Recorded a discussion / analysis of your ICO:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzaP7uiWUFwAs you'll see we're pretty enthusiastic about the concept but have some serious concerns. Would love to hear the team's response to our criticisms and correct anything we got wrong.
Hi there banzai2!
I am Brasseur Pepijn, co-founder of Etcetera. I will give you all the answers you need!
We will start with the remark about the softcap, this remark is partly true -> We failed to notice that it was not clearly mentioned on the website. But there is in fact a soft-cap in place equal to 900ETH - $1.000.000.
The reason for this is that this is the ABSOLUTE minimum amount we need to get started with distribution of Etcetera cards. Because we are a startup, we have no bank guarantees, especially not since we trade/broke cryptocurrencies, so every card sold will need to be backed by us. This in combination with the cost of development of the platform and legal aspects we calculated that $1.000.000 is the absolute minimum for us to get started.
Secondly, the KYC process. Every country has different rules surrounding KYC. We clearly stated that we will try to be operational in every country where regulations permit. This means for countries the following : most countries don't demand KYC as long as the amount of purchase is beneath a certain limit. This we will tackle by selling cards of different values in different regions, based on that countries specific regulations. We are aware of our position, and did the necessary research, but of course, USA is not yet within our reach. But we are 100% certain that there are multiple countries who or 1. have flexible regulations surrounding KYC, or 2. have no regulations in terms of cryptocurrencies. Both scenarios is a precursor for us that we can operate in those countries. Of course, we understand the doubt, being an American, where regulations are a lot stricter then Europe, Africa or some parts of Asia.
But rest assured that we are one hundred procent certain that we can roll out in multiple countries. Our initial countries will probably be Belgium and the republic of Georgia, and depending on the success of the ICO we will add more countries to the list that we can handle/manage with that amount.
In terms of the ICO in the US, shoud regulations not permit us to sell bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies, we will just sell the empty wallets together with a code that they can use on our website, just entering their personal details and they will receive the value of their purchase on the card. This way we will still reach the potential customers, even in the US, ONLY if this is our last resort.
Furthermore, you need to take into account that, because of those regulations, every MAXIMUM purchase amount will be limited per customer per sale, exactly to avoid/circumvent the KYC rules/restrictions.
Thirdly, we already made contact with distributors, who are in charge of payment systems to inspect and check if the infrastructure provided makes our project possible. And it is, in most countries. India for example is a difficult country to achieve this, but in Belgium to start with, it is perfectly possible. We are not in need of a "partnership", since we will be contracting them, not teaming up. Those discussions have been started, and we again are certain that we CAN distribute the cards through their channels, which actually are exactly the same as Itunes cards get distributed. Our initial distributor we talked to distributes those cards together with multiple others to their independent salespoints. The largest distributor in Belgium for example distributes those to over 5.000 salespoints.
Lastly, i can in all honesty tell you that our team is involved full time, and we did our research, but in the end, yes, until we get the funding, it is just a well formed and investigated idea. So i certainly welcome you to ask more questions or even contribute to our ICO!
You can contact me at pepijn@etcetera.ltd!