Qoin Association AGM Directors Update

02 July 2024

The contents of this announcement or newsletter are point-in-time statements. Please note the date of publication.

Update for the 12 months ending 31 May 2024

Welcome to our voting members, councilors, community leaders and directors  in attendance at the Annual General Meeting today, 27 June 2024.

We share with you an update of the past 12 months since the previous AGM, being the fourth year of the Qoin project.  We will cover the progress made for the period as well as some plans for the next 12 months.

As we embark into our fifth year as a trading community, we share with you some of the project highlights as well as an update on the industry, regulatory and legal matters.

The Qoin Wallet App is live in Australia, New Zealand, United Kingdom, Singapore, and South Africa. More than 100,000 Apps have been downloaded and over 37,000 businesses have registered over the time of the project.

During the last 12 months the Qoin community has transacted 19.1 million Qoin in 38,724 transactions between wallets resulting in an average transaction size of Q493 and an equivalent wallet value of $193 million in Qoin.

All time volume transacted by the Qoin community was 322.01 million Qoin in 568,803 transactions between wallets resulting in an average transaction size of Q566 and an equivalent wallet value of $2.54 billion in Qoin.

Some of the highlights over the past year have been:

• The split of Q Shop into a separate Directory (for business details) and Q Market (for product and service listings) was launched.
• DealDash was launched by members of the community, accelerating participation and offerings of more recognised brands like Harvey Norman and Event Cinemas.
• Expanded Crypto Tokens: Your Qoin Wallet now supports more cryptocurrencies, amplifying our project’s interoperability with crypto world. Transact across a wider spectrum of tokens including Ether known as ETH, Wrapped Bitcoin abbreviated as WBTC, Polygon’s MATIC, Uniswap’s UNI, Chainlink’s LINK and Crypto.com’s CRO.
• access to multiple blockchains in addition to the Qoin blockchain including Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain, Polygon MainNet, and the Cronos blockchain.
• With Ethereum blockchain integration, view and manage your wQOIN within your Qoin Wallet.
• the Euro EUR and United Arab Emirates Dirham AED currencies are deployed in the wallet, making it possible to soon transact in the 27 EU countries and the UAE, subject to obtaining regulatory compliances.
• Dapp Connectivity: You can now connect to decentralised apps, known as Dapps, with the “Wallet Connect” feature.
• Instant Support with Q Chat: Get your questions answered instantly! Our in-app live chat functionality ensures you’re always connected for quick support, frequently asked questions, and help articles – wherever you are.
• Intercom system to enable in app messaging process automation to engage the community directly and make relevant offers to selected user profiles,
• The Merchant Fair Trading video was produced.
• The Merchant Fair Trading Badge design was approved and launched.

We want to especially thank the tech team as well as the community leaders who worked diligently to achieve this progress.

Industry Update

The past 12 months has seen significant growth in the market value of the crypto industry, doubling from US$1.0 Trillion to over US$2.1 Trillion. This was mostly driven by the halving event of Bitcoin every 4 years as well as the SEC approval of a spot ETF for both Bitcoin and Ether. The media widely reported that billions of dollars of retail investor funds have already flowed into these ETF’s and that 2024 is the year that the cryptocurrency industry went mainstream.  However, the past 12 months has also been the period of the most aggressive enforcement action by the regulators both in the USA and Australia. Various leading crypto companies, including Coinbase, Kraken, Gemini, Finder, and Binance, have been sued by regulators. Numerous class actions have also commenced against various crypto projects.

Community Group Leaders

Our community group leaders met 10 times during the past year and achieved good results for the Qoin community, including many of the highlights mentioned earlier. Their number one focus and objective for the year ahead is to work with the association to increase the utility of Qoin.

Councillors

During the past 12 months the 3 association councillors were active in the oversight of the Qoin Project risk and compliance management, minting processes, blockchain and nodes security, incentive and rewards funding and many other duties. We want to express our appreciation to Steve Quinn, Mark Atkinson, and Ras Manickam.

Communications

It is important for us to be able to communicate effectively with the whole community. This year the comms team produced the 98th episode of QDN, regular announcements, updates and newsletters, maintained and simplified the Qoin Website, frequently posted on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn pages. Thanks to the marketing team for your efforts.

Regulatory and Legal update

In the ASIC proceedings against the wallet issuer BPS Financial Pty Ltd “BPS”, judgment was delivered on 3 May 2024. On the same day BPS provided a media statement to the community, including a link to the full judgment. BPS advised that it was grateful for the clarity that the judgment provided, and that the authorised representative agreement with the Australian Financial Services License (AFSL) holder, Billzy Pty Ltd, has been updated to align with this Federal Court ruling. The updated agreement has been submitted to ASIC.

On 20 June 2024 BPS was notified, by sealed Notice of Appeal, that ASIC is appealing the judgment as it relates to the authorisation of BPS by PNI Financial Services. BPS now has 21 days from 20 June to determine any cross appeal. Thereafter the court will provide the parties a date for the appeal/s to be heard.  BPS will monitor the outcome of any appeal and respond accordingly to ensure that its licensing arrangements remain compliant with the law.

It was noted in the recent media that ASIC has also issued Notices of Appeal to the other two crypto related judgments in favour of Finder Wallet and Block Earner.

In the representative proceedings the class action parties, including the Qoin Association, attended a full day mediation on Friday 5 April 2024. The mediation was adjourned to 19 June 2024 and has now been adjourned to 31 July 2024 to allow for ongoing discussions and communications between the parties. Due to the confidential nature of the mediation no further information can be disclosed at this stage. The parties can provide a further update as soon as the mediation has either been concluded or alternatively terminated.

Roadmap for next 12 months*

The Qoin Association has set two priorities for the next 12 months. Firstly, as foreshadowed in the original whitepaper and in the latest newsletters, the Qoin Association is planning the next stages of decentralisation of the Qoin project. Secondly, the increased utility of the Qoin cryptocurrency by merchants and consumers.

The team has prioritised consideration to the following key items:

• More public transparency of the token economics and algorithm including a public block explorer for transactions and merchant count.
• Automated minting and distribution smart contracts
• Scaling solution, including transition to either App Chain, Layer 2 or Layer 1 solutions or a combination.
• Bridging capabilities to other popular chains.
• Expansion of the Qoin Association members and directors.
• To complete the development of a merchant loyalty & rewards program that will make it simple for merchants to attract and reward cash paying customers with a Qoin-Back Rewards function.

* subject to change and cannot be guaranteed.

Closing   

Thank you to our Members and the Qoin community for your support over the past year and we look forward to an exciting year of trading.