Hello fellow BitcoinTalkers and welcome to our Etcetera thread!
Who am I?I'm part of the official Etcetera Team as developer and researcher. I will also take some marketing for my account as this will be the most important aspect up untill a successfull ICO.
I've been a cryptocurrency and blockchain enthusiast and fanatic since I first heard of it a bit over 4 years ago. It actually took me a few months to get acquainted enough to how bitcoin and its blockchain actually works before I was sending bitcoin transactions all over the place (bear in mind that these transactions didn't cost nearly as much as they do now). After Bitcoin, I started to get to know Ethereum and soon after my portfolio would be more diversified than I could actually remember.
The start of EtceteraSo when late last year I got the opportunity to join this project I was instantly sold on the 'fairly easy' idea of selling cryptocurrency gift cards. After all, what gift is easier than a gift card? Add some cryptocurrency and we have the next big thing right? Well, not quiet yet... Most of you are by now probably already thinking about the legal issues that will come along, or perhaps about how secure this system can be, given that we're constantly working with 'hot' wallets: wallets connected to the Internet... So a long brainstorm session short; in order for this project to roll out globally and as fast and efficiently as possible, we need to use already existing services, contact and hire specialised legal support and find some software security experts and/or ethical hackers to (stress-)test our infrastructure before releasing them. Add to that the initial purchase and design of all gift cards that will be distributed initially, aswell as having the actual (crypto-)funds at the moment someone buys a gift card; we quickly came to realize that this will not be possible without a crowdfunding to pay for these initial costs. And what better time can there be to find investors for just such an idea! Our head developer is almost ready with the smartcontract that will take care of the whole ICO and token distribution (including team (+vesting periods), stakeholders and bounty tokens). Once tested and found fully functional on the local network, we will test it on a to be determined testnet and if possible, we will announce this fairly up front in order for anyone to be part of it should they so desire!
What's happening now?- At this moment we're spreading the word of our Etcetera project at all possible channels possible, we are putting together a bounty campaign for which 750'000 tokens are set aside. We're talking to various marketing teams about several marketing campaigns in order to be able to reach as much people as possible and hopefully convince them of the initial easy 'idea' of having cryptocurrency gift cards to get your friends and family involved in the emerging crypto-industry. This bounty campaign will start on January 15th and last untill the very end of our ICO. More details will follow in the relevant thread. (Can't wait to spread the word? Please have a look at
https://etcetera.ltd/b/)
- The smart contract is close to be ready, we will be testing it in the following days and as mentioned above. The smart contract is build with the
openzeppelin framework.
The future (of Etcetera)Our future main customers (or atleast the people buyin our gift cards in store, or the persons receiving the gift card), will probably have not (the slightest) back-ground in trading and using cryptocurrency. This is why we will provide an easy-to-grasp booklet with every gift card sold, aswell as show and actually 'teach' the whole process of blockchain technology in order for our future buyers and investors to actually understand what the power of blockchain may, can and problably will eventually have.
But lots of things are happening daily in cryptospace and for the average person, it is just too much of a hassle to keep up-to-date with everything happening with every coin. Aside from providing an easier way to get involved in the money of the future, we will provide various crypto-tools to keep its users up-to-date at the times that they have time to get up-to-date. Of course community input is here of uttermost importance, which is why we will provide our investors and users of our token and or platform, with the possibility of voting for the next (crypto-related) tool that would be nice and handy to have at our future All-In-One cryptocurrency platform.
We have put up 4 unique selling points in favor of our product:
- Our effective selling points (our Points-of-Sale) will be the first to sell gift cards to which cryptocurrency will be send, upon payment at the register!
- Our offline buyers of gift cards can choose any top-currency (bitcoin and ethereum at first, more later) or our own ERA-token to buy in any local store, with any payment the store accepts
- The combination of our future API, exchange en mobile wallet will be the entry point for millions of new crypto-currency buyers and holders!
- Because we will constantly follow and choose what top-currencies to add (or in the future perhaps delete) from our platform, we will also profit from the fact that we're providing these top-currencies.
But...
This project will never succeed without you, the initial cryptocurrency and blockchain investors. Do you want the people of next year to have even easier access to cryptocurrencies? Just by giving the gift of cryptocurrency will inherently give the receiver enough incentive to learn what exactly cryptocurrencies are and teach himself the way of the blockchain, and isn't that knowledge exactly the knowledge you want to share with your relatives and acquaintances?
Enter Etcetera, the intermediairy coin between fiat and crypto of the future!