With the LocalCoinSwap hard launch only 3 weeks away, it’s an ideal time to provide you with an update on many of the exciting initiatives that we are working on in order to help manage expectations throughout this period leading up to hard launch of the LocalCoinSwap platform on February 26.
Since the soft launch of our LocalCoinSwap MVP, just a few months ago, there have been a plethora of changes across the platform. These have been in the form of user experience revisions, improvements to user interface, bug fixes, a heap of cryptocurrency integrations, and a whole lot of new feature additions. Thank you to all the current users that have provided valuable feedback to help improve the platform to date. Your feedback has been absolutely invaluable.
Marketing Update:
We have received a few comments from the community about our current marketing activities, so it’s a good time to respond to these also.
We have a multi-faceted marketing plan being rolled out to coincide with the hard launch date. We are not pushing hard on lots of paid marketing beforehand for several reasons. The main being, when paying to bring potential users to the site (in the form of various paid promotions like press releases, sponsored articles, banners etc), we want these users to have a great first impression of the platform. We can only make one first impression and we don’t want that to be of the MVP. Instead, any promotions will start from hard launch and we will continue to promote the platform as the leading P2P platform for buying and selling Bitcoin, Ethereum and 20+ other cryptocurrencies over the coming months.
With that said, this doesn't mean that there isn't an enormous amount of marketing preparation being done behind the scenes and this will continue as we refine our marketing message and channel promotions further into 2019 and beyond. We will also plan more regular updates and spontaneous, live AMAs with the team once we complete hard launch.
Secondly, given the nascency of the platform, there isn’t a huge amount of liquidity in the form of live posted trades, specifically trades giving other users the ability to purchase cryptocurrency. On top of the general platform marketing, there will also be campaigns targeted at attracting traders and other promotions tied directly into increasing liquidity on the platform. This will be done using a combination of education, paid promotions, and incentivization. You may already see some results with some competitive sell trades posted for BTC and ETH, offering a couple of common payment options.
P2P Trading & Liquidity Update:
We have also recently posted an article on how you can make money trading on LocalCoinSwap and we have more tutorials and articles being written to increase user understanding of the benefits of P2P trading and P2P finance.
We request that you also help us to increase P2P trading on the site by reading through these articles and adding your own buy and sell trade advertisements onto the platform. There are currently plenty of unserviced locations, currencies, and payment methods on LocalCoinSwap, so please don’t forget to sign up, post some trades to buy and sell, and make a profit in your local area! Ensuring there is plenty of liquidity, consisting of competitive trades, will put LocalCoinSwap in a solid position to succeed and is a great step towards healthy dividend returns! At the very least, your feedback regarding your experience whilst trading on the site is invaluable to us so we encourage everyone to set up trade advertisements and let us your experience on Telegram. Do not hesitate to ask any questions that will help you to become a more educated and savvy P2P trader.
LCS Dividends Update:
Regarding LCS dividends, in this initial dividend period, 100% of platform revenue collected thus far will be distributed to LCS Cryptoshare holders. Given that the platform has been in MVP stage and has not seen huge trading volume, we consider the first dividend payments to be a proof of technical concept rather than a fixed process or an indication of any future returns.
Keep in mind that this initial dividend comes after a year-long bear market, and is outside of any projections in the LocalCoinSwap whitepaper. We cannot wait to put the final piece of the puzzle together and for the first multi-cryptocurrency dividend to be distributed and redeemed by the community. This final proof of concept will absolutely set LocalCoinSwap apart from its competitors!
There have been some comments regarding the on-platform redemption of dividends, as well as the 3-month dividend expiry. In the initial communications during the fundraising period, no specific dividend expiry period was outlined, and the particular redemption process was slightly different. We feel this is a minimal redirection from the whitepaper and still completely within the spirit of the endeavor. There are several reasons behind this.
First and foremost, the most important factor in the success of the platform is our ability to drive site traffic and user signups. Given that the site-user:LCS-holder ratio is currently only around 1:2, requiring holders to register to the platform should drastically increase signups. The more signups and traffic using the site, the more trading activity we can expect which should translate to increased future dividends.
Secondly, given that this first dividend will not be large, the transaction costs associated with sending out multiple cryptocurrencies to multiple wallets may exceed the total dividend payments. And thirdly, having unredeemed dividends from potentially thousands and thousands of users build up and never expire, hugely increases company liability by increasing the ratio of debt to equity.
There are a few things to make clear:
- There is no requirement to store your LCS Cryptoshares on the platform or to ever transfer them to the platform. Only the dividend tokens need to be on the platform to be redeemed. As originally stated, dividend tokens were required to be sent out to be redeemed. So now they just need to be sent to your deposit address and you can redeem them with the click of a button.
- Users are still able to “set and forget” their LCS Cryptoshares in order to ensure you don’t miss out on dividend payments by way of them expiring. If LCS Cryptoshares are stored on the platform, the dividends will be distributed to the platform wallet and will automatically redeem on the expiry date. You never have to worry about your dividends as long as they are kept on the platform.
Before the second dividend distribution, a community vote will be held to determine the expiry (or non-expiry) of future dividend tokens!
Security Update:
With the recent hack of the LocalBitcoins forum that resulted in a substantial loss of their user’s funds, security is even more of a focus for us. Unlike many exchanges that risk their user's cryptocurrency by keeping them in wallets with online accessible private keys, LocalCoinSwap utilizes secure cold storage solutions for a minimum of 95% of all funds held by the platform Only a maximum of 5% of deposits is ever transferred into the hot wallets of which withdrawals are made from. Although this occasionally means that some larger withdrawals are not processed instantly, we firmly believe that it is important to prioritize the security of users funds above all else.
Coming up to this hard launch date, alongside all the general new-feature testing, we have some independent security researchers working alongside the team in order to bolster security even further. If you are interested in helping with this process there is a security bounty program with rewards given to those that can find security critical issues with the platform. More information about this to be released soon!
What's next....
We are very excited to transition to the next stage of the LocalCoinSwap project. It has been a fantastic journey so far and it seems like only yesterday that this was just an idea, a vision which is now progressing to a leading product in no time.
On February 26, a more refined platform will go live which will have a bunch of additional features. From there the focus will be shifting to user and volume growth along with further UI and UX improvements over the coming months! The hard launch date does not signal the finality of the product, it is simply the beginning of a platform that will continue to be refined and improved over the coming months.
Increasing access to cryptocurrency globally has always been a passion of the LocalCoinSwap team and a driving factor of the project. Our mission is to create new financial opportunities for everyone equally whilst giving back to the community. With only 3 weeks to go, we are now one step closer to getting to our first big milestone and we are confident that we will achieve our goals and bring financial opportunities to more people around the world as we continue to develop a platform that surpasses everyone's imagination. We hope that you will stay with us and come along with us on this exciting journey...