AMA Summary – 6th July, 2018

Kevin’s back! This time he conducted the AMA from an Airport in Amsterdam, so it was shorter than usual.

VIDEO ARCHIVE OF THE AMA (FACEBOOK)

IN THE NEWS

#1. Blockfill and Trade air developing crypto trading platform in two weeks

• This wasn’t developed in two weeks. It was a whitelabel design in two weeks.
• Kevin’s honing in on two liquidity providers, that now offers deliverable crypto liquidity

#2. Japanese FSA to change crypto exchange regulations

• They’re starting to realize that it’s not a payment service, and that trading crypto is akin to trading in a normal exchange.
• Capital segregation rules, minimum capital requirements.

#3. $731 million stolen from crypto exchanges in 2018

• Hacks can be prevented. Most hacks are social engineering. Some of the protocols aren’t properly set up in organizations.
• As markets mature, you’ll see less hacks.

#4. Crypto hit by ‘51% attack’ as BTC ‘criminality myths’ are dismissed

• Most issues are tech issues, not fundamental issues.
• Most issues that were underlying issues with Bitcoin have been improved with new blockchains.
• “Money Laundering happens on the blockchain” this statement is correct, but if you take comparisons from a traditional finance space, $1 Trillion in laundered cash have been laundered with traditional currency. Only about 1% of crypto funds have been specifically linked to criminal activities.

#5. Binance SYS coin hack, temporarily shut down

• Price discovery, simple way to fix this. Binance has no price discovery mechanisms.
• Further proof that even the biggest players in the markets need to mature.

REDDIT QUESTIONS

Any plans to advertise on YouTube?

• Yes! Short videos, Podcasts, AMAs, and additional content planned by the team.

Can you tell us something yet on how rigid or flexible the platform will be?

• Initially, the layouts will be fixed, but will move towards a modular design over time- specifically for the trading side. The exchange side, will most likely keep fixed windows.
• The inexperienced user probably won’t need a high degree of customization.

Do you think that you’ve achieved the goals you set out for on FXPig?

• The goal was to have a transparent platform where people could make money, and in that state, FXPig has succeeded.
• The company was started because Kevin thought that this type of exchange was needed.
• We have definitely surpassed goals in regards to client retention.
• FXPig should be bigger, but it’s not due to the fact that there hasn’t been any traditional advertising, and this is due because the company wanted to maintain a great level of customer service.

Do you prepare the answers to the reddit questions? 

• No. Sometimes I don’t even read the questions until I’m in front of the computer with the community, ready to answer them.

Will you ever share some pics of the Hong Kong, Mexico, UK offices?

• Sure! There’s no office based in HK, since this was simply where we set up the token sale.

SYS coin Situation

• It’s all about price discovery.
• Basic level price discovery is like checking your phone when you’re at a retail store to see if that item is cheaper on Amazon.
• Price discovery mechanisms will be in place on CoinMetro.

Will CM have failsafes?

• YES!

Are there any plans for Asia? 

• YES! There’s a huge percentage of crypto activity in Asia.
• You need to have a foothold in Asia, and make sure you find the right partners to work with!

What percentage of the population is willing to invest in crypto in a state where 99% of its value is from speculation?

• Even if we go from 1% to 2%, we would have doubled the market share.
• The point is to try and target everyone else to target as many people as possible.
• You may think that equities, derivatives, and futures, are not driven by speculation- but I would say that the majority of all types of trading in markets is speculation.
• The majority of people who call themselves “traders” are actually “speculators”.

Top 5 coins? 

• There’s progress on all fronts. There is UI work being done, as well as back-end work.
• Top 5 assets are still on schedule.
• Two cryptocurrencies and 3 tokens perhaps on Day 1.

UI Feedback.

• We appreciate all of you who’ve submitted feedback for us during the beta demo test! Thanks for the Feedback!
• We expect the future of the exchange screen to be modular. So you’ll be able to customize it to your liking.

Please explain synthetic liquidity. (Ed: this is around the ~2:30pm GMT mark)

• Synthetic liquidity is essentially a product that is created that is not based on the underlying asset directly.
• Let’s say I only have 100 apples, but I want to create a market. I’ll create an apple future, that is based on the possible growth of next year’s apples, and I’ll estimate it to be 100 billion apples.
• You’re not buying the actual apple, but a certificate for the possibility of a certain number of apples in the future.
• Dark pool liquidity is what is incorrectly called “OTC” in this market.
• There is no correlation between institutional money coming into the market and the price.

Given the delay of the UI beta, why not let us test the trading part? 

• The exchange part is being worked on, it’s just the UI that is delayed.
• The team has worked on the exchange part, so we’re very confident on that part.
• There may be issues in the early beta with the UI, but that’s what the beta phase is for.

ETCF – Coins included in sectors

• We are being proactive, we have the listing guidelines in place.
• We’ve began pushing this doc to issuers.
• COO will take over a lot of the operational duties that Kevin is currently undertaking.
• We’ll have new hires that will reach out to issuers to make sure they can be listed.

TRAM

• We want users to begin trading on CoinMetro, and we’ll make sure that we can vet them before we can begin assigning them for TAM management.
• We can try to get high-profile traders, but Kevin would need to see their risk profiles, and a whole host of other factors to make sure they’re high quality traders for CoinMetro TAM.

COINMETRO WILL BE HIRING BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT PEOPLE!

Will insurance for cold-storage devices be available from launch? 

• Not from launch, but we’re having active conversations with insurance companies.

Secure Assets Binance 

• They’re basically creating a standardize compensation fund.
• It’s a little bit of a ploy, to a certain extent, since they’re having issues with large people giving them money.

Why were the dates pushed farther on the roadmap?

• Things happened, and we need to be flexible. Things were delayed, not just on the exchange development, but also on the business development in regards to regulations being changed very frequently.
• What you “see” when we show development progress is only a small amount of the work that is being put into making sure that the platform is solid- specifically on the regulatory side.

Quarterly reports (10Q)

• 10Q’s are like a high-level audit that the SEC requires, for those unfamiliar with the document.
• The team doesn’t spend money frivolously. Kevin travels coach.

Why is it taking 5 months to refund US investors?

• We don’t expect there to be a need to make refunds.
• Once XCM is close to minting, we will release the scheme by which US contributors will be able to keep their tokens.

What are the salaries for customer support? 

• We don’t plan on giving this out to protect the info on employees.
• Please send an e-mail to Kevin if you have any more questions on this.

What about the 2000 Tokens for those on the whitelist?

• Those tokens will be issued to the 75 people on the whitelist before minting.

Fiat gateways – 

• Everyone will be having fiat eventually
• We’re creating a regulatory foundation first, where we can build something that lasts.
• I believe that they’re securing regulations in the wrong way.
• We need to ask for permission first, in the regulatory space.

The goal is to create something that will be here in 10 years, and that we’re leading this market in the regulatory space. This is CoinMetro’s biggest differentiator. CoinMetro has financial related experience mores than anyone else in this space!

__________________________________________________________________________

Well, that’s it for this week’s AMA with CoinMetro Founder Kevin Murcko! Please join us next week on CoinMetro’s Facebook and YouTube Channels at 2PM GMT for another round and make sure you submit your questions to the CoinMetro Subreddit!

As always, we’re available to answer any questions you may have on our Telegram Group 24/7.