For those, like me, that have been paying a very close eye to the emerging ICO phenomenon, you will likely have made some or all of the following observations - and likely in the same order.
- Many new products and services of the future seem set to be token-based
- Even if only a handful of these experience mass adoption, the consequence will be that everyone will find their daily participation in the economy migrating from a fiat-based, single currency-focused economic context to a multi-currency context that will be composed of both fiat and digital tokens
- In an economy that incorporates a multi-currency token context, it might be difficult to enjoy some of the streamlined benefits that we get from a single-currency economic context
The people at KICKICO are already anticipating this, and in what seems like a visionary stroke of insight have come up with a solution - Kickonomy. Clever insights do not necessary imply successful ventures, of course, but let's carry on...
Kickonomics and the New Token Order
Before getting into the specific details of the Kickonomy project proposed by the people at KICKICO, it is probably worth pointing out that they are also setting out to address the very evident absence in ICO-land of a launchpad-type consulting service - i.e. an entity which can provide the necessary advisory services along with a skeleton platform framework from which to instigate an ICO project - think of all those technical, legal and jurisdictional minefields that any serious ICO worth its salt will have to navigate. Wouldn't it be nice if there was some experience on hand to act as a guide?
This service, it should be pointed out, will be all the more important, particularly in the context of regulatory frameworks that are essentially non-existent and which are likely to remain so for the foreseeable future.
The idea, then, is for KICKICO to provide precisely these services to those who need them. These services are accessed through the medium of the KICKICO token, KickCoin (KC). So far so good. We seem to have a great idea, and we can see a business model in which the token will have inherent value.
Where it gets interesting, however, is how exactly KICKICO plan to streamline ICO launches. Aside from the usual range of consulting services that we might expect to be made available to KICKICO-managed ICOs - technical guidance, legal counsel, marketing - there is a further plan to onboard the community itself to extend its range of services.
Think of all those white-paper curations, translations, bounty-hunter organisation etc. that any ICO will need to take care of. Well, the KICKICO platform will serve as the centre of gravity for all of this - or at least that's their plan - and from there, at least as it is envisaged, you should then have the beginnings of Kickonomy - a self-contained ICO-universe in which crowd-funded projects can access a range of products and services which are all accessed through the medium of KickCoin, the KICKICO token.
Another aspect to their project which I thought was quite a nice added benefit is that they are promising not to onboard any ICO project that does not pass KICKICO's own inspection for due diligence. This, they point out, is in their own and everyone else's interests. This implies that KICKICO may just become the first de-facto regulatory framework before governments finally get round to enacting their own legislations.
A General Funding Platform
It should be pointed out that, whilst our discussion here has so far focused on ICOs, this is a tad unfair as the KICKICO platform is also setting its sights on being a general platform for other online funding initiatives such as crowd-funding and crowd-investing.
Crowd-funding is something that we are all generally familiar with. Crowd-investing is, however, slightly different in that it can be seen as an ICO where the ICO token itself serves as a kind of share in future spoils from the venture. If KICKICO were able to help move the market trend away from pure ICO's to a crowd-investing model, that would be another welcome development.
KICKICO revenues
In the specific cases of an ICO or a Crowd-investing initiative which issues its own token, KICKICO plan to charge a 4% fee on the number of proprietary tokens released. This accompanies the 4% fee that is charged on the funds that have been raised by the ICO itself which, if current trends are anything to go by, will generally be payment in ETH.
The latter fees are attributed to the KICKICO foundation itself. The former, however, are placed into a reserve fund which will be used to finance new initiatives and developments that are intended specifically to stimulate growth within the new Kickonomy itself.
Summary
The overall idea is promising and, as ever with any ICO, it is all about execution from here on in. The project leads have demonstrated an excellent, forward-thinking marketing strategy. The white-paper seems solid. And their recent response to an attempted hack was generally commendable, with a mea culpa published by its CEO that was designed as a lesson to be learnt for others following in their footsteps.
Interestingly, that same article indicated that Slack - which has generally been seen as a must-have platform for any ICO - is perhaps more a liability than an asset for any ICO-based initiative.
KICKICO are planning to release a first iteration of their platform in October. The ICO itself, however, ends in two days' time. I'm planning to invest a modest amount - and if you are planning likewise, it is probably best to do so on the proviso that this is all new territory for all of us, so you should never plan to put anything into a project that you are not prepared to lose.
There is currently one notable downside to the KICKICO initiative, I should point out - a specific lack of interlocutors with solid English language skills. But I'm working from the assumption that they will be leveraging their new funds to address this issue.
As ever, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on this project.
Thanks,