CoinMetro 25th May 2018 AMA Notes

This week's AMA with CoinMetro CEO and founder Kevin Murcko took a new format, focusing on general crypto news in the beginning, CoinMetro updates second, collected questions from Reddit, and then an open forum. Please let us know what you thought of the new format as we continue to fine tune the weekly AMAs!

VIDEO ARCHIVE OF THE FACEBOOK AMA:
https://www.facebook.com/CoinMetro/videos/207602139858423/

Thoughts on recent news in Crypto

Crypto is a Token, not a currency from South Africa

• The fact that tax regulators are looking at the crypto space is a good thing. While you will need to pay taxes on any gains, that also means you can write off losses. It also helps provide a framework for regulation.

On TrueUSD

• CoinMetro does not plan to list any stable coins. The “Stable Coin” was created to solve the problem of exchanges not being able to bring fiat onto platforms. CoinMetro is working to solve this for the long term by bringing fiat integration onto the platform.

Double Spend Attack

• Wash trades, when an exchange will post buy/sell orders on both sides of the book in order to fill their own buy/sells in order to artificially manipulate the price. Under any mature regulation this is illegal. Coming regulations will help to eliminate this, and give more transparent prices.

This week’s CoinMetro updates

• Beta Demo scheduled for June 15. XCM tradability on the platform is planned for shortly after the Beta Demo phase. We just talked with the Dev team on this.
• The team is hard at work, and has pulled a couple very long days specifically on marketing and strategies.
• Talks with 6 different liquidity providers, 2 of which look promising. This should result in several different liquidity options at launch. This will be a true liquidity, as well as some API and FIX (Financial Information Exchange).
• Alternative Banking are being looked into
• Fiat onboard and off board for Euro is ready and will be available in the SEPA region.
• Looking at further licensing. UK eMoney license.
• Lawyers sat down with the securities commission in Mexico, looking to see what is needed to change the office in Mexico into a operations office. This would allow CoinMetro to grow in the Latin America, and is a great first step for that area of the world.
• Looking into Africa as well, less on the regulatory front, but more the business/commercial avenue. The African people are well versed in using digital money, so it is a very good fit.
• Asian push has been making strides.
• Hiring, there have been several excellent interviews and candidates, including for the position of COO.
• In the marketing workshop, this will revolve around brand awareness, and more natural outreach. Focused outreach will also begin in Estonia. As we launch products, marketing will start. Marketing budget of 750K Euro for year 1 Marketing.

Reddit Questions

When will the API be available?

• Sometime after the initial demo launch. Should be between the end of Q2 and middle of Q3. API will be available in a limited fashion for the Beta Demo launch. Once we move out of the Demo phase, it should be fully available.

On Regulations

• Regulation will always be a concern. CoinMetro will be quite aggressive on the regulatory angle. This is to both capitalize on the fact that many other exchanges are not being so proactive and also to show banks and future partners how we conduct ourselves.
• How did the current downturn on prices affect funds?

CoinMetro was aware of the probability that crypto is inherently volatile, so it was not unexpected. It has not had a direct negative effect other than some slight devaluation of funds collected. This is easily countered by only liquidating funds when necessary.

On referral systems

• We have the Ambassador Program. The commission levels for the Ambassador program have not yet been set. CoinMetro will be paying up to 50% of commissions to Makers. Also has very low fees overall, and plan to push those lower as time passes.

Will fiat be accepted at Beta launch?

• Multiple banking partners are needed in order to give multiple options worldwide, as well as redundancy. We have so far secured Euro in the SEPA zone. We are working on Euro Swift and other currencies.

Will future airdrops of tokens that are on boarded via ICO Express be prorated between airdrop family members according to their XCM holdings?

• No decision has yet been made, but there have been talks on this. We should know more in a few weeks, and will come back to this.

When top 5 Exchange listing for XCM?

• In a perfect world never, because although a lot of people assume that multiple exchange listings are a good thing, most tokens are by nature illiquid, and spreading an illiquid asset thinly is not productive.
• At the point where demand outpaces supply, we will look to see if there is a partner we could work with to help.

Regarding ATM withdrawal, who is the partner, how much will fees be and when?

• Slated for July. We are looking at one of the biggest card providers in the world, and are talking about pricing. We are on schedule for July still. We cannot say the name of the issuer for legal reasons. But we can say it is one of the top 2 issuers of prepaid cards in the EU.

Is the balance stored in CM exchange insured against theft or hacking?

• We are working on that. Insurers are uncertain about this space, but CoinMetro is working to help change that. We have had talks with providers, but nothing firm yet.

Are the fees from marginal trading going to impact the overall trading amount or just the amount that the trader submits? For example: Let's say I have a 1:10 and put 10€ for 100€. Is the platform going to charge fees on the 10 or the 100€?

• It’s based on what you are trading, so the full 100 Euro amount.

What happened to CryptoAM?

• They have slowed down, but Kevin will be meeting with him soon.

In regards to more roadmaps, listing of new tokens, and dates, will this speed up soon?

• Roadmaps are roadmaps. They are guidelines that are usually created based on prior experience or speculation. They are meant to change, a company must be agile and adapt. CoinMetro would like to list coins quicker, but will be vetting everything thoroughly. It is better to be safe and do things correctly so that regulations are met. Quality over quantity.

Would you consider pooling liquidity with other exchanges?

• Kevin has a side project that may help with pooling liquidity, but as of now there are no players in the space that CoinMetro is interested in.  This may change in the future, but for now it is not a focus.

GDPR email just came out and had a passive acceptance clause, is this a problem?

• We already received consent that we are under our Hong Kong entity. Clients coming onto this exchange will need to opt-in, but in this case with the email for existing members, consent had already been given, and this is just to reconfirm.

Favorite Vegan spot to eat in Tallinn?

• Been to a few, but because of how busy Kevin is and the hours he works, not many. He does mention a few places and options for vegan friendly meals that he has enjoyed.

At what point will other exchanges start to get on board?

• Q1 2019 is expected for the ICO Express platform.  

Open Facebook AMA

How will the voting process work? Have you thought about utilizing DAO governance where voting can take place using XCM?

• We don’t want to charge to vote, but we understand why this is done. There may be other ways to ensure that the voters have an interest in the result, such as requiring XCM to be held in the account.

On USA residents and USD traders, while USD pairing probably won’t be available day 1, will we be able to hedge our trading risk by trading into, EUR, GBP or any other stable currency? Or will fiat trading only be available for EU, SEPA residents?

• You can trade Euro pairs from anywhere. You can trade the pairs, you just will not be able to onboard or off board the Fiat unless you are in the SEPA zone, at this time. We are working on a slightly more expensive option that would allow for more options. It is a well known payment gateway, but cannot announce the name.

Will the debit card be pre-paid or will it be drawn directly from your exchange wallet in real-time?

• This is still considered a prepaid card. It checks the balance in real time. We are in negotiations with providers and should know more soon enough.

Would we be able to embed a TradingView chart from an own account for a CoinMetro trading pair? If this is desired, would it be feasible to implement?

• Probably possible. No problems if enough people want to implement a TradingView chart. From a technical standpoint, there should not be any problems.

Any update on having a flash sale?

• No update yet. We appreciate the feedback that the community gave on this. You learn a lot more from negative comments, so we learned that if we do this, it needs to be tradable at the end of that flash sale. From a legal perspective, we would need to know if it will be run from Hong Kong of Estonia.

Will there be open days for Estonia office?

• Yes we will have those, and are very excited about it.

What's your take on the large number of exchanges coming into the space. Does this worry you or is your opinion that its a large space and many exchanges can coexist?

• Does not worry us. Most businesses fail. This is comparable to the amount of ICOs that fail. However, the more compliant and professional exchanges exist, the better it is for the space in general.

This is Jarib, the founder of HorusPay. Do you have any updates in supporting/listing our EOS Horus native token ?

• Our current goal is to ensure a strong platform first, after that we will be reaching out to projects, especially those like you that have reached out to us.

US KYC still pending after 5-6 weeks. What will the status be before the launch?

• About 8 weeks ago, we told our support staff that all USA contributors should be pending. Now we have a clear path for USA contributors that will be implemented and announced soon. Please send an email to hello@coinmetro.com and we will look into it.

How will the debits cards be distributed and will there be a charge/fee. Hash card and Hold cards are currently at the end of their ICO's, will you follow a similar path?

• Everybody should be offering cards. If CoinMetro can do it, anybody can. We are not scared of people who are offering a single service. Unless they are incredibly specialized, then they will not be a large competitor, but we are a one-stop-shop that has much more to offer than just a debit card.  

Will our personal € wallets have their own IBAN number, or will it be just be a system with 1 IBAN for the whole exchange, combined with a unique reference number? If the latter, do you think it will be possible in the future to have our € wallet have an own IBAN number (thus behaving like a regular bank account)?

• Solution we have now will not provide their own IBANs. But the Debit card will offer IBANs. This will take some time, maybe 6 months.

Thank everybody for tuning in and asking questions!