The interview starts at 5:00pm EST August 11th 2017
This post is used for informational uses only and does not constitute investment advice.
Interview questions:
What technology solutions do you provide?
A: BitClave uses blockchain technology to create a decentralized search ecosystems where businesses can advertise directly to interested consumers without the need for 3rd party ad networks and users are rewarded for their engagement with Consumer Attention Tokens.
When the company was founded?
A: BitClave was founded in 2016 by a team of technology and security experts.
Why was the company founded?
A: The founders recognized an imbalance in the current digital advertising ecosystem where users were bombarded by irrelevant advertising and businesses were spending billions of dollars with little success. The only winners were the 3rd party ad networks in the middle. The advent of blockchain technology made possible a solution that benefits businesses while keeping user data private.
Organization’s purpose: What we do, How do we do it, whom do we do it for, What value are we bringing?
A: BitClave is giving users control over their personal data. Internet service providers, search engines, and social networks currently profit off of selling user data to advertisers, but in such a way that digital advertising remains largely ineffective. Our focus is on the users and the businesses: we use blockchain technology to keep user data private and secure while allowing participating businesses to advertise directly to consenting users. This means users will only see relevant ads, and be rewarded for interacting with them, and businesses can advertise only to interested consumers, resulting in more efficient advertising spending.
Scope of Operations: what kind of product or service do your provide?
A: The BitClave Active Search Ecosystem (BASE) is the search component where users can find relevant goods and services. Users can make BitClave accounts through our website or mobile app, allowing them to earn Consumer Attention Tokens directly to the BitClave ERC20 compliant wallet.
What is your future vision?
A: We are disrupting the digital advertising ecosystem by making 3rd party ad networks irrelevant.
History of the project
A: Developing the BASE was a challenge, but we’ve assembled an incredible team of engineers, security experts, and developers who met the challenge head on. Our platform is approaching beta testing and recently raised $1.8 million during the pre-sale of our tokens, the Consumer Attention Token (CAT).
Motivation to develop the project
A: The primary motivation is to give users control of their personal data, disrupting digital advertising in the process.
What makes your project unique and valuable?
A: Aside from a talented team with a unique blend of expertise and insight, BitClave is taking an innovative approach to digital advertising and decentralized search with a focus on consumer-business interaction not present in similar projects.
What is your token.
A: Consumer Attention Tokens, or CAT.
What is the token supply?
A: 2,000,000,000
What is code base that your product is using?
A: BASE is built using smart contracts and is built on the Ethereum Network. BASE has a client component that allows users to search either through mobile app or website, and also a server component that enables off the chain search. BitClave is going to open source majority of its code base to enable third party developers to build their own version of the apps and searches. BitClave also provides examples of smart contracts that could be used by businesses as a reference and could be enhanced using BASE Smart Contract Editor.
What features does your program use?
A: Our program employs unique smart contract’s design to reward users with CATs for engaging with ads that are relevant to their unique needs. We created the BASE, a search environment for businesses and consumers with focus on data privacy, while enabling data monetization for consent users.
Who are your competitors and how are you superior to them?
A: Similar blockchain projects would be Brave Browser’s Basic Attention Token in the advertising space and Presearch in decentralized search. BitClave takes a more streamlined approach to decentralized search, focused on consumer to business interactions, and rewards users with Consumer Attention Tokens for engaging with relevant advertisements, which can be used to make purchases from our business partners. Both of these projects reward users for “labor intense” actions with small payments. BitClave enables personal data monetization with the goal to reach high payouts for relevant searches. The real competitors are Google and Facebook.
Is there any mining or staking involved with your coins?
A: All the coins are premined. However, the community gets rewarded for running the blockchain computations based on gas spent on the transaction. The rewards are small portion of the payment that goes from a business to consumer
What are the future plans for your project?
A: Once the ecosystem is up and running, we hope to bring on more merchants and study their success to refine our ad matching process to ensure users always have the best search experiences.
What other services will be offered by your project or company in the future?
A: We are launching as a mobile application, and plan to move on to a web-based platform in the future. We are also working on some interesting vertical solutions, that would be announced soon.
What can we expect from the project in the next 6-12 months?
A: Better ad matching for users and more partner businesses where you can engage users with CATs.
What is your expected company profitability in 2018?
A: The company model is to avoid charging fee for transactions and focus on community building. The profitability will be coming from the growth of ecosystem and additional services that the company will provide in the future.
Expenses and current cost of operations?
A: This information is currently not disclosed.
What will you use your investment capital for?
A: 38% for developing and launching the platform, 37% for expanding adoption through business partnerships and maintaining the user community, 7% for administrative costs 5% for advertising such as growth-hacking and PR, 5% to cover legal expenses to ensure our product is compliant, and 8% set aside for unforeseen costs.
Does your token pass the howey test?
A: Yes. Participating in our fundraising is not an investment, but an opportunity to acquire tokens to be used within our network. Participants will contribute Ether or Bitcoin and recieve CAT in return, which can be used to make purchases from our business partners on the BitClave network.
Growth strategy after the ICO?
A: After our fundraiser in September, we will be focused on cementing partnerships with businesses to participate in our network so we can offer a robust searching and shopping experience for our users.
How many tokens do the founders get?
A: 10% of the tokens are reserved for the team.
What exchanges will this token be traded on?
A: Consumer Attention Tokens are ERC20 compliant and will be listed on all major exchanges like Bitfinex, Poloniex, and Kraken.
How will you grow your market?
A: Our market will grow as users and businesses see the benefits and success stories coming out of our early adopter partners. Additionally, an active, responsive community will help establish BitClave as a useful, valuable resource for both merchants and consumers.
What is the target demographic?
A: We are looking for providers of goods and services who have felt the pains of wasted advertising budgets in the past, along with privacy-conscious internet users who wish to retain control over how their data is used.
Do you have any active partnerships?
A: We are currently developing partnership relationship with several businesses. More details are forthcoming.
What are the nature of these relationships and how are you utilizing or leveraging these partnerships?
A: We are working with merchants to launch as our inaugural business partners as well as a payments network to facilitate using CAT for making purchases. These partners will bring their current fans and customers to BitClave to utilize our network.
What is vision for the company in the next 3-5 year plan?
A: BitClave will solidify more business partnerships if effort to see a reduction in the annual spend on advertising. Our primary focus is to provide a positive experience for the businesses and users leveraging our platform, so expanding adoption and refining our ad matching are immediate goals, followed by releasing Android, iOS and web-based versions of our platforms.
Please provide information about the backgrounds of your CEO, CTO, CFO.
A: CEO- Alexander Bessonov: Senior Executive with over 20 years of experience in the security, privacy and blockchain industry. Former CSO of LGE.
CTO- Patrick Tague: Associate Research Professor in the ECE Department at CMU. Expert in mobile, embedded, and wireless security.
COO- Vasily Trofimchuk: MSc in CS, MBA. A serial entrepreneur. Expert in advertising, game theory, blockchain, and management.
Bitclave Website: https://www.bitclave.com/team
Bitclave Whitepaper: https://www.bitclave.com/whitepaper
Bitclave Twitter: https://twitter.com/bitclave
Bitclave Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/m/login/
Bitclave Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bitclave
Bitclave youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtibs4mNHqbPn-NGnFtK6yg
Bitclave Bitcointalk: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2005370
Bitclave Telegram: https://t.me/BitClaveCommunity
Bitclave Slack: https://slack-bitclave-com.herokuapp.com
Company Email: info@bitclave.com