CoinMetro 7th December 2018 AMA Notes

VIDEO ARCHIVE OF THE AMA (YOUTUBE, FACEBOOK)

IN THE NEWS

#1. Estonia Issues Over 900 Licenses to Cryptocurrency Businesses

• CoinMetro had an event yesterday on the office, and ran a panel discussion on regulation. 
• There were a few local banks in attendance and spoke about use cases for blockchain. 
• Having competition that doesn’t respect regulations is not the kind of competition that helps the market. 

#2. Major Swiss Stock Exchange SIX Lists World’s First Multi-Crypto ETP Amidst Market Collapse

• ETP Definition: Exchange Traded Product
• There will be a lot of synthetic products, so it’s not a big deal.
• If this had happened before the retail bubble, it would’ve been a different story. 
• What this does is give another point of access to smart money. 

#3. Beyond Price: Why We Need a Better Way to Value Crypto Assets

• We need a better way of putting valuation behind crypto assets, which gives us a more accurate price. 
• Most markets have a more structured way of coming to a valuation.
• Crypto markets right now are based on hype. 
• Market value = market price. 

#4. U.S. SEC Opens Investigation into Salt Lending and Former Director Eric Voorhees. 

• This is one of hundreds of SEC investigations that are set to begin in the next year or so. 
• “2019 is the year of regulation; regulation starts in the US with litigation.”
• Not all cases will have merit, but most of the time the US government will spend a lot of time and money to get enough precedent to ensure that they win enough. 
• This is helping the market mature: fear can be quite a motivator!

#5. Coinbase Adds Privacy-Centric Crypto Zcash to Pro Trading Exchange

• In Estonia, the regulators and banks are not quite big fans of privacy coins at the moment. 
• An exchange makes money on volume- so the market demand dictates what coins are offered on most exchanges.

#6. Crypto Exchange Giant Binance Creates Combined Stablecoin Market

• “They’re just adding more stable coins.”
• Binance isn’t very well known for their KYC/AML adherence to financial regulations, so they’ll list whatever the clients want. 
• At some point, the true usability for these stable coins will come into question. 

#7. Major US Crypto Exchange Coinbase Launches OTC Crypto Trading for Institutional Investors

• All crypto trading is over the counter (OTC). All that means is that there is no centralized pricing index. 
• In a normal situation, The Dow, The FTSE, The CAC, etc… are the exchanges where pricing happens. 
• Brokers, dealers, get pricing from that market and people trade on that price.
• Anything that doesn’t go through that central pricing, is considered OTC.
• It’s either desk or dark pool. OTC is a misnomer here. 

#8. Mike Novogratz’s Crypto Trading Desk Lost $136 Million in Nine Months

• If the guy was managing billions, that would be a drop in the pond. 
• Most of these desks are just buying and holding. 

#9. Nasdaq Plans to Pursue Bitcoin Futures Despite Plunging Prices, Sources Say

• Of course they do. When you’re providing tradability of an asset, you don’t really care if it goes up or down.
• Commissions are made on the way up and down. 
• On the business side, the only thing you need is volume. 

#10. Pay Taxes With Bitcoin? Ohio Says Sure

• It’s a bit gimmicky.
• If taxes were actually on a blockchain, and they had a payment token, sure.
• The world is a smaller place because of social media, and if we were to try to do this outside of regulatory scope, they would be more likely to kill it. 
• And while they can’t kill a protocol, they can kill on and off ramps. 
• You have to put the horse before the cart. 

REDDIT QUESTIONS

How do you rate CoinMetro’s performance?

• In regards to pushing the regulation agenda, I’d rate it very high.
• Regulatory outreach is also very high. 
• In regards to the launch roadmap, not so good. 
• The idea with roadmaps are to map things out. 
• When you’re not dealing with regulations, they’re pretty easy to follow. 
• Building out the team, I’d rate it very high as well. 

Details about the data breach

• We have a statement on the website that’s very comprehensive in regards to what’s happened. 
• We’re certain that KYC data was not accessed.
• They were designers, so they only had access to design files and a few e-mails that were part of a testing database.
• GDPR guidelines are more onerous than the FTC.
• Only one individual, an internal employee that had access to KYC information.  

How will CoinMetro handle coins that have gone through privacy enhancing tools. 

• I’m not in agreement that privacy coins should be outlawed, however our main banking partner doesn’t want us to deal with privacy coins because it makes it harder to trace initial transactions more difficult.
• There will always be a process to ensure that we allow as many users as possible via KYC/AML procedures, and we’ll get in touch with any users to clarify any doubts. 
• Exchanges will be under higher scrutiny when they accept privacy coins. 

CoinMetro’s Regulatory Advantage and Competition

• CoinMetro’s advantage includes all of the different pieces that we are planning to launch, as well as being regulatory forward.
• We pay makers. No one else does that. 
• Our customer support is very knowledgeable. 
• "We don’t necessarily need you to be a crypto user to use our services. If you need a debit card, if you need SEPA transfers, if you want to be able to do Swift transfers, payments, remittances, multi-currency debit cards, if you want a wallet, if you want to be able to tokenize some types of assets, if you want to be able to learn about crypto, if you want to be able to invest in crypto without actually having to actually buy crypto. These are all features that the CoinMetro platform will provide. 
• People are really underestimating what will happen when regulation hits. 
• CoinMetro wants to be a part of the conversation. 

Evan’s Role with CoinMetro

• Evan is one of the majority shareholders
• He’s a pilot by trade, and a mechanical engineer. 
• He’s traded on a lot of crypto platforms, and brings that expertise to the team. 
• It’s the internet folks, don’t get emotionally involved with comments you don’t like.

Revised solvency numbers

• We still hold a bit of crypto. Some crypto was sold, but there was not enough liquidity on the market to sell it all. 
• We’re considering tokenized security of equity in the company. 
• Would some people inside of the community be interested in this?

Token Minting and Distribution

• Still on track to mint and distribute before the 31st of December.
• All three trading platforms will be live: Simplex, Intermediate, and Advanced.

Is CoinMetro seeking Sharia compliancy. 

• Initially, no. 

CoinMetro Academy Update

• It’s ready to be released, just a few parts of the UI. 
• The Go Dashboard is being redone, and the educational parts are going to be taken into a different interface. 

Promotional Events 

• We did a promotional event yesterday about regulation, banking, and tech. 
• There will be more planned, around launch. 
• Definitely into the first few months of 2019. 

TAM Details and Taxes (In Depth conversation)

• Always check with your local tax professionals!

 IBAN, Personal Joint Accounts, Checks

• No checks
• Initially, for individuals. 
• We will look at joint accounts. 

Progress from devs

• Most of the updates on the platform have happened under the hood. 
• The GUI is a secondary priority after the back end. 

CoinMetro utility tokens that power tokenized security platforms?

• Sure, as long as they’re vetted and have enough liquidity. 

QA Testing

• Telegram and our Beta testers are one piece of our testing team.
• We have devs internally that help us with QA as well. 

Will you be adding trailing stop losses and take profits?

• Yes.

Development of CoinMetro

• The CTO is in charge of the development of the platform, and has a full team working on the site.
• The exchange engine was built by the CTO and his team. 
• We do hire contractors, but they’ve always had limited access. Every big company in the world uses contractors. 

Reddit FUD Smackdown. “Don’t believe everything you read on Reddit.”

LIVE AMA QUESTIONS

KYC Status

• Initially, KYC was done out of Hong Kong. 
• The EU and Estonia have a different set of requirements for KYC. Mostly in regards to ID photos. 
• We’re finalizing a streamlined version of the KYC platform, and before launch we’ll have it ready. 
• Being compliant has pros and cons, and it’s the only way to go in the long run. 

When can we buy CoinMetro clothing?

• It’s coming!
• Initially it’ll be offered as prizes, and then eventually we’ll have a store.

Marketing plans for CoinMetro

• The airport gate is pretty unique, and that is mainly for awareness for government and business individuals. Many people fly into Tallinn for business. 
• Seminars and meetups in the industry. 

CoinMetro Digital Assets

• CoinMetro is a digital asset platform, so we’ll include more than ERC20 tokens long term. 

TAM and ETCF Launch

• Scheduled for Q1-Q2 2019. 
• We met with a law firm recently to see the best way to structure it. 
• It’s all about being compliant. 

Digital Asset Listing Requirements

• We have a very rigid requirements list. 
• A holistic approach to look at the team, look at what they’re developing, look to where their assets are, what are they doing with the money and spending it, their burn rate, will they actually reach the goal, does the token have liquidity, are people trading it, etc…

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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.