CoinMetro 3rd August 2018 AMA Notes

VIDEO ARCHIVE OF THE AMA (YOUTUBE)

IN THE NEWS

#1. Up to Two-Thirds of Bitcoin Transactions Have No Economic Value

• Only comes to a surprise to people who don’t understand blockchain.
• Blockchain is an open protocol, and on top of the blockchain there are apps. (e.g. Bitcoin)
• The money is data- entries on a ledger shared by all. 

#2. SEC's New Crypto Czar Wants Coin Industry to Step Out of Shadows

• YES! This is good!
• “Those who want to take the next step in this business, need to take a mature step forward.”
• The next step is exchanges need to start working with regulators and banks.
• You're not building a long-term business in the crypto space if you're not regulation-forward.

#3. Crypto start-up Coinbase hires Pershing's head of compliance

• “That took a long time” - Kevin Murcko
• The fact that they’re hiring compliance professionals, makes sense.
• The first thing regulators look at is structure. (This team has people with experience in traditional sectors) 
• It shouldn’t be news, but it’s a good thing that it makes the news. 
• This should be common practice, and the fact that it’s not, is currently a problem.

#4 . San Francisco Firm Launches Crypto Exchange with XRP as ‘Base Currency’

• Writers of the article missed the point- there can be multiple base currencies. 

#5. New Study Finds 88% of Cryptocurrency Exchanges Want Regulation

• Mr Tango conducted the study, and it's a service that CoinMetro uses as well.
• It’s probably skewed, and quite heavily.
• If your bank asks you “do you like regulations” and you (as a corporate entity) say “no”, you’re out of business

#6. Coinbase Begins British Pound Support for UK Bitcoin Customers

• Not so much news here, but it’s good that it hits the wire.
• It’s good for people who are not that experienced and have been waiting for some sort of “sign” to jump in to crypto. 

#7. Mt Gox Creditors Are Preparing to Claim for Bitcoin Repayments

• It’s about time they started issuing repayments. 

REDDIT QUESTIONS

Why did it take so long to design a decent GUI? 

• The point was to test as many designs as possible to get feedback from the community. 
• The early versions were shown to friends and family, and most didn’t like it.
• The team then realized that it’s perhaps best to include the CM community earlier than they anticipated. 
• It works!! You all have contributed great feedback!

Updated Roadmap?

• We have updated the roadmap. 
• “You’re killing your own project”. A project is something you do with your buddies in the weekend.
• This is a business. Business are full of projects. 
• A mature market doesn’t care about it’s ICO. The business at hand is to make sure your shareholders get profits in the form of dividends which is a long-term goal. 
• Editor: This is a great response, worthy of watching in the AMA. Here’s the direct link to that question.

How do you ensure cooperation in different timezones? Would it be better to have everyone in one place?

• YES! By far, but the way the world is spread out today, it’s very hard (or too expensive) to bring everyone together at an early stage. 
• We’re planning on having offices around the world to have more local tools to help our staff. 

Do you see CoinMetro listing Security Tokens in the future?

• Short answer: yes.
• Longer answer: ALL TOKENS are securities. 
• The reason that it’s so vague right now is that this is a NEW technology that has multiple uses and mutates into other things, and it’s hard to define that. 

Why were not made aware of the delays until very close to the deadline?

• So many things happen during development, that issues sometimes pop up right before the deadline and we need to push things. 

Why not mint XCM? Why flash sale?

• The reason we’d even have another flash sale, is to raise more capital. 
• Either way, when live trading begins, exchanges will be made. 

ETCF and ICO Express

• On the back side, they’re all connected to the exchange.
• One module, no because the ETCF is really more for investing, whereas the ICO Express is more for “contributing”. 
• You don’t want to confuse those when it comes to regulation.

Do you think that there are enough good ICOs to be able to bundle them into an ETCF?

• The companies don’t have to go through ICO Express, they just need to be listed on CM. 

If an ICO turns into a scam, will CM be liable?

• No, we’d be similar to a rating agency in that respect. 
• At some point, once underwriting becomes possible, and insurance possibilities step in, then it gets more complicated and we’ll have to review options then. 

When will you bring more people on board for the beta? 

• Soon! Keep an eye out for the e-mail

Do you still expect to launch the platform in Q3?

• Yes.

Can you store tokens on CoinMetro?

• Yes, we’ll offer ways to do this.

There are many who call CoinMetro a scam, wasn’t it a bit too enthusiastic, and now that it came out that you can’t make an exchange. 

• CoinMetro created a token sale from scratch, we’ve delivered the Go platform, we’ve delivered on licenses in Estonia, accounts for fiat currencies on launch, opened the European Crypto Association, met with regulators all over Europe and Asia. There have been a lot of deliveries. 
• AmaZix has done the right job. 
• We like our icons. 
• “Where we a bit too enthusiastic?” No. 6 months is not a long of time. 
• Refunds? No. You’re an adult, you read the contract. 

What’s your advice for new traders?

• Your short term goal are obviously going to be different than long term ones.
• Risk management is indeed number 1. 
• Being able to control your emotions is critical, when considering risk management. 
• Editor: again, this one’s gold! Here's a direct link to that question.

Do you think we’ll see spikes when regulation arrive?

• Not really. 
• The idea that bringing in institutional money will cause spikes, is bullshit.

CM Token Economics

• When you open a trade on the live platform, say BTC-USD, your commission is charged in USD (the base). We immediately take that USD and buy XCM for that same amount of USD. We also burn a percentage of the XCM we’ve received in that trade.
• We also have the Buyback Program, and based on the situation, we’ll use that. 
• Most tokens are based on hype, and they’re not useful at first. But they will get there. 

LIVE QUESTIONS

US non-accredited contributors

• There is a solution. They will keep their tokens. There will be a mechanism by which we’re able to do this and stay legal and compliant. We’ll announce it when tokens are minted.

Will Q3 deadline be live trading? 

• Yes!

What do you think about the Binance acquisition?

• Good on them! They should do more on that. 
• They should acquire more regulated entities. 
• If they’re listening, “Go buy a regulated entity!”

Will there be another flash sale?

• We haven’t decided yet, but if we do, we’ll know closer to minting. 
• We’re not sure still if we’re going to do it. 
• We only will consider doing it if there is 100% certainty on the release date.
• The initial flash sale was done via Hong Kong jurisdiction
• If there’s another one to be done, it’ll have to be done out of Estonia, and that requires additional regulator compliance. 
• We’re leaning to yes, but we’re still not ready for a full answer. 

As FXPIG is using Spotware products, cXchange is going crypto. Will CM use it? If not, then why not?

• We may. The goal was the plan that FXPig and CoinMetro would eventually merge. 
• “Crypto traders” trade just in crypto. Real traders want multi-asset. They want to be able to trade everything. 

COINMETRO UPDATES

Here are the this week's Updates on the development work at CoinMetro

• Simple UI under construction.
• Intermediate UI is in the HTML phase
• Trade UI is still in design phase, as we want expert traders to have the best experience possible. 
• Few updates on the GO! Platform. 
• We have the winners of the 100 XCM contest, as part of the surveys. (Check the e-mail newsletter!)
• We’ll have more surveys, for sure!
• We have 9 people joining the CoinMetro support staff

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Well, that's it for this week's AMA with CoinMetro Founder Kevin Murcko! Please join us next week on CoinMetro's Facebook 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.