Albert Einstein once said, “Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity…” Well, I would also add a third one, the progress of AbacasXchange. The project is constantly developing and the team did nothing else but prove this in 2018. In the next paragraphs, I will analyze the progress made in several different areas.
Legal compliance - progress / partners/ access to the SEC program
The financial industry is full of heavy regulations. A successful FinTech company should be fully compliant and Abacas is a great example of how to do this.
Abacas has managed to cross a number of legal and compliance thresholds during 2018. The USA is the biggest consumer market in the world and the place where AbacasXchange is going to be launched. Fortunately, we managed to receive AML clearance to operate compliantly in the US and abroad.
Money launderers can go to great lengths in order to cover their tracks. It is important to realize that in the process, they can use normal activities of legitimate financial institutions. In the event that a legitimate business is used for money laundering (even involuntarily), it may become non-compliant with the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA)/Anti-Money Laundering (AML) requirements. Abacas has taken safety measures to prevent this by delivering two key strategic partnerships to help with BSA/AML. AbacasXchange is going to offer a wide variety of assets and a key component is the custody of those assets by trusted 3rd parties. For example, Apple shares can be converted into tokens. While the shares will be held in custody, the tokens are going to be traded on the exchange itself. With this in mind, Abacas has delivered two custodial agreements with strategic infrastructure partners (and more are yet to come). A custodial agreement is simply an arrangement to hold an asset or property on behalf of the actual owner.
What’s more, AbacasXchange became a part of the SEC FinHub program, which was created to support Crypto, Blockchain, ICOs and FinTech innovation. The FinHub will enable Abacas to engage directly with SEC staff on innovative ideas and developments. Needless to say, this is a great opportunity for our project.
Building a universal asset exchange is no easy task, but the team is ready for this ambitious undertaking. As mentioned above, being fully compliant is a vital element to our long-term success. During 2018 Abacas received key opinion guidance from the US counsel regarding the right to operate and the AbacasXchange software was successfully vetted for reporting compliance to key US regulatory agencies.
Both Tracy Firm and Empire Global became associates of Abacas in 2018. The former has counselled our company in terms of US compliance while the latter was a counsellor for International SEC law.
Not only has the team done a great job of ensuring legal compliance but also the product itself has been professionally developed during 2018.
Building a unique exchange - Product Development progress
Even though some companies manage to get initial traction only through marketing gimmicks, long-term success is predicated on the high-quality of the product. This is why AbacasXchange focuses on customer satisfaction and the team is building the exchange with the future in mind.
Abacas got involved in a few key partnerships during 2018. As Mark VanRoon said, “ We have selected only those firms that can leverage the benefits of the AbacasXchange while offering a mutual benefit that will enhance the user experience for the clients of both firms.”
One such partner has proven to be Invox Finance. Through this partnership, the pool of assets offered on AbacasXchange is growing. Fragmented loans, provided by Invox Finance, are the next assets to join our unique ecosystem. The clients of Abacas will have access to short and medium-term capital and those of Invox Finance will benefit from the added liquidity.
The pool of assets never stops growing. Last year Abacas partnered with Korporatio and is going to offer Smart Company shares on the exchange. A Smart Company (SC) is a legal DAO recognized by the government. It enables entrepreneurs to create fully legal blockchain-based entities and benefit from traditional features such as voting and share transfers.
All assets on AbacasXchange are going to be tokenized. In this case, a key partner is the tokenization platform Fungibles. Their mission is to tokenize all assets worldwide, which makes fungible.network a perfect fit.
By this point, you are probably asking yourself “All that sounds great but what is Abacas going to look like?” Well, an enormous amount of time and effort was put into the development during 2018. The results can be seen from the attached screenshots.
Home Screen
The Home screen is designed to be user-friendly. Clients can stay up to date with the latest news of their interest. What’s more, one can choose a specific chart and see the performance of assets over time.
Quick Trade screen
The Trading section will allow you to choose between 3 options: Quick Trade, Standard and Advanced. Various charts help you get a brief overview and indicate whether it is a good idea to sell or not.
Standard Trade Screen
It only makes sense to develop such a great platform if there is an eager community behind it. Abacas has made significant progress in that aspect.
Growing the Community
A strong community is a prerequisite for a successful Blockchain startup. Abacas became a part of all major social media in 2018 and engaged in the discussion about the future of the financial world. Without mentioning all channels, our Twitter following grew by more than 7,000 followers. A Telegram channel with thousands of members was created as well.
AbacasXchange has loyal supporters and the ambassador program has only validated this statement. If you have ever wanted to join a great company like Abacas, now is your chance. An ambassador program was launched in August 2018. People who have great ideas and know how to help Abacas are more than welcome. You can sign up here: https://abacasexchange.com/ambassador-sign-up/
A great amount of content was created in 2018. This includes images, videos, interviews, quizzes and articles. You can stay up to date with the latest news by going to the AbacasXchange blog.
Brilliant minds working together (Team growth)
All these great achievements wouldn’t be possible without the Abacas team. As Steve Jobs used to say “Great things in business are never done by one person. They’re done by a team of people.”
During the course of the year, we grew from 3 members to 19 (3 core team, 7 ambassadors and 9 advisors). AbacasXchange is an ambitious project and brilliant minds are necessary to execute it. Mark VanRoon and Vince Small have always been the engine of this company. They are builders and provide facts and results rather than just hopes. Wouter Bijl joined Abacas in 2018 and is currently the Head of Public Affairs. He launched an Ambassador program and attracted the majority of the ambassadors through it.
Each individual ambassador has a specific role and is moving the project forward. If you want to learn more about them, you can go to https://abacasexchange.com/team/. Below you can see a list of their names and roles:
- Tristan Bieleveld
- Robert Schmidt
- Stoyan Vlahovski
- Chuks Gabriel
- Kai Bloetjes
- Divij Sood
- Jean Jose Garcia Molina
Successful companies are built with the help of experts. In 2018 Abacas attracted a number of advisors with an astounding background. You can read more about each of them by going to https://abacasexchange.com/team/
- Dan Raykhman
- David Wong
- Raghunathan Muralidharan (Murali)
- Jean-Baptiste Cebe
- Dr. Dylan Attwell-Duval
- Mohan Gandhi Ponnaganti
- Adam Mezhvinsky
- Diego De Notaris
- Charles Ives
Final Words
Abacas has made an enormous amount of progress during 2018 and is definitely not stopping there. We are extremely excited for 2019 and hoping to achieve even bigger milestones.
Future Roadmap
Thank you for spending the time to read this article! Any feedback (positive or negative) would be greatly appreciated.