Deriskly

deriskly

- HackerNoon, the independent technology publishing platform, is pleased to announce the nominees for its annual “ ” award, featuring the most promising and innovative companies in the Seattle startup ecosystem. Seattle, WA - May 23,2023 Startups of the Year The list, compiled by the HackerNoon team, showcases that are making significant contributions to the Seattle economy and driving innovation in their respective industries. 200+ startups https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqIW54yMsNc&t=2s&embedable=true Nominations are open. You can nominate your company as the . startup of the year in Seattle here The for Startups of the Year 2023 include: nominated Startups in Seattle Xealth Diagrid Twelve Labs XetData Coda Derisk pyq Logixboard Otto Robotics Protect AI Augment AI Proxi XetData Bungee Tech InsightStudios Pipe17 Coffee Meets Bagel Symbl.ai DefenseStorm Ozette Karat Kevala Moment Veeve Observa Cakework Forum3 Hal9 MotherDuck Read SBL Spiral “We are thrilled to recognize the top startups in Seattle and celebrate their achievements,” said . “Starting and sustaining a company is difficult. We’re honored to showcase their work and impact.” David Smooke, HackerNoon Founder & CEO is a community-driven voting platform that recognizes startups that are changing technology and the world for the better. Starting May 8th, 2023, the internet can nominate and vote for the best ventures in their city. The voting period will remain open until December 31, 2023, and winners will be announced in January 2024 after a comprehensive evaluation by the HackerNoon team. Startups of the Year 2023 In its , a total of 44,427 startups were nominated in 16 different regions, and the community cast 234,344 votes during a 6-month long campaign in favor of budding companies that were growing and trending across every major city in the world. The received perks from sponsors and a free from HackerNoon. previous iteration 1,382 winners tech company news page As a proponent of the open data movement, HackerNoon releases the unique social data gathered from Startups of the Year on GitHub as “ ” for valuable insights. /where-startups-trend Apart from validation from the world's greenest tech publication, all nominees relevant to their domain, region, and funding. They will also receive an and a free version of their very own on HackerNoon. These pages include business overviews (such as head count, founding year, bio, social links, and domain ranking) coupled with dynamic updates every time the company is mentioned in HackerNoon stories or relevant headlines around the web. get free interviews amazing discount package designed for their startup Tech Company News Page People can , and vote once per day per award for who they think should be Startup of the Year all the way up to December 31st. until June 8th nominate their favorite startups In addition to the award itself, winners receive exclusive interviews, an exclusive NFT from HackerNoon, and a .Tech Domain for life. About HackerNoon HackerNoon is a technology publication that aims to empower developers, entrepreneurs, and tech enthusiasts to share their knowledge and expertise with a global audience. With a readership of over 4M+ monthly visitors, HackerNoon provides a platform for startups and innovators to showcase their work and connect with a vibrant community of like-minded individuals. Did you know that companies that actively engage in blogging experience a whopping 67% increase in leads? Take advantage of HackerNoon's ' ' to kickstart your own company's blogging journey. Startups Package Startups Of The Year 2023 is sponsored by . .Tech Domains For more information about the “Startups of the Year 2023” list and the nominated companies, please visit our . FAQ page Nominations are open. You can nominate your company as the . startup of the year in Seattle here

Startups of The Year 2023: 200+ Startups Nominated in Seattle

If you are somebody who has strong convictions of a technological future and possesses enough emotional resilience to cope with the barrage of FUD that accompanies this space, there is tremendous opportunity smiling at you. P.s. None of this is financial advice. What sets apart the conscious being that is man from all other forms of life on earth is our ability to not only plan for the future but to proactively participate in the construction of it. While it may be impossible to predict how society will continue to evolve with perfect accuracy, we can however have a strong sense for the direction of its evolution. Short of a solar EMP that permanently disrupts the radio frequency waves on Earth and renders computers useless, it is safe to say that moving forward, every faculty of human life will converge toward technology. The lowest-hanging fruit en route to this convergence also happens to be an area of extreme interest to every sane person on the planet; finance. Regardless of how many boom and bust cycles have swept through the industry, there is (should be) no doubt about the fact that cryptocurrency is the technological realization of finance. As the world strengthens its acknowledgment of this maturing economic sector's permanence, a radical shift in behavior is taking place. Organizations and individuals from every class are rushing to get exposure. This then leads us to the next question, how can somebody get involved in crypto? 1. Buy the Digital Assets This is the most straightforward method to get involved. While it may seem simple and obvious on the surface, buying crypto is a form of art. Excessive fees, regulatory ambivalence, and sharp short-term movements can confuse and even dissuade participation. With the abundance of onboarding applications available today, understanding when and how to enter still eludes the vast majority of people. Highly desirable for those looking to own the underlying assets and arguably the form of exposure with the highest risk due to price volatility, direct ownership is not the most optimal choice for everyone. It demands extreme organizational dedication around the security and storage of it; a level of organization that the vast majority of users do not have or simply do not want to be tasked with. 2. Mining There are two ways to get into mining: A. set up your own equipment Not for the lazy and not for the technically challenged. So many people are deluded by the demands of mining. It is commonly thought that mining is a “set it and forget it” approach. That couldn’t be further from the truth. The complex process of setting up your own mining rig requires a strong basic understanding of hardware and networking. Then after it is set up you must constantly monitor the equipment to make sure that everything is running properly. You must be able to keep up with the developers of your network to always patch any incoming software updates. You must work out a strong financial model that accounts for the amortization of equipment, constant energy costs, fluctuations in network emissions, adjustments of hash rate, and of course, the cryptocurrencies price. Then you must work out a secure storage plan and ultimately an exit strategy. Moreover, the landscape of machinery is always advancing, as new devices with greater performance become available, your equipment loses its prominence and your operation becomes less profitable. B. cloud mining contract (not advised) Due to the high-touch daily monitoring and complex technical process of mining, there are online services that provide consumers with contracts to rent out servers and electrical consumption remotely, in return for the cryptocurrency that is extracted from the efforts of their machines. While there is merit to all attempts at getting into crypto, this one I personally am not a fan of. These contracts are designed to derisk and make money for their operators. 3. Company Stocks Misunderstood by crypto-natives and decentralization maxis, owning stocks of companies that have Crypto on their balance sheets or are somehow involved in the industry translates to a form of exposure vicariously. In some jurisdictions around the world, there is no simple way for large institutions or wealthy individuals to get involved in the digital asset industry without being scrutinized by their nosey governments. Some organizations even have legally binding operational agreements that downright forbid them from allocating capital outside of their confined sectors. This grade of exposure is unique in the vector of value it captures. Owning Bitcoin directly is a radically different risk/reward profile than owning shares of a company involved in BTC markets. Whether public or private, there are 4 general classes of stocks to explore: A. Mining companies Mining is one of the most prominent business models of public companies involved in crypto. Riot, Marathon, Cipher, Canaan, among others are such companies. Prices/valuations of these companies tread tightly with the greater crypto market price cycles, but do have a small degree of difference in their volatility (it is smaller). B. Equipment Manufacturers Companies producing ancillary products that support the crypto industry. I'm not just talking about BitFury or Bitmain that produce ASIC miners, I'm talking about everything from NVIDIA to AMD for graphics cards and ECX for cooling equipment. Whenever close attention is paid, there is tremendous opportunity to be found. C. Holding companies The traditional definition of a holding company is one that holds a vested interest in a group of other companies. Here I am referring to any business that is willing to hold crypto on its balance sheet instead of just dollars or other legacy financial instruments. The best example of this is Michael Saylor and Microstrategy. While Microstrategy is an Enterprise Business Intelligence company, the fact that it holds so much BTC in its treasury gives the stock price a very unique trading pattern versus other similar companies. D. Exchanges Were talking about centralized exchanges of course. Exchange businesses earn money regardless of the general market cycle. Their models allow them to benefit from activity/velocity on their platforms rather than price. Coinbase, Gemini, OKX, Binance, and countless others. The vast majority of exchanges are not publicly traded, therefore these opportunities are typically available only to private groups of insiders/investors. * Hedge funds and VC firms also qualify for this category. However, they are money managers that have radically different risk tolerance and time horizons. 4. Earn Crypto This is the silent kingpin of all methods. Highly favored due to the absence of sensitivity to price. Earning crypto is a subtle adaptation of DCA. Of course, if you earned $1,000 in BTC and a week later it falls down to $900, it doesn’t feel too great. However, if you earn $1,000 BTC again while at the lower price, you will accumulate more BTC. Once the price rebounds, you would have in effect earned more than just $2,000; you earned $1,000 + ($1,000 + ~11%). A. cashback This is such an undervalued vehicle for accruing crypto. Surely the raw size of cashback is never going to be huge. But, odds are that you need to eat. If you are spending money anyway, you might as well be earning some cashback rewards for doing so. There are plenty of platforms that now provide users cashback every time they make a purchase, the two that I personally use are and . Fold App Lolli (Happy stacking!) B. Incentives for the use of platforms Almost every new product that arrives on the market needs to have some kind of user acquisition game plan in place. Majority of the time, these plans are to provide some kind of incentive, in the form of cryptocurrency, for people to use/test their platforms. These can range from something as simple as signing up for an account and simply interacting with a GUI to something more complex as proving liquidity on a DEX. C. Hackathons & Bug Bounties This one is for the developers among us. Protocols and software applications are constantly providing incentives for finding vulnerabilities in their codebases. Both early-stage and mature companies will have some form of bug bounty available all year round. Occasionally, coding festivals called “hackathons” (a mixture of the words Hacking and marathons) are hosted, where teams from around the world come to compete against one other in utilizing their development skills for creative problem-solving. D. Writing contests There has been a consistent rise in platforms that provide rewards for creating content. and are constantly partnering with sponsors to host creation contests. If you are talented at or just love to write, this might be an option for you! Hackernoon Publish0x 5. Get an Industry Job As unsexy as it might present itself, this is one of the most effective ways to get exposure. Aside from the personal reputation and skillsets that you will develop along the way, you will build a network of like-minded individuals that will provide you with a wealth of insights and knowledge that would otherwise be impossible to gain. Cheeky? Maybe. True? Absolutely. There are two calibers of companies to consider, startups and established giants. Startups are tricky to work with as they might offer to provide their own token as payment. High risk as you would then be dependant on their success before you have any chance of securing your value. More established companies might offer to provide payments in stablecoins. The choice is yours. There is no right or wrong way to find yourself getting into crypto. As is the case with anything else in life, trial and error, is the only guaranteed path to improvement. There are certainly other creative ways to find exposure, such as marrying a hodler or divorcing one. Scamming perhaps? But let's assume that everybody who is here, has a moral compass and leave these manipulative tactics of social engineering and dramatic politics off the table. Thank you for reading. I hope you found some insight throughout this passage that will provide you with a greater understanding of how broad the actual landscape of opportunities really is. Live long and prosper 🥂

Getting Exposure to Crypto: An Inside Look at 5 Different Methods

5 formas de comenzar con las criptomonedas: una guía para principiantes

5 façons de démarrer en crypto : guide du débutant

क्रिप्टो में आरंभ करने के 5 तरीके: एक शुरुआती गाइड

暗号化を始める 5 つの方法: 初心者向けガイド

5 maneiras de começar em criptografia: um guia para iniciantes

5 cách để bắt đầu với tiền điện tử: Hướng dẫn cho người mới bắt đầu

加密货币入门的 5 种方法：初学者指南

🔭 Insight Design of Cross-chain Bridge In the last year, cross-chain bridges have been one of the hottest theses. Over one year, the cross-chain market grows from 0 to 1. Now new players face fierce competition in the cross-chain bridge market. It is time to review what happened in this market and look for real innovations. During this time, developers find three approaches for bridge designs: Local Verification External Verification Native Verification These designs try to balance between . trustless, extensible, and generalization Let's Go, Snail Trail! Snail Trail is a racing game based on Avalanche Network. The game theme is quite interesting: a racing competition between snails. In this post, we’re going to introduce: How to play/win Family & genes system Snails’ adaptions to the racing environment Breeding system DNA Crossing How to earn and play competition race Personal strategy However, Snail Trail is still under maintenance, and the game has not started yet. We do not know the actual gaming experience yet while looking forward to it. 💫 Weekly Digest How To Sell Your BS "Web3" Idea To a VC This post enumerates several keys to get fundraising: Team, Problem, Obfuscation, Acceleration, Clincher, and Competition. ZK Machine Learning In the demo, ZK-MNIST runs a neural net inside a SNARK. With this new tech, we can make either input or model private to ourselves. 📰 News Stack released AI-powered crypto trade insights in the Beta version. ZK Block: Boilerplate for ZK Dapps Web3 Salary Transparency Ribbon Finance releases V3 Unpacking Celestia Derisk helps you calculate the selling price to profit un.Block Newsletter is a weekly newsletter about crypto, blockchain, DeFi, and NFT. Feel free to discuss crypto and contribute to writing with us. If you like this newsletter, feel free to like, subscribe and share it with your friends. This helps us a lot. You can share your idea about crypto with us on . We can help you construct your research report. Twitter Email Subscription: Revenue Medium: @unblock256_en Twitter: @unBlock256_en Email: team@unblock256.com Chinese Version: unBlock 周报 Visual Design: Mockup Design

🟧 un.Block #39: Design of Cross-chain Bridges; Let's Go Snail Trail!

Interview with a Head of AI: Pawel Godula

The Amazon Effect: How do Ecommerce Companies Make Money? Amazon is the ecommerce titan the industry has been waiting for. Net sales have been rising since 2014. In 2016, Amazon grabbed 70% of the total sales, and service sales have only been growing since then. For all those wondering is ecommerce profitable, the answer lies in Amazon’s undeniable success, so much as that the “Amazon Effect” has even entered the lexicon of industry analysts. In terms of operating income, growth has been driven by high margins from service sales. Revenue sources, AWS services and Amazon Prime subscriptions have been rising at phenomenal rates, too. A revenue generation model is a critical component of the ecommerce business plan. Anybody looking to understand how to start a successful ecommerce business needs to understand that is the key to thriving and not just surviving. The ecommerce business model unlocks value and is the key driver of value. It makes all the difference between a unicorn and a failed startup. Scaling up to a billion dollar value is a dream come true for many ecommerce businesses. For understanding how to do ecommerce businesses make money, business models offer further clarity. making money Getting Into the Unicorn Circle Whether it’s through commissions, asset sales, subscription plans, ads, usage fees, licensing and rent or lease, getting into the unicorn circle is not just about following a model. Ecommerce businesses like Amazon don’t follow one model. They follow many in a hybrid way, unlocking value in the long term. Here’s what drives ecommerce money-making ventures: #1 Fixed Subscriptions Registered sellers can host products on the ecommerce platform for a fixed rate of subscription. Fixed closing fees may also be charged by the ecommerce company. #2 Commissions Based on the product category, the company charges registered sellers certain percentage commission based on the value of the product sold. This commission generally ranges from 5 to 20%. #3 Logistics Logistics and shipping are addition sources of revenue for ecommerce companies. The ecommerce brands like Flipkart, Amazon, Snapdeal, Myntra or even Jabong earn delivery and shipping fees. #4 Deep Discounting Justification for deep discounting of products for online retailers is that discounts are being offered, in turn, by the registered seller. The benefits of deep discounting benefit every ecommerce business from Flipkart and Amazon to Snapdeal and Myntra. The ecommerce brands come equipped with cutting-edge analytics capabilities and dedicated resources for comparing prices of products across stores and websites. Based on the price-linked research, registered sellers can then peg their price. Further, sellers get compensated for discounts offered by online retailers, leading to a win-win outcome, besides a level playing field for even the smallest ecommerce seller. Online shopping remains at the core of successful ecommerce businesses, which essentially focus on buying and selling of goods or services online. Given that ecommerce is the fastest growing retail market, estimated to reach USD 4 trillion in sales by 2020, the question “is ecommerce profitable?” is just an empty one! #5 Finding the Right Niche Before they build their online stores, these ecommerce businesses focus on what to sell and how to source it. Finding a successful niche is the key to mastering the markets. Keeping a finger on the social media pulse can also make sure your ecommerce business is heads and shoulders above competitors. Suggested products, reviews and YouTube videos can prove to be valuable for researching which niches to concentrate on. #6 Tapping Social Media Once the store is up and running, all you need to know is spread the word. For this, social media remains a powerful marketing tool. Leading ecommerce brands like Amazon and even niche sellers have their own Facebook business page. Cashing in on Instagram influencers is another key to successful ecommerce growth. #7 Targeting the Right Audience Leading ecommerce retailers target the right customers. For example, if the ecommerce business is selling fitness watches, the focus is on active people who visit the gym regularly. If diet formulas are being sold, your target is those trying to lose weight. #8 Reinvesting Profits As the business scales and demand grows, reinvesting profits makes sense. After all, ecommerce businesses will only sustain the growth momentum if they put money back into the business to cater to a new influx of customers. #9 Using Marketing Collateral To Drive Traffic The hardest part of an ecommerce business is the generation of traffic, whereby most online retailers rely on exceptional marketing collateral to cut through the noise and build a powerful voice and brand narrative that resonated with customers. An effective inbound marketing campaign drives growth. Content marketing by these ecommerce giants focuses on the customer research journey and addresses the client’s pain points. #10 Set Up Targeted Ads Another way ecommerce businesses make money vital to their long-term growth is through targeted ads that aim for customers and profitable niches right from the start. Using product specific ads has helped ecommerce companies to grow. Remarketing ads have also served as catalysts for the growth momentum. #11 Using Multichannel Product Distribution Methods Ecommerce businesses need to be in more than one location online to propel growth. Growing the ecommerce business commences with diversification, backed by clear channels of distribution is the key. Whether it’s Amazon, or eBay, Walmart, Rakuten among others, companies that focus on optimizing and listing products on win hands down. They also have registered trademarks and warranty when products are sold through authorized resellers. Clear distribution agreements also are in place with retailers and distributors regarding what they can and cannot sell including quality control, measures and anti-diversion. This remains an awesome strategy for growing your ecommerce brand. multiple channels #12 Automate Processes The more ecommerce processes are automated, the faster and easier it is to grow for the business. Setting up systems can be time consuming, but it’s well worth the effort. From order fulfillment to accounting and marketing, automation can make a huge difference to efficiency, bottom lines and profit margins for any ecommerce startup. For instance, sales data are automated from the ecommerce cart onto accounting software. Email follow-ups are also automated based on customer behavior and profiles. The more automated processes and systems are, the more ecommerce entrepreneurs can focus on high value growth activities for their business. #13 Invest in Search Marketing Organic reach notwithstanding, platforms like Amazon rank products as well. So online retailers need to be clear on search marketing strategies relating to the store and industry keywords. Software tools, case studies, reports, metrics and data are equally essential. Case Study 1: Flipkart B2C ecommerce company Flipkart offers sale of products through multiple channels, such as websites, apps(mobile and web), tele sales, affiliate networks and social buying. Percentage commission depends on product and sale type. It can range across 5–20% depending on taxes and discounts as well. Flipkart is a Singapore registered company with Indian subsidiaries to carry out diversification and derisk the revenue model from competitors. The web portal is the prime source of income. There are listing fees and convenience fees levied alongside as well as shipping and delivery charges. Flipkart operates its own payment gateway, logisitcs, digital media and wholesale division. It also competes in the fashion category through companies like Myntra. Phone Pe is its mobile payment interface which directly competes with Paytm and other mobile payment apps. Flipkart also sells co-branded banner opportunities on its home page, besides targeted search results and physical products on an online platform, deriving ad revenue from this. Flipkart’s enormous user base, daily visits, page views offer incredible returns. A case in point is Flipkart’s partnership with Xiaomi in India. Case Study 2: Amazon Driven by Jeff Bezos’s vision, a customer-centered focus is the defining strength and USP of Amazon. Amazon identifies strong trends to embrace these. Consider its focus on AI and machine learning to accelerate business growth. As per Similar Web estimates, Amazon notches 2.7 billion visits per day in the US alone. On an average, people spend more than 6 minutes on the site and look through as many as 9 pages to purchase what they want! Amazon is the 4th most popular ecommerce site in the United States. The focus for Amazon is on selection, price, convenience, and by extension customers. The website is designed to allow easy access. Amazon is also a manufacturer on the side, selling electronic devices like Kindle e-readers and Fire tablets. Deep discounts, free shipping courtesy Amazon Prime and a host of customer-focused initiatives make Amazon an exceptional ecommerce player. It also offers programs that enable sellers to grow their business, sell products on their sites and their branded websites and fulfill orders through Amazon. For its seller programs, Amazon earns fixed percentage fees among other types of compensation. Amazon also serves developers and enterprises of different sizes through its AWS or warehousing system. Broad set of global compute, storage, database and service offerings are available. Through its Publishing service, the ecommerce business model it follows lets authors and publishers choose a 70% royalty option and make books available through Kindle and Amazon Publishing. App developers, musicians, filmmakers further publish and sell content on Amazon. In a nutshell, Amazon works to generate value for several stakeholders. How Does Amazon make Money? Amazon makes most of its revenue from product sales. Products have high costs, so margins Amazon makes on them are thin. Their operating income is powered by services like AWS, Amazon Prime and seller services. Amazon’s business model derives its profits from Amazon Advertising, Amazon Prime, Amazon AWS which run with higher margins. The online stores are a foundation for further growth. Amazon collects payments from customers fast, then paying vendors with longer payment terms. The short term liquidity is used by the ecommerce giant to invest back to speed up its growth. Through this, Amazon has become a disruptive force, offering agility for the entire industry. The Numbers Amazon has doubled ad revenues from the first 9 months of 2017 as against 2018. Revenues went up from USD 2.92 billion in 2017 to USD 6.72 billion in 2018. Compared to Facebook’s USD 38.37 billion and Google’s more impressive USD 83.68 billion, Amazon is still an emerging player. But given that it runs a diversified ecommerce business, with several revenue streams, Amazon has donned many avatars. It’s mantra for success is its ad business which netted USD 6 billion in revenue in the first few months of 2018 alone, besides its impressive infrastructure. Amazon Prime remains a powerful business catalyst as does Amazon AWS, the latter being worth USD 17 billion in 2017. The Bottom Line Affiliate links, online ads and sponsorships can bring in revenue. But building an entire business with diverse sources of revenue in the ecommerce industry requires innovation. Ecommerce is a common business model for online retailers and companies to make money. As long as margins are managed and processes are scaled up, these businesses thrive and flourish. Concluding Thoughts Jeff Bezos, who founded Amazon, is quoted as saying his online behemoth strives to be “an ecommerce destination where customers can find and discover anything.” At a larger scale, technology is the answer as margins will grow, when ecommerce prices come down, instead of shooting up. Companies that scale besides offering deep discounts in the long run are succeeding in the ecommerce industry. That is the secret sauce behind their growth and the recipe for their success!

The Amazon Effect: How do E-commerce Companies Make Money?

El efecto Amazon: ¿cómo ganan dinero las empresas de comercio electrónico?

The Problems With ICOs Preamble: please note, I am an investor, blogger and podcaster in the Crypto space. I have only raised capital once, for my tech startup ( Bantr ), which ultimately failed. I am not a VC and don’t understand all the nuances of Venture Capital. These are my thoughts as I look at the market through my lens. Please critique as necessary. This article is written in two parts: Part 1: The Problems With ICOs (this) Part 2: The Opportunity with ICOs The ICO Death Spiral The ICO market has successfully proved the token model for raising capital works, but the failure to deliver value beyond speculative investor returns combined with a Crypto bear market risks pushing this new model into a death spiral. There are too many (questionable) ideas, raising too much capital, from impatient investors, with few, if any, delivering products and/or value to the market. The speculative recycling of profits from ICO to ICO works in a bull market, but when investment capital dries up, and token prices consistently dump on exchange listing, the model breaks. While speculation exists in the stock market, experienced investors have value indicators to support their decisions: The Price-to-Book Ratio (P/B) Price-to-Earnings Ratio (P/E) The PEG Ratio Dividend Yield Even with tech startups, the old model of building an audience and figuring out the business model later is dead. Investors want value; making a piece of technology might be valuable to the founders, but it only creates value when people use it in a way that generates revenue. At some point these startups must: Replace the investment capital which funds generated by the business Deliver a return to investors ICO projects have raised capital based on weak business models and/or unproven token economics which will not be able to deliver on either of the above. The 2019 crypto bear market has exposed the inherent weaknesses in many of these business models and flaws in the token valuation theses which many white papers were reliant upon. Show Me The Money! In a market flush with capital, even in these bearish times, there is a willingness to throw good money after bad ideas. While experts declare that this is the most significant opportunity since the dawn of the Internet and the entire market cap for Crypto Assets is in the hundreds of $billions, where are the products? Where is the traction? Where is value being created? The ICO market is ignoring the painful lessons of the dot-com bubble and investors are losing money. A lot of money. Crypto/blockchain startups are unique and they will not create value just because they use a blockchain and some will argue that most do not need a blockchain at all. They are tech startups, facing the same challenges as any tech startup. Thus, any deviation from sound economics model will not end well. not So let’s not pretend these Crypto startups are anything other than a tech startup facing the same questions: What problem are you solving that people are having? How will you solve this problem? How will you find users for your solution? What is the value exchange which ensures economic viability? Bitcoin has this: money transfer requires a trusted third party Problem solved: a network of distributed nodes to validate balances and transactions Solution: word of mouth Traction: proof of work Financial model: Bitcoin has succeeded without investment capital, what tech startups call bootstrapping, but the stark reality for any startup, crypto or not is that: If you are not solving a problem, you won’t find users If you can’t find users you won’t build traction If you don’t achieve traction, you won’t generate revenue If you don’t generate revenue, you will run out of capital If you run out of capital, your project will die If your project dies, investors lose money If investors lose money, they have less money to invest in new ideas Alas, the ICO death spiral! The problem is that most of these founders are finding solutions to problems which don’t exist, which don’t require a blockchain, which aren’t delivering a usable product and are creating new problems with poor treasury management and holding faith in unproven token models. Finding the Crypto Golden Geese Amidst the chaos of nonsense ICO projects is an opportunity for all startups. The dot-com bubble burst because the ideas were delivered before the market was ready. Over-investing in infrastructure ahead of consumer adoption collapsed the entire market when revenues did not hit projections. As capital ran dry and investors realised that these companies had unrealistic models, many collapsed under the weight of their burn rate. Out of the ashes came the golden geese. New business models of search, social and e-commerce built upon realistic models were able to raise capital and grow into some of the largest companies in the world. The crypto market is repeating the same mistakes, over engineering the infrastructure before application use cases are proven. The red herring is that all ideas must be decentralised to create value, yet the underlying blockchain infrastructure presents an opportunity to build new centralised models upon decentralised protocols. Coinbase is a great example, as said in his article: Brian Armstrong Is Coinbase creating a centralized or decentralized financial system? “There will be both centralized and decentralized products which help create an open financial system.” Centralisation is not a bad word! . Follow The Money Money will always flow towards the point of least resistance and innovations in blockchain tech have reduced friction in the flow of capital and created a fairer system for investors: cheap and fast transfer of value globally Always on connected liquidity pool: where digital wallets and exchanges enable anyone (outside of US accredited investor rules), to be an investor Open system: allowing for fractional asset ownership recorded in the same infrastructure as digital money Asset tokenisation: a new model for raising capital Initial coin offering: Blockchains (decentralised ledgers) have few use cases beyond what Bitcoin and the clones provide. They are a buzzword for selling conference tickets and exciting investors. The $280m Parity wallet freeze highlights the risk of immutable records and smart contracts, and there is little evidence that the trade-off is something the corporate world wants. The focus on decentralisation is a distraction from the opportunity. Taking crappy crypto/blockchain projects out of the ICO mix and replacing them with startups solving genuine problems could well be the golden goose of crypto. Raising capital is hard, I know, I have been through the hustle, therefore a problem, and what do we do with problems? We solve them: raising capital for startups is hard Problem: it is hard to get meetings; it is hard to get a commitment as it requires a small number of large cheques; it takes a long time (weeks to months) and comes attached with preferential strings for the investor Why is it a problem: raise capital through an ICO Solution: a global pool of liquidity, fractional investment, programmable equity, asset liquidity and share issuance on the blockchain Why is it the solution: The crypto world does not need to be a walled garden of blockchain and decentralised projects, the innovations listed above can be used by any company or startup especially with innovations in tokenised securities. Raising capital in the crypto liquidity pool vastly reduces the time it takes to raise money and gives more control to investors. It opens up investment to more people and increases liquidity. The Broken ICO Model The ICO model is broken because of market immaturity. Inexperienced investors are providing inexperienced founders with capital and what ICOs gain in access to liquidity they lose by not having experienced Venture Capital money: Retail investors lack the objective scrutiny of experienced VCs Crypto hedge funds have exacerbated the FOMO Sums of capital raised break the incentive model for founders Capital not raised against milestones Lack of transparency around founding teams Detachment between investors and founders post capital raise Lack of mentorship Furthermore, assets are often traded in open markets ahead of product delivery. Investors trade speculative value in volatile markets, open to manipulation, often distracting founders from the goal of creating a product which people use. Equity in traditional startups is rarely traded until: Product/market fit Scale Proven revenue model You know, a sustainable business. Think Spotify, Facebook, Tesla etc. Speculation exists, Tesla is a great example, but with Tesla, they are changing the automotive world, not just promising to, and they have delivered over 250,000 cars. ICOs are raising IPO levels of capital before meeting any of the above conditions on the promise of a whitepaper. Let’s call this what it is: lunacy! A prosperous economy requires real value to be created, an exchange of money for goods or services which give value on both sides. What value has Crypto delivered outside of MoE and SoV: Cryptokitties? The Problems for Investors The argument that Crypto is one big Ponzi scheme holds true if the investor mindset is to invest, take a 10x return and move on to the next project. It requires a never-ending supply of new investors and new speculative projects. The Ponzi argument is further proven by the number of ICOs now failing to hit their hard cap targets. The well is dry, the market has run out of new investors to exploit with the false narrative of endless crypto riches. Many retail investors will have lost money during this bubble and will likely not return to the market. This isn’t a bad thing, while I support an open playing field for wealth creation (SEC accreditation sucks), not everyone has the skills or mental strength to be an investor. Investors need to shift their mindset to investing in value creation and demonstrating patience. The 10x hunt is counterproductive to the market. The Problems for Founders The market and structure for ICOs does not help founders either. Many lack the skills to take an idea to market. Furthermore, founders are juggling new problems created with the ICO model: Treasury management & crypto volatility Custody (a number have had their capital stolen) Unproven and unsuitable token models Once founders have raised capital, they have one goal: achieve product/market fit. Therefore, delivering a product to market, which enough people will use and pay for. The ICO model has solved the problem of raising capital but has created new problems which many founders have failed to address. ICOs will often hold funds in crypto, which creates two new problems: If prices crash before the raised funds are converted back into fiat then their runway changes (bills are usually paid in fiat) The wallets are a honeypot for hackers, and there are too many examples of Crypto startups having their investment capital stolen Furthermore, many are building these businesses based on unproven token models, where M = PQ/V, I’ll cover this in part 2 of this article. Baking utility into the token has allowed startups to raise funds yet utility comes with problems: Traction is hard; therefore the value of a token could drop to marginally above $0 if they deliver a product which struggles to find a significant number of users The underlying mechanics of many tokens ensure there is no incentive to hold the token as this will incur a price risk, wrote about this in his article Kyle Samani Understanding Token Velocity Token-based products are likely a usability nightmare for the average Joe who sits outside of Crypto Founders need to shift their mindset to solving problems, understanding product/market fit and derisking their burn rate. Conclusion While not perfect, the VC model has evolved into a formulaic problem-solution factory for building startups, yet the VCs hold the purse strings and create the rules in their favour. ICOs are a paradigm shift in raising capital, creating an open market for investors and allowing founders to write the rules back in their favour, but they risk failing to deliver by not addressing unnecessary new problems. Go to Part 2 where I explain how I would fix the ICO market. I am a freelance blogger and podcaster. You can read more on my articles on my website, What Bitcoin Did and follow me on Twitter . My podcast is available on iTunes, Google Play, SoundCloud, YouTube, Stitcher and TuneIn, all links are available on my website .

How to Fix the ICO Market (Part 1)

There is nothing like a bear market to inject a dose of reality into the world of Crypto. With prices crashing and most assets having fallen by +70% — even our darling Bitcoin — it is a little easier to be objective about the market. With the Lambos on hold and Crypto facing an identity crisis, the more opinions I read about the future, the more I ask myself: “Are you sure?” What Problem Are You Solving? With traditional tech startups, unless you have a track record of high-value IPOs and/or exits then you will struggle to raise money without: A great idea A great team A working product No successful VC pitch starts with a 50-page whitepaper. The process has evolved to a simple 10 slide pitch deck explaining the problem you are solving, how you will solve it, what it will cost and how you will make money. The problem being solved is key. Without this you have no use case. Without a use case you won’t build traction.Without traction you won’t build a profitable business. If you can’t build a profitable business then why would a VC invest? Even if you are successful at raising funds for your idea, your initial raise will be small, and you will be sharing a shitty apartment with your co-founders, working 24/7 and living on microwave meals. If you manage to build some traction with your live product, you will need more capital to scale and with each round of financing you will dilute your position futher. Only a small group of founders exit with life-changing money. Why? This shit is hard, therefore raising capital is hard. VCs know what they are doing, what might work, what probably won’t and what they are looking for in a team and an idea they can back. They have the capital and create the rules, usually in their favour and if you don’t like it, tough. For every Mark Zuckerberg, there are thousands, maybe more, who have tried and failed. The rules of the game have changed with Crypto. Where a Venture round will come from a small number of large cheques, the token model allows for small fractional investments from a global liquidity pool of naive retail investors who lack the experience and objectivity of the Sand Hill Road. We now have teams raising money with: Crappy ideas An unproven team No product To steal from , they have sprinkled a little blockchain fairy dust on a successful centralised business model and are expecting success, yeah, because every idea needs a blockchain. Jimmy Song I’ll let you into a secret; they don’t, as : John Wolpert wrote “The first rule of blockchain is that you probably don’t need blockchain.” Tech startups need to feel the struggle; it creates the incentive model to work hard and build something the world needs. When teams are raising millions, 10’s of millions, even hundreds of millions based on a whitepaper, we lose the Darwinian effect of weeding out crap people building crap products. Our Darling Bitcoin There is no doubting the success of Bitcoin. It is pretty amazing that someone was able to create a network worth $billions, used globally, existing entirely on the Internet, outside of the control of governments. Sounds like magic, magic Internet money. Let’s be practical about it for a moment. How usable is a wildly volatile Bitcoin? Yeah, yeah 1 Bitcoin is worth 1 Bitcoin, sorry, this is a shitty and pointless argument in the real world. Most of us are living pay cheque to pay cheque, with little savings and a looming pension crisis. Every Pound, Yen or Dollar we invest in Bitcoin has an opportunity cost. Whether you consider Bitcoin a Store of Value or a Medium of Exchange, unless it is going up in value it has little benefit to the majority of the world.Don’t get me wrong, the problems that Bitcoin solves are important: Censorship resistance was great for Wikileaks when Mastercard blocked donations A Store of Value is great for Venezuelans living with hyper-inflation Trustless money would have been great for when the Cypriot government were stealing money from bank accounts (as long as the value was stable or going up) The only problem Bitcoin solves for me is the need to make money; therefore it is no different from investing in stocks, commodities or any other market. Yes I know, governments are evil: they print money, debase our savings and buy missiles to bomb weddings in the Middle East. Of course, this is bullshit, the libertarian ideals are right, but it is easy to be a vocal libertarian when you have $millions of Bitcoin, most of us are just trying to get through life, end our shitty work week and have the occasional holiday. Moreover, as much as we might want to hate the traditional banking system (I do, ), it does work, though archaically: my pay cheque goes into my bank, my bills get paid, and I can access my money almost anywhere in the world. I wrote about Spending money with Bitcoin compared to this is much harder: Option 1: open wallet, scan debit card and the amount is debited from my bank account Option 2: swipe mobile phone and the money is debited from my bank account Option 3: buy Bitcoin from an exchange and lose a little value in the conversion, find a retailer which accepts Bitcoin, send payment and wait any random number of hours for the transaction to confirm. Also, hope that before you spend it that the price hasn’t dropped 20%. Sure, 1 Bitcoin = 1 Bitcoin, but £1 = £1 in the shops and they don’t give a shit what happens to the price of Bitcoin. Sure sure, Lightning Network is coming, fast and instant payments, yet this doesn’t solve the numerous other problems such as protecting your private keys from an army of hackers who want to steal your Crypto. If you are not a Libertarian and can’t trade, then a volatile Bitcoin has as much value as most forms of investment/gambling. But you live in England Peter, what about the Africans? They don’t have a bank in their village; they are poor Peter, Bitcoin helps them have a bank and stops them from being poor. No, it doesn’t! Firstly the majority of the developing world lives on less than $2 a day, they are not going to switch their daily hustle for a Crypto wallet on a mobile phone, especially when that $2 suddenly becomes $1 because some whale dumps on Bitfinex. Yes we need a global currency, but: Unless it is going up in value it has no use to the Western World Unless it is stable it is no use to the Developing World But ‘The Tech’ There are some cool things in ‘the tech’. Sending payments globally with Crypto is a pleasure compared to waiting for the banks to update their ledgers, but they could solve this if they had the incentive. Programmable money I hear you say, Ethereum smart contracts for the global financial system you tell me. I give you Parity. Sorry, but software bugs are never going away. Coders make mistakes, and they can’t foresee every eventuality. I guarantee you right now, large institutions are not going to risk trillions of dollars on an immutable database. It.Won’t.Happen. Where the average Joe is happy with a centralised bank, which refunds stolen money, global businesses prefer centralised systems and databases where bugs and problems can be centrally fixed. Relying on a teenage Russian genius to decide on whether or not our frozen funds should be released is not a viable option for the business world. If you solve one problem by creating a more significant problem you haven’t solved anything. . That is twice I have mentioned Jimmy, I like Jimmy, Jimmy is a realist: Jimmy Song wrote about smart contracts recently Making a contract trustless means that we really can’t have any room for ambiguity. This trustless execution makes the smart contract the judge, avoiding the need for a judiciary system. It.Won’t. Life isn’t that simple. I can guarantee if there is something found to be wrong in the agreement, then the judiciary system will be used to challenge it. A smart contract is just a more efficient way of processing agreements, which is a cool idea when money is programmable, but this will only work with fiat pegged stable coins, where you have the benefit of Crypto money flow but the reliability of $1 equalling $1. Just ask those Crypto startups who raised $10m in Ethereum and now have less than $5m because the price crashed. They still have to pay their bills and staff in fiat but their runway is now much shorter. The idealised concept does not meet the practical realities of running a business. I recommend you read the Jimmy article, he is much more knowledgable than me and explains it is far more eloquently. Decentralised v Centralised Finally, we need to get away from this nonsense concept of decentralising everything. The world is not about to switch over from a centralised architecture to a decentralised one, without strong economic arguments: We don’t need a decentralised Uber.We don’t need a decentralised Facebook.We don’t need a decentralised Google. Not everything needs to be decentralised, trustless and censorship resistant. These blockchains really aren’t efficient, and while the dream of cutting out bad actors is admirable, decentralised governance is another way of saying decision by committee. Committees are slow, arduous and compromise too much. We need strong leaders and visionaries. I‘m aware I am probably coming across as a moody shit right now but it isn’t all negative. I actually think there are plenty of opportunities with the tech. We just don’t need 10 different cryptocurrencies with 10 different consensus mechanisms, we don’t need 10 different protocols and we don’t need to decentralise every successful centralised idea. Where the dot-com boom was built on a vision of ecommerce but the killer apps were search and social, the killer apps outside of Bitcoin have not been proven. Over the next few years we will see a high failure rate with these projects, either the tech won’t scale, the projects won’t find traction or these unproven tokenised economies just don’t work. Crypto won’t go away though, it will evolve based on where success is found, as Brock Pierce said, this is one big live split test. My recommendation is to follow the money, the clever money. Most likely it will be a where centralised applications and processes are built upon the decentralised innovations in Crypto: A connected global liquidity pool Middlemen inefficiencies The relationship between digital assets and money People have been attracted to Crypto because of the financial returns of a bull market, rather than the tech, the tech has been an afterthought for the majority of projects (though not all). The market crashing is a good thing, it puts the focus back on good ideas. Look at the current state of the ICO market, who is hitting their hard caps? Rekt retail investors don’t have the money and the experienced VCs are more cautious. Raising Crypto capital will require better ideas from better teams with a sound economic plan. I expect a proliferation of fiat pegged stable coins, which derisk the opportunity for investors. And for Bitcoin, it is no longer an experiment, it is proven and here to stay, whereas the many clones will likely face a slow fade. What it becomes and how the world uses it in 5, 10, 20 years is yet to be seen. I am a freelance blogger and podcaster. You can read more on my articles on my website, What Bitcoin Did and follow me on Twitter . My podcast is available on iTunes, Google Play, SoundCloud, YouTube, Stitcher and TuneIn, all links are available on my website . My collaborative White Paper research project is in development, go to to find out more. Open Paper

The Deluded World of Crypto

Opportunity — Derisory and borderline offensive Interest Rates — Knowledge gap between the data a bank has on each customerand the intelligence itcan provide for consumer benefit Lack of Intelligence — 99% of us can’t access asset classes reserved for richest 1% Inequality — A majority of people aren’t going to awaken tomorrow and embracetokenisationand cryptographicwallets even though they should Innovation — Internet’s broken,advertisingas revenue will die within a decade Future Stage 1 — Tokenise Interest Users forego interest on deposited money and instead, receive tokens at the end of each month (Proof-of-savings mining concept) This money seeds a fund which invests in speculative asset classes — Venture Capital, Commercial/International real estate etc. This leads to the establishment of an asset backed disitial currency which enables a new type of online economy to emerge. Tokens equate to fractional ownership of the fund Stage 2 — Data Analysis Banks know how much I pay for my recurring expenses, as well as all every other customers. The knowledge gap exists because the data is not comparable. They don’t know what products, package or services we have. Tokens let us buy that data and benchmark all user spending. Where you pay more for anything we tell you how much (Free tier). This will eventually give way to a product which allows us to undertake these negotiations on our users behalf (Premium tier). Stage 3 — Your Attention as a Service People want to act in their own mutual self-interest. We harness and direct that trait to make it economically beneficial to do so. Imagine the power of 100k users requesting their supermarket stock a product that we invest in or 1m people sharing a message on their social media profiles. This enables us to influence the success of nascent companies while significantly reducing customer acquisition costs. By doing so, participants earn a higher % of ownership in the fund,spread the reach of their investments and increase the value for everyone else as well. A portion of all tokens will be retained for charities and social enterprises to use. Stage 4 — The Future The periphery of legality indicates future revenue models online Digital taxation will become the mechanism white redistributes capital when advertising as a form of revenue is marginalised due to people protecting their identities more effectively online. What this means is that you would forfeit a % of your GPU/CPU which is used to mine Cryptocurrency. This is paid to the creators of products, services and content online who are paid as per the duration of attention their product holds. Your Nexves account is at the heart of participation. Stage 5— Diversification What will become critical is the engage with younger demographics at earliest possible moment. This not only enables them, to begin funding their future but it become a ramp for participation in traditional financial services before banks. Our intention would be not only to educate them on financial matter, but allow them to make a meaningful contribution to the world through their actions. This also allows people to participate and earn who have no money yet Stage 6— Open Ecosystem Nexves becomes the key piece of infrastructure which enables Web 3.0 . It requires no alteration to existing behavior by innovating around services people are already familiar with lowering all bariers to participation. A digital passport for universal trust online, tying an anonymous wallet to an online profile cultivating the next evolution of the internet. What this will allow in time is for others to reiterpret existing online services in decentralized form while disrupting other indiustries by creating products and services which are not currently possible. Actions can be controlled, letting you maintain ownership of content and data which will be critical. Snapchat but screenshots are punished, images overlayed with watermarks for safety, engagement is monetised. Dating services with bad actors removed. Airbnb/Uber with more trust. Everything else you can imagine. Initial Token Sale To seed fund there will be a controlled initial token sale which will run alongside the Stage 1 tokeneisation of interest scheme. Tokens will be sold at the same price as interest generated tokens1 token = £15 What we intend to achieve is the most fiscally responsible token sale in history which conforms to or exceeds all regulatory recommendations. There will be a £1,000 limit on tokens purchased per person with no limit of interest based deposits as there is no risk to this capital. Fund your Future, Fund the Future, Become the Future or Join our Whatsapp Group Join our Slack Channel

6 Clear Steps to Realise the Future of Money & The Internet

My vision for Nexves is clearly massively ambitious, but ultimately technology has evolved to make it inevitable. There’s probably no bigger arbitrator of truth in the world than your bank, but fundamentally there’s a misalignment of available knowledge. By collaboratively acting together, we can fill that gap while enabling everyone to reduce their recurring expenses. A peer-to-peer platform for intelligence where attention becomes a form of currency. Simultaneously it provides a ramp to participation for those not ready to make the leap to cryptographically secure wallets and tokenised exchange. The whole world isn’t going to wake up today and realise the merits of both, while I believe we can innovate around products and services they are already familiar with to lower barriers to entry. By providing services that are several orders of magnitude more efficient, rewarding and easier to use we can encourage those people to switch without the requirement for them to change behaviour. While each additional person creates a network effect of benefit for everyone. Next, tokenisation enables us to encourage behaviours and actions that are mutually beneficial. This plays to the psychological theory of rational self-interest. We can pay people to act selfishly for the collective benefit of everyone — that is revolutionary. Longer term — Nexves becomes a critical piece of infrastructure required for the emergence of Web 3.0, and that’s the vision I have communicated less because so much has to go right for us to get there. The internet is broken. Advertisement follows you around, services are free due to their intrinsically exploitative revenue models. This will change. Your Nexves account becomes a ubiquitous mechanism for trust, a universal passport which travels with you across the net, in a world where trust is impossible without it. Actions currently taken on online can be monitored and tracked which enables you to maintain control of your data — while profiting from it. Extrapolate that to every service you currently use. At the periphery of legality you can already see how the future of the internet looks without advertising as a form of revenue. You forfeit a % of your computer processing power to mine crypto. That would then be redistributed to the creators of products, services and content as per the duration of time it was consumed by individuals. There are a few really insightful things to look at in relation to the above. John Nash’s ideal money theory, and John Laws asset backed currency during the 1700’s in France. I realise Law failed, but I would suggest it was due to a lack of transparency which tech can easily overcome today. To get there, we need to change perceptions, habits and behaviours through the creation of products and services which provide unparalleled consumer benefit. The first link of that chain is an investment fund. You forfeit the interest you would accrue on money stored in our account — the amount of interest you currently receive from existing institutions is so derisory that it is borderline offensive anyway. By redeploying that capital, Nexves becomes a super aggregator, we can harness an unprecedented level of influence on our investments. Together we can access asset classes reserved only for the richest 1%, democratising it to remaining 99%. I have a call on Tuesday with one of the most powerful investors in the States, hoping to come to an agreement on partnership with them on investments. The credibility this gives us is undeniable, while the exposure is huge. At the same time, we are talking to similar people in the international and commercial real estate markets. Nexves can become much more than that. I have used the tagline of f when distilling down the simplest essence of what it hopes to achieve. I have been too modest in that vision. The ultimate goal is to . That might seem like a tiny change, but it is hugely important. We want to fund, develop and implement ideas that make the world a better place. That might be solving a problem you currently have or funding a product or service you have always dreamed about. Collectively it might mean coming together to achieve incredibly bold dreams. und your future fund the future One example is in childcare. Families struggle mightily during holiday periods — where do you put your kids if you work full time? — what if there was an Airbnb/Uber type service where you could find a qualified teacher to take care of your children? Those are the types of problems we want to invest in and solve. Nexves takes an ownership position in the and we all benefit from its success. We don’t just want to fund another photo sharing service, we seek to tackle big problems that afflict large numbers of people. For everyone to succeed, this has to scale massively. We need to get to 100,000–1m users quickly, which sounds like a massive range but on an exponential scale it isn’t. Our investor is going to expose us to a large number of people and we are connecting with the UK’s largest independent PR company for launch. That’s only half of the equation. Nexves is about a collective belief that a large number of people can collaborate and achieve far more together than we ever could alone. It’s about the family of a platform emerging to help everyone save money while influencing the success of the ventures we support. Nexves only succeeds if you all do and to me that is massively important. It’s why I’m so passionate about what we are trying to achieve. It may transpire that it is too soon for the platform, that it’s too ambitious or it doesn’t scale to the size needed quickly enough and if that is the case it would be hugely disappointing. That said, I’d rather fail trying to create something that will be generationally transformative with the opportunity to revolutionise an industry which is failing the consumer at unforgivable scale. With that, I need help. Everything we build will be useless without people using the platform. That means the referral programme is the most vital part of everything. Today someone contacted me in New Zealand whose brother turned them on to the platform, last week it was someone in South Africa. There is a universal appreciation of our vision we just need people to see it. Next week I anticipate the site launching for sign up. This doesn’t mean the mechanism for deposit or participating in the ICO is ready, it’s not. What I do think will be in place though, is the referral programme where you can begin recommending the platform to your friends, family or acquaintances. I haven’t yet fixed the reward for each successful referral, all I can say is that the reward with be commensurate to the importance of scale and you will receive this as soon as the platform is operational. If you believe in the promise of Nexves the journey is just about to begin. It won’t always be smooth, it might not always be straightforward or pretty. Undoubtedly, we will need to pivot a number of times which will probably lead to unpopular decisions. What I can promise and guarantee is that Nexves will do everything in its power to realise its potential. That already means 100 hour weeks, sacrifice and struggles. It will all be worth it if we are able to realise even 50% of what we plan. Together we can or Join our Whatsapp Group Join our Slack Channel

Why the death of your money is coming and the steps you can take to avoid it

A majority of the people in the world aren’t going to wake up tomorrow and begin using cryptographically secure wallets to hold their personal wealth, nor are they going to switch to using tokens as a mechanism for all exchange. That doesn’t mean they shouldn’t — it simply appreciates the difficulty in getting people to switch from a system they know even when the alternative is a lot better. These things take time but that shouldn’t stop us sprinting towards that future as fast as we can, or trying to lead others there with us. At we are imagining the future and building the products and services we need to get there. We believe humanity should begin climbing the ladder now to receive the benefit of technology that currently exists as well as those that are coming. We need “ ” to survive — but we must seek innovative products, services and platforms that allow us to save as much as possible, expanding our wealth instead of allowing it to remain dormant. The internet has enabled access to excess capacity on an unprecedented scale — just look at Uber and Airbnb, and we believe this model is equally as applicable to money. Nexves money We need to make our money work for us _We all believe that money means something_medium.com What Money Actually Is The reason for this is clear. Banks have exploited us for too long, they have gambled with our money and cost us a fortune. The reward for warehousing our capital in these institutions is derisory. Interest rates on our savings are borderline offensive but little has changed in 100's of years. Banks still make unimaginable profits by . Why shouldn’t we benefit equally, or more so, than those using our money to get rich? putting our money to work for them At the same time, money isn’t worth the paper it is printed on. You‘d think that because a currency is tied to a Country it means something. The reality is that money hasn’t been anything but a collective belief in the myth of value for nearly 100 years. The day the Dollar was divorced from the value of gold, no currency in the world was underpinned by a commodity or asset. $19million was recently transferred internationally for a fee of $0.40 cent. Banks are terrified. For centuries they have monopolised the transfer of wealth, taking a cut of every exchange with no possible way to avoid it. Even using the most efficient transfer service of today would cost over $100,000.00 in Traditional Money. At the same time, you are unable to participate in asset classes reserved for the Richest 1%. The reason for this is that ‘Sophistication’ rules determine who can invest in what. We don’t think this is fair, and as long as there is a diversified portfolio of assets why shouldn’t everyone be able to enrich themselves more efficiently? That’s what we are building at Nexves Money wants to be digital and free, the problem is being tied to 70's technology means it’s impossible to achieve this with traditional money. Relying on central Banks policy leaves us at the whims of government who can devalue our money whenever they want (quantitative easing). They already have during the 2008 Financial collapse. Inflation contributes to this problem. Money becomes worth less year by year, it’s the reason the price of the Freddo has risen so enormously. This doesn’t affect governments, it is a mechanism used to enrich them. Money wants to be free, why should I give up anything when I simply want to transfer you money? Just because something has been a certain way for a long time doesn’t mean it’s the right way to do things now. We now have the technology to change our path to the future Whether we choose to take it is up to us. The future is invented by those who have the boldest vision of what it can become and who relentless persevere in pursuit of its realisation. This is the future we are trying to realise at . Nexves To realise it we need you to see it and help us shape it — Join us Steps to realising this future To begin doing so we must reinvent what money is and our expectation of what an account should offer. We must create a central focal point, which enables innumerable spokes of services to extend from it. The limiting factor of what can be achieved by this should be the depth to which we can imagine a better future. The central hub becomes the key to enabling trust on the internet on an unprecedented scale, without the need to divulge identities. The ability to conceal your identity online is critical to enabling certain actions, but it should not provide a cloak for impunity. The easiest ramp to participation is an account which resembles the one you currently use as closely as possible. This removes any perceived barriers while endowing you with the technology necessary to begin participating in this new world. Where you place your money in the account, it remains yours forever, with no risk of loss. What this acts as is the mechanism to create a new currency. Proof-of-savings acts as a form of ‘mining’ to endow you with something which becomes a tangible asset. Your actions can be measured and used to earn additional tokens. For this to be appealing there must be an incentive or collective belief that the tokens you receive will be worth something in the future, or that there will be a market for exchange. Simultaneously, that belief isn’t 100% necessary. If you hold the tokens you will receive payment on them each time there is a liquidity even. Stage 1 — Asset-Backed Digital-Currency Cryptocurrency/Tokens are the future of money for a number of reasons, but most pertinently they enable the exchange to be incredibly efficient— both in terms of speed and cost but our initial problem still runs true. If people aren’t ready to participate in this field, how can we help them do so with the lowest barrier to entry? We can get them there by providing benefits which exceed what they currently have by several orders of magnitude. Achieve this through services to which they are already familiar That means a money management platform which they already understand. By replicating the features on an existing account — iterating on them and improving the user experience significantly, we can create a compelling offering which doesn’t alter behaviour or require changes. By doing this, the barrier to entry becomes zero. Everyone needs an account to manage their money, becomes a far better version of this. Nexves The first stage to reaching this future is a central money management account. This means a platform where you can deposit your existing money. You forego the interest and cashback fees you would typically accrue on spending/savings from your account and instead you are rewarded with the digital currency detailed above. Immediately this will be worth the equivalent amount you should have received in interest — i.e 1 token = £15 (1 token paid for every £1,000 stored on the platform for 30 days, 1.5% interest = £15 hence initial token value). For those willing to speculate that the value of the token will rise, all they have to do is hold the tokens in expectation of future value. Naturally, the token will rise in value as the currency is deprecatory instead of inflationary. This rewards early users as they will receive more tokens per £1,000 saved than those who adopt later. The money accrued from interest will be used to seed an investment fund which invests in asset classes reserved for the Richest 1%. That means commercial/international real estate, private equity and startup investments, among other things. We are already forming partnerships with the leading figures in each of these industries to operate alongside. In order to proceed with this plan most efficiently, we are proposing a Token sales alongside the Proof-of-savings mechanism which will be how all future tokens are created. The initial sale will involve around 2,500,000 tokens at a sale price of £15 per token. The majority of this money will be invested immediately in the asset classes above with the rest reserved for the innovations listed below. Stage 2 —Data Analysis to Enable Savings The first product we will create will harness the power of data each of the users on the platform provides. Right now there is no way for you to know you are getting the best deal on any product or service you use, out with asking family and friends. We will leverage the intelligence we are able to accrue, match that with tokenisation and acquire unimaginable quantities of actionable data providing revolutionary transparency to consumers. Right now banks know how much I pay for a specific service and how much you pay for the same thing. What they don’t know is if that is a fair comparison based on the different packages each of us might have. What we can do at is fill that knowledge void by acquiring the data needed to make the comparison. Through token payments, we can pay you and everyone else on the platform to provide it, where your reward is higher ownership of the investment fund. This means for every recurring monthly expense you have, we can tell you how much you should save based on what other people on the platform are paying. Eventually, we will create a service that does this automatically on your behalf, saving you a lot. Nexves Stage 3 — Earning Platform The next thing that will enable is a platform to earn. This will take advantage of human nature, which calls each of us to act rationally in mutual self-interest. The massive innovation here is that by acting selfishly the whole platform benefits and profits. Nexves You are paid to do certain things which grow the investments in the fund This grows the value of the tokens you have yourself At the same time growing the tokens that everyone else has Imagine the power of 10,000 people going to their local supermarket to request they begin stocking a product that we are invested in. Consider the influence of 100,000 people sharing a message about an international destination we own on their social media accounts. Now imagine that influence when it is spread across millions of people doing the same thing. That is the power of platform scale that you can become a part of. My goal is to build something bigger than any of us can alone. That means for Nexves to succeed we need the collaboration of everyone using the platform. We believe we can harness that power while influencing and developing the world to become one we want to live in. By encouraging every individual to act selfishly, we can achieve the best result for everyone. That means you get paid to help grow everyone else's investments, including your own. Ultimately, what we are seeking to become is the largest super-aggregator in history. Collective bargaining on an unprecedented scale. Stage 4 — Establish a Token Economy The liquidity attained from higher frequency of transactions will be critical to establishing Nexves as a viable digital currency. To achieve this there has to be a market economy for which people can transact upon. This means building out the system which enables people without tokens to acquire them. They have the means to participate above by earning them, which is a way to provide the unbanked with access, while also creating an opportunity to acquire future participants at a far younger age than is currently possible. A digital currency means building out an entire ecosystem for consumer purchasing. This means making investments in things which can be purchased or used. A simplest example of this is International real estate. The value of the property would remain an asset for the value of the currency, while rental could be paid in tokens. The innovative aspect of this would be what happens to the spent tokens. Where you purchased your stay entirely in tokens, 90% of them would be burned and10% would be kept for expenses resulting from your stay. Transacting in tokens would mean you received a lower price than is possible in traditional money, while your remaining coins become more valuable because the ones you paid in are destroyed. Wider adoption would enable the currency to be utilised for purchasing in almost any domain. The more users that utilise the platform, the larger potential market for peer-to-peer transactions. Decentralisation becomes the platforms superpower as other Nexves users open the doors to their other products and services on the platform. Through the universal mechanism of trust, your account, bad behaviour can be punished, controlled or prevented. Stage 5 — Erosion of Marketing as a form of Revenue My boldest contrarian belief is that advertising as a form of revenue on the internet will be extinct in the next decade. The rise of a decentralised internet where everyone owns everything but nothing simultaneously is inevitable. This will enable us to reclaim the data we are currently providing companies for free, preventing the targeted invasive advertising we are victimised by and stalked across the web relentlessly by. If you’re not paying for the product you are the product, will evolve to become you being the product that pays with a currency you control — attention This is in recognition that we should control our own destiny — why should multi-national conglomerates commoditise our attention by turning us into zombies whose only contribution to society is the accrual of capital to drive purchasing? Digital taxation In the same way Napster was a precursor to Spotify, what is the next route to revenue for products/services online? A digital taxation will be achieved by using your CPU/GPU to mine a currency which is distributed to creators as per the volume of attention you provide their product, service or content. Nexves will allow the consumption of content/products /services without the necessity for users to pay creators or service providers directly. For low CPU usage tasks — watching video, reading articles, social networks, photo sharing, almost every task you undertake online — these services will tax you a % of your CPU usage and use that to mine Crypto which will be distributed to the creator according to how long you spent watching, reading or using what they made. The Future Imagine the replacement of the internets largest institutions with ‘free’ alternatives, that includes Facebook, Netflix, Google and every other £Billion multi-national conglomerate you can imagine. These services won’t be paid for by exploiting the data you provide and advertising to you, instead their revenue will come directly from you, and your contribution to the upkeep of the worlds most sophisticated and widest distributed blockchain. A digital currency will emerge which grows directly from attention. Attention will evolve to become the cash of the internet because eventually, it will become the only thing that matters. There will be a direct correlation between engagement and payment for online services. Your Nexves accounts becomes the central hub from which this will emerge. Stage 6 — Universal Trust Mechanism A universal mechanism for trust is critical to enable the third wave of the internet. Web 1.0 gave rise to internetWeb 2.0 gave rise to the giants who dominate itWeb 3.0 will give rise to distributed networks that take it back Airbnb has its review system, Uber has it’s stars, but there is nothing which straddles the breadth of the internet to provide a holistic snapshot of why people should trust you. Your money management account becomes a passport for the web, where you have full control over the information available about you on it. This will enable you to monetise your data and set controls on when it is appropriate to reveal which information. This mechanism can ensure trust in an environment where without it, it is impossible to do anything. This allows each person to sell their own attention. This, in many ways, is the only commodity in the world which is still scarce. Being advertised at becomes a conscious decision of which you are the beneficiary. Furthermore, there are effective controls which mean it is beneficial for companies to participate in this new system. Instead of paying to advertise on specific words or phrases, if you’re money management account was used as a constraint for which companies could search for leads within, they would be able to target adverts directly to the source without the need to pay an intermediary. The most powerful aspect of this is that you are the person who decides whether you want to give these companies access to your customer profile, or not. Stage 7— Platform Service Layer The ultimate vision for Nexves is to become the critical piece of infrastructure for the realisation of a more decentralised world. It becomes the backbone of your digital identity, a route to monetising your actions online, and a way to accrue wealth by enabling savings on an unprecedented scale while putting your money to work. Proof-of-savings becomes the mechanism to enable the emergence of an asset-backed digital currency, where your tokens provide tangible ownership in real assets. That is revolutionary. On top of it, a whole world of possibilities emerge. My annoyance with the way the internet has evolved doesn’t stem from the monopolisation of our attention, it increases with the exploitation of a world without permission. In order to take back control, we must insert mechanism which enables us to protect our data. This doesn’t mean hiding it, or cutting down the content which we release about ourselves, it means being more sensible with the ways we share information online and have switches which we can turn off when we want to detach. In a world where we have been manipulated to vote in certain ways, through the consumption of news and propaganda that often proves to be false, this isn’t just smart it is critical for ensuring that we maintain control of our own sensibilities. Ultimately, we want others to interact with our platform. That means creating distributed services and products which integrate within our own. Your current account is a dumb account. Once you put your money to work in a way which exploits the available technology of the day, while marrying it with the influence of platform scale, we can establish a digital currency which enables us to realise a vision for the internet which is fairer for all. Begin Funding your Future today. Become Nexves. or Join our Whatsapp Group Join our Slack Channel www.Nexves.com

A Ramp to the Future of Money and Why we Must use it to Reach Web 3.0

Consumer platforms have grown to dominate the internet in recent years. By using the excess capacity in existing networks, Uber disrupted the taxi industry and Airbnb did the same to hotels. At the same time, they have increased the market overall by increasing the number of consumers using the service. People who wouldn’t have travelled before due to the expense of hotels or used taxi’s because of their reluctance to trust strangers now do so because technology has improved the quality of service through increased efficiency, ease of use and cheaper cost. Yet the most entrenched industry in the world has remained stagnant and without significant change. Sure we have emerged from an analogue world to a digitised one in the last 3 centuries but the way we access and manage our money has changed relatively little. We have allowed bankers and financiers to prescribe to us the way our money should be kept and what it should be used for. Instead of innovating and evolving, banks have exploited our money to enrich themselves at great risk and cost to us. What we are building is beyond banking — not just innovation or evolution — it’s revolution through recreation from the ground up. The future of money is a platform where we are all connected to each other for the collective benefit of everyone and that is what we are building. What this enables is the excess capacity in the data each of us provides from our spending to be utilised to lower costs. Where you are paying more than someone else on the platform for the same thing, we will tell you how much you can save and how to do it. Eventually, this product will negotiate these costs down on your behalf without you having to do anything. What are the benefits to you? The potential for exponential growth of your wealth. The current financial system doesn’t reward you based on how successful they are instead, they pay you a derisory interest rate and insulting cashback fees comparative to what they make from your money being in their accounts. There is a fairer and better way. By forfeiting interest and cashback accrued on your money in a Nexves account you receive digital tokens. We use this money to invest in startups and asset classes reserved for the richest 1%. Your tokens entitle you to ownership of any and all profits from this fund. If you had 1% of all issued tokens and we received £1,000,000 when a business was sold you would receive £10,000. No catches and no risk to your deposited capital. Whatever you pay into your account remains your — unless you spend it! Nexves only invest the interest accrued on your money and the cashback accrued from any spending. At the same time, the Nexves platform lets you earn money while growing the investments we make. By taking specific actions we will pay you in tokens allowing you to own more of the investment fund. Imagine the power of 10,000 people requesting their local supermarket stocks a product from a company we invest in or 100,000 people sharing an advertisement message on social media. Now imagine that same power if it was 1 million or 10 million people instead. That is the power our platform is harnessing. By acting selfishly to grow your investment and earn more money everyone benefits collectively. Platform economics let us all get richer. Would you rather trust the institutions whose mistakes you are still paying for or a service that partners with you and is only successful if you are? It’s a question of faith. Who do you trust to be a consumer champion, institutions that have existed for hundreds of years and offered no real benefit or a Startup whose vision is going to disrupt the status quo by reflecting the data you provide back at you to save a lot of money on your bills? The future of everything is in distributed networks of collaborators acting as swarms for mutual self-interest. It’s in a network of users taking the same actions to ensure collective profit from the resulting implications. What rises is a new system for participation on the internet, where you are rewarded financially for any/all data you create. You reclaim ownership of the value you create and we enable you to profit from it. That is why exists. Nexves The Future and why you Should Participate You Nexves account is the hub at a wheel of services which enables your participation in the next wave of the internet. By marrying a Financial management account to a cryptographically secure wallet we enable you to own all the data you create. In a world where Facebook can leak the Data of 80 million users, this is critical. Money and tokens become organisational features which enrich and protect your participation on the internet. My most bold contrarian belief is that advertising as a form of revenue will disappear in the next decade. The rise of a decentralised internet where everyone owns everything but nothing simultaneously is inevitable. Nexves is the reimagination of what a financial platform is capable of achieving. We expand the horizon of possibilities by understanding the technology that is currently available with a foresight of what coming. Believe you deserve better by understanding you don’t have to accept what you are told. The world is changing. Uber and Airbnb signpost a route to this future. is doing the same for your money Nexves or Join our Whatsapp Group Join our Slack Channel www.Nexves.com

How Nexves lets you own Part of the Next Uber, Earn while Influencing its Success and Saving you a…

Founder Opinion What has your Bank ever done for you? When did you ever come out of one and say wow, the customer service was exceptional or felt like you have received tremendous value for money? If you’re anything like me the answer is never. Not even once. Someone’s going to do to Banks what Uber done to the Taxi Industry Taxi’s were never sexy — Uber changed the game. The power isn’t in existing technologies, it’s in re-imagining entrenched institutions while making use of the days available technology. Overthrowing something which has operated in the same way for so long is never easy. People think banks need to operate in the same way as they always have because they can’t imagine anything different. The purpose of this post is to challenge that perception while challenging you to expect more from the people who look after you money. Banks have operated in the same way for a century! They still operate over a time horizon of days instead of instantaneously. They still want to charge you a fee based on a % of the money you transfer instead of charging you what it actually costs to clear a transaction. The fat cats at the top are still enjoying the cream while the rest of us suffer. Banks are an illness and the only remedy is purging them from our system entirely. To rebuild it we must burn them to the ground. The Reality is Banks Take Without Ever Giving Back Future banks will offer you the same value back that you give them A challenger has a route to domination based on something no bank in the world has been able to achieve — viral growth. This could be achieved very simply through the anonymization of data you already possess while releasing it back to your customers. Some challenger banks have tried to build businesses based on the instantaneous transfer of capital, whether that is for payment for goods, conversion of currency or transfer to other individuals. What they have failed to make use of so far is their unique opportunity to exploit all the data they are afforded. To do so they need a niche. There are already hints through the offering of insurance etc. but they should already be doing much more for their customers. In many ways they have already become complacent. They have become profitable without having to alter the paradigm. They have become marginally better than traditional banks without altering the playing field. They are playing the same game instead of destroying the competition. Right now these challenger banks are pleasing customers which has allowed them to grow very quickly — what would happen if they amazed them and gave them value beyond anything they imagined was possible? My Grandmother currently pays £89 a month for the same Sky subscription my Father pays £34 for. If both individuals paid for this through the same bank they would possess that comparative data for every person on the platform that subscribes to the same service. What this enables them to do immediately is build a product which becomes a transparent database showing customers how much they can save based on what other people on the platform are paying. Simultaneously this would incentivise users to expand the data they provide due to the tremendous value they receive in return in the form of detailed analysis about the recurring monthly expenses where they could make huge savings. They can make substantial savings based on the market intelligence released to them while the Bank accruse masses of valuable and actionable data differentiating them from any competitor. A bank is the perfect vehicle for this system because their goals aren’t misaligned with their customer (like comparison engines are due to a referral fee business model). From there the Bank would become a platform that allows it’s customers to operate together, utilising the power of solidarity to collectively bargain together and influence the prices available to everyone.The influence grows in line with the number of users, allowing the company to negotiate deals with suppliers individuals could never achieve on their own. Eventually, this model would evolve to not only advise users how much they can save but negotiate this reduction in cost automatically on their behalf. Information for most services change little from year to year, your Bank could automatically renew your car/home insurance at the lowest price without the need for you to waste time on comparison sites. The transparency of the service gives you comfort that you pay the lowest price possible for all your recurring expenditure, users simply sit back and save as a by-product of utilising the platform. How would the Product Roadmap look? The initial step is to create an accessible database which provides transparency for consumers. How do you ever know you are getting the best price for anything? You have a point of comparison with your friends and family — but out with that how do you know you pay a fair market price for anything when compared to the wider public as a whole — the simple answer is that you can’t. In my opinion, traditional banks have been derelict in their duties. Modern banks can analyse the data they are offered then reflect that back to the platform and provide tremendous value to users instead of exploiting them. Releasing figures that state the lowest value consumers are paying on the platform for every recurring expense would tremendously useful. Sky is the most interesting niche for me initially due to the ease in which you can save a large number of users a significant amount of money each month.Just providing this information allows users to renegotiate their costs based on the evidence you provide. Imagine how pleased customers would be to realise they could save up to £720.00 a year based on thier banks advice. This might not have value for things like airline tickets, but anything which is a recurring expense — house insurance, car insurance, mobile phone contracts — this becomes a tool which differentiates the new Bank from it’s competitors. The horizontal expansion is almost limitless The next step is taking this a massive step further. Instead of simply providing the information to users on the platform, you automatically negotiate the deal to the lower cost on their behalf. I realise initially this involves a lot of human labour negotiating individual deals with service providers, but think of the benefit to users? This is an opportunity for massive growth based on something that won’t scale to millions of users — but it doesn’t have to. This has a real opportunity to be the Banks growth hack like Airbnbs offer of professional photography. Once they have achieved a cost which is adopted by all users they can begin offering that service to new consumers at a far lower price than they can get elsewhere — gaining customers who never even used the service originally incentivises service providers to collaborate. Better yet, every new user who come to the platform provide an independent check against the prices the platform is achieving as anyone who pays less offers a fresh opportunity to negotiate costs lower for everyone. I foresee a time where you sign up to this new bank, transferred all your payments, and they immediately infors me that they have saved me £50 a month on my Cable TV subscription. I sit back and save as a by-product of having an account. The first thing I would do is tell every person I know. For absolutely no effort, if you switch to this bank account you save a lot of money every year. No catches. That is revolutionary For those interested Below is a more detailed overview of how I imagine this bank would operate and how you would be rewarded Rationale The GDPR regulation opens the door to a potential revolution for consumer data — which enables banks to operate as a transparent intermediary that is a consumer champion rather than simply exploiting its users. The relaxation of laws, if permission is attained, opens the doors to comparative aggregation allowing a platform which highlights to consumers any costs where they are overpaying in comparison to other users. Initially their data would only be used to analyse their spending against others, reflecting back instances where other individuals pay significantly less than they are. It has to be a bank because they already possess this information simply by operating. A comparison site’s incentives are misaligned as they operate on a referral fee model. They can’t indicate that you are paying significantly more than other people because they depend on the revenue from the companies they would be outting. Eventually, this would evolve to shape the costs you pay based on the influence of a platform intelligently acting as a swarm together in order to achieve the best costs. The bank works on your behalf to achieve better overall costs, while each new users acts as a check that the bank is achieving the lowest cost possible. While this initial foray into collective bargaining only enables the sharing of data — the final step is an autonomous negotiator that analyses everything you purchase and negotiates any costs down to the lowest levels where you are paying more without you doing anything. Crypto Bitcoin is yahoo, ethereum is google and bitcoin is the internet in 1994. The reason I believe this is fairly simple, the underlying incentive to mine bitcoin long term is relatively low. The bounty for recording the next block halves every 4 years so eventually the value for mining will be so low in comparison to energy usage that it will become infeasible to continue doing so. At this point the whole network will be forced to consider the possibility that the blockchain will become dilapidated as too few users will be working to mine the next block, whereby ensuring the ledger remains up to date. Either this will occur devaluing the currency significantly or every holder of bitcoin will have to contribute a tiny fraction of coin to pay a decentralised network to keep the blockchain up to date. A more interesting alternative to this, in my opinion, is rewarding individuals for participating in the upkeep of the blockchain. Instead of a proof of work as a product of payment, a proof of service becomes the way payments are made. Every individual is paid a fraction of a coin according to how much money they have in their account for each month of service they provide. To ensure constant uptime, each individual is charged a tiny fraction of their CPU, which runs poof of work calculations collectively resulting in the mining of new coins. Each coin mined is distributed to the individuals involved while 20% is kept for the bank. This is re-purposed later as a management fee and the carry from the investment fund. Interest Interest on the account isn’t payable in a traditional sense, but interest is currently terrible anyway. Instead, it forms the investment fund. The interest is reinvested in companies as a Venture capital vehicle, while the holders of the accounts are partners in the fund dependent on the amount of coin held.This unique model creates a ‘network-as-a-service’ as a by-product of investment. Not only do the companies invested in receive capital, they also receive the support of the partners in the fund who are incentivised to assist the companies invested in by any means possible as they are the direct beneficiaries of their growth. The tokens you hold amount to fractional ownership of the fund during periods of liquidation. Market A liquidity element would also be required. This would allow individuals to sell their coin at a price decided by a secondary open market whenever they wanted. The economic element of this isn’t quite clear to me yet, but there would be a mechanism to purchase coin which would give you proportionate ownership of the fund comparative to what individuals accruing coin in the above interest method were. This could work under the basis that at the time of investment, new coins are created proportionally to the amount of capital in the account. Bring it all together and what do you get? Let me introduce you to Nexves Fundamentally, Nexves provides you with a bank account that will replace your current account. Potentially, it becomes an essential platform that saves you money while letting you invest and earn more simultaneously. To understand it’s potentially you are required to view it as the hub at a centre of a wheel of services. From this will come spokes which identify as separate businesses all tied back to your account, which enable them to bring you incredible value, security and opportunity. The First Spoke — Own revolutionary Companies Interest rates are worse than terrible. On you forego interest in return for Cryptotokens, accrued in relation to the percentage of total funds you have on the platform for a calendar month, which entitle you to ownership of startup companies the Nexves venture fund invests in. Nexves How this breaks down in practise is simple: if 10 people have £1,000 in their account they each get 10% of the tokens at the end of the month. If someone came in the next month and put £10,000 in he’d get 50% of the tokens, the other 10 would get 5% each. If we invest in a company worth over a Billion / the first 10,000 users on the platform would receive between £/$8–10,000 each, on average. £ $ The Second Spoke — Earn Significant Capital Bank’s offer you no opportunity to increase your wealth, outwith derisory interest payments. The first spoke of Nexves decentralises the beneficiaries of success from the bank itself to the people like you who form it. The profits created won’t go to fund outsized bonuses to oversized bankers, they go into your pocket. The second spoke let’s you earn money while increasing the likelihood that the investments the venture fund makes succeed. On the platform there will be a marketplace where you can complete a task and receive additional tokens, increasing your entitlement to future profits from the fund. This could be something as simple as sharing a message on your social media profile or requesting that your supermarket begins stocking a certain product. The power of this is only realised through the power of a large network. One person completing these tasks might not make much of a dent, but imaging the influence of 10,000 people sharing this at the same time, or even 1 million. Collectively everyone benefits by acting together in mutual self-interest. You influence the growth of your investment and you are paid for it’s success. Simultaneously, you will be rewarded for discovering potential investments or acquisitions. Make a recommendation that leads to investment and you will be rewarded with a large number of tokens. Had you referred Facebook to Nexves under this model, you would now be a Millionaire. Only problem is that if you had discovered facebook at this stage there is nothing you could have done. Nexves changes that. What it enables is universal access to asset classes which the 99% cannot get access to. This prevents you from benefiting from the most succesful investment opportunities of the last 30 year. Nexves is a democratisation of access, and due to the model we are going to employ it encourages these companies to take our investment over traditional venture capital funds. What you become part of is a network-as-a-service which lets companies grow at a far lower cost while increasing your own profits. The Third Spoke — Save lots of Money The third spoke is a collective bargaining platform which uses the data you provide to save every user a large amount of money. Take a minute to visualise all the information banks have on your spending and every other users on their platform, what do they do with this to help you save money? Absolutely nothing. At Nexves we will analyse the recurring monthly spending of every user and benchmark it against the platform. Where you aren’t the lowest paying user for the same service we will tell you how much more you are paying, and provide you with the contact information required to lower your costs. For individuals we have already analyses, they save £600 a year on average. The next step will be to do this all automatically and negotiate these costs down on your behalf without you having to do anything. You save as a by product of having an account — all for free. From there we will expand to conduct the renewals of your car and home insurances, gas and electric supplier, broadband and mobile phone providers. We realise how time consuming and frustrating entering the same information year after year can be — so we will do it for you and make sure that you always pay the lowest price possible for every service you need. The Remaining Spokes — How we will Evolve Spokes to this system will be introduced gradually — we have a large roadmap of features we intend on implementing in the next 18 months. What Nexves will become is the foundation layer of infrastructure required for the development of web 3.0. We let you participate in this new world. Join the Conversation and Fund your Future Today

Why Banks Must be Burned to the Ground and Become Consumer Champions Which Save You a Fortune

The question on the lips of people I encounter more frequently is how will they benefit from Nexves and what can it do for them? My initial reaction is to ask them three simple questions in return: What value do you currently receive from your Bank? How does it help you save money? What does it do for you aside from store your money? Fundamentally, Nexves provides you with a bank account that will replace your current account. Potentially, it becomes an essential platform that saves you money while letting you invest and earn more simultaneously. To understand it’s potentially you are required to view it as the hub at a centre of a wheel of services. From this will come spokes which identify as separate businesses all tied back to your account, which enable them to bring you incredible value, security and opportunity. The First Spoke — Own revolutionary Companies Interest rates are worse than terrible. On you forego interest in return for Cryptotokens, accrued in relation to the percentage of total funds you have on the platform for a calendar month, which entitle you to ownership of startup companies the Nexves venture fund invests in. Nexves How this breaks down in practise is simple: if 10 people have £1,000 in their account they each get 10% of the tokens at the end of the month. If someone came in the next month and put £10,000 in he’d get 50% of the tokens, the other 10 would get 5% each. If we invest in a company worth over a Billion / the first 10,000 users on the platform would receive between £/$8–10,000 each, on average. £ $ The Second Spoke — Earn Significant Capital Bank’s offer you no opportunity to increase your wealth, outwith derisory interest payments. The first spoke of Nexves decentralises the beneficiaries of success from the bank itself to the people like you who form it. The profits created won’t go to fund outsized bonuses to oversized bankers, they go into your pocket. The second spoke let’s you earn money while increasing the likelihood that the investments the venture fund makes succeed. On the platform there will be a marketplace where you can complete a task and receive additional tokens, increasing your entitlement to future profits from the fund. This could be something as simple as sharing a message on your social media profile or requesting that your supermarket begins stocking a certain product. The power of this is only realised through the power of a large network. One person completing these tasks might not make much of a dent, but imaging the influence of 10,000 people sharing this at the same time, or even 1 million. Collectively everyone benefits by acting together in mutual self-interest. You influence the growth of your investment and you are paid for it’s success. Simultaneously, you will be rewarded for discovering potential investments or acquisitions. Make a recommendation that leads to investment and you will be rewarded with a large number of tokens. Had you referred Facebook to Nexves under this model, you would now be a Millionaire. Only problem is that if you had discovered facebook at this stage there is nothing you could have done. Nexves changes that. What it enables is universal access to asset classes which the 99% cannot get access to. This prevents you from benefiting from the most succesful investment opportunities of the last 30 year. Nexves is a democratisation of access, and due to the model we are going to employ it encourages these companies to take our investment over traditional venture capital funds. What you become part of is a network-as-a-service which lets companies grow at a far lower cost while increasing your own profits. The Third Spoke — Save lots of Money The third spoke is a collective bargaining platform which uses the data you provide to save every user a large amount of money. Take a minute to visualise all the information banks have on your spending and every other users on their platform, what do they do with this to help you save money? Absolutely nothing. At Nexves we will analyse the recurring monthly spending of every user and benchmark it against the platform. Where you aren’t the lowest paying user for the same service we will tell you how much more you are paying, and provide you with the contact information required to lower your costs. For individuals we have already analyses, they save £600 a year on average. The next step will be to do this all automatically and negotiate these costs down on your behalf without you having to do anything. You save as a by product of having an account — all for free. From there we will expand to conduct the renewals of your car and home insurances, gas and electric supplier, broadband and mobile phone providers. We realise how time consuming and frustrating entering the same information year after year can be — so we will do it for you and make sure that you always pay the lowest price possible for every service you need. The Remaining Spokes — How we will Evolve Spokes to this system will be introduced gradually — we have a large roadmap of features we intend on implementing in the next 18 months. What Nexves will become is the foundation layer of infrastructure required for the development of web 3.0. We let you participate in this new world. If you have ideas for services that can be appended we would be delighted to hear your thoughts: email them to chris@nexves.com Find our what hundred of others are saying about the platform Join our Whatsapp Group Join our Slack Channel If you are interested in the platform I would greatly appreciate your applause on this story to help it reach as many people as possible! Feel free to share the links above

How David will Destroy Goliath — Why A Scrappy Startup will Defeat your Bank

As the price for Bitcoin and ETH has skyrocketed interest in how they are created has soared. Cryptocurrency remains a mystery to the vast majority of the public and the terms employed to describe the creation of it makes this worse. For a coin/token to come in to existence and be recorded on the Blockchain it must be ‘mined’. This involves your computer completing a ‘proof of work’ calculation to win the right to record the next ‘Block’ on the Blockchain. This happens every 10 minutes approximately. It’s as simple as that For winning this right you are rewarded with a specific number of coins. This started out at 50 coins and is reduced by half approximately every 4 years. The current reward is 12.5 bitcoins. 12.5 bitcoin currently equals $85,000 There are two ways to own Bitcoin or ETH, you either pay an incredibly high price for one or you mine them at a, potentially, far lower cost. Mining them could get you a share of $12m each day The Growing Problem with Mining Crypto Using Current Methods Cryptomining started out with a few thousand distributed idealists trying to create a revolution. As the price grew, operations were moved to cheaper areas of the world and mining power became a centralised and focused commodity. Energy consumption required to mine each block has increased significantly as has the impact on the environment. Mining now occurs in areas of the world where social and environmental standards are low and electricity is produced using predominantly fossil fuels. This is terrible for the environment. Even worse, the concentration of mining power is in the hands of a few large corporations which distorts the democratic decision-making process in these networks: changes in protocols and hard forks are in danger of being influenced by the economic interests of a few. This detrimentally effects the evolution of these coins and in many ways is the antithesis of what they were intended for. Personally, I care deeply about the morality and ethics of companies I adopt because they reflect who I am. The day’s of Capitalist multi-nationals exploiting tax loopholes while outsourcing labour internationally, driving down wages locally and exploiting derisory living conditions and abominable standards of living abroad are coming to an end. Millennials, and increasingly every other generation as well, care about what the companies they support stand for. Ready to Start Mining — What are my Options? There are a million different options out there — how do you find a reputable company who you can trust to deliver what they promise? How can you find a company that is capable of the technological feats they boast when their are no reviews of the products they are offering? Cryptomining is such a recent innovation that there is no mechanism to ensure trust. Do you want to participate in a subscription based model or do you want to invest in something upfront which pays you back over time providing you an opportunity to participate at a fixed cost? These are all questions you must answer before deciding the route that’s right for you. Mining for a more Sustainable Tomorrow The company I am trusting is Envion They are in the process of launching their ICO and the earliest adopters will be able to take part at the lowest price possible I was looking for a company where I could invest at a flat fee— without the need for a continued commitment to fund operations. I know upfront what my cost is, invest how much I can afford and profit over a significant period of time. I am able to cap my risk while allowing my potential reward to be far higher than is currently possible. To participate in mining you need to buy the technology that allows you to undertake the complex calculation to solve the ‘proof of work’ problem and join a mining collective to have any realistic chance of getting a share of the reward. model flips this on it’s head Envions For my investment I will own part of a world class infrastructure — pay none of the maintenance or running costs — and get a share of any profits accrued. Additionally, the more efficient they become at operating — the more the environment benefits. The energy they use comes from the excess capacity of renewable energy generators . This significantly decreases the cost of electricity required to run their Mobile mining units (MMU’s) which are placed directly at source. will immediately begin building a significant fleet of MMU’s which will be transported to location and form a distributed mining network which is utilised according to the available excess capacity. Mining operations will begin as soon as the first MMU has been created and shipped to location. After the ICO closes, Envion My investment benefits from exponential growth As a portion of profits are going to be continuously reinvested more Mobile Mining Units will be purchased allowing more mining to occur at the same time. This self-expanding infrastructure leads to more capacity in the system to earn for investors — meaning I get more money in my pocket for no further investment. For a $1,000 investment you have the opportunity to profit 161% a year equating to $17k at the end of the 5 years — with profits paid weekly Where Does Mining go From Here? Almost everything you purchase has a Processing unit. This is the motor required to mine Cryptocurrency. The fuel is the electricity it consumes during usage. Imagine a future where you rent out the excess capacity of your processing units which a mining co-operative uses collectively This could be during periods which it isn’t being used — for appliances, televisions, stereo systems etc. this is around 80% of the day — or a % of processing could be forfeited in return for micro-payments. Take that a step further and imagine a world where MMU’s are widely adopted and distributed locally to exploit the excess capacity of every solar cell or wind turbine. might be the company that realises that vision Envion

Cryptominers Earn $85,000 Every 10 Minutes — Here’s How you Could Start Mining Today

First you’re crazy to join them, then you’re crazy not to. I’ve had a front row seat to Blockchain adoption over the past 6 years. Looking at the jagged growth curve, a lot has happened, but the power of blockchain technology is still in it’s early stages. At we believe blockchain has huge potential to empower the edges and change everything we do on the web. We’ve been fortunate to have access to experts in the space and want to continue to build that community. We’re setting up discussions on the topics we feel aren’t getting enough hype: regulation, security, legal, governance, community building, and infrastructure. Lattice Ventures If you are interested in participating in the discussions, please sign up here to join us . Now, before making investments in Blockchain companies at , I started by looking back. (And for fun, attached the bitcoin prices at those pivotal points in time). Here’s a look at the winding path to where we are today: Lattice Ventures Public debut by way of Silk Road I first learned about Bitcoin and the Blockchain in 2011. Back then Bitcoin was strongly associated with Silk Road. People were just starting to get excited after Adrian Chen’s Gawker article: . At the time I was building , a social travel that relied on a community to crowdsource travel advice and activities. The consideration then was whether to consider buying Bitcoin, not how the underlying blockchain technology could be built into tech infrastructure like ours. Underground Website Lets You Buy Any Drug Imaginable gtrot Being in the travel mentality,I thought the idea of a global currency was a good thing, especially as people moved freely across borders for work or trips. Bitcoin price- June 2011: $9.21 Compete with incumbents? Financial tools first We spent a lot of time at talking about the things that would undo the incumbents. In 2013, Google, Facebook, and Apple were the clear winners leveraging network effects to become so defensible it was hard to see where new innovation could compete. Blockchain technology presented an opportunity to empower the edges and create a decentralized organization that could do things the incumbents would never be able to, which would create competition and spur more innovation. USV We spent a lot of time hypothesizing about the first use cases on the blockchain but came to realize more infrastructure was needed to support more innovation. It wasn’t until a trip to SF where we spent two days with every blockchain related company we could find, that we finally made our first investment in the space: . It was started by two ex-Wall Streeters, and frankly seemed like the only backable team at the time. We saw other crypto wallet companies but many did not take the security and infrastructure risks seriously. The space was risky enough, the team needed to start with compliance to survive. Beyond that, I joke that in bitcoin at the time, the line between enterprising and anarchist entrepreneurs was hard to distinguish. Coinbase Bitcoin price- May 2013: $114.33 Protocols and applications on the blockchain The future is going to be decentralized, it was just hard to find that future in the current companies we saw at . It wasn’t until 2014 that we started seeing more protocols and applications being built on the decentralized technology. First we invested in Blockstack, and over the next two years we invested in OB1 (Open Bazaar), Media Chain, and IPFS: Protocol Labs. (Today USV has added Polychain and Numerai to their blockchain investments). USV Most investors weren’t investing in blockchain companies at the time so in lieu of doing our standard Series A checks, we funded a cluster of seed investments because no one else was looking at the space. We had a head start talking to all of the entrepreneurs in the space and were smack in the middle of legislation and regulation discussions. Outside of talking to entrepreneurs our team was talking to regulators, financial companies, lawyers, cryptography experts, and futurists about the space. Those fundamentals were key components of Blockchain infrastructure then, and are even more so today. Bitcoin price- June 2014: $598 — June 2016: $640 Inspiring blockchain adoption to a wider audience At the USV CEO Summit in 2015 we had our Blockchain company CEOs provide a crash course on the technology. Blockchain technology will eventually impact every company in the portfolio. There were 50 CEOs in the room and the reaction was mixed. Some dove in, others saw it as a technology but not a near term priority. Two companies did take it seriously: Dwolla and Kik. In the years that followed, Dwolla is a payments platform and they added Bitcoin to their accepted payments and Kik made headlines earlier this year with their . Building an early community within our portfolio helped everyone move forward faster. Even companies that had complimentary services worked to help derisk the blockchain companies, like using CloudFlare for DDOS attacks and SiftScience to reduce fraud — issues still prevalent today. Kin token ICO Bitcoin price — May 2015: $234.31 Investing early in infrastructure In 2016, I left USV to start . Our focus is on funding companies at the earliest stages. Throughout my career I’ve seen the power of network effects to create defensibility and so I’ve continued to seek and support those companies. My business partner Vanessa and I have a belief in empowering the edges with technology. If you see a meaningful problem you want to solve, the lack of an existing investor network should not limit you. Lattice Ventures Decentralized systems are the best representations of empowering the edges. We’re excited to see more innovation in how problem solving solutions can come to market, everything from ICOs to the ability to contribute to a network with no centralized approval. We’ve started to make investments in this space and are looking to do more. This summer has created a lock of hype around blockchain, but that type of attention is inspiring great ideas (along with the frivolous). We’re bullish on the technology and will continue to work with entrepreneurs who are thoughtful about the risks and opportunities. Bitcoin Price — August 2017: $4,723 Creating community to move things forward I’m most excited about the infrastructure that will help support more decentralized organizations over time. The companies with the best chance of success will have a fundamental understanding of security, legal, financial instruments, regulation, community building, and technology. We’re excited to support the ecosystem and continue to empower the edges with new tools as they come available. Join the Discussion If you are interested in discussing the regulatory, financial, legal, and technology fundamentals around blockchain — . please sign up here for Blockchain Conversations with updates on events Want to talk blockchain or get feedback on your idea? Find us at Lattice Ventures or say hello @br_ttany. What was the price when you first learned about bitcoin? here’s a great tool: https://99bitcoins.com/price-chart-history/ Image: Coinbase.com/charts

Blockchain: The right side of crazy

ATLAS congratulates Torchlight Energy on a successful Annual Shareholder Meeting I recently had the pleasure of attending Torchlight Energy’s . With Torchlight Energy being a large portfolio holding and with Torchlight being a multi-year investment for ATLAS — a considerable time, opportunity, capital, and — the was an important checkpoint. Very rarely are executive management, the Board of Directors, and key investors in such an intimate and real-time response environment. Torchlight’s offered a unique opportunity to update our investment thesis; as well as to consider optimization strategies, potential value-add scenarios, and exit timelines. Annual Shareholder Meeting reputation commitment Annual Shareholder Meeting Annual Shareholder Meeting We’re happy to report that we were more than satisfied with the and that we continue to believe in the disruptive potential of Torchlight Energy’s technology-first approach. Never before have we been more confident that Torchlight has the as well as the underlying to be able to execute its investment thesis. While Torchlight very much so still has venture level execution risk, we believe that it has the operating strategy to execute — even given the historic degree of difficulty it faces in attacking its assets. While every potentially industry disrupting endeavor has unique risks and unique uncertainties, post- we’re confident that Torchlight’s wildcatting attempts in both its Hazel Project and its Orogrande Project will yield productive results. Annual Shareholder Meeting; technology geology Orogrande Project Annual Shareholder Meeting With Torchlight being just months away from a drilling and completion program launch — Torchlight has already launched in the Hazel Project, it’s paramount that Torchlight be sure of its operational program. In hosting numerous multi-hour meetings with both the executive management team and the Board of Directors, I’m confident that the execution strategy is optimized. multi-play Torchlight management, impressively so, presented a point-to-point, logical, and decisive technical-strategy for attacking both the as well as the [the first horizontal Well attempts in the Orogrande Project and Hazel Project, respectively]. In meeting with Torchlight’s operations and technical team, I was impressed with the degree of granularity that each technical risk had been assessed and that each technical risk had been resolved . Torchlight, in staying to its core competency, has found ways to deploy modern Frac Tech to tailor a scheme-based solution for each anticipated complexity. University Founders A25 #1 Well Flying B Ranch #3H Well through technology-first, engineered solutions It’s in these engineered solutions that I derive my conviction in [1] the operational approach being deployed and [2] the probability of ultimate success. Seemingly, Torchlight has the architecture, design, landing capacity, and technology to be able to execute. Torchlight’s ultimate success or failure will be entirely dependent on its ability to maximize the utility of current Frac Tech; effectively, the Torchlight investment thesis and company “DNA”. “ aving done very detailed mapping and avoiding areas with intense faulting, volcanism, high clay contents, and which were overly mature [thermally], Torchlight Energy zoomed in on a 168,000 net acres within the oil window in Texas” — Wunderlich Securities [New Permutations to the Permian Theme: The Alpine High and Orogrande Basin] H But Torchlight isn’t simply an operational story, it’s also very much so a story. Torchlight’s geology — its underlying acreage, collected through a unique combination of relationships as well as a willingness to attack difficult complexities, is absolutely sound; a belief that was reinforced in multiple presentations at the Torchlight has collected libraries of data — data which it has been able to refine, cleanse, model, and analyze in ways that have never been applied to either the Hazel Project or the Orogrande Project. Post- I’m convinced that Torchlight has an unprecedented geological insight into its two resource plays; one that it believes has helped it identify productive acreage within undeveloped Projects. Quite possibly Torchlight’s most valuable asset might be its geological expertise — the collective geological intellectual capacity of its combined management team, Board of Directors, and consulting geologist. geology Annual Shareholder Meeting. Annual Shareholder Meeting Torchlight’s unique ability to read and assess complex geology — including subsets of geology within larger Projects or plays— has allowed it to aggregate a uniquely large acreage position for an E&P its size. We challenged Torchlight on [i] , [ii] , [iii] , [iv] , [v] , [vi] , [vii] , [viii] , [ix] , and [x] . In every instance we were met with more than adequate rebuttal. Geology, in our opinion, was the single largest risk to the investment thesis at Torchlight — given that geology can’t be altered, iterated, or changed [as nearly all other parts of the operational process can]. Having performed multiple interviews and sat through multiple presentations, we believe Torchlight’s geology to be greatly derisked to our prior evaluations; and it should be noted that we were more than satisfied to be invested at “prior evaluations”. thickness of reservoir porosity permeability brittleness clay content TOC thermal maturity matrix permeability pore throat sizing overall complexity translating to operational risk orchlight Energy is looking to challenge the unique geological complexities of the Orogrande Basin — one of its two major Projects; to challenge the extraordinary Well-design difficulty presented by the Orogrande Basin, and to challenge the nearly limitless down hole variables it is sure to encounter upon launching its drilling and exploration program T Having completed initial data-collection and analysis efforts, Torchlight Energy is proceeding with first horizontal-Well deployment; including the first horizontal effort in the history of the Orogrande Basin. With these horizontal efforts, Torchlight moves beyond vertical Well-testing and vertical Well data collection and into thesis prove-out. With these horizontal efforts, Torchlight will be able to deploy the full war chest of its technology, its geological, geophysical, and Well-design learnings, as well as its [vertical-Well tested] operating learnings. Torchlight Energy is ready to prove concept. We’ve never been more confident in Torchlight or in the strategy for attacking both the Hazel Project and the Orogrande Project; and we’re extremely excited that Torchlight has moved forward with horizontal Well deployment. Through each stage of maturation and through each stage of optimization we’ve been proud to work with Torchlight Energy management and we’ve been proud to support the E&P’s development efforts. We continue to believe in the team at Torchlight Energy and we continue to believe in the disruptive potential of its technology-first approach to revolutionizing the Energy Complex. DISCLOSURE: [1] Torchlight Energy Resources, Inc. was not involved in any aspect of the above note preparation or in any aspect of the preparation of any data or information presented [2] I have not received compensation from Torchlight Energy Resources, Inc. or any other party for the writing of this note; and/or any other note written prior [regarding Torchlight Energy Resources, Inc.] [3] I may or may not have received compensation for providing research and/or consulting regarding Torchlight Energy Resources, Inc. from third-parties at some point prior to writing this note and/or I may receive compensation for providing research and/or consulting regarding Torchlight Energy Resources, Inc. at a later date. This includes providing subscription-based research and/or consulting services to both institutional and retail-based capital market participants. [4] Dallas Salazar: I own, or my family or company owns, or I have influence over some amount of the outstanding shares of the following companies mentioned in this note: Torchlight Energy Resources, Inc. [5] The article does not constitute investment advice. Each reader is encouraged to consult with his or her individual financial professional and any action a reader takes as a result of information presented here is his or her own responsibility. [6] Torchlight Energy Resources, Inc. holds the license to certain images included in the note above; to which the company has allowed me a one-time publishing right. I did not pay for this right nor will I be providing a fee of any sort for this right into the future.

Torchlight Energy: A Billion Barrel Vision Nears Proof of Concept

Be more productive & Write expressive code & Build better architecture Welcome to Part 2, this part is composed by a lot of gist (Java vs Kotlin sample codes) as a show case. Many useful comments/arguments are written in the gist. In order to have better reading experience, I would recommend you to use a large screen to continue to read this article. Compile-time Null Safe “Compile-time Null-Safe” in Kotlin is a serious and fundamental improvement compared with Java. It solves the infamous null problem in Java and gives a very productive way to write high quality and NPE-less code. In Java, every object you created will be assigned it to null by default. It is also known as “ ”. Numerous “workarounds” has been brought out in Java, third-parties library or even in IDE, for example: The Billon dollar mistake @NotNull Objects.requireNonNull(..) Optional.ofNullable(..) Closely look at the follow Java example, it shows four different ways to write the same functionality. The first function is written w/o annotation. The function is not self-documented and you must do some workaround to improve it. doRiskyThing @NotNull , developers won’t get any information about the input parameter. Questions may come up for Java developers : If we focus on the function declaration public String doRiskyThing(String riskyString) without looking at the implementation details Can I pass a ? null if I pass a , what will be the return? ? empty string? other default string? null null Consider if developers are required use to build something, they had to spend extra effort to run a test or look at the source code to build up their confidence. doRiskyThing The other two examples are the popular “Work Arounds”, ONLY is safe in run-time. doOptionalThing(String strOpt) . For example, . This syntax will be checked in compile time and also in IDE inspection. In Kotlin, nullable object must be represented by appending **?** Int? String? Long? DateTime? BigDecimal? No workaround is needed, and the follow functions are self-documented. by-design As you can see the fundamental difference in this tiny example, why don’t Java fix “the billion dollar mistake”? Java has to maintain the Backward Compatibility So, you may ask what is the point that related to Kotlin? In 2016 Aug, we are going use existing Java libraries to write a Android application or backend application. Considering the fact that both of Java & Kotlin can 100% using the existing Java libraries. If we pick Java instead of Kotlin, we have to sacrifice the beauty of compile-time Null-safe and do a lot of extra “work-arounds” in order to cope with the trade off (Backward compatibility) that we don’t even need ? NEW NEW Kotlin sounds interesting? Null-Safe is only one of the major killing features. There are at least 5+ killing features I am going to introduce. Cautions/Disclaimer: If you keep reading the following Kotlin’s killing features, you will never want to go back to Java. Trust me, think twice before you do! Zero Overhead Nullable Type, Nullable Chaining and Default Value Java 8 has introduced a new Class into package. As is just a value type (container) to wrap a value. Optional<T> java.util Optional<T> However, the lack of pattern matching in Java (A very power features in Scala), unwrapping and comparing the wrapped value are damn pain in Java. hence, avoid NPE. Check to see the following example [Optional<T>](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/31922866/why-should-java-8s-optional-not-be-used-in-arguments) is proposed to be used for return type to raise the awareness of “no result”, ONLY Let’s see a simple example of Scala pattern matching (FYI): Let’s see how powerful is Kotlin’s Nullable Type: From my experience, refactoring in Java/Scala from a Type to java.util.Optional/scala.Option Type is a disaster and seems like rewriting a whole part of the affected codes. But refactoring Kotlin’s Nullable Type is nearly zero-effort. Type Inference Type inference polishes the beauty of static-typed language and can boost the coding productivity to reach as fast as dynamic-typed level. Java and Kotlin are both static and strong typing language. This characteristic is very important to large scale application. Good Things Come With a Price In Java, compared with dynamic and weak typing language like PHP or Javascript, you have to spend extra effort to specify the type definition for variables. Sometimes, the type definitions are meaningless and verbose because It is too obvious to Human The compiler should clever enough to know the type Type definitions increase the cost of refactoring. For example, when we create a map with seed values with type key: value: String Integer In Kotlin, let the compiler do it for you We can skip type definition and let the compiler make type inference for us. The syntax is very similar to dynamic typed language but any type-mismatched operations would be considered as compilation error. Kotlin with type inference can help us to write less-verbose code without sacrifice anything. Default Argument & Named Argument In a real world, there exist some situations we damn need default value instead of null. Java developers can either do a very ugly work around if-null-then-default value or do a verbose method overloading. For example, Either the “ugly work around” and the “verbose method overloading” are also not self-documented, hard to refactor/change in Java. Kotlin support , it helps developers to create a more intuitive, meaningful and maintainable API. Named and Default Argument As the gist example has clearly demonstrate the power of This is a fundamental and serious improvement in Kotlin compared with Java. Named and Default Argument. Once you get used to the Kotlin’s powerful to design your interface**,** you won’t go back to Java. Named and Default Argument Extension is Awesome In Java, we can not directly add functionalities on a . If some logics applied on a specific and have to be used multiple time in a project, Java developers get used to create a for in order to follow the D.R.Y. principle. Class Type XXXUtils Type XXX Programming has no magic. All about Abstractions Kotlin provided a much better abstraction to model the similar problems that are solved by “Java Utils Pattern” — Extension Traditional Java Utils usage How is Kotlin provided a better abstraction for this problem? We can directly add an “Extension” for a specific with a very simple syntax! (Very similar to javascript) Type “Java Utils Pattern” is not IDE-friendly, new comer won’t notice some functionalities are already implemented in the XXXUtils while Kotlin’s Extension is completely solved this problem. Here are some screenshots to demonstrate the IDE auto-complete with the Kotlin extension. With Kotlin extension, you would never have to ask Is that XXXUtils.someFunc() is implemented already? and never have to search in the .utils folder. 100% of time you will find it in the auto-completed list. Handy Data Class In a strongly-typed language, we will create numerous “Value Object” to hold data by a explicit type to classify their domain. For example, API Response, API Request, Data Model, Proxy Object, etc. It is a very common practice and should be as simple as possible. After I have met with Scala and recently with Kotlin. The only Java impression on creating a “Value Object”: Java is too verbose and too costly to be used for Functional Programming (Immutable approach) Start reading the following Kotlin to get some insight and don’t forget to read the comment :) . data class In Java, developers have to use comparatively poor way (mutable or builder pattern) to create an complex Object. For example, How we use it in Java ? Kotlin provides a very handy that data class leverage the power of on constructor Name and Default Argument provide handy for writing pure immutable object .copy is developer-friendly for debugging It helps to reduce the verbosity of getter, setter and multiple constructor. What’s more, is by-default ready to be used in some popular JSON Serialization library such as GSON, Jackson. data class If you are familiar with Java, without , you know that it is not feasible to create a “Value Object” that can achieve the same level of convenience as Kotlin's does. Name and Default Argument data class “Kotlinize” Java Library In a large scale application, consistency is the most important role to keep source codes more predictable and maintainable. By default, Kotlin won’t encourage to create getter/setter function for a variable. Each variable has a get()/set(value) to implement: Therefore, in pure Kotlin code we never write or . But, nearly 100% of Java library would use getter/setter. getXXX() setXXX(value) How does Kotlin solve this discrepancy? Let see the “TextView” in Java Android library. Standard Android TextView(Java) in Kotlin Kotlin will Kotlinize the Java “default” getter/setter into Kotlin style, you would never feel uncomfortable to use Java libraries. If you are experience in using Java libraries in Scala, you must damn want this features, at least I do lol. Better Functional Programming Support Writing functional style code in Java is comparatively much more expensive than in Kotlin. Because Kotlin provided the following features: Type Inference Inexpensive Data Class (Immutable features) .copy Intuitive Type declaration for Functions/Lamdas, i.e. , instead of (Int)-> Int (Int,Int) -> Bool java.util.functions.BiFunction<T,U,R>... Support Destructing Every thing is an expression (easier to write declarative code) Major goodies (aforementioned) Compile-time Null Safe Zero Overhead Nullable Type, Nullable Chaining and Default Value Type Inference Default Argument & Named Argument Extension is Awesome Handy Data Class “Kotlinize” Java Library Better Functional Programming Support Minor goodies Intuitive String Template Lots of handy function are implemented in Kotlin std-lib i.e. … array.find Multiple class or object in single file Support legacy JVM. Kotlin Runs on Java 6 and its interface can have default implementation just like in Java 8. Best IDE Support Next — Part 3 : Picking Kotlin for Android — Swift in Android?

Part 2 : Picking Kotlin for Android — Killing Features

A seven step playbook to maximize your chance at fundraising success. Fundraising is hard. Any founder who’s been through it before understands this inherently. And it’s probably a good thing that it’s so hard. Fundraising serves to toughen up entrepreneurs and subject them to the cold hard realities of the ‘market’, and at the same time, if done properly, fundraising can also be an incredible learning experience that helps founders and their companies focus on the most important things - by simply going through the process, and also by anticipating the process in advance and reverse-engineering what the company needs to achieve to be successful with an upcoming raise. Ultimately, fundraising success requires: fundraising execution + a compelling story/vision + evidence of traction + sheer determination + good fortune (luck) This article focuses on the first of these five variables: fundraising execution. Below I lay out a 7 step framework to guide you through your fundraising process, and share some lessons learned having now successfully raised money for three separate ventures (and made plenty of mistakes along the way). If you’re looking for help crafting a compelling story, generating business traction, mustering up sheer determination, or being plain ol’ lucky, you’ll need to look elsewhere for advice (perhaps in a future Medium post). My current venture, , is solving the pain of wedding planning by building the first transactional marketplace for the $53 billion wedding industry; we help engaged couples discover and book wedding vendors for their big day. In October 2016, we closed on a $7 million Series A Round led by , and Jason Mendelson joined our board. Of my ranked list of 86 target VCs, Jason and Foundry Group were #1, due to their founder-friendly, emotionally mature bearing, their track record and strong reputation in the industry, and their expertise with growing successful marketplaces. I had also read several of their books, the main one being , co-written by Jason and Brad Feld (if you haven’t read it already, go out and buy it right now) — their honest, transparent approach to investing really spoke to me. We’re beyond thrilled to be working with Jason and the Foundry crew. They are simply awesome. Here’s the complete playbook we used to make it happen. Borrowed & Blue Foundry Group Venture Deals — Be Smarter than your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist Step 1 — Create Your Target Investor List I started our Series A fundraising process by sequestering myself for two weeks in Boulder so I could focus exclusively on the task at hand. This proved to be incredibly valuable, and I would encourage everyone to do it. This follows an important tenet of fundraising — either be fundraising or don’t be fundraising. It’s pretty much an all or nothing proposition. The first thing I did was to think about and then spell out what we were looking for in an investor. Then I compiled a ranked list of VCs that met those criteria. Being the Type A person that I am, I decided to create a Keynote deck to document the entire process. I believe there’s a direct correlation between an investor’s ability to add value to your business, and their likelihood of investing. So as the entrepreneur, all you need to do is figure out who can be most helpful to your venture. First step: clarify your requirements. In this first step, I defined the consideration set of potential investors based on their typical investment stage, domain expertise, relevant portfolio, physical location, and amount of dry powder (how many uninvested dollars they still have in their most recent fund). Then I ran a search on Pitchbook based on my criteria and ended up with 83 potential investors. If you don’t have a subscription to Pitchbook, ask your law firm if they can run a report for you — they can usually do one-offs. Seed investors are not going to invest in your Series A rounds. Similarly, it will be an uphill battle getting a Silicon Valley investor to pull the trigger on your Miami-based startup. Why? From a practical perspective, your VC is going to take at least one board seat, so they will need to travel to you four times a year. Most investors prefer to invest closer to home so they don’t have to travel as much (although this is changing somewhat and investors are showing themselves increasingly willing to travel). Also, a healthcare VC is not going to invest in your B2B SaaS startup. So basically, do your homework. Fundraising is hard enough without wasting your time on folks that have 0% probability of taking your meeting. The geography of your target investor list will drive your future travel schedule. Once you’ve identified the list of firms that fit into your required parameters, it’s time to go a level deeper, and really understand which partners at each firm focus on your area. Ultimately, you’re not looking for a firm, you’re looking for a partner — the specific person within the firm that is going to be your evangelist, your board member, and offer you the best guidance on your journey. This is a step inexperienced entrepreneurs often skip, and it can kill their fundraising process. Most of this information is all right there on the VC’s web site — which partners focus on which specialties, and which portfolio investments they are responsible for within the firm. What you’re looking for at this stage is the partner at each firm — that is the individual you want to reach. most relevant Create a slide for each firm, focusing on the most relevant partner for your business. Believe it or not, I filled out a slide like the one above for all 83 investors on our target list. Yes, it took a lot of work; but that work provided me with a strong understanding of the investor landscape, and the confidence to tackle the mission at hand. Investors generally have all the power in the fundraising process - “he who has the gold makes the rules.” The only way to upend this lopsided dynamic is to create a competitive process, and the only way to do that is by doing your homework. Plus, it’s fun to rank VCs based on how excited you would be to work with them. Step 2 — Hone Your Pitch Putting together a great pitch deck and knowing how to deliver it is critical to getting the most out of your investor meetings. This is something every entrepreneur struggles with — how do you tell your entire story in ten slides? What happens when you’re pitching and the VC starts asking you questions 30 seconds in…and you have answers to those questions later on in your deck? What’s the most important thing to convey in your limited time with a potential investor? Are there any ‘tells’ that let you know what a VC is thinking about your deal? How hard should you work the close? I don’t think there are any right answers to the above questions. You need to be true to yourself, and be authentic with your pitch. The best advice I’ve heard on pitching is this — the greatest predictor of pitching success is to believe in your product and your business. Yup. Actually believe that you’re going to put a dent in the universe — I know I do. Everything else is just details. Well, mostly. There are a few more points worth discussing regarding your pitch: genuinely — To get a VC to invest in your business, you need to demonstrate the potential of creating a billion dollar business. That’s just the way the economics of VC investing work. So be sure to tell that growth story. Market — Unless you’re Elon Musk, you generally need to have a story around the traction you’re generating, or at a minimum, the significant derisking you’ve already done on your business. Traction — Investors want to know you have a plan for what to do once you close the round, and that you’re focused on the most important things. A great way to kill a deal is not knowing what those things are. Focus What’s your traction story? What’s the most compelling way to tell your traction story? That’s it. We could talk about Product/Market Fit, we could talk about Team, we could talk about your Unfair Competitive Advantage, etc. But if you don’t have a business with a ton of upside, you don’t have a traction story, and you’re not focused, it’s going to be a seriously uphill grind no matter what. There are lots of opinions on what a great pitch deck looks like. Here is one of my favorite decks for example: the . But I think the best way to get to a great fundraising deck is to seek out those people that you trust, get their feedback, and iterate on your slides. At the end of the day, it has to feel authentic to you. One of the people that gave me feedback on our deck was Jason himself in our first meeting. So you can bet I took that feedback to heart and improved upon it for our second meeting. He told me later that my ability to receive and process that feedback was a big reason he decided to take the plunge with us, and I’m so grateful he did. eShares Series A deck Step 3— Get Warm Introductions OK, so now you have a list of all your investor targets ranked based on how excited you would be to work with them (and thus how well you think they can help your business), and you have a killer deck that tells your story in a concise, compelling manner. Next it’s time to get connected to the right partners at each firm. A few points worth making on the strategy of introductions: —While every VC firm is different, generally partners make all the investment decisions. So if you’re meeting with an associate or even a principle at most firms, it’s going to be a lot harder to advance to the next stage directly. If at all possible, I try to get meetings with partners. I’m simply trying to go straight to the decision-maker. Sometimes that’s not possible, so certainly take the principle/associate meeting if that is the only thing on offer. And there is a caveat here — some firms have amazing associates or principles that garner a ton of respect within the firm, but it’s really hard to know who these folks might be in advance. Bottom line: I would think twice before flying across the country for a meeting with an associate. Make it a phone call instead. Partner meetings are the goal — Generally speaking, you’re going to get better at pitching the more you do it. So one of the benefits of ranking your VC target list is to know which folks are on the bottom half of the list. Start with them. Get some warmup pitches in, and pay close attention to body language and their questions. Bake answers to the most common questions into the next iteration of your pitch (yes, you’re still going to be honing your deck as you start having meetings). Don’t go after your top targets first — Every single VC I reached out to was through a warm introduction from a mutual connection. I didn’t send a single cold email. Don’t waste your time — it’s not going to get you in the door. VCs get copious amounts of email. They simply trash ‘spam’ emails from folks they don’t know. Never cold email a VC, it simply doesn’t work — Once you’ve been introduced by someone, follow up with a great intro email. Short and sweet. Explain why you’re reaching out that investor. Reference the work you did in Step 1 — list why you think they are a great fit. Provide a highly condensed pitch in the body of the email. Bullet points are good. Potentially provide a Dropbox link to your deck (not an attachment). Potentially don’t do this too (I generally like holding off on sharing a deck until the VC expresses interest or asks for it. If I get a meeting, I’ll send the deck 24 hours in advance to the VC and their EA). Craft a great intro email specific — The jackpot intro is a sucessful entrepreneur that the VC has already invested in (and ideally made a bunch of money with). But good intros can also come from other investors, respected academics, business executives, trusted friends, etc. You really need to get strategic and understand that we’re playing chess here, not checkers. Dig in. Linkedin is your best friend at this stage of the process. The best intros are from fellow successful entrepreneurs Another somewhat obvious win here is that as you’re going through the fundraising process, actively use LinkedIn to build your network — connect with everyone you speak with, as you may want to circle back with them later and/or leverage their network (for the next round or otherwise). Build relationships — you’re an entrepreneur; these are your people. Step 4— Have (Great) Meetings Once you’re in the room, have a great meeting! Here are some tips regarding the meetings themselves: — Get to each meeting 10 minutes early so you can wrestle with the various audio/video setup in the conference room. Sometimes it works perfectly, and sometimes it don’t! Make sure you travel with whatever special dongles you need for your sweet MacBook’s USB-C port. Be respectful of the VC’s time; keep small talk to 1–2 minutes, and then dive right in. Know how much time you have in advance. Typically, you’re allotted 25 minutes. If the meeting goes longer, you’re probably doing well. If you’re above 90 minutes, you’re doing well. For your most important meetings with high value investors, make sure you leave yourself plenty of time for the meeting to go long. The last thing you want to do is have to sprint out the door to your next meeting when you’re having a great meeting with a high value investor. Meeting Management really — It can be difficult managing your travel schedule and trying to line up meetings in different cities efficiently. What I did was block off my schedule a few weeks in advance, planning on being in SF for these three days, and in Boston on this day, and NY on this day, etc. Once I had blocked my time, it was easier to say, “I’m going to be in SF next Thursday and would really like to meet with you.” I also did some great work on airplanes — get the wifi and zone in on your fundraising process. Get a decent seat so you can get shit done. Time Blocking — I leveraged virtual assistant service during my fundraising process to help me book all my travel, and it was a godsend. Assuming you don’t already have an EA, there are other good services out there as well; the bottom line is, take the load off of yourself regarding travel booking — your time is much better spent being laser-focused on pitching, emailing, etc. Get a Virtual Assistant Magic’s Step 5— Keep Stakeholders Informed During my fundraising process, I sent out an email each week to our key stakeholders, which included both my existing investors, and the folks that were instrumental in helping me through the process because of their experience, their networks, and their emotional support (BTW thank you Nick, Tobias, Keith, John, Diane, Noah, Brendan, Sam, Mark, Joel, Trip, Josh, Andrew, Stew, Matthew, and Christin). These weekly email updates kept me focused, and enabled me to communicate exactly where we were in the process so that these stakeholders could help. I sent out an email each Friday that included: Highlights from the week Meetings held that week Meetings scheduled for the following week Pending meetings (VC has agreed to meet, but not locked in yet) Firms we’re moving forward with (due diligence, etc.) Firms we’re waiting on for next steps or a pass Total stats to date (total meetings held, total firms met, firms having two or more meetings) Link to my spreadsheet detailing all meeting notes I am so happy I did this — because first of all, I have a written record of the entire process start to finish, and secondly, fundraising can be one of the loneliest journeys an entrepreneur can take — so it’s nice to be able to share the ups and downs of the process and stay connected to your team of supporters — for me, they were people I cared deeply about. Oh, and if you’re curious: 42 Meetings, 25 Firms, 10 Weeks from start to term sheet. Step 6— Manage The Process So, a word about process management. I designed a Google Spreadsheet to manage the process, but you can use whatever works for you — a CRM, a Word doc, whatever. The bottom line is that you need to stay incredibly organized throughout this process — you’re going to need to be staying on top of a ton of relationships and you don’t want anything to slip through the cracks. Being proactive here is key. I created a Google Spreadsheet but use whatever works best for you to stay organized. I personally created a flow that I felt encapsulated a successful process with one firm from start to finish, and tracked where I was in that process with each firm. Keep track of each relationship once you volley over your introductory email after your ‘connector’ has introduced you — and take copious notes throughout. It can be challenging managing all these various flows simultaneously, so another strategy that I employed was only initiating 5 introductions per week — that enabled me to have a managable number of touch points each week. Remember — fundraising is ALL you’re going to be doing while you’re doing it — don’t try to juggle operational responsibilities simultaneously if at all possible. Step 7— Close the Deal Ultimately, the goal of this entire process is to get to a term sheet with the best possible investor (and then close on that term sheet, but generally speaking, if you get a term sheet, you’re going to close). I learned going through this process that you can generally tell right after the first meeting if you’re moving forward or if you’re not. Simply say at the end of the meeting, “So, what do you think?” and pay very close attention to the VC’s reaction. If they are planning on passing, the first thing that comes out of their mouth, after, “It’s interesting…” will be some sort of objection. For example, “It’s interesting… but I wonder if it may be too early / too late for us,” or “It’s interesting…but I’m wondering if this might be competitive with bla bla bla,” or whatever. If the investor is interested, then they’ll answer that question with something positive, generally not caveated at all, about moving forward or next steps or who you need to meet with next. I found over time that I could predict with almost 100% accuracy where that investor really stood by asking that simple question at the end of our meeting. The reason this is particularly important to suss out is that a lot of VCs have in their minds that it’s better to simply go radio silent than give you a ‘no’ — and you want to be spending your time with folks that could ultimately say yes. I disagree with this practice — I always prefer a thoughtful no than radio silence. I guess sometimes entrepreneurs get all uppity when they hear a no, so some VCs have decided silence is best. Personally, I wish more VCs would simply be straight up and take 5 minutes to write an email as to where they stand, and provide any constructive feedback they have. I remember which VCs did that for me, and I appreciate them for doing it. Ultimately, if you do your homework, create a compelling pitch, and run the process as I’ve mentioned above, you’ll put yourself in the best possible position to succeed. Then, it’s really up to the market to tell you what it thinks of the potential of your venture — at least you’ll have done everything possible to get the answer you’re seeking. I sincerely hope you found this post helpful. Feel free to ask questions in the comments — now go out there and make it happen, and good luck!

Stories, News & Mentions about DERISKLY

Deriskly’s Stories on HackerNoon