategies to assist our live chat, email, and ticket system support. This will help increase the assistance we provide through those channels.

When will buying and selling of the SPND token resume on the app?

When our exchange partners complete integration of Spendchain, this topic will be discussed by the team. Until then, the buying and selling of SPND must be performed on the supported exchanges.

When will the SPND token change over to the new blockchain and how will the exchange take place?

When exchanges that support SPND complete the integration of Spendchain, the migration guide will be published and announcements will be made.

Does the team still have enough funds to do longterm business for more than years?

As a private company, we do not disclose our financials. Spend’s products have been designed for long term use, as we believe cryptocurrency is an essential part of the financial ecosystem, which is building more adoption as time progresses.

If have, what is barrier for the team to do the business? (I know the team is doing great job now)

There are no barriers at this time for the team to conduct its current business model.

To have more users, we must solve the big problem like volatility when use crypto, how could spnd ecosystem handle it? Like using paxos or more?

We don’t have a comment on market volatility, other than that our disclosures give users fair warning about the cryptocurrency industry. We will provide more stablecoin options in the near future.

When spend token swap will be complete on bittrex ?

We do not have a date at the moment, but are working towards one and will update the community.

Deadline of mainnet token swap ?

There is no deadline at the moment, as the current infrastructure works, but the team is working to do it soon.

Will exchanges support spend mainnet token swap ?

The current exchanges that have SPND listed will support the swap.

Are you planning spend listing on more exchanges ?

We have no comment on this, as Spendchain is a decentralized blockchain project, it should be within the efforts of the community.

Are you planning spend partnership with financial companies/Banks ?

We are consistently evaluating new partnerships to help our Spend Business global exposure.

Question from one of our spnd supporter: As the days go by, competitors with huge capital, such as the Binance Visa Card, are emerging. As a leader in this business, we believe that we should come up with measures to beat out new competitors and grow quickly and significantly. I wonder what the president and officials of Spende have in mind about this. How do you feel about working together with a company with large capital to preempt more markets and succeed?

This is one reason we have started the wind down of our global consumer business, as there are large players like Coinbase and Binance launching their own consumer cards. Our focus has been shifted to B2B globally because we have noticed that our technology is still, in our opinion, the best in the industry. Therefore, we will continue to advocate Spend Business and Spendchain will continue it’s own independent operation, which is decentralized, and may be used by both consumers and businesses.

When will card upgrades be available in Europe?

We are winding down our consumer side for Europe so there will no longer be upgrade options.

Will you consider giving users of the black card metal cards at no added cost as a perk for holding the top tier card?

We currently have no plans to change our pricing tiers.

With the recent switch to a new banking partner, will this allow our spend accounts to operate more like a bank account and allow us to cut ties with normal brink and mortar stores?

Yes! Banking services will enable users to get cash from an ATM, have an FDIC insured DDA account, have a routing and checking number for direct deposits and bill pay. These features will continue to be available for our USA consumers, as soon as our banking partner allows us to activate these exciting features.

Is there anyway you can add ICON ICX to the spend exchange for us to invest in?

We are evaluating over 20 cryptocurrencies at this time to add to our marketplace. There will be more updates on this soon.

Why don’t spnd try to tie up with international banks?

We are currently integrated with International financial institutions and banks for our global B2B operations and working to expand this to offer Spend Business services in more regions around the globe.

Will spnd team plan to have business model like sending money like ripple?

We are consistently working on our commercial products and have a cross border fiat payment system in the works that will rival Ripples.

As i know main business model of the team is payment and lending money, correct?

Our main business model is around Spend Business which helps power other platforms, in terms of payments and processing.

And the team is doing business with only crypto based payment?

This is a very relevant and excellent question. Actually, Spend’s largest clients are fiat based and not even crypto based. We service both fiat based payment companies and crypto.

Can blockchain based spnd ecosystem with mainnet can have good business model without connecting volatile other crypto like btc, xrp and so on?

Yes! As we have split the process of the foundation and the company, Spend Foundation will be working on Spendchain and providing more utility to SPND, such as cross-asset collateral as mentioned in the white paper to help prevent volatility in crypto based payments.

When will all cards in Germany be shipped?

We are winding down our international consumer business, therefore there will be no new cards shipped for consumers in your region.