Month: November 2018

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TokenCard

What is TokenCard?

TokenCard is a blockchain project that was designed with a vision of establishing a token economy and making it a part and parcel of normal daily activities.

To do this, TokenCard started by introduction as an alternative to hard cash.

Decentralization on the blockchain platform is, for many people, more theoretical than practical.

This comes from the fact that most of the projects that are existing at the moment are too technical for the average user, and this makes it difficult for the projects to penetrate into the normal markets, and get accepted. Even giants like Bitcoin are struggling with this.

In this regard, however, TokenCard has managed to devolve decentralization down to the average user. They are making this one of the easiest products to use, and integrate into the normal economy by creating user scenarios that most people can associate with as they go about their daily lives.

This is also one of the reasons why TokenCard has hit the ground running as a success. It is not just an authentic project, it is, more importantly, a practical project.

What is the problem that TokenCard Solves?

Bitcoin is by far one of the most successful and greatest experiments ever performed.

Since its inception, however, there have been a lot of projects that have come up, following the success of Bitcoin. Ethereum, for example, managed to widen their horizon of what people would expect of a blockchain platform.

As time goes by, a lot of individuals and companies have made attempts to introduce blockchain technology and cryptocurrency to the masses, though adoption is yet to take shape in the desired speed.

One of the challenges that cryptocurrencies face is that most of them are still cumbersome, and it is virtually impossible to integrate them in the normal life for a lot of people.

This concern poses a lot of challenges that the project owners have struggled to address. This is also one of the reasons why the mass adoption of digital assets has been a nightmare. The following are some of the concerns that are evident in the cryptographic space:

Security

Most people find it cumbersome and difficult to store digital assets. This is one of the reasons why they prefer either to stay away from cryptocurrency altogether or use a third party like an exchange to store their assets. While this works, for the most part, it goes against the very concept of cryptocurrency.

Cryptocurrency is supposed to do away with the need for third parties like exchanges. Therefore, the presence of exchanges simply introduces the prospect of catastrophe. What is needed is a system that cannot just store its own assets, but do so without compromising on the usability.

Volatility

Another challenge that exists in the world of cryptocurrency is forcing people to use volatile assets, for example, Bitcoin.

This is one currency that has been the subject of discussions all over, in the process attracting speculation and conspiracies. Instead of offering a solution, Bitcoin effectively creates concern among users, as they are never sure of what will happen.

What is needed, therefore, is an asset class that is not just diverse, but efficient.

Usability

There are so many steps that have been taken to make sure that digital assets can be put to use. In order to use your digital assets, you must have an account on a given service, need a wallet and an exchange platform. You will need these if you are to withdraw currency, deposit them or share them with anyone.

You must also undergo a rigorous KYC process, whether you are only planning to become an amateur trader. Instead of going through all these challenges, it is important to have a system that will not just do away with these challenges, but provide a plug and play alternative that is not just seamless but gives the users an experience that they can integrate into different platforms that they use.

The Ethereum platform has been home to so many projects that attempt to solve some of these, among many other problems. This is where TokenCard comes in.

Through Ethereum backing, TokenCard has the tools needed to create a distributed banking system. This is useful in that it attempts to fix the problems that are experienced in the normal banking environment, and with some of the blockchain projects that have been introduced to address the same.

In so doing, TokenCard has been able to outperform the banking alternatives in terms of transparency, efficiency, and flexibility.

The TokenCard platform, therefore, identifies and offers solutions to these concerns, while at the same time positioning itself at the center of the process, pushing for mainstream adoption of the Ethereum blockchain and relevant projects, and to book a prime position in the next phase of the history of financial services.

How does TokenCard Solve the problem?

The idea behind TokenCard is to make sure that consumers have a very good banking experience especially when it comes to cryptography and the integrity behind decentralization on the blockchain.

Even with all the technical details of the project, simplicity is one of the key tenets of the TokenCard project. Users should be able to go about their transactions with TokenCard in the same way that they normally carry out their business with their debit or credit cards.

This makes the difference not just in a transactional situation, but also when comparing TokenCard and other currencies that are currently available in the same industry.

Through the blockchain, it is possible to create valuable services which are not just accessible globally, but also able to offer the holders an unrivaled user experience.

Unlike any other project that has been designed before, TokenCard gives the users an assurance of transparency in the regulation of the actions that keep the project alive and active.

The following are the most important elements of the TokenCard project that have since helped to turn it into the success story that it is currently:

  • Token App – This is an app which offers an intuitive, unique and clean process, and allows users to gain access to different segments of the project.
  • TKN – These are the tokens that are used in the TokenCard project.
  • TokenCard – This is the card that links the user’s contract wallet and the network. As a result, it is through this card that users can access ATM withdrawals and PoS transactions within the wallet.
  • Token Contract Wallet – The wallet is where all the user’s digital assets are stored.

What makes TokenCard better than the competitors?   

One of the biggest challenges that most of the cryptocurrency projects currently face is the fact that they are unable to gain significant traction for direct entry into specific markets. This has proven to be a major barrier to entry and expansion, which further translates to a low level of adoption. However, with TokenCard things are different.

TokenCard is focused on specific markets where there is a high likelihood of success. Generally, the first go-to option is the Ethereum community, general public banking, and markets that are specific to unique platforms.

Ethereum Community

Being the provider of payment solutions for the Ethereum community is one of the best advantages that TokenCard has over the competition.

There is a rapidly growing market cap for ERC20 tokens and Ether. With this in mind, it is important to have a payment utility that caters to all the assets available on the Ethereum network, and TokenCard is built to handle this.

Platform Specific Markets

There are unique markets that are currently coming up, specific to the projects that they are built to handle.

From the word go, TokenCard is integrated into such projects, offering a solution for a diversified marketplace, and at the same time offering a connection for a payment rail that is ideal for the users in that specific project.

Going after the Banks

TokenCard is one of the projects that are boldly going after the traditional banking systems.

There are so many projects that are designed with this promise, but most of them eventually just coexist with the banks, having realized that it is virtually impossible for them to gain the kind of traction that the banks have.

In the case of TokenCard, this is a project that is specifically geared towards ushering in a new dawn in as far as banking is concerned. A good population of the young generation prefers online banking and branchless digital banks. It is also expected that in a few years, most millennials will not see the need of having a bank.

Considering that most people are dissatisfied with their current banking predicament, TokenCard has a good opportunity to leverage its products and services, and usher in the millennial population into a new world of banking and financial services.

The Chinese Market

The fact that TokenCard has been cleared to launch and issue tokens in the Chinese market speaks volumes about the promise for the future and the agenda behind the project.

As it is, tokens are already popular in China, and the entry of such a gigantic player in the market would help spur growth, innovation and drive awareness.

After gaining traction in the Chinese market, it is very easy for projects to venture out further, seeking out markets in the West.

How can TokenCard be categorized?

TokenCard is a payment project that can be used in any payment terminal all over the world. With this card, users can operate in the same way they use their debit or credit cards.

What’s TokenCard’s vision on Security?

One of the security features in TokenCard is the ability to freeze a card on impulse, and setting a limit on spending capabilities.

Apart from that, the mobile platform is built to be highly secure. Any asset that is held in the smart contract wallet is very safe.

Examples of TokenCard use cases/applications

TokenCard offers several benefits that put it ahead of the pack. There are several reasons why TokenCard stands out, and these are some of the ways in which it can be used:

Remittances

TokenCard offers a better alternative to people who want to send money to their loved ones. Western Union is very expensive, PayPal is affordable, but they tend to freeze funds in the user accounts for no apparent reason.

The other alternative would be to send money directly through a bank account, but this is riddled with unnecessary middlemen, making it expensive and too slow.

Through TokenCard, users can send money and the recipient will get it instantly. One of the perks of using TokenCard is that you can purchase money in different tokens that are stable, keep them in your wallet and through TokenCard, send it. All the transfers are done directly on the Ethereum blockchain, so the recipient can get it in under 15 seconds.

E-sports

Anyone who is keen on e-sports gaming or trading will find TokenCard being a very useful project. One of the reasons why TokenCard is a better alternative is that it takes away the need to constantly move money between bank accounts and trading accounts.

Any earnings that you make online are automatically added to the TokenCard account, and you can use them in the real world. You do not need to take any other action.

Currency fluctuations

One of the biggest challenges that people have with money, especially when you are earning in a different currency from your preferred currency is the risk of currency fluctuations.

Most people lose money as the national currency rates change against the currency in which they hold their savings.

Instead of struggling through this, you can simply make an application, complete the KYC process, and in a few minutes, you should be able to hold your currency in any of the tokens that you desire. Even for someone who has never heard of the blockchain, Ethereum or Bitcoin, you can still benefit from this.

The Debit Card

TokenCard has a debit card that can be used for making payments in any terminal anywhere in the world. You can also use it at an ATM. To fund your account, you can use any of the acceptable ERC20 compatible wallets. Over time, more tokens are added to the list of acceptable tokens, depending on their stability and value.

Resources

https://coincheckup.com/coins/TokenCard

https://tokencard.io/

https://medium.com/@Tokencard

https://medium.com/monolithstudio/tokencard-faq-c13d8157544f https://tokencard.io/tokencard_whitepaper.pdf

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TaaS

What is TaaS?

Token-as-a-Service (TaaS) is the blockchain product of advancement in the Internet of Things. This is an innovative business approach that identifies opportunities and presents worthy cases to investors.

Based on this information, they can then capitalize on the burgeoning blockchain markets that are coming up without having to worry about some of the inherent risks and/or technical barriers which are usually experienced in trading, transfer, and ownership of tokens and cryptocurrencies.

TaaS exists as a last generation closed-end fund (CEF). It is built on the Ethereum platform and uses cryptographic audit technology in offering shares which cannot be redeemed from the fund. All the tokens that are issued on TaaS are distributed through a profit-sharing approach on smart contracts.

The role of the smart contracts in this venture is to allow owners to receive 50% of the profits earned every quarter. In order to keep growing their capital pool, 25% of the profits earned will be reinvested back into the investment fund. This is a good idea in the sense that over time, the investor will see an appreciation in the net asset value of the tokens they have invested in.

In so doing, TaaS effectively becomes the first ever blockchain token that has had its value linked to the performance of the parent project.

What TaaS does is to do away with the barrier entries that have prevented users from investing in digital assets, and at the same time, they have allowed investors to enjoy a safe and stable flow of income, hence the introduction of TaaS as a business model.

What is the problem that TaaS Solves?

The World Economic Forum released a paper that predicted the role of the blockchain in the next frontier of the global financial system. The blockchain, among others, was listed in the top 10 emerging technologies that would disrupt industries all over the world.

There is more than enough evidence to the fact that blockchain technology is already gaining the necessary attention. For early adopters, there is sufficient room for growth and opportunity for investment.

When investing in the traditional financial market, funds bring together capital from different investors with the intention of earning them some benefits. Some of the obvious benefits that they earn from these funds include professional management for their money, diversified portfolio and low cost of trading on the dollar.

The funds then invest the money hoping to make significant capital gains. There are, however, a number of participants who must come into play, such as lawyers and accountants.

The biggest risk to this process is the role of human interaction, which is often the weakest link in any system.

The issue of conflicting interests arises all the time. Case in point, the 2007/08 financial crisis that was purely the result of unethical management by financial institutions and money managers, rendering individual investors the unlikely victims.

These are some of the challenges that TaaS is out to do away with. The TaaS model brings together blockchain tools and applications, and emerging crypto economics to empower the investors, and give them the tools and knowledge to invest in the blockchain realm.

TaaS provides tools that validate the trading activities and flow of money, making this an easy process even for investors who have no knowledge of the blockchain system.

How does TaaS Solve the problem?           

TaaS is making strides in the new financial revolution that is taking place courtesy of blockchain technology. This project is about a comprehensive approach in fund management, raising capital and auditing, factors that have been the driving force behind the fund management industry, albeit with a few concerns from time to time, thanks to human interference.

Fund management is often riddled with a lot of controversies when the issue of trust and transparency comes up. To mitigate these challenges, TaaS promises the following:

  • Proper management and recording of profits and losses
  • TaaS is always in possession of all funds that have been declared
  • Investor funding was not done from accounts owned by the company

This is quite a proposal, and anyone who has been in or dealt with traditional fund managers understands how huge a task it is. So, how does TaaS plan to go about it? The following is the transparency strategy that is implemented by TaaS:

Proof of Reserves

To protect users’ digital assets, TaaS only allows trading with exchanges that have implemented a Proof of Solvency (PoS). These are the only exchanges that are given priority and preference on TaaS. Just as is the case in Kraken and Poloniex, any cold storage reserves must be auditable.

Auditable Exchange Accounts

Any account that will be used to trade on the exchanges must have a view-only API key. This key allows users not only to verify the balances, but also the trade history for the transactions that have been conducted with that account.

The idea here is not to increase the security risk, given that exchanges that manage large volumes of cryptocurrency, and TaaS already has an account with all the major exchanges from where you can trade. In light of this, TaaS will have an audit page with a list of all the aggregate account information and API keys.

These are pulled from the exchanges automatically. For those who are familiar with Tether, it almost looks similar to the implementation that Tether uses.

Proof of Reserves for Non-Exchange Accounts

Any non-exchange account, for example, a cold storage address that is used to store TaaS funds must provide a proof of ownership. Transactions with special markers or similar features to OP_RETURN, depending on the protocol that is used on the specific blockchain, will be sent from every account to determine whether or not the account is held by TaaS.

Proof of Reserves for FIAT Accounts

There must be proof of authenticity for fiat currency reserves that are held in the TaaS bank and exchange accounts. TaaS will use a TLSNotary or any solution that is available and relevant to obtain cryptographic proof of this. This can be done by recording the SSL signatures that are presented at online banking sessions.

Periodic Blockchain Snapshots

In order to maintain proof that there is no mismanagement of data between different audits, TaaS will develop a smart contract that can hold all snapshots that are taken of the audit data.

The smart contract holds these snapshots forever. Each of these smart contracts has a convenient contract explorer that make them efficient.

What makes TaaS better than the competitors?  

TaaS has implemented several functionalities that have helped to position it as high above the rest as possible. The following are some of the features that are inherent to TaaS:

Market Research

The TaaS project uses a combination of reports, news items, market data and opinions collected over different blockchain ecosystems. Each of these is collected individually for every digital asset.

This is to make sure that there is a comprehensive qualitative and quantitative audit for every digital asset that is listed on TaaS. Therefore, TaaS is able to aptly measure and determine the likelihood of the project to flourish and survive, given that so many projects have been introduced with a lot of promise in the past, only for them to disappear shortly after.

Analytical Approach

There is a lot that TaaS has borrowed from the concept of fund management in the traditional funds market. One of these is the need for a careful analytical approach.

There are different indicators that are in use at TaaS, technical, index groups and fundamental indicators, which help to determine all there is to know about a given digital asset. They will look at a lot of factors, including strategy testing, measuring volatility and hashrate graphs.

Objectives for Investing

For you to succeed as an investment trader, you need to have a clear objective. You need a strategy that defines your investment process, and you need to understand it better than anyone else. Through Kepler, TaaS takes an in-depth examination of the market.

This is useful in that it helps to determine the assets that have been performing well within their investment objectives, especially with a view to the time they have been available in the market, and the level of exposure that is acceptable in that scenario.

Whether you are investing as an aggressive investor or not, through Kepler, you have an efficient formulation strategy that will help you choose the correct asset class.

Other than that, Kepler also takes a look at the liquidity level of the digital assets in question, providing you a clear insight into a variety of investment scenarios. Therefore, whether there is a catastrophic low in the market or a moment of euphoric high, you are always well-informed, and ready to make the correct decision.

Managing Trading Accounts

The plan is to roll out Kepler into most, if not all of the cryptocurrency exchanges. When this is done, users can look forward to a seamless trading experience, fully organized, while at the same time offering the best alternatives for arbitrage.

Portfolio Management

It is understandable that constantly monitoring your portfolio might not be one of the easiest things to do. In fact, it is an arduous and tasking affair. It is exhausting, to say the least. Whether in traditional fund management or in managing digital assets, this is a situation that most people shy away from. However, through Kepler, portfolio management never got easier.

Kepler analyzes and understands your risk exposure and the acceptable portfolio risks for you. In so doing, you are able to get an early warning should there be any risky situation or condition coming up.

Through machine learning, Kepler is designed to improve over time, learning to identify predictions and sentiments in the market, predicting even the slightest change in reactions to a $1 movement in the price of Bitcoins.

To do this, Kepler uses a combination of trend-following procedures to determine the trajectory of a portfolio, either with a short or long-term view.

How can TaaS be categorized?

TaaS is a closed-end fund that is specifically designed for blockchain assets. There are many innovations for smart contracts that are supported by a cryptographic audit.

Through these, TaaS aims to position itself as a leader in investment innovations for the blockchain space, by providing an income model that is based on subscriptions.

What’s TaaS’s vision on Security?

TaaS is a blockchain project that offers a comprehensive, new model to fund management, capital raising, and auditing. It has been dubbed the next big thing, considering that it leverages fund management services on the benefits of blockchain technology.

Examples of TaaS use cases/applications

Business Model

TaaS is building a closed-ended fund (CEF), which is the closest iteration of a real-world model. The CEF offers shares in an IPO and closes to new capital soon after it starts operation. TaaS operates in the same way, just for digital assets on the blockchain.

Cryptographic Audit

Transparency is one of the most important things in any hedge fund, and this is no different from what is happening at TaaS.

TaaS works together with am Ethereum asset platform, Ambisafe. Together, they have built a protocol for cryptographic auditing.

This is to ensure that all profits that are earned are always recorded, ensure transparency in the flow of money, and to make sure that the company is always in possession of any declared funding.

Profit Distribution

TaaS uses smart contracts to distribute fund profits, efficiently spread out to cover all the tokens outstanding.

The smart tokens make sure that there is a proportionate distribution of profits according to the contribution. Large investors, therefore, can look forward to a proportionate high return. In the event of a loss, the smart contracts remain inactive, limiting user exposure in the process.

Reserve Fund

TaaS is designed in such a way that it returns 50 BTC for every 100 BTC that is earned to the users who own TaaS tokens. TaaS also reinvests 25 BTC into the fund. This is a solution that helps to keep the operating base capital growing without necessarily having to seek additional investment through secondary means.

Resources

https://coincheckup.com/coins/TaaS

https://taas.fund/

https://medium.com/@TaaS

https://steemit.com/@taas

https://taas.fund/fund/faq/ https://static.taas.fund/media/white_paper/2018/01/29/TaaSWhitepaperv.1.0.pdf