On the 9th of January 2019, the community of AERGO had an AMA with Phil Zamani, the CEO of the project. The list of the Q&A is below:
1 - The list of questions from the ambassador of the project:
You write that you established partnership with "leading treasury firm", which led to ongoing process of diversification of ETH holdings into Bitcoin, different assets and Fiat currencies. Can you please provide any info on this treasury firm and why they/you choose to invest in Bitcoin?
Moreover, in previous AMA you mentioned that you don't hold any cryptocurrencies and believe only in AERGO. Taking this into consideration can you please explain, why AERGO choose not to instantly convert ETH into Fiat currencies? (you write that it is pretty trivial task nowadays).
And why in September, when your team saw that market keeps dropping - you decide to apply to treasury firm and play "investing game", including investing in Bitcoin, instead of going full Fiat.
You write, that AERGO is non-for-profit organization, please explain team position about decision not to covert ETH to Fiat but instead go for risky investments (Bitcoin, other non-fiat assets).You write in your article, that you managed to agree with 8 out of 10 private investors considering new vesting schedule. What is with 2 other private investors? Do they have their vesting changed or left with old ones?
You write that Blocko will loan tokens from AERGO for ten years for stacking and public chain maintaining. Can you determine amount and from what reserve it will be taken?
1)We have explained our strategy in detail in our QOU and recent Medium post - treasury is there to ensure amongst other things 1 - you don't run out of cash in short term, 2. if you don't need cash soon - invest in other assets that are liquid and can be converted quickly and 3. if you have surplus diversify- we do all of these.
2)No purchaser was given special treatment - the change in vesting was consistent across the board
3)They come from community and ecosystem reserve - we cannot disclose confidential commercial matters - they will receive a reasonable amount over ten years - but only if blocko performs (like all other future block producers).
Question: Thank You very much for answers Sir Phil, can You disclosure name or any details about this treasury service firm by any chance?
I think that would have huge impact for adding confidence 💪
It is a youg and leading frim in South Korea - I need to check with them if they want to be named - I will revert to the community once I know.
2 - Will there be any changes to your roadmap?
No major changes - just that we may reorder some of our roadmap to ensure we hit or key objectives for 2019 - like Mainnet in a few months
3 - Hey Phil, a kinda unpleasant question but a question nonetheless: How do you address the fact that there are at least one or more leakers among your employees? It seems that the mood within the company is pretty poor, given everything that has happened.
I’m not sure where you got infos, but Last week, I interviewed all engineers with 30 hours(really tired ^^), and most of them are happy and proud of their work. About token price, yes maybe but we can understand bear market. (Hunyoung Park)
I would kindly suggest everyone check the facts before you jump to conclusions - we have many scammers faking chats and using names that do not belong to them - I have also been victim of this (once -hopefully never again!) (Phil)
4 - Is the marketing going to be more aggressive? I think Aergo is quite unknown outside Korea.
The marketing will be more focused - we have identified certain markets to target outside of Korea in 2019 - like China/parts of southeast Asia and Europe.
5 - Will you consider a token buyback to support the price? If no buyback, token burn, or other similar mechanism is in the cards?
We will leave any decision on potential token buyback to our treasury team.
6 - Hello Dear Phil, When will start active work with ambassadors? Best regards, Dobrodel
Hi Dobrodel - next week - I am sending a message to ten ambassadors later this week to kickstart a new regular communication and engagement program - thanks for asking btw!
7 - Is it true Aergo is running out of money? How much runway do you have?
No this is NOT true...We can estimate that we have enough runway to put us past the end of 2020 at this current point in time. Just want to go back to the question on roadmap to provide more color...
We are looking to ship our Mainnet by the end of Q1, but it may take to perhaps the first month of Q2. It is difficult to exactly time any software project, especially one as complex as we are pushing out. We will definitely try to do it as soon as possible yet also inform our community about any precise changes in a timely fashion. We’re also planning on throwing a wonderful launch party as well as some other fun online and offline events for our Mainnet launch....pls stay tuned!
8 - Hello Phil. Always thanks for your good job. 👍👍👍 I am curious that Is there additional partnerships excluding already said with Blocko. Sorry for my lack of English. Thanks in advance to your kind reply.
Yes -we do have more partnership in development...two things to be aware of....we are focusing on fewer and more impactful partnerships and customers...and we can only talk about them when the time is right (and agreed with each partner)...you will see the first large partnership soon 😊
One thing we strongly believe this industry need is "proof" so we are working on exactly this with real customers/partners and real business problems they want to solve with Aergo...less PoC and more PoBV (proof of business value!!)
9 - Hello Phil. Does the Aergo team plan to organize and conduct meetups for developers? Best regards, Sergii.
Hello Sergii - yes, in fact, this one of our most important tasks this year (and where our ambassadors can help and play a part)...we are going to announce DevDrop soon 😊
10 - Hi Phil, Are there any suspicions on who had created those FUD pieces and the motives? What mechanisms are in place beside these transparency talks (which are amazing) will you have in place? As things can come in a breeze.
We don't want to speculate but yes we have a good (validated) view of where some of the FUD has come from - our approach is to rise above this and other FAKE news and focus on execution execution execution - if there are concerns we want to hear them and address them openly - our QPU will be a regular process from here and used to catch and address such concerns - we believe in openness and transparency!
How did we do with our transparency and openness approach with the QPU report and medium articles Tyler and rest of the community if you have had a chance to read these? If not please do read them and provide feedback - we want to continuously improve here.
11 - Please save money for development rather than throwing wonderful launch parties 🙏
Same goes for AERGO tour in my opinion, tho I would love to meet in Kiev, but better save money for the project, than traveling. Funding for only two-three years ("past end of 2020") is a bit frightening.
Yes you are right - we will do these things but be more selective and economical. (Phil)
Thanks!! (Hunyoung Park)
Great suggestion. One thing I would add to Phil's answer here is that by that time the AERGO network could potentially have attracted significant clientele base that brings in significant revenue. In other words, by that time the development and initial phases will be over; it will be all about building a strong business which could potentially support the AERGO Organization's ongoing efforts in growing the AERGO developer ecosystem. I'm sure you've read and heard about our open-source mantra. We are looking to build a self-sufficient developer ecosystem around AERGO. Akin to that with Linux had, or perhaps which now Bitcoin has, we want the AERGO technology to see use from so many developers that it could live on. This is just one thing to keep in mind. The team is here for the long-run. Thanks for your very kind and thoughtful statement. (Kyle, Community Management team)
12 - Hello Sir Phil! Thank you for a very friendly attitude towards the community !!! It is a rarity. How much a bear market delays the work of your team on the development of the Aergo ecosystem and the emergence of new partners? In this regard, probably there are problems with the access of tokens to large stock exchanges?
Hi Albert - our development and execution roadmap is actually completely not affected by the bear market - in fact having a lean budget helps with focus and prioritization - the market for Aergo will develop over time - just like I saw when I was at Red Hat and Vmware and Novell and SuSe Linux...it takes time to build things that work at scale...our plans are built to a support a 2-3 year "prove it"model.
13 - Many people are concerned that the value of the token is going to be unstable, regarding the fact, that many tokens are not released yet. How do you plan to address this problem?
We are carefully monitoring this and will have a plan of attack to address this. Our release plan is gradual and steady to help with this fact...we will try our very best here
14 - Is there any business model around the Aergo system for investors/holders to make active/passive/potential income by holding Aergo tokens/coins APART FROM PRICE INCREASE DUE TO SPECULATION AND PROGRESS OF THE PROJECT OR MARKET FORCES.
We have a detailed token economics model that is being tested with early and friendly partner and customers...we will publish the results once we have a great long term valuable and sustainable model for all token holders...especially the ones that 1. deliver services in the ecosystem 2. stake tokens to become part of the network and 3. provide the needed hosting services for side chains in a hybrid deployment...this needs a bit more time but will be ready before our Mainnet launch (we think!)
15 - I got a chance to take a good look but it [it - Quarterly Project Update] was rather lengthy but structured. It's necessary.
Perhaps when something happens, an early mention that you guys have noticed what's happening and are preparing a response would keep the community calm on your take!
Good point but we have to balance the need to keep our eyes on the project execution vs. dealing with rumors and fud - questions and concerns that are asked in an open and transparent manner and backed with some validated fact will get responded to very quickly - the rest will simply either be ignored or dealt with when they are worth addressing.
16 - Is there very certain estimate on Mainnet?
End of 1Q or early 2Q - see response above about why this takes time.
Engineers are more focused on building stable main network, we need security, stability, and strategy for token swap. We will release more info soon. (Hunyoung Park)
17 - Will Aergo be looking at working with Government projects, or are you more looking at private business?
We are already working with two of the top 20 governments in the world!..and a few very large customers and partners.
18 - Are there any updates on the reward drop token release?
Remaining RewarDrop tokens will be released within 30 days of the first release which was on December 27/28. That's when the remaining 50% of tokens for those who did not claim tokens on Korbit will be released yet did share our "AERGO: Powered by Blocko" video. If they didn't share the video, they're getting 100% of their tokens at the next distribution date. (Kyle, Community Management team).
19 - Why didn't Aergo list on Huobi, I thought you won the competition?
We actually cannot acknowledge or address private matters like this. However, we can say that we make sure we conduct all commercial matters in a professional manner and will always refuse to do anything illegal or potentially harmful for the future of the project...if we find a partner who does not have the same sense of compliance we move on to others that do.
20 - Any news about new exchange and partnership in q1, any announcement?
We don't like to answer questions like this because we prefer to "do" rather than "say we will". That being said, we’ve heard the community feedback about our initial exchange listings. We are fully aware of the landscape when it comes to cryptocurrency exchanges, which ones are the major ones and what the community wants to see. We have a sophisticated, multi-stage plan for matters like this. We have formed very strong relationships with many of our investors and key advisors who will give us the firepower we need to execute on our plan.
Ensuring liquidity in accessing tokens is naturally vital for a truly sufficient decentralized network that is powered by a sophisticated token economic model. We know where we want to be and plan to ensure the very best for all of our key stakeholder groups in the coming months.
21 - You have indicated that you are looking to expand your marketing efforts to Europe…could you be more precise in which countries you are focusing on?
Thanks Serge - our main target countries are UK and Germany but we are in discusions about projects in other countries - it is hard to be to prescriptive about this - why UK and Germany (we have local people and many large potential clients and partners)...but we will be flexible here as well.
22 - Any announcement about that these new. partners????
yes soon...😊
23 - Hi Sir! Happy new year to you, Hunyoung and the rest of the team.
Do you know that some details in the AERGO QPU LEGALLY is not supposed to be shared with the community and the public?? No Gigantic Project have ever dropped a tokensale Use of Proceeds as detailed and very very deep like you did.
What were your thoughts? Why choose those actions, sir?
We have been very carefull with the information we have shared - we wanted to balance the need for transparency and accountability but match these with commercial sensitivity and compliance...we will adjust our approach accordingly and will try to lead the industry with transparency.
24 - Didn't OK Blockchain Capital invest in Aergo very early on? Why are they gone from the website's list of investors. OK blockchain capital is part of OKEX.
Don't know the answer here - let the team revert to you - we don't show all of our investors as there are simply too many to list perhaps!
25 - BTW the qpu [Quarterly Project Update] is really well written!!
Thx cronix K - Kudos to the team who helped me put this together!!
let me re-iterate something very very important to all our community about the information in the QPU...
please read and be aware of the following statement at the beginning of the report:
Note to readers: The Report is provided purely for information purposes and does not constitute an offer to sell, or a solicitation to buy any AERGO tokens, coins, or other services.
Readers should not construe the contents of this Report as financial or investment advice and should not rely upon this Report for the purposes of buying, selling, or holding AERGO tokens or coins or for any other purpose.
The Report may include predictions, estimates, or other information that might be considered forward-looking. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. Aergo Limited (the “AERGO Organization”), a non-profit organization established in Hong Kong that stewards the AERGO project, does not undertake and specifically declines any obligation to update such information or statements, or to publicly announce the results of any revisions to any such information or statements.
The unaudited financial information provided in this Report has been prepared by AERGO and does not include complete financial statements. The financial information provided may not comply with applicable accounting standards.
All figures in this Report are denominated in U.S. Dollars unless otherwise stated.
Blocko Inc. ("Blocko"), a private blockchain services company based in Seoul, South Korea, was engaged by AERGO to act as an advisor to support strategic planning and defining of the organization's transparency mandate. The AERGO Organization prepared this Report with strategic guidance from Blocko, and per audit regulations, does not constitute a review of or attestation to the financial data.
26 - Is this the Aergo team wallet? 0x0E00Ca66f8717428bd0588425296313516785A29
We have multiple wallets...team will comment on your question
27 - Is it true that the team will receive tokens at a faster rate than private sale investors?
This question has been asked a few times so let me provide a detailed response here..
The tokens for the foundation team vest over about one to three years fully...while the private token sale contributor tokens vest over one year. Our team is actually very busy executing on our plans and have not yet had time to claim said tokens. We don’t plan to sell these if or when we do claim them because we are here for the long run....you can either believe us or not but we are truly being genuine here!
28 - Hi Phil, question, is the team planning for a live demo session about the platform and its capabilities to show to the community how the customers will utilize AERGO?
Yea all part of our community outreach plans for 2019 - they start in early Feb...watch this space! (Phil)
If you've got any more suggestions in mind like this, we'd love to hear them! (Kyle)
We have a plan to create materials youtube video clip for tutorials. (Hunyoung Park)
29 - On FBG, why did they sell off all their token? is true right?
This is a difficult question to answer as we don't know exactly what any of our investors may (or may not!) do privately...the allocation for any and all private sale participants is indeed locked, and no token purchasers were given special treatment. As disclosed, the maximum discount given to anybody in the sale was 20%.
We can confirm that any rumors of certain parties being given better terms than others are nothing more than rumors. We can also confirm that no market-related services were purchased from private sale participants, as we look to reduce risks around conflicts of interest to ensure the safety of all of our stakeholders.
For private token sale purchasers, only 10% of tokens were released. No more of these tokens will be released until the end of Q1 2019. Because the tokens are currently locked, there is no way for them to sell anyone to sell those tokens. Currently, the number of tokens circulating is 34,798,968 (however, not all tokens have been claimed by token recipients yet, so the actual number is 24,808,925).
We can’t speak for specific token holders for obvious confidentiality agreements. Such matters would never be revealed by any professional team. However, we do hope that this answers your question...I would encourage everyone to read this response as it provides a lot of detail and facts!!!
30 - I have one more question: How do you feel that all of your big investors sold OTC before token release?
Thanks in advance!
Another tough question but let me try to provide more color here...
We don’t allow for these trades to happen as they are against our agreement signed with private token sale contributors...Aergo has, however, not received any sufficient evidence to be able to take action against parties that broke our agreement of pre-TGE trading....we can confirm however that just 10% of private token sale purchaser tokens are released, so most contributors have been unable to sell their positions.
31 - Good day Phil, since Aergo will be initially Interoperable with Ethereum. Will the Crosschain feature be available only to developers or to everyone?
Any users can use asset bridge feature finally with their wallets. (Hunyoung Park)
32 - Are you going to label Aergo wallets owned by the team? Total Transparency and clarity for the community.
There is only so far where transparency can and should go...we will do our best to be as transparent as is possible...for example revealing individual token holdings is like revealing everyone's salary...in some countries, this is done in others its illegal.
33 - When can we expect Aergo to be listed on better exchanges?
Let me answer this again...we don't like to answer questions like this because we prefer to "do" rather than "say we will". That being said, we’ve heard the community feedback about our initial exchange listings. We are fully aware of the landscape when it comes to cryptocurrency exchanges, which ones are the major ones and what the community wants to see. We have a sophisticated, multi-stage plan for matters like this. We have formed very strong relationships with many of our investors and key advisors who will give us the firepower we need to execute on our plan.
Ensuring liquidity in accessing tokens is naturally vital for a truly sufficient decentralized network that is powered by a sophisticated token economic model. We know where we want to be and plan to ensure the very best for all of our key stakeholder groups in the coming months.
34 - Are u guys gonna have more influencers to talk with u? like AMA outside from here?
We may do video AMAs soon - if the community wants this and you don't mind listening to an ugly old man talk!
35 - Why do you always post news on Blocko when a lot of it does not affect Aergo? Sure they are your parent company. But it's clear not all clients will use Aergo. As per your last update, only one client has signed up to use Aergo.
Another excellent question that needs a detailed response...
We do like to share news on both Blocko and AERGO because both are in effect two sides of the same coin. We can see AERGO as the foundational steward of the AERGO project and Blocko as the actual commercial services arm and technical development body that builds and uses the technology in the mass market. The AERGO Organization is not-for-profit while Blocko is for-profit. Any partnership and a new client for Blocko is almost directly a benefit to AERGO, due to the tight-knit relationship the two have.
Blocko will slowly base any and all of its business deals on AERGO, which is why any deal Blocko secures is absolutely relevant to AERGO. This is why we share news on Blocko. We will be sharing lots of exciting news for AERGO as well this year, including deals Blocko is securing for large-scale implementations on AERGO; partnerships that AERGO secures or has secured; as well as significant ecosystem developments around developers, hosting/technology partners, and more. Thanks for your question.
A lot of the core technology behind AERGO is actually being built and produced by the Blocko team; with Blocko 'investing' its technical resources into the future of AERGO, where its implementations are far more effective and save much more money for clients than Coinstack currently does. We recently, in our newly released QPU, just explained an expansion to the business agreement between Blocko and AERGO. This means that Blocko is now not only our strategic technology partner but also a close partner for business development purposes in a refreshed multi-year contract.
36 - You mentioned that the team's tokens are vested between 1 and 3 years. That implies that it's impossible to claim them yet. Even if the team wasn't too busy executing.
Or are some the team's tokens unlocked already?
Yes some tokens get released at specific milestones...for example performance related tokens for some staff on specific hi-importance tasks.... the vast majority of tokens vest longer term.
37 - Will you list on a big exchange? No more Kucoin, please.
We actually have very strong relationships with many of our major stakeholders including institutional contributors and advisors. We plan to utilize these relationships to add firepower to our sophisticated multi-phase plan on this matter...many exchanges have approached Aergo for them to list our token...we don't want to comment beyond this for now.
38 - Is IBM still your biggest competitor?
One of a growing list...Amazon...Huawei...Microsoft...all fomidable companies..." their strength is the size and scale...their weakness is the size and scale"!!
39 - Why you take so long to reply FUD posts? What are you hiding?
See my earlier response above - we will NOT always reply to FUD as we have a real project and tech to deliver 😊(Phil)
Also, addressing some questions requires legal and financial consultation or approval. Especially some of the concerns that we've addressed in recent. The time costs of some of these consultations are not inexpensive. In the future, please remain patient with us when you do express future concerns. (Kyle, Community Management team)
40 - If milestones have been met, you must be happy with how the project is doing all around and see merit in giving performance related tokens.
Yes we are very happy...not everything went to plan but the team did an amazing job...especially the Blocko engineering team - simply brilliant!!...we always pay for good performance!
41 - If you were so against OTC sellers in public why did you create a OTC desk secretly?
this is also a good question...let me provide more color...
The sole purpose of the OTC desk was to prevent unauthorized, unregulated, and potentially fraudulent exchanges from taking place....the OTC desk was being created to prevent that....however, we did not, in the end, need to do this as not a single trade was executed...Please see the pinned message for a link to the article explaining this further.
42 - How big is the team across the different regions Australia, UK, South Korea?. Can you reveal what discussions or potential partnerships are in the works? If not how is the relationship with blocko being used in Australia and the UK where Blocko's enterprise presence isn't as strong?
We provide details about our operations in the QPU...we cannot be in every country and want to grow in a carefully planned and orchestrated manner...the QPU explains this...many projects hired too fast and expanded without a plan...just look around at the news...how many are reporting what we are reporting in the QPU...we call it the "5 P" model - be nimble - move fast - focus focus focus and don't spend too much cash!!!...just take a minute and look back on our joint achievements during 2018...in 10 months the team delivered so much and on plan...and yes we only had 9 people outside of engineering to cover EVERYTHING - I am very proud of what the joint Aergo and Blokco team has achieved - kudos! - now I want more!!!!
43 - What is the current stage of development of Aergo Man? And are there any other dApps building on top of Aergo simultaneously with Aergo Man? Maybe dApps from the future clients? Thanks for the AMA, Phil!
Testnet launched end of 2018. Mainnet will have more feature definately, but most important thing is stability. so we are testing in testnet hardly. (Hunyoung Park)
44 - Was FBG given unlocked tokens from the start?
We did address speculations like this in the AMA. No one was given preferential terms, and only 10% of tokens for private sale contributors was released.
I would like to now close by thanking everyone for participating in the AMA and asking great questions. We believe AERGO will become one of the most important projects in blockchain in the coming year. We know many of you are AERGO token holders or enthusiasts. If you want to help us on our mission then please reach out to us on Telegram or via our website. We want to make this project a success for everyone involve. Bye for now and I hope everyone of you has a happy - healthy - and prosperous 2019! until me AMA again...Pz.