The contents of this announcement are point-in-time statements. Please note the date of publication.
24 December 2021
As 2021 ends, I would like to thank the Qoin community for their ongoing support throughout the year. What an incredible almost two years we had notwithstanding the pandemic and shutdowns, class actions and related media coverage, trolls and masked bad actors on social media, rapid-changing regulatory landscapes, and KYC tech challenges.
The Qoin Association is looking forward to an exciting 2022 with several developments of the Qoin project in the works and we are excited for the next chapter in our journey. We would like to celebrate some key milestones achieved together but also recognize some challenges and disappointments.
Community Voting and Decentralisation update
The next chapter for Qoin is all about fully democratising the Qoin project towards a global community owned Decentralised Autonomous Organisation. This means that the project will become fully automated, and the global community will vote for key decisions on technology development and governance. The first round of voting on 10 important decisions commenced yesterday 23rd of December at 8am and closes a month later, on Monday 24 January. This gives the community sufficient time to deliberate and discuss amongst each other. Please see your wallet Help button and click on “Qoin Community Voting” for voting access. Also check your emails and social media as well for updates on voting. We look forward to your lively debates and discussions on the social media pages but please be aware of the trolls and bad actors, who often interject to try spoil it for everyone.
After this first vote a portal will be set up through your wallet for any community member to propose a motion for consideration by peer group review.
Progress on wrapping of Qoin onto the Ethereum network
The first digital bridge interface has been built over the past few months and the smart contracts have passed audit. The bridge has been hooked up to the Qoin wallet, the Qoin blockchain as well as to the Ethereum network.
Yesterday, on 22 December 2021 the very first Qoin was wrapped successfully onto the Ethereum testnet. More live wrap testing will continue. For security reasons the wrapping will commence on to the Ethereum mainnet in January. Subject to the voting results this beta phase of the wrapping will be an orderly invitation to preference groups over six months.
Whilst the beta testing is taking place from January 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, with an audience now exceeding 220 million wallet holders.
Growth of Community and Payments
The Qoin community has now reached 100,000 wallet addresses and over 80,000 users across Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. In November the community made payments of over 10.6 million Qoin from their wallets. At the current wallet value that represents over $100 million of transactions. Based on the last 3 months the annual run rate is now exceeding $1 billion of payments on the Qoin blockchain for a full 12 months at zero fees.
The UK opened in October, but we are disappointed that Singapore and South Africa just missed their planned December launches. This was due to the wallet and identity verification protocols and approvals being held up. As soon as the regulatory Know Your Customer (KYC) challenges have been resolved we will open in those countries.
Merchant numbers
After 38,000 businesses registered as merchants in the first 18 months, this astounding growth has slowed the last few months due to the following key reasons:
- The controls of validating merchants were tightened from early this year
- The report button was switched on to educate or transfer merchants permanently not trading to consumers.
- The agents force reduced due to lack of sufficient earnings and compliance controls
- Negative social media often driven by the usual playbook of trolls and competitors who discredit valid content and spread disinformation using fake accounts to promote their agendas anonymously.
This is the main reason why the Qoin wallet value has not been growing but remained relatively stable over the past few months.
We are working very hard on alternative digital ways to attract new merchants to the community in a compliant way. Our strongest weapon is our current community to refer their favourite store, restaurant, tradie or business to us. If every merchant refers only one new business for the whole year, we will have 38,000 new places to visit, and the wallet value could grow accordingly.
Product replacement finance
Billzy Pay has commenced to supply the eligible Australian Qoin businesses with finance facilities from $50,000 to $250,000. If you are a merchant supplying the Qoin community with products and need ongoing finance to do so, then please contact Qoin Support for a Flyer. Billzy has a sophisticated payments platform that will also provide debit card, direct debit and B Pay services to merchants. We will look at finance providers for NZ and UK merchants in the new year.
Communications
It is very important for us to be able to communicate effectively with the whole community. In February we established QDN (Qoin Digital Network) to bring you a weekly news service of everything Qoin and Crypto. In May the Q mag quality seasonal magazine was first published sharing the big news, plans as well as inspiring merchant and community stories.
We have also been using Facebook, Instagram, Linked-in, reddit, email and text to reach you. From next year we will add in-app notifications, push notifications, Telegram, and a Discord channel. We trust this will attract more engagement from the community as we decentralise.
Closing
For the Christmas holiday period, our admin offices will be closed from December 24 and will reopen on January 10, 2022. However, Qoin support will be available on business days during this period.
Thank you to our Qoin community, agents and staff for your loyalty and contributions. We would like to wish you and your family a very merry and blessed Christmas and a Happy and prosperous New Year and remember, let’s keep the Qoin community growing – it’s free.