I have gotten incredible feedback over the last several days on our ECOBANK project. Some of this feedback will require its own post to respond to, some of it will be getting integrated into our marketing moving forward, and some of it I want to address in this post.
This post is an attempt to answer some of the most common questions I have been getting about ECOBANK - take a look and let me know what you think in the comments. As always, feel free to reach out to me in private anytime.
1. Is ECOBANK a crypto project?
No. Yes. But no. I see why I get this question, let me try to explain.
ECOBANK is a physical development project, its a traditional company put together to do traditional company things, buy things, improve them, work them, run them, make cash-flow from them, and in the end maybe sell them. It will be selling products and services to real people who show up in the real world.
Where the crypto comes in is that we are using a token (hive-engine protocol) as the stock. Token holders will hold the rights of stock holders under Colombian law and the appropriate articles of our charter. They are the common stock in the company. This provides a number of benefits, not least of which is free access to a 24/7 market where these tokens can be bought and sold, as well as avoiding all the costs associated with getting listed on the Colombian stock market, and avoiding all the hassle for people to get access to the Colombian stock market (or NYSE for that matter). You will not need a broker or a middle man to buy or sell, you will just need a HIVE wallet and an account. If investors need a HIVE account, which cost 3 HIVE (currently ~$1.35 USD), I have plenty of account tokens to get them with a free account.
We are currently producing material in Spanish to help people do this. I will also be producing English ECOBANK branded material to onboard anyone to HIVE that wants to get involved. If the technological barrier is too great, I can serve as a broker (at my discretion) for investors not willing or able to do what is required to hold their own tokens. Generally, my discretion will be limited to people I know or family of mine, not random people on the internet - this is likely a self selecting group anyway of people who would trust me to hold their tokens.
2. What is the minimum investment for ECOBANK?
There is no minimum investment! This also has to do with Question 1, since by using a crypto token for the stock, we do not need to have minimums or limit investors in any way. Once the token market is open, people can buy and sell any amount of tokens, even fractions of a token, freely and at any price they (and the market as a whole) choose.
If you are able to follow the instructions in the presale, you do not need to worry about minimums. If you need special attention, I will be using my discretion. Again, I naturally will have a much higher patience level with my own friends and family.
3. Do investors/members get paid? When?
As a stock holder in a company that aims to be profitable , it is our job to get you paid! Accounting will happen at the end of the year, profit payments will go out in January as dividends. There is an important note here, and that is that stock holders will participate in a governance vote about how much of profit to distribute as dividends, and how much to keep in a reinvestment fund. The minimum amount of reinvestment is 20%, as per our charter.
It is in my interest to increase the frequency of dividend payments to quarterly. I don't know if we can make that happen as soon as 2023, but that will be on our goal list.
4. What's the expected return on investment? Will this do better than XXX crypto investment?
We are not targeting specific ROI, at least not yet, before we get started. As such, it is impossible to say or claim that we will 'do better' than any crypto investment. Crypto token prices are down, if they go back up in the short term, many of them will probably do better than ECOBANK, in the short term.
What about HBD savings? HBD generates 20% per year, and something like 24% APY from compounding, can we say with certainty that we will do better than locking up your stables in the HBD savings account? No there is no certainty.
But to defend the project, I want to talk about two things. The first is dollar inflation.
Stable coins are all well and good during liquidity crunches. When no one has any dollars and everyone needs them, it can sure feel smart holding stable coins. But let's not forget about inflation, and hyperinflation. I don't want to say that the US dollar is going to hyperinflate like Wiemar Germany this year, maybe not even next year. But we know that the dollar is on its last legs, and I would warn you all about the 'unseen risk' of holding stables (even solid stables that don't have the same algorithmic risks as UST or even counter-party risks like USDT). Stables, if they manage to stay stable, are only stable with respect to the dollar. As the dollar's purchasing power wanes, so too does that of your stable coins.
On the other hand, we have speculative crypto investments. I am a big believer in BTC and HIVE. I also like Monero and I bet there are a handful of other tokens among the thousands that I would classify as 'solid' investments. Splinterlands is a game, probably this could be a good investment. There is a lot of potential to find promising projects in crypto. And if the dollar hyperinflates, probably some of these, and especially BTC, will do rather well.
Crypto goes up and down, often violently. And I cannot claim that if you spend some time and effort trading these coins successfully up and down, and do so without error, you can make a lot of money. Maybe even more money than the ECOBANK project.
But what is the point of changing the financial system if we don't use that energy to change the systems around us, here in the physical world? Isn't it wise to take some of those gains and invest in food and energy production? Safe, productive, prosperous and healthy communities?
This is the mission of the ECOBANK.
Every investor is different. If you are already into crypto, it might be a fine idea to hold onto your bags, BTC, HIVE or whatever you believe in, wait for the next pump, and then buy some ECOBANK tokens.
If you are a dollar holder who is not yet in crypto, don't wait, hedge out of dollars as fast as you can, even if its not in ECOBANK - figure out some strategy!
At the end of the day, we are building the ECOBANK to be a positive and productive physical hedge in anyone's portfolio. As for the timing, that's up to each individual investor to decide.
5. Is this a charity?
As already discussed, this enterprise will be run as profitably as possible. But we do have a social and environmental mission, our goals are designed to do as much good for our rural, third-world community as possible - to build it up, to help it prosper.
Charity is a funny thing, people can feel good about giving their money away, but look at where that money really goes, and it's easy to get sick at the waste and often politics that goes into this type of enterprise. Much of the money is often spent figuring out how to ask for more money, invested in 'administration costs' and salaries, and only a small fraction is spent on the social mission. And this assumes that the social mission spending is 'doing good', which is questionable, since its not profitable.
Of course there are market failures, and there are ways to donate money more effectively than others. But when something is profitable, and care is taken to avoid externalities, we can be sure that more value was created than expended.
With ECOBANK, we want our members to feel good, we want to generate social investment and environmental improvements. We just also want to do those things in a profitable way.
Did these explanations answer your questions? Or leave you with more? Leave your feedback down in the comments.