The contents of this announcement are point-in-time statements. Please note the date of publication.
5 November 2021
As the Qoin project nears its two-year anniversary on 26 January 2022 we are pleased to announce several developments for the next chapter in our journey, and share some key milestones achieved.
Democratising
As per the Official White Paper published on 20 January 2020, this next chapter is all about fully democratising the Qoin project towards a global community owned Decentralised Organisation. This means that the project will become fully automated, and the community will have the opportunity to vote for key decisions on technology development and governance. Other successful projects have been studied and key community stakeholders will be consulted soon to set the criteria of good standing and staking for voting.
Page 7 of the White Paper quotes: “BCI and OLC teams have played a key role in the creation of the Qoin Association and the Qoin Blockchain and will maintain a leadership role throughout 2020 and 2021. This will fast-track the initial success of the project due to BCI and OLC’s experience, skills, trust and credibility in the local business communities as well as their access to tens of thousands of members and cardholders.”
Page 13 of the White Paper states: “The Qoin Association plans to achieve increased decentralisation over time. This is important, as it will reduce the reliance of any part of the network on key stakeholders. Ultimate decentralisation will also ensure easier access for developers and node validators to participate in the network and this should improve the Qoin ecosystem’s resilience over the long term.”
Growth and global expansion
The Qoin community has now reached over 100,000 wallet addresses, and a base of 83,471 individual users across Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. Over $250 million has been transacted between wallets at zero fees on the Qoin blockchain.
The merchant network has grown from zero to 35,000 in Australia (22 months), approximately 2000 in New Zealand (11 months) and circa 60 in the United Kingdom (1 month).
We are on track to have wallet downloads available from the Apple and Google stores on five continents within a few months. The next countries planned to continue our global expansion are Singapore, South Africa, and Brazil (subject to regulatory approval).
Community communications
Qoin Digital Network (QDN), the weekly digital news service to the Qoin community, was launched in February this year with 37 weekly episodes already broadcast every Wednesday evening. In July the first edition of Q Mag, a high quality seasonal digital and printed magazine about all things Qoin, was issued for the first time. The second edition recently published covers the UK roll-out, the Wrapping of Qoin and inspiring merchant stories around Australia and New Zealand.
Advanced trading of products and services
The trading department have also been busy this year. In addition to welcoming each new merchant, a Trade Education Video Series of eight episodes were created. These excellent trading tips for merchants on how to earn or spend their Qoin are available in the HELP button of the wallet.
Training goes digital
The training and learning department have digitised the week-long training program into 10 x video modules whereby our sales force across the world can now complete their mandatory and compliance training at their own pace. No more need for a whole week out of a busy schedule to become accredited.
Major new-look wallet upgrade
Our technology teams have been able to successfully incorporate an automated identity verification system into the Qoin global wallet. Over the past nine months they have worked closely with two global leaders to integrate their systems into our wallet. This allows Qoin to be fully compliant with the regulatory Anti Money Laundering (AML) and Know Your Customer (KYC) requirements of each country. A major upgrade and new-look wallet release will commence next week across Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. This upgrade will make it easy to deploy in new countries.
Product replacement finance
The Qoin Association has authorised fintech company Billzy Pay to provide eligible merchants in the Qoin community with finance facilities, subject to terms and conditions. The purpose of the facility is to allow merchants to replace part of their products to continue supplying the Qoin community on an ongoing basis. Billzy Pay has a sophisticated payments platform that will also provide debit card, direct debit and B Pay services to merchants. An information flyer will be available at Qoin Support from 15 November 2021. In order to make this possible for the community an associate of the Qoin Project, Blockchain Investments Group Pty Ltd, has acquired a substantial shareholding in Billzy.
Public blockchains, Bridge and Wrapping
As announced at Merchant Week and QDN in June 2021, the technology teams would make it possible for the Qoin digital currency to be wrapped onto other public and decentralised blockchains. This requires a digital bridge to be built between the Qoin blockchain and other selected blockchains. This wrapping process means that an original Qoin is locked into a smart contract ‘vault’ and a new Wrapped Qoin token is instantly and automatically created on the new selected blockchain. The new Wrapped Qoin is simply a tokenized version of the existing Qoin.
Many new and modern blockchains and side chains have been developed over the past 2 years, each with special features and functionalities. These are known as Layer 1 blockchains. Popular Layer 1 chains are Bitcoin, Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain, Solana, Polkadot, Cardano, and Algorand. On top of these Layer 1 blockchains developers have built exciting Layer 2 solutions. A Layer 2 solution is simply an overlaying network that lies on top of the underlying blockchain. Popular Layer 2 solutions are Polygon, Optimism, Lightning network, Arbitrum, Starkware and zero-knowledge rollups. These Layer 2 solutions carry many protocols where hundreds of millions of dollars of cryptos are traded, swapped, staked, invested, and farmed every day in order to earn yield, rewards and other returns. These are commonly referred to as Decentralised Finance or DeFi. Popular DeFi protocols are Aave, Uniswap, Synthetix, Compound and PancakeSwap. Participants on these blockchains and protocols are charged transaction fees, commonly known as ‘Gas ‘. These gas fees are charged in order to pay for the miners, developers and validators.
The Qoin Association objective is to make it possible for Qoin holders to wrap their Qoin and participate in these opportunities. To achieve this objective, the Tech Team has been commissioned to build a multi-bridge which will connect the Qoin Blockchain to as many Layer 1, Layer 2 and DeFi protocols as possible.
We are pleased to announce that the first phase of this multi-bridge strategy has been completed and the smart contracts are currently under audit by a reputable global audit firm. Once the audit is complete the bridge will be hooked up to the Qoin wallet and blockchain. It is envisaged that this will be completed by the end of November.
Based on the community feedback a series of beta test wrapped crossings to the Ethereum blockchain will commence in December. Ethereum is the largest and most popular public decentralised blockchain with the most traffic, Layer 2 solutions and DeFi protocols. It is estimated that this beta testing, with eligible good standing merchants and community members, as well as further multi-bridge developments should be completed within 6 months.
Whilst the beta testing is taking place from December 2021 the Qoin Association and community leaders will conclude investigations, and negotiations with preferred centralised and decentralised exchanges, liquidity pools and other protocols. The objective of these discussions will be to give Wrapped Qoin holders the best available options to participate in the much larger crypto world.
It is widely reported that there are over 5,000 tokens or projects and 200 million crypto wallet holders connected to the blockchains, layer 2 solutions and DeFi protocols, and this is growing monthly by millions of wallets. By opening Qoin via Wrapped Qoin to this vast market to trade with creates a lot of potential opportunity.
Finance and merchant numbers
The Qoin Association has reviewed the money flow of the Qoin Project for the past 12 months and can report the following approximate metrics of the application of funds received were expensed or invested (rounded to nearest 1%)
Merchant registration costs: 8%
Commissions on membership package sales: 19%
Merchant onboarding, technical and trading support costs: 12%
Merchant validation: 2%
Training and Compliance costs: 3%
Marketing and Communications: 2%
Regulatory approvals and legal costs: 2%
Blockchain & validation Nodes costs: 4%
Wallet development and maintenance cost: 5%
QShop and off-chain tech: 2%
Block Trade Exchange funding: 33%
Accounting, audit and banking costs: 1%
Occupancy and other overhead costs: 1%
Provision and reserve: 6%
The Qoin Association can confirm that merchant numbers are regularly audited to verify that all merchants have been validated as registered businesses and that reported business closures and terminations are removed from the merchant count.
Conclusion
It is the start of an exciting stage for the Qoin community and we trust that you will enthusiastically join us on this journey to become a prosperous trading community where Qoin becomes the leading digital currency for everyday payments – and remember, Qoin trading is free with zero transaction costs.