I'd like to thank everyone for their interest in Blackbox. I'm the CEO and Founder Jason Sosa. Blackbox is not a scam. We are all real people with a genuine passion to make a difference. To date, we've received over 1,000 white list registrations during the pre-sale, recruited an amazing roster, prominent advisors, and spoke to thousands all over the world at conferences big and small. Despite our best efforts and personally investing over $100k of my own money, we did not hit our goal. Many of the registrations were either fraudulent or simply didn't submit the ETH. We're currently in the process of refunding the amounts we did receive. The ICO pre-sale registration has been closed.
Could we have done a token swap or another creative shuffle to spoof our progress? Perhaps, but artificial metrics to boost perceived value isn't what we're about. There was an early decision to stand strong on our values of authenticity and integrity in our vision, and for how we conduct ourselves. This is something I'm glad we didn't want to compromise on.
Over the last year, we've worked really hard and learned a lot. A team of over 50+ people went in full force expecting the market conditions to remain favorable. These are some of the most brilliant people I've ever worked with. Our fundraising strategy depended on crowdfunding to make this happen. Many small donations. We knew that our project was not necessarily investable with traditional private investors or VCs due to the nature of upending a labor model for the economic system. Our vision is to inspire and gather like-minded people to unite for a better way to work. We didn't want to build on top of the money over people model that has exemplified the way business gets done. We want to make a cooperative model between talent all over the world, and remove barriers to opportunity as a long term vision. We understood it was a big audacious goal to unify labor and capital and that it isn't something that can happen overnight.
The project started as a social experiment uniting people from all over the world to build the infrastructure as a connective tissue required for a "decentralized future of work." However, without a substantial investment from a benefactor, social impact fund, non-profit, family fund, philanthropy institute, or some kind of partnership, we won't be able to build the MVP solution or platform as planned in our timeline and roadmap.
So where does Blackbox go from here?
Blackbox AI will continue to provide information architecture for intelligent ecosystems as a consulting professional services business.
Blackbox Foundation will continue its mission, but the timing for an ICO doesn't look favorable right now. Q2 doesn't appear to look any better. Over the next few months, I'll continue to work on projects, speak, give interviews, and promote the decentralized philosophy we pioneered and inspired so many to contribute to this Future of Work project. One of the challenges that need to be solved is breaking down the narrative to something that is relatable and immediate, not 10 years in the future. The best way to validate this concept is to make a proof of concept on a small scale. That is where we'll be focused until the market improves. Real and substantial progress for this governance model comes from affecting people, not just bits.
We are always looking for clients, partners, and believers to help us bring this vision to life. To all the people that contribute to our vision and continue to support us, thank you. We will rise like a phoenix when the timing is right.
Thank you for coming here and sharing these honest words with us.
It is true that this is not the best time to raise funds.
So ICO is postponed to an unknown date.
Good luck and see you in better times.
