Hi Dasengineer,
Thank you for your message. We are happy to hear that you find our advisory board impressive. Regarding our team, we only displayed C-Level team members on this thread. In the manifesto, please note that we did not mention all members of our team (both those in tech and on the marketing side) because we are running an exchange and we need to keep some members anonymous as failsafes. It's true that we could have mentioned their presence.
I respectfully disagree concerning your remarks about the team. The project here is building an exchange; not a blockchain. Our team is composed of exchange experts from both the crypto-sphere and the traditional financial world. To remove any doubts about our capabilities, the Blockchain.io platform is currently being developed as we speak. The Alpha is planned for June 2018 and the Beta for late July. Early investors will get access to Alpha & Beta.
Concerning volume, the situation will shift soon. We are currently working with a French bank and are constrained by French banking regulation, which is one of the strictest in the world. The banking cartel is very strong and proactively undermines our business. Following our migration to a different banking partner, they have imposed uncompetitive funding limits (10K/year), preventing any significant high-volume traders from boosting volume and fueling platform liquidity. We are currently working on an alternative banking solution in Europe, and we plan to add USD & JPY to our bitcoin exchange. We are confident that volume will be back on Paymium once this is settled.
On the profitability side, please note that we have been operating a bitcoin exchange since 2011, thus we have significant reserves. The two previous years have been good regarding volume. The last few months have been tough, but we still largely benefited from the price rally of 2016 and especially that of last year.
When considering hacking, this is one of our main concerns. 24H volume has little bearing on the funds held on our platform. With around 200,000 users, hackers will certainly try something, but we have developed very high security standards (more than 98% of cold storage), keeping our customers' funds safe.
Concerning the Blockchain.io exchange, our main exclusive feature is decentralized settlement. Blockchain.io will offer the possibility to settle trades without giving the custody of coins, which erases the last potential point-of-failure. Order Books will remain centralized, guaranteeing high-performance matching and liquid markets. Of course, this feature will be optional, as it could not fit some user profiles, such as market-makers (who prefer velocity over high security).
Moreover, Blockchain.io will also offer basic & advanced trade orders from the start. In the long run, we plan to implement margin trading and peer-to-peer lending. Please check out our roadmap at this end of the thread.
Last, but not least, Blockchain.io will have a strong focus on institutions. We believe that ICOs will become the main way to raise funds, and that large companies will approach us to launch their respective tokens for new product launches. Our team is highly experienced and has strong connections in the traditional financial world, therefore, we are aiming to become the primary interlocutor for such companies. Blockchain.io will offer its expertise and knowledge to provide complete ICO services, from planning and execution to token listing on our platform.
Please feel free to ask further questions if you have any. In all, development is ongoing, but coming along very well.
Thank you very much.
The Blockchain.io Team