AriseBank - Bringing Consumers to Cryptocurrency
Firstly, Congratulations ...
BitShares Thailand | 
BitShares and AriseBank announced their strategic partnership on 14th December in 2017, in Dallas, Texas -
"AriseBank, the first decentralized bank is teaming with BitShares, the first decentralized exchange to provide a comprehensive platform for real-time delivery of incorruptible financial products and services." ~Huffington Post
AriseBank's #1 goal as stated in their elevator white paper is to bring consumers and cryptocurrencies together.
BitShares Thailand collaboration with AriseBank dev team
Following a tweet requesting test of bitUSD funds from BitShares, BitShares Thailand were pointed out thanks to 
Millions of small to medium online stores are built with WooCommerce, and adding easy integrations to accept cryptocurrency payments is one way to increase adoption for a decentralized business like AriseBank, who plan to make it easy to integrate with thier new-era decentralized banking and financial services for the merchants, giving 'less friction' for the consumers. A virtuos circle in other words, bring the merchants, take care of big brands, the consumers have more reasons to hop on board.
Crypto payment modules do already exist for currencies such as BTC, ETH, LTC and many others. With this work, it will bring robust official plugins for BitShares (BTS) that can later also be extended for other graphene based currencies such as sbd, steem, golos, yoyow or muse. As WooCommerce and WP are open source platforms, the plugins will become available to the eco-system. This will create a new onboarding channel for Bitshares, for merchants that want to accept BitShares (or bitUSD, bitCNY, bit GBP or any other fiat-pegged smart assets) or any business that wishes to make or receive payments online in fiat-denominations, with all the benefits of crypto.
What is AriseBank? dialogues with CEO Jared Rice Sr.
From two and a half years initial idea in the making, founder and CEO Jared Rice Sr has come to launch AriseBank and AriseCoin with his team in January 2017. At the end of 2017 they are in the midst of an ICO, with the end goal of raising $750k USD soft and a $1billion hard cap, making this the biggest ICO in the world.
"We are all about transparency" ~Jared Rice Sr.
AriseBank's #1 goal as stated in their elevator white paper is to bring consumers and cryptocurrencies together. The 5 principals that Arise state to be built upon are Community, Environment, Education, Diversity and Privacy.
The usual suspects
The announcements haven't been without the usual doubters and the FUD machine has been strong, as such behavioiur is regardless, being rampant in the industry. There has been no solid credible news sources providing evidence, merely a post from a previously unknown bitcointalk.org user which has been credibly traced to a family riff over an ex-wife (and the same party cross posted to a low ranking 'scam report' website that anyone can post to). Something to take due diligence over? There is no history or evidence or previous 'list of endless scams' that some are calling out, with articles being published on Medium with headlines like "AriseBank ICO screams of scam" being completely overblown. One alleged dispute over a sub $100k business deal gone sour? It screams of sour grapes and nothing more.
Let's talk about Jared
So, who is Jared Rice Sr? Jared is not what you call a typical CEO. Not in your corporate, shiny, climbed the ladder sense of the word. What is clear is a guy that had a tough upbringing and background, from adoption to dropping out of high school and being on the wrong, (disadvantaged) side of the fence in early youth – When all the cool kids were having a blast in safe warm homes and parents ready with the college budget – Jared had to prove himself the hard way, an achievement in itself to be where he is now, firmly planted on the right side of the fence with huge opportunity ahead. This much alone should be enought to tell us we are not dealing with a criminal mastermind.
"Guys, seriously, I wouldn't make it very far outta Dallas if I was gonna try and pull of this/that, I'd have be a bit more subtle!" is typical of Jared's light-hearted comments in his upbeat, straight-shooter tone.
Early Years
Jared sensed when Internet came along, excelling at computers was a way to get by without 'connections', i.e. having an Internet connection could be his shot at climbling from poverty and means of survival. Evidently, Jared carved a career for himself doing many IT projects, website, graphic design, also hiphop music production and distribution. Something he readily admits is to failing numerous times, as many an entreprenuer will attest to being inevitable on the road to success.
Tech Visionary
With several components to take on the centralized 'old guard', $750m- $1bn USD does seem like a realistic budget for the vision Jared shared with us, and repeated in interviews –
"it's not about the money, it's about there being enough such this whole thing can be done right...".
Frequently quoting Steve Jobs and Apple, Jared likes to refer to blockchain and the crypto world as "Apple circa 1989" in terms of where we have got today. Just as Apple did for the home computer and later the smartphone, Jared alludes to making digital money accessible, to providing the 'all in one' where widespread adoption can occur – Cryptocurrency today can seem like the 'homebrew' era of the PC before it went truly mainstream. Not actually a 'bank' in the federal, regulated, licensed sense, the Arise "decentralized bank" revolves around making 'banking without banks' a widespread possibility. Funds are held cryptographically, by the arise account users. In the decentralized bank model, literally the storage of all the funds are also decentralized. The aTM machines will be owned by franchisees, businesses that want one on premises, and will earn profits from by taking crypto for local fiat cash. They aren't owned/controlled outright by Arise.
AriseBank & AriseCoin – Product Portfolio
So with all that said, here is a run-down of the products and services which make up the AriseBank ICO:
- aiExchanger
AI based digital asset tracker, taking feeds across several central exchanges simultaneously to be able to predict movements and perform automated trading and making consistent gains for the wallet holder. Jared on interview - talked about using tensor flow data where they are using advanced feeds from all the exchanges. By automation the bot can react instantly to opportunities to make profits on simple trades.
- aEX Trading
Digital asset exchange, built with novice and beginner digital asset traders in mind. Trading takes place with four simple touches and two screens. No more trading complexities. Arise users can exchange one cryptocurrency for another, instantly spend using their AriseCard by VISA or the funds can be deposited into any bank of their choice within 48 hours.
- aTransfer
Send and receive money anywhere for free in seconds. Arise to Arise accounts, as well as be able to redeem assets for cash. Receiver can then spend it instantly using their AriseCard, exchange their coins or watch them grow.
- CoinSecure
Consumer friendly always safe wallet and plans spoken in interview ensuring decentralized banking concept is maintained, i.e. eventually to introduce a smartphone or PC 'on the blockchain'. See AriseID and CoinBank
- aTM
aTM - China manufactured globally compliant ATM machines for cryptocurrency, accessed with AriseID. Aims to become the most powerful and secure digital asset-based aTM™ network in the world.
- aCharts
aCharts - integrated into AriseBank interface are many user friendly means of comparing currencies and reports in a simple to comprehend manner.
- AriseID
Identity verification platform on bitcoin protocol - more info at https://ariseid.com
Initially built for Bitcoin and utilizing bitcoin protocols for secure ID with Easily login and signup with platforms, by simply scanning a QR code on their login and signup pages. Privacy is assured, all your account details will be all be stored encrypted on the blockchain, and only your phone will know it is you logging in.
- AriseCoin
Finally, tying all together the arisecoin enables 1% of all the gains made by aiEX automated trading, to be split among all of the community wallet holders of AriseBank. The coins are not mined, but minted based on activity of all the community and redistributed evenly. Traders don't loose anything other than the 1% of profits only as a type of 'fee' and are getting the even return of aCO redistribution. The coins can be earned just for being a part of the community, in what is slated as a blend of "capitalism and socialism combined".
"With AriseCoin™, the rich can still get richer, and the poor are raised from poverty without taxing anyone"
- aPocket
aPocket powered on Tmobile cell network, a $99 hardware wallet which will support 700 currencies. Not mentioned in the current whitepaper, but this ties in well with AriseID and CoinSecure, more announcements are expected soon.
And of course, the aCard
From the source
The above has given us an overview of the pieces that ariseBank are putting together in this major ICO. Much more information can be found on thier website, with extensive documentation. The following will address direct communication and transcripts from interviews in the past days with Jared, starting from the radio interviews and continued on Telegram.
Blue Rock Talk
Some highlights of the interview.
Connie covered how it is so technical to be involved with crypto. "Once you go accumulating for example some savings on the steemit network, what you gonna do? Example first you are told take sbd because it's currently worth more than STEEM (once you know the difference), then move it somewhere that accepts it for Bitcoin, then you can move your bitcoin to an alt or for cashout. Current cryptocurrency is too involved and 'nerdy' for the average consumer that is crying out for simple ways to get involved in the movement....". Valid point, Connie.
Response was awesome from Jared, to a very on-tone question from Connie that really summed up the state of crypto today. Jared explained how coming from a developer and IT background he'd always been working on trying to make IT and technology accessible, before arriving in crypto. Jared stated, "very much one of the AriseBank key missions is to tie together the consumer with crypto, which in turn will bring the retailers and big outlets - in turn this will bring further consumerism to our decentralized banking eco-system... this [] has got to be easy to use".
Jared talked about despite having mixed with gansters at an early age (as touched upon elsewhere, and self-proclaimed), Jared was always into websites, graphics, data centers, software, and back again. Openly admitting, it was an Internet connection that was his major essential to get by. This is how he came from an early age to at one point work on openstack technology for NASA. Today Jared is a self declared developer turned CEO. He went on to say 2017 for him has been his team of 10 guys for more than 1 year, day and night working to put everything together in creating Arise, a platform that any cryptocurrency can be supported or traded on.
More from Jared
"[one of aims] is to help the businesses bring in the consumers, the goal is to consumerise. Someone with some steem could trade for any coin they want or cashout at low fees immediately, being AriseBank account holders .... Take away the barriers to entry, where existing users actually have to be determined and take perseverance around getting into many cryptocurrencies ... we will bring more and more consumers so the general population can then use all of the things being created, all the in great [crypto]projects around the world .... with transparancy
"PIVX has invested and partnered with us, they have taken a lot of time and deliberation over that, and Bitshares, I know @stan and @michaelx very well, those guys have spent a lot of time into checking us out ....
On how is it possble to integrate so many coins
"There's the beauty to it, integration sides are open, documentation, integrate to our side is the beauty of it because it isn't completely necessary with a lot of these platforms, essentially [the projects worth having] have [also done the work] the APIs to interact with them are already there ..."
AriseBank own blockchain
AriseBank will not be reliant on the Bitshares blockchain, however it will interface it including BTS trading, but AriseCoin is separate, it is a cryptcurrency tied into the decentralized bank, with it's own blockchain. Jared makes clear that AriseBank and AriseCoin are separate entities. The AriseCoin will have the aforementioned minting and redistribution as can be viewed from the website or below, and is used as a bonus reward (which also expires) for AriseBank customers.
Devices and Hardware
"we took the terminology accounts and sub-accounts, like people are familiar with. Not wallets, which are abstract and techie. Can you explain it to your mum? Some will literally never understand fully ... however we still want them [to be ok using it]"
"[devices] of the current gen were not built for blockchain. Smartphones can be blockchain ready with data burnt into the circuitry. [at AriseBank] we may not know who you are, but your phone will know it is you [and tell us the user is authorised]. We are definitely looking more into hardware areas, starting with 'aPocket' released in 2 weeks. We have from CloudCoin - partner, Sean who is building a system for blockchain enabled devices, with a centerpiece of encrypted messaging. Where A calls B, one piece of the call will be on blockchain, another on cellular, and another on wifi. This isn't sci-fi, it sounds plausible given modern LTE and upcoming 5G wireless protocols, which can utilise more than one connection at a time.
Sound bites
Connie: "[What if] a flare took out all of the grid or a solar flair, took out all the technology on Earth. How is our money safe? We wouldn't have a problem with gold. ["act of God" scenario for all data on earth] what happens to all the crypto? …
Jared: Hahah! Oh that would be bad, yeah we'd be in trouble. Oh! no no no no wer're not! So I was conversation with Eddie [this guy works for..], and already a company that's doing [blockchains] in space. So they are peers. If there's a copy of the blockchain orbiting the planet we can rebuild it down here."
. Here's a guy that can always find solutions.There's countless more soundbites like this where Jared absolutely displays the talk of a passionate tech evangelist. Here's someone that has always understood the implications and greater goods that cryptocurrency [and technology] can bring to fixing problems.
Whilst we picked Jared's brain he was able to keep up with threads of conversation on private chats and public groups seamlessly. Jared comes across as a very ambitious, intelligent, and hands-on leader with a mission. Jumping between chats, development, social media and business calls appears to be soul food to Jared, by the jovial and ever forward thinking responses he fires back to any questions. If he doesn't have the answer, he's immediately referring it to someone on his team with expert delegation that seems so natural and casual at first glance. These are hallmarks of someone absolutely passionate, professional, about doing things right.
On Dan Larimar:
"Bitcoin people don't like DPOS vs mining which Dan has invented, and there will probably be the next thing and more to come to replace it.. not to put down @dan or anyone as he is ... genius, his work is the best we have now, but in 10 years even if folks will say one he's one of the most genius to walk this earth, we could still have moved onto other things]. …. But it's the same with whatever we do, some will like it and some won't. … Personally, I'm a great believer in BitShares, having known @dan and @stan personally for some time"
[End]
Special Thanks
to @michaelx and @stan's blessing in introducing @murda-ra (CTO of @apasia.tech, founder BitShares Thailand) for collaboration with the AriseBank development team, and endorsing @britcoins to put this special report together.P.S.
It checks out, there are indeed blockchains in space!
https://www.techinasia.com/spacechain-blockstream-blockchain-to-satellite
https://blockstream.com/
https://www.coindesk.com/blockstream-using-satellites-beam-bitcoin-earth/