Can people in the US use the Lykke wallet yet? I D/L'd the app, but it told me that if I lived in the US I could not use it yet? Has theat been fixed, and is there any way to invest in Lykke right now (For USAans) ahead of the wallet?
Unfortunately it's not possible for US-citizen yet to use the App. Reason is that Lykke is in regulatory processes in the USA. Once Lykke has received all needed approvals that will change of course. Lykke has a team in the USA and they give their best to get it through as fast as possible.
You already have a date about the approval of lykke in U.S.A. ?
No ETA yet, but also because it won't be about the whole USA at once. And it's a really complicated procedure I also don't have deep enough knowledge about.
Some words about how it's done:
1) It's about single states. Some states are easier and will be faster, others are harder.
2) It's about different kinds of licenses
3) It's also about different kinds of possibilities (access to products/client experience).
For the practice that means: One can think of the whole process as a roll-out over time. Citizens of the easier states will get access to Lykke earlier, those in the hardest states will have to wait longer. And there will also be differences about user experience. Some things that will be possible in the EU for example may be blocked first for US-citzen and enabled step-by-step over time.
But Lykke makes good progress and the man who leads it, Michael Klena, has a lot of experience. I believe that first results will realize this summer.
Thanks for the response and the commitment you have had so far in this project. I followed it from the beginning and bought lykke at $ 0.04 last summer, and I think opening in America is crucial to make it grow even faster and deep!
According to your prediction, where do you see lykke in late summer and late 2017?
20,000 and 60,000 satoshi is realistic?
I don't think that much in fix prices but more in dynamics and price-potential. To make it more tangible:
If one does really good research about a project, in this case Lykke, it becomes possible to write down strength, weaknesses and risks. If I do that with Lykke, the strength-list is really impressive. If we look on the next month and ask what is likely to have positive impact on the price it's in my opinion
1) if there should be significant user-growth it's likely to already have some effect.
2) if there will be "messages", indicators of future potential (sometimes what is called hype-material - more psychological impact).
And if we think about the development status right now it's still base-building and not that much "hype-material", but it't also likely to attract more users: Offchainsettlement, Ethereum-integration will be next and should come soon. And all progress on the regulatory front will also attract more users because the door to Lykke becomes more open.
What I expect to be "hype-material", that it will not only lead to more attention on Lykke but also change the picture of Lykke more into "wow, now I get that Lykke is about much more" will be the web-based-terminal. I don't know when it will come but I expect it to have impact.
If we look at weaknesses:
1) Some say that Lykke doesn't do enough marketing.
2) LKK is only on Lykke, not on other exchanges yet.
3) Development delays
First about marketing: It's true that Lykke is still pretty unknown and under the radar and it's also true that Lykke doesn't do much marketing yet. But: Exactly that is potential what becomes clear if we think about a potential alternative: Imagine that Lykke would spend a lot of money to do big marketing. 1) It would considered as hype. 2) Maybe it wouldn't even have the wanted effect for now because at the current stage it's not that attractive for a majority yet. What I expect and what Lykke is about: An increasing tendency - also regarding marketing. Once the base-building is done and once Lykke becomes fully functional and accessible for more and more people (because of regulatory approvals) and starts to do crowdfundings for other projects, begins to list the significant Cryptos and projects etc. it will have marketing effect even without pushing/hyping it hard.
If LKK would be on other exchanges it would have marketing effect, especially on bigger exchanges like Poloniex or Kraken etc. I don't know if that will come soon. But it's not necessarily bad if LKK is only on Lykke first, simply because it ensures a more stable growth, also because it more attracts Investors instead of "In-and-Out-Traders". The price becomes more reliable and a better reflection how Lykke is seen and valued. At the same time: The potential still stays - not being on other exchanges is the potential to hit other exchanges once ready.
Development delays are not nice for sure but a common reality for complex projects and it needs quality. As long as they deliver quality and improve everything what may not be as perfect as possible, I see no problem.
If we look at risks:
In a lot of projects the teams itself are the major risks because there are many scammers and even more teams that find out that they are overwhelmed and/or run out of funds etc. The team behind Lykke is absolutely reliable. Nobody is perfect but there is no doubt about their honesty and professionalism and abilities - and whenever there may be a lack on whatever front they hire somebody to close a gab.
But: One risk is always the technology itself. Offchain-settlement for example is a hard thing to do, very complex. That's why they are testing and testing and testing. At the same time there are projects out there, like Factom for example, who still had to face problems after going life and after extensive testing for months.
Another risk may be the financial side because Lykke is expensive. Not speaking about price and marketcap but about the goals. Lykke needs manpower and especially regulations are damn expensive. But again, they know what they are doing. Richard Olsen is a man with huge experience and there are many others as well - Sergey Ivliev (won a prize for best Risk Manager) for example but also others.
The number 1-risk in my opinion is security. It would be a huge set-back if something would happen on that front.
And my way of thinking about it all, as a conclusion is:
Risks are risks. If a worst case scenario should realize and it's never possible to totally exclude that (in no project, no Investment at all), it would have impact for sure. At the same time the team behind this won't give up.
Interesting are the weaknesses because I see it all as potential. And the Lykke-strengths are even pure potential in a lot of ways: A very attractive usecase that will become more and more attractive over time what will lead into increasing natural growth (already happens). And over time it will also be possible to make more marketing because even if offchain-settlement is absolutely important, it won't get the attention like web-based-terminal, debit-card, business deals etc. It's simply not such an eye-catcher, unlikely to produce headlines.
In very short words: If no risk-scenario realizes the price of LKK is very likely to increase and maybe even to hype. It's not possible to predict the "when" or "how high", but if we compare Lykke with some projects that are in fact only smart contracts on Ethereum but very high valued: Once people begin to understand that Lykke can do all such things and more, including becoming a prediction market etc., they may rethink what should have a higher value.
This was the try to outline my personal view and of course I'm biased because I work for Lykke. But I work for them because I see what I see, not the other way around. ;-)