FINSTICK Innovations have successfully completed a Proof of Concept (PoC) based on the Blockchain driven Liquid Bonus® Loyalty Aggregation Medium.

The Liquid Bonus® Loyalty Aggregation Medium eliminates most problems associated with isolated, self-sufficient loyalty programs and, as a consequence, the low consumer demand for related services.

The average consumer may well be registered in a dozen loyalty programs, but actively uses only 2-4 of them. The Liquid Bonus® Loyalty Aggregation Medium solves this issue by sharing the conventional economic model of traditional loyalty programs with the additional incentive of accumulating Liquid Bonus® (LiqBo®) tokens. These can be “monetized” or exchanged for a discount in the traditional way at participating merchants.

"By creating and implementing the Liquid Bonus® Medium, we aim to reduce significantly the cost of integrating common loyalty systems”, said Julius B. Kuznetsov, founder and CEO of FINSTICK Innovations "In addition, we shall provide much higher throughput and performance than competing public Blockchain-based solutions."

MOSCOW, RUSSIA, January 25, 2018 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Moscow, 25 January 2018 - The Liquid Bonus® Loyalty is a global business targeting the loyalty and discount industry, eliminating country borders to serve retail customers around the world. With a successful proof-of-concept already in place and a number of essential partnerships underway, Liquid Bonus® Loyalty is announcing its first Initial Coin Offering (ICO) in order to grow and develop its business worldwide. This Early Bird Program expires on February 18, 2018.

Liquid Bonus® Loyalty

The Liquid Bonus® Loyalty is a global, decentralized intermediary working to facilitate existing loyalty and discount programs, by:

• - Overcoming the growing pains caused by the inability for customers to manage effectively more than 5-7 loyalty subscriptions;
• - Developing a smart way to get rid of excessive liability caused from expiring proprietary loyalty points by converting them into interoperable LiqBo® tokens;
• - Uniting loyalty and reward programs into a distributed, secure and unified medium;
• - Allowing instant transfers of proprietary bonus points to interoperable LiqBo® tokens, and back, for an optional loyalty providers' conversion fee;
• - Enforcing strict anonymity of all loyalty providers' data;
• - Providing the highest level of security to protect transactions and data;
• - Providing a common user-friendly mobile interface for every participating loyalty program.

All of these valuable features have been combined in one system, using the modern blockchain approach, while responding to retailer’s demands for fast transaction throughput. The use of state-of-the-art “SIDECHAIN with 2-WAY PEG” implementation means that the Liquid Bonus® Loyalty solution is a main contender for becoming the loyalty application of the future.

The unique Liquid Bonus® Loyalty tool for end-users fulfills all major social and reward needs of retail customers. With its comprehensive functionality and user-friendly mobile interface, it presents valuable advantages over other loyalty applications for retail users.

The Early Bird Program is a unique opportunity for those excited by this project and willing to support its rapid development. Early Bird Contributors in the crowd-sale will benefit from the exclusive option of issuing fixed discount coupons to their followers thus increasing their Liquid Bonus stakes until the end of the ICO. These favorable conditions are limited to this offer which ends on February 18, 2018. Following this, our loyalty and discount conditions for acquiring interoperable LiqBo® tokens will downgrade in subsequent stages of the ICO.

"All raised funds will go to the development of the best in class blockchain-based, decentralized, intermediary ecosystem for loyalty, aimed at serving retail customers all over the world”, said Julius Kuznetsov, founder and CEO of FINSTICK Innovations LLC, the initiator of the Liquid Bonus Loyalty project. "The Liquid Bonus Loyalty system will not be owned by FINSTICK Innovations or by any other Party. Instead, it will be operated based on consensus of participating brands and retailers forming a unique, global, loyalty infrastructure based on distributed ledger”.

According to the latest loyalty report, provided by Bond Brand Loyalty in collaboration with VISA, "Loyalty memberships are up while member engagement is at capacity." They add, "The cumulative points liability for all U.S. Programs is estimated to be valued at roughly $100 billion." This shows a tremendous market potential which Liquid Bonus Loyalty aims to address with its original blockchain solution answering retailers' demand for fast transactions. For further questions about Liquid Bonus Loyalty offerings or features, please visit www.liqbo.com or search for LiqBo®.

FINSTICK Innovations is searching for partnerships to expand this technology internationally by initiating efforts in countries that will lead the distributed loyalty space. Please contact marketing@finstick.net to register your interest, or call Juli Kuznetsov on +7 499 677 5883.

Featured article at

FINSTICK Innovations have completed the development and pilot testing of the Liquid Bonus™ ecosystem.

Liquid Bonus™ (abbreviated LiqBon™) is a versatile non-expiring irrevocable reward point designed for electronic tips and other individual rewards. Created as an open and independent token, it can be freely donated and accepted by companies, retailers, or individuals. LiqBon™ can also be used for retail customer acquisition campaigns, promotions, and the «loyalty roaming» service.

This is the marketing tool aimed primarily at the interests of consumers and a wide range of smaller market players who have failed to create and use their own system for attracting and developing customers by either reason or have created it but could not compete with larger players. LiqBon™ is fully interoperable and has no legacy loyalty program holding it back. The circulation of Liquid Bonus™ rewards is carried out in the open Club LiqBon™ ecosystem (liqbon.club), with no corporate or geographic boundaries.

«We have invented and released for free circulation the Liquid Bonus™ Reward as the world's first universal and independent digital incentive token aimed at electronic tips and promotions. It shall work equally well for the benefit of all users, from consumers and small traders to large manufacturers and international retail chains interested in increasing the number of motivated buyers.», pointed out Juli Kuznetsov, CEO of FINSTICK Innovations.

So far, this Club LiqBon™ reward ecosystem is in its infancy. Still, thanks to the user community, it shall soon become a reliable and mature service capable of eliminating most of the existing contradictions and unfairness regarding the accrual and invalidation of loyalty points or miles in the centralized corporate loyalty and sales promotion systems.

For most bigger retailers, the Liquid Bonus™ shall remain a kind of "silly toy" until millions of potential buyers start using it. Subsequently, this tool shall occupy at least a niche for the "inter-program-roaming" - a service designed to open up the tightly centralized closed loyalty programs and other corporate customer development systems.

«We believe in the success of the Liquid Bonus™ as it has been designed and developed for the sake of buyers and businesses that are ready to implement a more flexible, fair, and open customer policy. In addition, 21st century IT and telecommunications have provided unprecedented opportunities for self-organization and building up user communities that can successfully compete even with business giants.
A lot is being changed in the post-pandemic era. I hope that most of these changes will turn to be useful for the vast majority of either smaller businesses or global market players.» He added.

Having got out into a shopping mall together with my big family, I did not expect that this walk would be the beginning of my new project... Standing at the cash-desk with a heap of clothes for our children and ourselves:

• - Do you have our loyalty card?
• I (instantly):
• - No!
• My wife:
• - Yes, wait a second, I'll have a quick look... she begins to sort through a stack looking like a deck of playing cards
• - I can’t find… how does it look like? What color?
• Saleswoman:
• - I can’t say for sure, we have issued different ones, it seems the latest has had a blue tones..
• A line behind us begins the murmur of waiting
• - No, regret, I can’t find, oh, what a pity!
• - Hey, there’s no problem, let's issue one more for free and you can use it right away saving new points!
• Dissatisfied murmur behind my back is being intensified, I focus my thoughts on our children who have been left to themselves for a long time in a children's corner with slides and other near-sport entertainments..
• - No !
• I say firmly,
• - Do not even try to do anything else, than process our purchases and we shall leave on other business asap! No additional formalities, please!

This is a common scene of our daily life, no fiction at all. This was exactly the moment when I’ve asked myself: "How much longer can this be continued!?" And I thought about how to make the buying process easier and more comfortable for everyone.

Loyalty and discount programs have been invented earlier than one century ago. Once upon a time, buyers were given metal tokens and stamps issued by a separate store. Those days, people lived a settled way and moved, at best, on horses, going out according to modern standards not on a travel, but rather on a short walk. Lots of water has flowed under the bridge since that time, but the need to stimulate sales, and even better, to bind all customers to a store has remained. And, strangely enough, the methods have not been undergoing valuable changes. Every single store or retail chain strives to do this for itself and allocates a huge budget on developing of its own loyalty and discount program, thus making changes to IT system and cash desks, issuing plastic cards and distributing them among buyers. But, apparently, they all forget that such system works frictionless only in case no one else doing the same thing but becomes a real nightmare for buyers, as soon as every store introduces yet another loyalty program... or almost everyone, because not everyone has enough money to setup and launch so complex and expensive system.

Liquid Bonus - the idea of making business that optimizes loyalty programs.

The idea of Liquid Bonus (LiqBo), which helps to accumulate and keep your points, miles and other benefits provided by retail networks, shops and airlines, has instantly appeared, but I had to spend much time for thinking and consulting with my friends to find a suitable solution, which would not become yet another loyalty partnership or a coalition having limited number of participants. You can come up with a new elegant solution that may bring success and money, but it will not change the current situation. This time my goal was quite away from the common approach of a businessman and innovator.

In order for the "Liquid Bonus" to become really interesting to buyers and retailers, it should be truly global, not just working with major sellers, but also be easily accepted in many countries of the world. This tool should not interfere with the process established by every single store, network or loyalty coalition and prevent from any kind of disclosure of customers’ data accumulated in a loyalty program of an individual retail network, partnership or coalition. At the same time, I thought, Liquid Bonus should provide a trustful environment for all participants, even though they’re direct competitors and do not trust each other at all.

How can we improve the loyalty programs’ efficiency by means of blockchain?

And voila! I came to the conclusion that the best approach for solving the problem is the blockchain technology with a tool similar to Bitcoin, which is not used for making payments and money transfers between people, but for redistributing and using the accumulated bonus points through non-trusted environment and in an optimized manner. Who would refuse an opportunity to collect points and discounts accumulated in a mother country and take them away for holidays benefitting from local offerings abroad? And surely, in case of having unused points at the end of the month, to bring them back home and execute during a forthcoming local sale…

Being involved in Loyalty Aggregation Medium, retail chains, shops and interested brands will become decision-making participants of the interoperable system thus making decisions about its operation and further development on the basis of consensus, as it happens in the world of crypto-currencies. Each participant with a native loyalty program will continue to operate it in its common mode. Any possibility of confidential information disclosure will be excluded. Every participant of the open Loyalty Aggregation Medium shall be able to track which retailer(s) were targeted after converting loyalty points to LiqBo thus making it possible to better evaluate and show the most suitable partner for a deeper loyalty cooperation in the future.

And finally, a few words to retailers and loyalty coalitions.

Instead of ‘burning-out’ bonus points and miles in order to decrease the total level of liabilities arising from constant issuance process, let your customers converting them into LiqBo tokens. You will not only get rid of the excess of customers’ obligations elegantly, but will gain additional option of assigning a commission for such operation. Or you can allow your customers to withdraw their surplus of accumulated points for free. But the point is not even there. The main thing is that your grateful customers will return back to you for convenient service and new opportunities… and new customers will come along with them.

Be the first and success will be on your side!

Featured article at

BLOCKCHAIN TECHNOLOGY is an absolute leader.

From my point of view the most significant event of the year is the mass recognition and adoption of the open registries (Blockchain) technology. It is very essential that despite Bitcoin phenomenon claims to be the most significant IT event of 2017, it is just a special case of Blockchain technology along with property rights registries (real estate, stocks, etc.) and many other applications. Therefore, I put Blockchain in the title and Bitcoin, even though it is being part of the first place, is mentioned in the description. Indeed, Bitcoin is essential for fintech industry, the economy and banking sector, but the influence of the core Blockchain technology is spread to the most of everything associated with IT.

THE NEW CUSTOMERS’ DATA PROCESSING POLICIES, KYC and numerous anti- money laundering and anti- terrorism regulations, new requirements for the collection, storage and transfer of user data, the end of a "pure freedom of Internet content".. all this have its fundamental impact on IT and near-IT business. Moreover, it has started changing - the way and how users get services and content in Russia and around the world. A sharp change of these "rules" in 2017 will have a lasting impact to the further evolution of the entire IT industry.

MASS INTRODUCTION OF BIG DATA and ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE are all IT 'chips' that have changed our life once and forever. In 2017 no one is surprised by cases like a story of “How Target Figured Out A Teen Girl Was Pregnant Before Her Father Did”. And the artificial intelligence has launched its undisguised offensive in the labor market, beginning to squeeze out lower-level bank employees, lawyers and some other categories of workers.

Featured article at:
Blockchain показывает зубы. Эксперты подводят ИТ-итоги года
Итоги года: роботы штурмуют государство и бизнес

Криптовалюта Монеро появилась после форка Bytecoin. С самого начала, монета столкнулась с множеством трудностей. Хакерские атаки не позволяли стабилизировать работу сети вплоть до конца 2014 года. Сегодня монета прочно закрепилась на высоких позициях всевозможных рейтингов.

Полная анонимность

Основа монеты — технология кольцевых подписей. А главная ценность — поддержка полной анонимности пользователей. Базой стала работа по принципу формирования случайных групп со своими ключами доступа. Каждая транзакция проводится через предъявление ключа. Кто стоит за ним – никогда не будет известно. Дополнительной мерой приватности стал специальный код, встроенный в систему. Его задача — перемешивать транзакции. Баланс каждого пользователя оказывается сокрытым за генерацией случайных чисел. Даже сумма обрабатываемых денежных средств остается вне доступа.

Выгода для простых пользователей

Создатели заранее позаботились об одном важном моменте, который не позволяет перевести монету в разряд любимчиков корпоративного майнинга. Ее добыча невозможна через асики, а это значит, что простые пользователи могут не беспокоиться о повторении любимой монетой пути биткойна.

До 2022 года создатели планируют выпустить 18,5 млн монет. На этом этапе, приблизительные выплаты майнерам составят 0,6 монеро за обработку блока, с частотой выхода 1 на 2 сек.
В дополнение, разработчики создали алгоритм, благодаря которому была решена одна из главных проблем майнинга – существенно снизился нагрев процессора и видеокарты во время работы.

Monero среди других криптовалют

Несмотря на особенный статус.Монеро вторая по капитализации. Находится в свободном доступе. Для хранения Monero пользователям был предложен только официальный кошелек.
Пользователи ценят киптовалюту за анонимность. Монеро стала главным платежным инструментом даркнета. Благодаря этому может официально носить звание «монета без риска цензуры».

«Криптовалюта Монеро имеет ряд преимуществ, включая повышенный уровень безопасности, отсутствие ограничения максимальной эмиссии и повышенную анонимность, обеспечиваемую протоколом обфускации транзакций. Кстати, последнее свойство сделало Монеро популярной в онлайн-казино и других многопользовательских играх на деньги, а также вызвало обеспокоенность в «Европоле». Все эти свойства не являются преимуществами для использования Монеро в качестве платежного инструмента, принятого государством. Более того, учитывая стремление большинства правительств к установлению жесткого контроля над платежными операциями и к полному исключению анонимных транзакций из оборота (вспомним государственные программы по исключению денежных знаков из оборота и перевода всех платежей на безнал), криптовалюта Монеро не сможет оказаться интегрированной в финансовую систему на государственном уровне.» — рассказал BitCryptoNews лауреат CNEWS Awards 2007 (номинация «Управление Финансами», совместно с Альфа-банком), инициатор и соавтор первой в России системы мобильных платежей (2002 г.) Юлий Кузнецов.

Развитие

С момента начала работы сети, создатели постоянно трудятся над ее развитием. Все изменения, в конечном итоге, направлены на поддержку и улучшение показателей анонимности. Находясь в конкурентной среде, также особая роль отводится простоте и эффективности.

Дорожная карта на официальном сайте дает понять, что впереди у самой законспирированной криптовалюты еще много положительных изменений, которые сделают ее еще сильнее.

Проблема нелегального майнинга

Какая валюта – такие и майнеры. Касательно Monero часто можно встретить новости об очередном открытии нелегального майнинга. Чаще всего он происходит через всевозможные трояны.

Интересная информация. Одним из самых любопытных способов майнинга, которые сегодня были открыты, принадлежит платформе Pirate Bay. В основе их работы – майнинг Monero через посетителей, которые, чаще всего и не догадываются, что отдают свои вычислительные мощности на благо владельцам сайта.

Monero в 2018 году

Основной двигатель монеты — анонимность. Пользователи ценят неизменность концепции системы. В пользу роста также говорят следующие факты:

• Активное использование Monero в качестве платежного инструмента на AppStore и iTunes Store.
• Полное признание легитимности криптовалюты через Oasis.
• Растущее число бирж и площадок, принимающих в свои ряды Monero для торговли и совершения платежей.

Необходимо заострить внимание и на другой стороне вопроса — каким образом полная анонимность повлияет на дальнейшее развитие криптовалюты? Концепция Monero полностью противоречит требованиям по возможному узакониванию криптовалюты, как нового финансового инструмента. Она представляет собой следующую опасность:

• полная анонимность — ключ к незаконному финансированию потенциально опасных организаций;
• отсутствие отчетности не позволяет контролировать оборот средств;
• система работы, включающая шифрование цепочки передачи данных, полностью противоречит принципам безопасности.

Получается, что интеграция Monero на государственном уровне полностью исключена. Кроме того, криптовалюта представляет потенциальную опасность, как инструмент для финансирования терроризма, а значит, она в первую очередь привлечет внимание регулирующих органов. Начало активных действий со стороны правительства против Monero, вероятно, — исключительно вопрос времени. Для создания каких-либо попыток ограничения жизнедеятельности системы нужны полномочия, ведущие к необходимости полного узаконенного регулирования области криптовалют. В любом случае, работы по попыткам интеграции нового финансового инструмента ведутся во всем мире.

«Монеро изначально нацелена на усиленную анонимность, что государствам не нравится, поэтому монеро и аналогичные криптовалюты, которые делают упор на это свое свойство, безусловно не будут поддерживаться государством, которое любит контролировать все финансовые потоки. Цена этой монеты начала расти после летних «зачисток» в даркнете, когда выяснилось, что биткоин не так анонимен, как изначально казалось. В ноябре уже стало известно о том, что американское правительство ищет способы для слежки за движениями биткоина и других популярных криптовалют, и что в списки добавились Monero и Zcash. Тем не менее, на сегодняшний день доподлинно неизвестно о том, удалось ли им реализовать план по установке слежки за транзакциями XMR с последующей деанонимизацией пользователей. Сказать точно можно только одно — об интеграции в финансовую систему тут речь быть не может, это будет противоречить самой базовой философии, стоящей причинами создания Monero». — отметил в беседе с BitCryptoNews криптовалютный исследователь, инвестор, член Bitcoin Foundation Александр Китченко.

Необходимо также рассмотреть возможность перехода Monero полностью на «теневую» сторону. В будущем вполне возможен следующий сценарий: криптовалюты, настроенные на сотрудничество с правительством, получат определенную степень узаконивания, а Monero станет, своего рода, подпольным инструментом для платежей.

Еще одна точка зрения, которая также находит отклики пользователей, гласит, что благодаря своей анонимности, Monero в конечном итоге, станет единственной востребованной криптовалютой.

В любом случае, мир только стоит на пороге правовых решений для криптовалют, а значит, в запасе у Monero есть время. Пользователям необходимо держать руку на пульсе событий, так как у монеты есть все шансы стать врагом №1. Наибольшая активность криптовалюты отмечается с выходом на новые биржи.

Большинство инвесторов склоняются к активному росту Monero в 2018 году. Удаленность возможностей принятия контролирующих мер дает время монете показать себя. Учитывая активный рост интереса на криптовалюты в целом, в 2018 году вероятен рост до 1000$. Сейчас Monero находится в стабильном восходящем канале, в фазе отскока после коррекции, что является хорошим моментом для входа в рынок.

Сегодня Monero по-прежнему сохраняет потенциал и активный рост, как анонимный инструмент. Но принципы ее существования противоречат переходу на новый уровень развития. Получается, что для криптовалюты есть два выхода в будущем: начать играть по правилам (что в любом случае будет нарушать установленные рамки анонимности), или же уходить в подполье. Хотя разработчики и пользователи твердо настроены сохранить анонимность валюты.

Featured article at

Dozens or even hundreds of ICO initiatives are turning into dust right before our eyes. Bitcoin is febrile, the rest of the crypto-currencies too. Most of us understand that global crypto-story features of a big bubble, others loudly share this impression. Fans of puzzles are in vain to find answers to the questions “And yet, why did Bitcoin suddenly have become so desired for everyone? Where is useful function?” And against this background, millions of investors continue to enter the contradictory crypto assets.

Even though you would decide to invest just few bucks into an ICO project, you shall likely think about whether it will bring you some dividends or not. Every investor dreams of making big and quick money, but is it worth every time?

Let’s try to figure out together some of ICO projects’ nuances.

Large or even huge ICO budget.

Let us recall the last year’s parable about monkeys, skillfully housed to a village. This story have turned to be, perhaps, a №1 hit story among people who invested in crypto, or thinking about it. I wonder why those peasants so easily paid for a dead horse? But everything is so simple — their focus has been completely shifted to profit, but no one even tried to think about the product bringing dividends at the end of the day, how it works and why this product is absolutely needed by everyone?

It would seem that in case ICO project has already managed to attract a valuable investment not only to fulfill the basic intended purpose, but also for an extensive marketing and advertising campaign, this can serve as a reliable confirmation of its consistency. Unfortunately, in the real world this sometimes turns out to be the opposite.

By avoiding focusing on hype and paying better attention to the cause and effect relationships, it would not be so difficult to understand the reality to draw the right conclusions:

• - Bob has invented a bicycle and went out to getting money for production.
• - He has attracted good investment So what should he do?
• - He was about to start bicycle manufacturing and sell them earning well… but no, Bob have begun re-investing in famous advisors, contracted the best PR-agency, bought much of leading press space and booked several top conference speaking slots.
• - At first glance, everything looks right and natural, but when bikes are reminded, the whole picture turns to be different — hey, Bob is no more who he says he is!

Lack of innovation.

Many of ICO whitepapers and websites are full of projections about the total demand for issued tokens, ownership benefits and the rapid growth of their value mainly expressed in dollars. However, I can agree just with the last statement on the background of steady capitalization growth and subsequent growing value of crypto-currencies, used as a basis for new tokens. All the rest is a big question. Indeed, why do millions people have to pounce on another derivative of Satoshi Nakamoto’s “crypto-gold”? It must be much easier to buy a Bitcoin or another highly demanded crypto-coin and forget about anything else!

But in case of real innovation discovered in the proposed ICO solution, then it is likely worth considering it seriously. Maybe this is a new emerging branch of the crypto industry, promising more than generous and, most importantly, long-term dividends?

The clear intention to release another new token based on the same blockchain infrastructure.

Last year, I have followed the development of dozens of ICO projects dedicated to a wide range of economy sectors. Enthusiasts of ICO fund raising have authoritatively promised to use public blockchain (mainly Ethereum one) for absolutely any application including retail and many others requiring high-speed settlement. And, strangely enough, investors were willing to believe this, even though waiting for hours to confirm their crypto-currency donation clearance and paying unreasonable transaction fees for their funds transfer. And finally, the CryptoKitties game, built on the basis of Ethereum blockchain and its smart contracts, became the apogee of such initiatives end of last year by downgrading the entire Ethereum system’s performance.

Very good lesson to learn from!

Lack of support from the associated industry.

You find many ICO articles looking like a promo and published by respectable press. “There’s nothing special that they are all commercial, now it’s so accepted” — you calm yourself by putting a tick in your investor’s evaluation sheet and do not even trying to think about whether there is at least one article or even a word which has been published for its meaning instead of its fiat value.

You listen ICO speakers at blockchain conferences and other specialized crypto-events… they are very much appreciated by their crypto-world colleagues and other crypto-currency evangelists… and you reasonably mark this ICO by another “plus”. While you don’t even try to figure out whether this recognized by experts from the world of medicine (if ICO is dedicated to medicine), tour-operators and hoteliers (if this presentation was about tourism) or, for example, farmers with restaurateurs if it’s about food. And, most likely, it would be worthwhile showing ICO stuff to the profile experts since beautiful words and slideware may have nothing to do with reality. Sometimes this can only be evaluated and understood by the appropriatery industry professionals.

By the way, few words about beauty

I’m not inclined to belittle the importance of qualitative show-case design. But, if I would be going to support an innovative blockchain project aimed for social media, I’d try to figure out why does it opens me a whole universe drawn in a standard landing page and parked in the common ICO domain zone instead of, say, .TV? And amazingly why do I observe the same universe (a bit differently shaped, of course) on the ICO website dedicated to financial markets? And often many other ICOs have quite similar look. It seems to me those “wow-pictures” can easily hide the lack of valuable content and, at the same time, let bubble-ICO stay on top of attraction.

No, I do not encourage anyone for keeping away from all colorful ICO sites, but it is worth locating and checking for a clearly described innovative idea and the ways of its practical implementation first.

Dust slowly settles … what will be opened to our gaze in 2018?

2017 has become the year of enthusiastic and amateur ICOs and creative ICO swindlers. Some projects have failed to survive by mistakes, others were conceived as scam from the very beginning. 2018 started with numerous dictums about insolvency of ICO as a way of attracting investors. There are many regulation proposals making ICO more transparent by law and even by technology. But whatever happens, the number of innovators and investors will not decrease and, having mastered the next lesson of market spirals, all of them will continue to create amazing and useful solutions … together!

Featured article at

Мир помешался на блокчейне и гадает, как эта технология наведет порядок в нашей жизни. Мы собрали несколько знаковых блокчейн-проектов, которые скоро решат проблемы жителей России.

Более честные выборы

В марте этого года в России пройдут выборы президента. Жители страны привычно волнуются и размышляют, будут ли результаты народного голосования достоверными.

Блокчейн поможет обеспечить достоверность результатов на грядущих выборах и отслеживать нарушения на избирательных участках. За это будет отвечать Ассоциация наблюдателей «Национальный общественный мониторинг», она запустила на портале nom24.ru специальные инструменты для контроля.

Явка, количество голосов за кандидата, число действительных или недействительных бюллетеней будут сохранены в итоговых протоколах в блокчейне. Данные будут предоставлять наблюдатели с 20 000 участков. Подредактировать и изменить собранную информацию невозможно — такова особенность распределенного реестра.

Все показатели (включая сообщения о нарушениях) можно будет увидеть на портале «Национального общественного мониторинга». Они должны подтверждать, что контрольные соотношения на избирательном участке сходятся. Авторы проекта надеются, что развернутое применение блокчейна позволит в будущем проводить электронные голосования.

Сама же Центральная избирательная комиссия не собирается использовать технологию на выборах в этом марте. Ведомство готово перейти на блокчейн позже, в течение одного-двух лет.

Как же блокчейн-выборы в России могут выглядеть в обозримом будущем? Об этом Hi-Tech Mail.Ru рассказал Андрей Белозеров, советник руководителя департамента информационных технологий Москвы:

«Участие принимают только идентифицированные россияне, это можно обеспечить за счет использования подтвержденной учетной записи ЕСИА (gosuslugi.ru). Каждому будет выдан “токен” для голосования. Проголосовавший сможет убедиться, что его голос был зафиксирован, учтен и не изменялся. Это обеспечивается за счет записи в блокчейн-транзакции — передачи токена с ответом на вопрос от участника голосования к центру подсчета голосов. Подсчет голосов и подведения итогов автоматизирован, а при каждом пересчете получаются одни и те же результаты».

Правоохранители не смогут нарушать закон

Подделка документов, подписей, протоколов, оформление бумаг задним числом — все это периодически случается в правоохранительных органах, судя по новостям и жалобам россиян на онлайн-форумах.

В результате суды могут некорректно разрешать споры между гражданами, а преступники не понесут заслуженного наказания. Реестры регистрации преступлений на блокчейне решат эту проблему раз и навсегда, считает Леонид Анучин, заместитель директора Института экономики роста им. П.А. Столыпина:

Невозможно будет изменить данные о проверке, внести данные о преступлении или проведенных следственных действиях задним числом, — продолжает эксперт. — Заметно вырастет контроль над деятельностью правоохранительных органов.

Продать квартиру или взять ипотеку можно будет онлайн

Допустим, вы хотите продать квартиру или дом. Вы еще не начали собирать документы, но уже чувствуете себя плохо. Любая сделка — дело небыстрое, ведь нужно обращаться к риелторам, юристам, нотариусам. А тут еще бардак в регистрационных базах. Из-за этого тормозится передача прав на недвижимость.

Чтобы исправить эти недостатки, Росреестр (это же Федеральная служба государственной регистрации, кадастра и картографии) с начала этого года собирается внедрять блокчейн в свою работу. Начнет с Москвы.

Вопрос недвижимости, тем временем, очень востребованный. Ежегодно в России регистрируется более 25 миллионов сделок в этой области, говорит Леонид Анучин.

Рисков при этом не будет. «Внедрение блокчейна позволяет исключить 'немотивированные' изменения данных о собственниках, владельцах, площади земли и зданий, — считает Леонид Анучин. — Решается проблема подмены документов и снижаются возможные риски коррупции».

«На первом этапе реализации в закрытую блокчейн-сеть будут передаваться данные об объектах недвижимости и правоустанавливающих документах, — рассказал Hi-Tech Mail.Ru советник руководителя департамента информационных технологий Москвы Андрей Белозеров. — А на портале mos.ru по адресу объекта или кадастровому номеру можно будет запросить информацию. Конечно, это только начало и до идеальной реализации, когда все сделки с недвижимостью переводятся на смарт-контракты, еще далеко».

Не надо будет платить нотариусу

Все те же сделки с недвижимостью предполагают походы к нотариусу. Этот специалист обычно берет за свои услуги немало — до 0,4% от цены договора. Покупаете у кого-то квартиру за 3 млн рублей, 12 тысяч платите нотариусу за чистоту и надежность сделки.

«В будущем роль нотариуса в заверении сделок может сойти на нет, — утверждает Леонид Анучин — Это возможно благодаря блокчейну и распространению электронных цифровых подписей».

Сохранение копии договора и подписей участников сделки в блокчейне (распределенном реестре) — уже само по себе гарантия честной сделки, так как данные невозможно подправить. Поэтому и необходимость в услугах нотариуса отпадает.

А если какая-то из сторон окажется нечистой на руку и попробует сфальсифицировать документы, то это будет легко доказать в суде.

Меньше проблем с ЖКХ

Эту область жизни страны, которая давно обосновалась в анекдотах, тоже планируют «оцифровать» с помощью блокчейна. Над этим работает Российская ассоциация криптовалют и блокчейна.

Хранение данных в распределенных реестрах позволит избежать того, что рано или поздно случается с каждым: ошибка в квитанциях за воду и электричество, неправильное начисление квартплаты, трата нервов и денег.

Иногда это происходит по техническим причинам, а иногда таким образом мошенничают организации, которые составляют «платежки». Но то, что записано в блокчейне, поменять нельзя, поэтому после его внедрения такая схема уже «не прокатит».

«В транзакции участвуют собственник жилья, подрядчик и управляющая компания, действующая в интересах собственника. Но действует ли она так? — задается вопросом руководитель отдела разработки компании «ИНТРО Технологии» Денис Смоляр. — Или возникает коррупционное сращение между УК и оператором услуг ЖКХ? Это конфликт агента и принципала, который можно разрешить переводом операций на блокчейн».

Эксперимент уже начался в Свердловской области, а позднее охватит еще несколько регионов: Башкортостан, Бурятия, Татарстан, Карелия, Крым, Марий Эл, Краснодарский край, Новгородская, Новосибирская, Омская, Ростовская, Самарская, Тверская и Тюменская области, а также Санкт-Петербург.

Однако инженер из «ИНТРО Технологий» напоминает, что блокчейн — дорогостоящая технология. И при текущей стоимости услуг ЖКХ, которая считается довольно высокой, большой вопрос, будут ли готовы россияне финансировать расчеты на блокчейне.

Патентовать изобретения будет легче

В 2018 году должна стать возможной блокчейн-регистрация патентов на разработки. Над этим уже начал работать Роспатент в рамках программы «Цифровая экономика».

Россия богата на изобретателей, она находится на восьмом месте по количеству регистрируемых патентов (данные World Intellectual Property Organization за 2016 год). Заявки подают люди самых разных возрастов, от школьников до пенсионеров. Поэтому власти посчитали, что без модернизации Роспатента не обойтись.

Уже этой весной можно будет подавать электронные заявки на патент, осуществлять перевод прав на интеллектуальную собственность и распоряжаться ей в онлайне. Будут доступны финансовые операции по отчуждению и делицензированию своих изобретений через крупные российские банки.

Дальнейшие перспективы и цена вопроса

Кардинально изменить жизнь россиян блокчейн еще не может. «Для некоторых отраслей технология пока очень дорогостоящая, — заключает Олег Шарпатый, сооснователь блокчейн-стартапа ICOPlate. — Но в сфере платежных систем, банковского сектора и инвестиций блокчейн уже зарекомендовал себя как хороший инструмент».

Впрочем, есть и экономный вариант внедрения. «Публичные блокчейн-сети (вроде Bitcoin и Ethereum) действительно обходятся дорого, а вот частные по стоимости сравнимы с классическими серверами и СУБД», — оценивает сотрудник департамента ИТ-технологий.

А если уже существует качественная сетевая и телекоммуникационная инфраструктура, распределенные системы могут обойтись даже дешевле централизованных, считает Юлий Кузнецов, основатель IT-компании FINSTICK. Это значит, что с переводом документооборота и системы госуслуг на блокчейн государство сможет делать для своих граждан гораздо больше, чем раньше.

На этом фоне интеграция блокчейна в жизнь нашей страны кажется вполне реальной. Однако на нее уйдет немало времени: после завершения экспериментов этого года власти будут оценивать, где блокчейн принес пользу, а где просто «съел» деньги. И затем решать, как разворачивать технологию в России. Так или иначе, о новых пилотных проектах мы в 2018 году еще услышим, будем держать вас в курсе.

Оригинал статьи на сайте

Starting a business is a big achievement for many entrepreneurs, but maintaining one is the larger challenge. There are many standard challenges that face every business whether they are large or small. It is not easy running a company, especially in a fast-paced, ever-changing business world. Technology advances, new hiring strategies, and now, political changes coming with the new administration, all add to the existing business challenges that entrepreneurs, business owners, and executives have to deal with.

Maximizing profits, minimizing expenses and finding talented staff to keep things moving seem to be top challenges for both SMBs and large corporations. We have been interviewing companies from around the world to discover what challenges they are facing in their businesses. We also asked each company to share business advice they would give to a younger version of themselves.

Below is our interview with Julius Kuznetsov, Founder and CEO at FINSTICK Innovations LLC:

What does your company do?

FINSTICK Innovations is a startup in the emerging fintech and blockchain space. We have designed a blockchain-based innovation to unite the fragmented Loyalty market into a single, healthy eco-system. Called LiqBo, it is a utility token that activates dormant customers who are subscribed but don’t participate. LiqBo shares the conventional economic model of traditional loyalty programs with the additional incentive of accumulating Liquid Bonus tokens that can be monetized or exchanged for a discount in the traditional way at participating merchants. Based on blockchain, it will be operated based on consensus of participating brands and retailers forming a unique, global, loyalty infrastructure based on distributed ledger. We are headquartered in Moscow, Russia, with an additional virtual office in Amsterdam, Netherlands. We have been in business since 2017.

What is your role? What do you enjoy most about your role?

I’m the founder and CEO of FINSTICK Innovations. Creating my own start-up is an exceptional feat for me, after a career working in the technology sector. I enjoy being at the forefront, solving seemingly unsolvable issues, and even more importantly – turning the most unusual ideas into reality for the benefit of our business partners and end-users. I derive great satisfaction from the challenge of creating something new, designed to improve the loyalty market space. Belief in my team and our products gives me the necessary drive to push this forward.

What are the biggest challenges in your business right now?

There are two significant challenges to overcome. The first is funding. We have just announced an ICO to raise investment for our solution and have so far managed to raise enough financial resources to go through incorporation and create a proof of concept for LiqBo – our flagship solution for the loyalty industry. We reinvest all funding and consulting profits into R&D but need an infusion of financial support to take Finstick to the next level. The other challenge is linked to regulation. The jury is still out on the legal approaches to the use of cryptographic tokens and blockchains. I am confident that our position as a technical provider will enable us to find our place in the emerging ecosystem.

If you could go back in time, what business advice would you give to a younger version of yourself?

Great question! I would tell a younger me to be more open-minded and more challenging. I built up a package of experience and wisdom through previous careers and roles, which I felt was important to give myself credibility. In today’s world, daring to try something new can yield impressive results. I encourage my children not to doubt their talents and to give their projects their all. You never know till you try. Also, customer acceptance is the most important factor in business success. It doesn’t matter how great a solution is if your target audience is not open to the idea. New ideas must be customer driven rather than technologically, even if it means reviewing your business plan 10, 20 or even 30 times.

First published by

Most of retail marketers believe that loyalty programs representing the most effective way to develop existing customers and attract new ones. Thus companies allocate and spend huge budgets on their deployment and operation. However, legacy loyalty programs repel 70% of consumers at the sign-up stage due to its complexity and duration. Moreover various limitations lead to the fact that sometimes more than half of discount proposals remain inactive.

The Liquid Bonus Loyalty project is aimed to solving the existing issues of highly centralized loyalty systems by enabling optional withdrawals of surplus points and miles out from the system instead of their expiration. The built-in capability of exchanging to other bonus points or even currency shall add extra bonus value for consumers. Liquid Bonus shall not just improve the loyalty programs’ effectiveness, but also significantly increase retail customers’ benefits. Hence, buyers will be motivated for long-term cooperation with retailers instead of taking part in particular promotions. On the essence of suggested solution, advantages and future plans for Liquid Bonus, we have discussed with Julius Kuznetsov, the team leader of Liquid Bonus Loyalty project.

– Why did you initiate the Liquid Bonus project? To whom it is aimed?

– Decentralization of the discount and loyalty market is long overdue. This was directly or indirectly stated by well-known market players, such as Deloitte, IBM and others. Moreover, the search for an optimal decentralized solution is simply inevitable for retailers who have already rested on the physiological consumers’ limit due to the abundance of offered loyalty programs.

Despite the relentless interest in this topic from the business community and the pronounced need of end users who are no longer able to cope with the growing flow of loyalty offers, no one has been able to find an optimal solution for decentralization of the global loyalty market. In our opinion, the problem lies in the lack of blockchain environment capable of providing a high level of performance, which would suit retail applications.

The goal of liqbo.com project is to adjust the direction of the discount and loyalty programs development, taking into account trends and approaches described above.

– Why the project is interesting for you?

– First of all, it is the implementation of our ideas and views on how the blockchain technology should evolve. We consciously accepted the challenge of creating a high-performance retail system using blockchain technology, because we consider ourselves capable of solving this challenging task. Crypto-miles and crypto-points mining or exchange - why not? In our opinion, the loyalty and discount market is no less attractive than financial one, so we are on board!

– Is it necessary to create a separate crypto currency for these purposes?

– Cryptocurrency in its common sense is not needed for the implementation of the Liquid Bonus Loyalty project.
Thanks to our state-of-the-art ”2-way peg” solution, conversion of tokens from one blockchain into another will be introduced. Thus if desired, any participant will either be able to withdraw LiqBo tokens to the crypto-exchange for a frictionless trading or purchasing and transfer stake of LiqBo tokens back to the Liquid Bonus Loyalty system for getting discounts on a retail product or service.

– What is the development stage of your product? When the product is expected to be released?

– Despite the fact that a huge amount of work has already been done, we estimate the product as being at the initial stage of its development.
We plan to launch a trial operation with basic functionality throughout the year. A full-scale commercial launch can take place in late 2019 - early 2020. But with the broad public support of our project, we shall be able to shorten the announced development time and bring it to the market 1,5-2 times earlier.

– Why did you decide to conduct an ICO? Why don’t you go on the way of lending or attracting of an investor?

– This ICO is not an end in itself for us. Unlike other ICOs, we are not going to master a mega-marketing-budget to ensure our ad presence everywhere. At the current stage we would be quite satisfied with the result of the whole ICO, commensurate with the marketing budget of the classic last year's "ICO on a broad scale". We do not consider banking loans as very expensive thus unacceptable, but we are looking for investors and happy with any business angels contacts.

- How much do you plan to raise during the ICO?

– We set the minimum threshold (soft-cup) of initial public LiqBo offering at 7,500,000 tokens (500 ETH). And we do not plan to "burn" unallocated tokens. Targeting development rather than speculation, we prefer to gradually distribute them among software developers and other project supporters.

- How do you see the project life after the ICO?

– We do not expect any drastic changes after the ICO. The amount of raised funds can only affect the integration speed of our retail Liquid Bonus Loyalty blockchain solution and its pilot operation launch.

– How much can investor earn on your ICO?

– It all depends on the purpose for the investor entering the project. If the target is a long-term investment, then it can reach hundreds of percent after the start of commercial operation.

For those who are interested in earning on bonuses provided by ICO to their early participants, we have prepared a valuable gift. All investors who entered the project at the Early Bird stage will not only be able to double their LiqBo token stake in the event of reaching ICO soft-cap, but will also be able to issue their personal 20% bonus coupons for new investors getting 10% bonus from the first invested amount using such coupon.

– Your advice for those who decided to raise funds through ICO in 2018.

– In 2018, it is no longer enough making a beautiful website and writing a comprehensive whitepaper to sacrifice investors' liquidity. Therefore, any ICO, assuming a large-scale marketing and advertising cost, will run the risk of net losses in the event that the idea is not supported by a real innovation.

Interviewed by Ivan Malychenko, photo: liqbo.com, personal archive of Julius Kuznetsov

English translation, the article was originally published in

Julius Kuznetsov, Founder and CEO FINSTICK Innovations LLC:

In order to imagine what will happen to retail in 2018, first of all we need to consider the main technology trends affecting consumers may be even more than retailers.

The rapid development of mobile devices and networks has led to an unprecedented consumer awareness strengthening the status of this party dictating market rules. More and more trading procedures are being transferred from offline to online. Supply chains and consumer product distribution are being adjusted to the dominant online processes too. Retail has actively joined the technological race. From mastering simple IT solutions focused on WEB interface and automating existing business processes (primarily CRM), it has moved to a truly knowledge-intensive sectors of the IT economy, such as big data and the artificial intelligence. Taking into account the universal desire of cost reduction by further improving the concept of self-service in still common offline stores, it is difficult to overestimate the importance of such projects. 2018 shall not make revolution in the development of retail industry. Nevertheless, it will definitely be remembered as a year of adaptation to the new consumer-centric conditions and rules of making retail business.

2018 will be the year of

Showing reduction of the lower and middle level stuff of the offline retailers. The steady sales and business automation along with the progressive introduction of artificial intelligence shall inevitably affect the corporate HR policy and lead to a revision of staffing. This year, computers will continue to actively replace humans at customer service and call centers, legal and financial departments, as well as at offline retail outlets.

Mass introduction of proactive sales model, which will become the key success factor for business development. The leading retail market positions will be successfully taken and consolidated by those players who will be the first to master and use emerging applications based on artificial intelligence and big data. Automated proactive sales will ensure both — the demand forecasting process based on big data analysis and automation of consumer motivation algorithms. Therefore, stories like the one happened to the American teenage girl, whose father found out that she was pregnant later than the retail network offered goods for newborns, shall finally move to the category of everyday in 2018.

Decentralization of loyalty and discount programs. According to a perennial market research, the trend of loyalty market saturation has been confirmed last year. Bond Brand Loyalty Report ‘2017 called «THE BATTLE FOR LOVE & LOYALTY» (in collaboration with VISA) concludes “MEMBERSHIPS ARE UP, WHILE MEMBER ENGAGEMENT IS AT CAPACITY”. In fact, the situation is even worse, since their figures show slight decline instead of stagnation. The number of active memberships have declined from the average 7.8 active memberships per user out of 10,9 (72%) in 2014 down to 6.7 active memberships out of 14.3 (just 47%) in 2017. “Since our 2014 study, the average number of Program memberships per American consumer has increased steadily from under 11 Programs to over 14. Meanwhile, the number of Programs in which Members are active, meaning they have earned or burned Program benefits or rewards, is virtually unchanged at just under 6.7 (47%). This suggests that Americans are willing to enroll in additional Programs, yet their capacity to engage has reached a threshold.” — concludes the report

Thus, in order to overcome this negative trend, retailers and loyalty providers will have to start reviewing their loyalty strategy this year. Indeed, all existing centralized loyalty programs are complicated and costly, especially those having inhouse issuance and redemption process in combination with customized compensation scenarios and proper security level of loyalty transactions. At the same time they hardly reach compatibility with other loyalty systems which can be achieved through regional or industrial coalitions. 2018 shall bring new initiatives and solutions aimed for uniting diverse loyalty programs into a single, decentralized ecosystem which will guarantee proper confidentiality and respected interests of every participating Party. This shall give a fresh impetus to the loyalty market development by expanding it to a new global level. Moreover, decentralization will be able to spare loyalty programs from highly unpopular measures aimed at limiting the amount of deferred liabilities such as proprietary points and miles. An external decentralized intermediary system shall allow consumers to keep their bonuses, thanks to withdrawal option which can be used prior to expiration of proprietary points and miles. Thus the surplus of corporate liabilities caused by constant bonus issuance process will be additionally compensated by this option enabled with decentralized loyalty ecosystem.

Comprehensive simplification of retail purchasing process, increasing convenience for consumers, the introduction of pre-ordering and self-service systems for offline stores, the further development of distance order trading with flexible delivery service. In 2018, buyers will no longer be surprised at the lack of cashiers on exit and cash-desk queues have good chance to turn into exotics already this year. There is a great potential for further development of automated delivery systems for remote and sparsely populated areas using drones and other exotic means but conventional courier delivery business will continue to evolve together with an increase in online sales.

English translation, the article was originally published in

This presentation is aimed at highlighting the problems of the legacy loyalty ecosystem in retail and to offer new ways of improving it by means of decentralization and combining of centralized proprietary loyalty programs and their coalitions into a single global unified ecosystem.

Review of the reasons which, in our opinion, preventing from further progressive development of business associated with loyalty and discount systems

MAIN HOLDING FACTORS FOR RETAIL

High cost of ownership is caused not just by technologies (they are being improved and become cheaper every year), but rather by centralization and closeness of legacy loyalty systems. Every program shall bear the costs for the creation and deployment together with operation, which will never allow making loyalty systems a truly mass product, affordable for smaller market players.

Expiration of points — an extremely unpopular measure that hurts service expansion, but this is inevitable for every retailer at least until there is an alternative way of limiting deferred liabilities.

E-cash and card transactions help to simplify the presentation of privileges to consumers and redemption process, but transition to cashback inevitably leads to the loss of the loyalty “game” with consumers, thus loosing the key success factor of any loyalty program. Banks and payment systems are in love with cashback, but is it so useful to retailers !?

Mastering cashback as a replacement of bonus points leads to direct competition between retailers which, instead of paying-back for their investments in loyalty programs, throw their marginality into the furnace of price wars

CONSUMER LIMITATIONS restrain the evolution no less than the factors described above

The relentless pressure of program proposals has already led to loyalty market saturation — to such an extent that it affected the ability of consumers to effectively use their subscribed programs.

The complexity of signing-in and adaptation is due not so much to the complexity of working with a single program, as to the problems faced by a consumer who has to repeatedly go through the same procedures

Control — it is already impossible for average consumer to effectively accumulate and timely reward bonus points of numerous loyalty programs

If the current trend will not change very soon, and the number of proprietary centralized loyalty and discount programs will continue to grow at the same pace, then the percentage of active users will drop down to 30% by 2020.

This will cast a doubt on the feasibility of creating new legacy loyalty programs.

Comments to the basic set of properties necessary for making possible the decentralization of loyalty ecosystem:

Any customer-specific data, business algorithms and methods, as well as operating conditions of existing loyalty programs should remain confidential in case of their joining the global decentralized loyalty ecosystem;

Economic viability and unification are also the determining factors of success.

It is essential that the consumer abstraction from numerous proprietary loyalty interfaces is not proclaimed mandatory, but it will be a rescue for those consumers who have already accumulated so much fatigue that they are potentially ready to ignore any other loyalty proposals.

LIQUID BONUS® — is an independent, universal and compatible instrument allowing to minimize or compensate the most of the friction and problems inherent in existing centralized loyalty systems.

Every Interface (Gateway) between the existing legacy loyalty programs and external decentralized Liquid Bonus® ecosystem will be fully controlled and operated by an appropriate participating program, which will be able to setup and change input/withdrawal transaction fee and other condition(s) if and when necessary.

Direct use of Liquid Bonus® tokens shall make it possible to increase the customers involvement in the loyalty ecosystem. This applies consumers who can more effectively manage the accumulation and redemption of privileges through the unified compatible user interface, as well as suppliers and smaller retailers unable to setup and operate legacy loyalty system.

The global ecosystem of loyalty without the intermediary Liquid Bonus® infrastructure is looking like the global cellular communication ecosystem before the introduction of automatic roaming service. At that time, all mobile network operators worked autonomously, providing communication services solely to their regional subscribers. Some of them have later managed to sign direct agreements with other operators thus only covered subscribers were benefitting from a manual roaming service (roaming by prior application). In fact, such transitional business model is very similar to the modern loyalty coalitions that do not eliminate the main friction of centralized systems thus remaining “local” by either geographical or business feature.

The global ecosystem of loyalty having the intermediary Liquid Bonus® infrastructure shall be very similar to the modern mobile ecosystem having an automatic roaming service as unified and transparent service. Indeed, when going to another country, we never think of which mobile operator provides communication service. But it often happens that subscribers connect & call through competitive network, operated by a company which is in direct competition to the home network operator. Nevertheless, this seemingly ambiguous situation does not prevent subscribers from getting the telco service & paying for it, and at the end of the day, it turns to be not so ambiguous for mobile operators profiting from a seemingly contradictory business.

Blockchain was chosen as core technology for implementing a decentralized loyalty ecosystem, not as a tribute to fashion, but primarily as a

- technology that enables trust to a lot of non-trusting Parties and doing it without a trusted Arbitrator who must have 100% confidence of all participants.

- open technology, allowing to ensure confidentiality to every participating Party (otherwise regulators would never blame crypto-currencies for non-transparency of participants)

- technology that has an excellent properties for multiple peers and communities

Organization of the global Liquid Bonus® ecosystem in terms of its operation and development should be implemented as an Association of Participants. All decisions will be made on the basis of consensus. By the way, this method of decision-making process has been built in our blockchain software as an algorithm.

After its commercial launch, the global, decentralized, compatible blockchain Liquid Bonus® Loyalty system will be operated and developed by its associate members.

I have got the following questions at the conference: “Which role the developer of the system sees in its operation and further development? and Where is your commercial benefit from the creation of this Liquid Bonus® Loyalty ecosystem?”

Currently FINSTICK Innovations bears the whole burden of financing the development of the Liquid Bonus® Loyalty ecosystem. We intend to return our investment through the initial LiqBo tokens offering (the further issuance of LiqBo tokens will be carried by Participants on the basis of consensus). In addition to it, FINSTICK Innovations intend to remain a part of the Liquid Bonus® Association by operating one of the Liquid Bonus® Core Nodes (thus entitled for getting a proportional part of operating fees). We also intend sell technical consulting and system integration services which are among FINSTICK Innovations core business activities.

Currently, the valuable stake of the pre-mined LiqBo tokens is already being offered to investors and companies that are interested in early participation, including the process of integration, pilot and launch of the decentralized Liquid Bonus® Loyalty ecosystem

Featured article at

Yet another look at the crypto-currency evolution scenario.

Bitcoin and other crypto-currencies have been shocking the public throughout 2017 with their firm and progressive pump. With the onset of 2018, the general growth surprise was replaced by their surprising fall. At the beginning, everyone was waiting for the end of Chinese New Year holidays, then the reduction of negative market news, then a miracle… but the miracle failed to happen and capitalization continued to decline. What are the reasons for this trend? Let’s try to figure it out.

The heart of any crypto currency is the blockchain, which has a great application potential besides financial transactions though. There are many other use-cases for this new emerging technology. In reality, investors’ funds are not just being blurred by numerous crypto-currency projects and forks, but also being flowed out into adjacent business segments to fund blockchain systems which are not related to crypto-currency at all.

Moreover, 2018 has become a transitional period from the anarchically spontaneous use of new payment instruments (crypto currency in their existing form and ICO tokens) to a more meaningful and orderly utilization. It is also necessary to take into account the active interest of the banking community. For example,

• - The activity of the R3 consortium (more than 100 financial institutions from six continents https://www.r3.com/about/) aiming at creation of an integrated interbank environment based on the distributed ledger platform for the exchange of documents and financial transactions;
• - The SWIFT Distributed Ledger Technology initiative, which has successfully completed blockchain proof of concept(PoC) together with 34 participating banks (https://www.swift.com/news-events/news/swift-completes-landmark-dlt-proof-of-concept),

and other projects, which will certainly lead to the emergence of competitive international corporate driven crypto-currency systems. In addition, the successful projects of individual banks, as well as the emergence of the national crypto-currencies, will complete the creation of a serious competitive environment and will definitely challenge the very existence of many “early crypto-currencies” operated on a voluntary basis.

The situation is further complicated by the fact that despite the already long circulation of Bitcoin and other popular crypto-currencies, they have not been able to find a decent market niche providing a constant consumer transaction flow, which is a necessary prerequisite for a stable level of capitalization. But instead, all the beneficial properties of crypto-currencies have been used exclusively for developing of a “new generation speculative environment”. Today we observe the consequences of such an evolutionary stage. Once the speculators were exhausted and could no longer inflate the capitalization bubble of the crypto-currency market, the economy flew down, destroying along its path the fate of many latter-day traders and young “crypto investment funds” that appeared on the wave of rapid market growth.

Crypto-currencies will have to find a ground in the form of a mass and everyday-used applications, which can attract and hold millions of new users other than those who already understand IT and hi-tech products. Only in this way will crypto-currencies find their space under the sun not just for a couple of years, but for many decades. And this process will no longer be directed by technology enthusiasts, but rather by experienced professionals, corporations, banks and the States.

Considering the widespread recognition of the blockchain technology benefits for secure transactions, as well as the advantages that crypto-currencies promise to a global financial system, the emergence of national crypto-currencies and other instruments created by Central Banks and States, will soon turn to the pervasive reality. In parallel with this process, international settlement technologies using national crypto currencies will be defined and adopted. They will become the new standard and further evolution stage of crypto technologies and blockchain for cashless payments and banking services. At the same time, non-state public crypto-currencies will feel even greater pressure from national and international regulators who will strive to squeeze them out of the market.

All cryptographic tokens that are currently being issued by numerous ICOs will soon be finally grouped into three large groups:

• - Electronic shares and liabilities secured by real assets;
• - Mass market utilities (crypto-tokens, bonuses, points, valued objects for computer games, certificates of authenticity, etc.);
• - Garbage

The instruments belonging to the first two categories will be governed by the relevant regulatory rules and laws, both national and international. The third category is the pure loss of today’s investors. Nowadays it is very important to locate and understand the valuable properties of blockchain and crypto-currencies for every particular application in order to make a conscious decision about the appropriateness for business or attractiveness as an object for investment. There is a certain information vacuum in the market. Numerous training courses and seminars are devoted to investment and trading, but just a tiny fraction really correspond to blockchain technology and few are aimed at a broad audience. This situation is typical for times of market hype. But it shall be changed in the near future. Thus development will take the evolutionary path and technology will become more accessible.

Whatever happens with the market and, no matter what changes are applied by regulators and authorities, those who quickly understand and master new technologies and learn how to apply them in practice shall benefit first.

Featured article at