Updated Token & Sale Structure
As we’ve proceeded with the Ponder token sale we’ve been listening to our community and partners about how we can make our token ecosystem stronger. Based on this feedback we’re making a suite of improvements to the token and the token sale to ensure the success of both.
Token Issuing Entity and Sale Timeline
First, we’re changing our token issuing entity to be based offshore and no longer in the US. We’re analyzing different jurisdictions, and while the new entity is being setup we’ll be stopping the public sale. The new token structure will provide more flexibility and benefits, allowing us a better foundation for commercial success.
Following on from this decision, we’ll also be returning purchases made by US-based buyers. The public sale will then restart on July 1st, with only those on the Whitelist able to buy PON, and continuing on until July 31st. Until July 1st we’ll revert back to pre-sale mode. US buyers will continue to be excluded from the entire sale, both public and pre-sale. For all existing non-US buyers, we’ll add a further 10% bonus to their purchase as compensation for the time extension.
Equity Fundraising
Another request from some partners was their desire to participate in equity. Certain venture capital firms have approached us seeking to take an ownership stake in Ponder. Such commercial and investment partners will be very valuable for Ponder in the long run, so we are going to do an equity fundraise of $6m, in parallel to the token sale.
Some of the commercial partners seeking equity stakes are major international media companies. By partnering with them we substantially reduce our marketing budget, which is the single largest line item in our income statement. Between the reduction in marketing expenses, and the fact that we’re now raising $6m in equity capital, we are reducing the hard cap of the token sale down to $12m.
Token Price & Distribution
Accompanying the change in the hard cap, we’ll also reduce the price of the token from $0.20 to 0.0002 ETH. Furthermore, we will remove the 40% of PON tokens reserved for in-app purchases. Instead, we will create a purchase-only exchange on our platform where users can buy tokens directly from the app.
If secondary markets develop for PON, then our in-app exchange will buy PON from other exchanges to then sell within the app. If no secondary markets initially develop, then we will use the tokens that are reserved for the company.
The new token sale distribution becomes: token sale 60%, distribution & partners 20%, company 20%. The total supply of tokens is now 200m.
Tokenomics
We’ll do a more detailed post on the tokenomics, but I wanted to reiterate the basic rationale for PON token and where it will be used. The PON token will be at the core of all referrals or matchmaking. The referrer makes PON for the successful match, and the referees pay PON for being successfully matched. With each match a portion of the PON goes back to Ponder, which we can then resell on our own in-app exchange.
However, PON will also be used by an ecosystem of partners. Firstly PON will be used by third party developers that create other referral verticals (investor/investee, landlord/tenant, teacher/student). Each vertical can set their own rules about reward sharing and entry fee. Ponder’s referral platform will take care of the rest and ensures those rules are not broken. For any third party developers that builds these applications on our platform, the PON will have to be the unit of currency used.
Secondly, PON will be used by a community of vendors that will accept PON as payment for their services and will use PON for access to the platform. For example, with the dating product, we have done a deal with a concierge service where singles can use PON for the service to reserve restaurants and buy movie tickets. Those vendors would pay tokens for premium access to the Ponder platform.
We strongly believe that the changes to our token sale and updates to our tokenomics will help ensure the ongoing health of our token and ecosystem.
If you have any questions please reach out to us on Telegram or at support@ponderapp.co.
