Dear BitCar Community,
BitCar Pte Ltd is pleased to provide the first major update since the ICO completed in Q2 2018.
Important BitCar releases will be lodged ONLY on our website at Bitcar.io. This major announcement has been verified on the blockchain using the world’s first ever blockchain App (which the founders proudly made in 2015 called Uproov.com, enter this EzyID to verify this release at Uproov.com)
BitCar Platform — Objective
BitCar, a technology software development company (at its most basic description), is working on releasing software which is a decentralized platform (“Platform”) facilitating P2P transactions which will be controlled by the BitCar community, after the launch of the platform. The objectives and information about the project can be seen in the White Paper released by BitCar.
It is intended that ‘Car’ tokens which have a link to high end collectable Cars, will NOT be categorized as “Securities” or “Collective Investment Schemes”, in some worldwide jurisdictions. We think Bitcar is hence technologically positioned in between the so called “Security tokens” and “Stable coins”.
This is a challenge to achieve, but when successful, could help pave the way and revolutionize asset linked token ownership and help reshape the trillion-dollar securities and real estate businesses, a worthy goal. BitCar fully intends to strike partnerships across other related assets once the Platform has been proven, giving major upside to the BitCar Platform
Here is the contract address: 0x20a264384Fd46e34a885282E8ba3De86Bb5A1bf1
BitCar has considered the easier path of registering such Car tokens as a Security, or working in a regulatory sandbox, but such an approach is not efficient or scalable and carries relatively very high transaction costs as well. We think it is easy to do it this way, but ultimately such an approach is very old world, will likely struggle with high administration and other costs, and a lack of transparency and other problems. BitCar believes such an approach is also not in keeping with the advancement of tokenization technology and such registered tokens are:
(i) slow to move and limit liquidity and tradability
(ii) expensive to transact
(iii) lack transparency
(iv) rely on intermediaries profiting away at the customers expense
(v) are a cumbersome friction on token movement
(vi) lack privacy and open to hacker attacks
We at BitCar, are not against regulations at all (i.e. we are not anarchists), quite to the contrary we think regulations can serve a need to protect the public. However, we do not think exchanging a token linked to a high-end car, on a peer to peer basis, needs regulation — just because it is done on a “platform” rather than by a private group using paper (which happens already); there is a better way we think, and we are following that path. Prices for similar cars are also often available, giving good visibility to pricing.
We think it is time and supply and demand that will mainly impact Platform car prices; perhaps the price of other assets as well. The key part of the Howey test used to determine if a scheme is a Security or not is “if an investment of money in a common enterprise with a reasonable expectation of profits to be derived from the entrepreneurial or managerial efforts of others”. There is not any party that is working for the collective to make the price of a Car token move to make a profit, like for oranges in the famous Howey v SEC case. For BitCar, the Cars are stored but may be displayed from time to time.
BitCar Platform Development progress — a bit too slow to date!
In our recent medium #BitCarTec #2 article the BitCar engineering team have reported that the platform is now approx. 40% complete.
The technical complexity of releasing a working decentralized Platform for facilitating BitCar’s Car tokens, the lack of infrastructure around Ethereum for decentralized platforms and the difficulty in getting and retaining suitable software engineers (who are greatly in demand) for Platform development has caused some delays to the planned launch date. Originally projected to be released in Q3 2018, the Platform looks more likely to be launched in the new year. However, the size of the development team has grown and there are now three highly experienced Software Engineers (including a chief technology officer and a chief product officer) working on the development, with a fourth expected to start soon.
See also this #BitCarTec #1 Medium release recently published providing some insights into some of the technical aspects the software group is working on.
We are keen for top talented engineers to engage with the team on their views about overcoming some of the mentioned challenges, as we believe this is a cutting edge, leading decentralized platform from a technology perspective. More #BitCarTec articles will features and if you are a smart software engineer, please get involved! Please add your comments to our Medium posts or in telegram or send to us an email.
Funding the BitCar project
Let’s next talk next about the ETH price and how that has impacted BitCar.
BitCar previously announced it had sold BitCar tokens for SGD 9.3 million in its on-shore Singapore domiciled ICO that ran until 20 April 2018. See the breakdown of the token sale above. The pre-sale included a mix of cash and crypto. No hacks occurred, or funds lost. For clarity and consistency, the reported $ amount was calculated by applying the crypto price to the number of tokens sold at the time of the actual sale going through. The actual amount of cash and crypto as valued at closing of the ICO, clearly exceeded USD 5 million, the threshold to proceed, but was less than the SGD 9.3 million headline figure (which is about USD 6.8m), mainly as crypto prices had declined as the ICO progressed.
As per the above chart, a good part of token sales were for ETH at a time when the ETH price was near record levels, i.e. approximately USD 800 -1300 USD/ ETH. However, the price at the time of this release is approximately USD 285/ETH. The ETH (and other crypto) prices are currently off by some 60–80 % since the ICO, which is very substantial.
As the ETH price declined, BitCar sold around half of its crypto holdings at around the USD 350/ETH level, to ensure it had enough cash to pay for near term Platform development, corporate costs and its yet to be fully quantified — but pending, Singaporean tax liability. In regard to this potentially not insignificant tax liability (it could be as much as 17% of the SGD 9.3m less some allowed costs), BitCar’s tax advisors have already prepared and lodged a tax ruling request with the Tax authorities in Singapore (IRS). BitCar has also commenced an exploratory dialogue with the IRS, given crypto taxation and its nuances are still quite new. The effect of all this is that BitCar has had to slash its monthly burn costs — with marketing and exchange listing expenditure slashed. Exchange listing fees can run into the millions of dollars now.
BitCar hopes for a recovery in the ETH price in the last quarter of the year and for a favourable tax ruling, which would bode well for the company, but in the meantime costs are being carefully monitored and cash quarantined to pay its tax liability.
First Platform Car
BitCar has already paid (over USD 500,000) to acquire the first Platform car which is in storage now and may be transferred to the first Platform Agent pending legal opinions for its tokenization. A release of all the details will occur near the time the Platform is ready, but we can reveal it is a rare limited-edition Ferrari.
Marketing
Like several other great alt coin projects, we have found it difficult to maintain a sustained high level of interest in BitCar while there has been a “meltdown” in alt coins.
A large number of projects tokens’ have become all but worthless as the meltdown has taken place and unfortunately the value of the BitCar token is also currently down substantially from the ICO price. BitCar has already been trading on 6 relatively smaller exchanges: IDEX, Blockfolio, Joyso, Tokenjar, DDEX and Etherdelta.
The plan at this time is to focus more on rapidly developing the Platform for release — and increase marketing as the Platform emerges from testing. Delivering an operational crypto powered BitCar platform is still a dream come true for us, with many years effort gone into it already, so we must continue to progress this as the top priority.
Legal
Let’s talk about the legal situation. BitCar has been seeking a legal report confirming that the trading of its Car tokens would NOT breach relevant security laws. We currently still believe it is possible that they can be classified as not being a “Security” and the effect of this will be huge as the securities market is a $1 trillion dollar marketplace.
BitCar has a proprietary design for this. However, BitCar has been informed that Singapore is introducing new regulations around what constitutes a “Security” and this new legislation is broader than before (we have been advised by a major Singaporean law firm whom has been assisting BitCar with legal matters). As a result, we are re-visiting if we can still get a satisfactory legal opinion in Singapore for the Car token. However, we are already engaging with 2 other developed jurisdictions that look more accommodating and keeping an eye out for others. We have been at this for several years now and previously received a positive ruling from another financial markets regulator. We are also making provisions to stop others copying our design.
BitCar at the time of writing is not involved in any legal disputes and we hope this will remain the case.
Team
The Founders remain committed to launching the BitCar platform. There has been some churn in the team working on BitCar since the ICO. Some wanted to work on their own projects, and we also needed a team fit for the improved cost control and platform development and delivery; also, some are better suited than others to the high risk, high reward world of long hours working for startups; but we are grateful for all members whom have contributed to the BitCar journey.
BitCar Tokens — Supply update
500 million BitCar tokens were minted and no more can be created. 250 million were allocated to the ICO. However, 151,577,871 BitCar tokens were not sold during the ICO, as crypto prices deteriorated dramatically through the ICO impacting demand as the ICO ended 20 April 2018. These unsold tokens were burned (sent to ETH address 0x0000000000000000…) on 31st July 2018.
The Ethereum hash for the transaction is here: 0x6069c40217c998e01f0187593f46ab8ec74047511ff7b34d7ee74fd73d185beb
Above is the original token diagram allocations from the BitCar white paper. The original 500 million tokens have been reduced by the burn of 151,577,871 tokens.
See the above from coingecko.com confirming the burn. The Growth, Company and Team pools are still all held at the Reserve (Contract) address. There are over 2,200 BitCar token holders as at the date of writing. If you look at the main contract in Etherscan.io, you will also see 236,596,631 BitCar tokens (at date of writing). So, it can be implied that only about 13 million have been used from other pools to date.
BitCar — Team and Founder tokens
The Team, Founders and Future Employees pool is be cut before end of September 2018 from 95 million to 55 million, a 40 million reduction (about 43%). A large part of this cut is attributable to the Founders reduction in holdings given the reduced sale and subsequent token burn of unsold tokens. Not all these 40 million will be burned, we will announce the more creative plan on this shortly.
In addition, the Founders token escrow was also majorly revised and will mainly be linked to Platform uptake as follows: 5% will become tradable per every Platform Car sold up to first 10 cars; then after at least 18 months, another 5% per every further Car sold. Any remainder will be released at 36 months, the dates all being from the end of the ICO (20 April 2018).
Support
We hope this note has been useful. Please feel free to email us at support@bitcar.io with ideas or comments. Although our admin team is quite small, we will try to reply.
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Important Note
The BitCar Platform and all related tokens are permanently closed to all residents of the USA at all times, due to the stance of the regulators there. The information contained herein is for information purposes only and is not meant in any way to be used for the purposes of buying or selling BITCAR tokens, which are highly speculative in nature. Although this release has been checked for accuracy neither, Bitcar or its Directors, officers or team accept any responsibility or liability for any loss or damage suffered by the recipient as a result of relying on information.