@tempus: thanks for all the additional PR info. You seem well aware of everything Lykke.
May I ask what's you relationship to Lykke?
In short it was this way:
I was very interested in this project, but also had some concerns and also some misconceptions. So I wrote them a mail, partially even pretty critical and I didn't expect answer, but they were very open and even Richard Olsen replied and explained me a lot about Lykke and asked if I would like to help to explain it to the "public" and I agreed. Then I got an invite into their slack-channel and that's why I can ask some questions there and post the answers here. I'm also still learning about this. The whole project is more complex and bigger as it may seem on first sight.
Okay, tell explain what Richard told you.
I already quoted a mail of him (he allowed me to do that). We also talked on phone and he - tried to - explain me some of the economical aspects behind Lykke and that is one of the most interesting stuff in this project. But I'm not able to explain it because I didn't understand it totally myself. It's way too complex but what I can say is: He is really an expert. Same is true for other members of his team. For himself that's not a secret, because there is a lot to find about him on the internet.
Another thing was that he reassured me that this absolutely not a project to make money for a few. They will be fair to all Investors and I personally have no doubts about the honesty of the whole team.
Then he also explained that Lykke as a project is different, also regarding leadership and "going into the public". They want to do it step by step, without much pressure but not slowly - with increasing intensity. One of my critics was a lack of attention and that I'm unsure about the price after the ICO because of that etc. But they have a plan and since I've learned more I believe it will work out. He also told me that they don't focus on selling the ICO since Lykke is well funded. The ICO is more a first step into the public. Another guy of his team called it "first test". And like everybody can see: Without artificially hype. It's more about building a natural dynamic and that all aspects, one after another, will work together.
This is the mail I've already quoted:
(...)
Richard Olsen - CEO of Lykke:
"The wholle Bitcoin Movement is inspired by the vision to replace human decision making with software algorithms. Algorithms are better, because the cannot be manipulated.
Nick Szabo gave an excellent talk at our Zurich event, where he explained his long-term vision of mapping the subtelty of the legal system that has evolved over thousands of years into software code. Nick highlighted the diffuculty of this task - a good legal system is highly refined and we cannot easily create software code that has all the subtelty of our legal system. The short comings were clearly visible in the DAO event.
I am approaching the issue in the following way:
Lykke follows a really big vision - I want to disrupt financial markets and create a fair playing field accessible for everyone. This is much more than just a matching engine with a user interface and an interface to blockchain - we talk about creating legal entities around the world, complex financial engineering, building a brand, hiring people, all the pushbacks from incumbents that want to make our lives difficult...a long list.
We have to kick off big projects that are essential for the project to fly - I will highlight just two projects: we need to build a open access publication platform for news stories in different channels...a transparent financial market only works in context of independent high quality reporting. Today, the news industry is highly monopolized and starved from independent reporting - I plan to create an open access publication platform, where prizes are available for the best contribution of the past hour, past 6 hours, past 24 hours, past 1 week, past month, past quarter, past year - the prize cascades have a dual function - they reward the author and his editor...it is easy to win an hour prize...more difficult to win a whole cascade. The prizes are good ranking tool of the quality of reports and incentivize the contributors. We plan to create many different news channels. I want to build a truly independent news reporting platform with Economist-like channels, a long list.... To evaluate companies and other assets with all the financial instruments - in depth reporting is essential.
Another big project is a bigdata information system - we live in the world of 'digital data', but there is no global informaiton system with real time forecasts for all the digital data that is being collected. In weather forecasting this is standard - big data models collect the meteorological data and then generate detailed weather forecasts around the world. The same has to happen with all the digital data that society is collecting. I dream of a Wikipedia for big data - the real time information system then feeds the risk management system, which are then used to price financial instruments, etc. Today, there does not exist a big data information system - central bankers continue to rely on ad hoc collected data, excel spread sheets, etc.
Sorry to say - it is just crazy how the financial world today functions. I want to clean up the mess and introduce highest quality standards at all levels. I have a very clear vision of how I can make all this happen...it is an exciting journey, but much more complex than a simple software code that tells us, if this happens, then do this....we are in a hugely multi-dimensional space.
Any investor, who buys Lykke coins runs a big risk - he depends on the judgement of the Lykke team, its core investors, my own capabilities...to increase the likelihood of success I am building Lykke to be extremely fragile - all our software is open source, if people are not happy with what we are doing, they can just copy the code and start a competing company that does better work. There are not sharholder agreements that prevent people from selling...this is good, because anyone can sell when he wants, i.e. voting with his feet...this sends an immediate signal to everyone and forces Lykke to regroup...
In building Lykke I am inspired by biology - I try to implement subtle mechanisms that bring Lykke back into its dynamic equilibrium.
There is another question: strictly speaking the Lykke coins are an entitlement to Lykke shares - they are a digital representation of Lykke shares. To become a full shareholder, the owner has to reveal his name to Lykke - this is a legal requirement from Swiss law. It is more efficient to just deal with colored coins, because then we can take advantage of the full digital efficiency. We will pay dividends, etc. to Lykke coin holders."
