The theme of the MSMEs today is being touched more and more often and almost all world ratings, analysts, politicians and other involved parties argue that the effective development of market relations is impossible without the participation of micro, small and medium-sized businesses. They also say that the MSMEs are an integral part of the global and local economic systems and that in the modern world MSMEs are important tools for solving a number of economic, political and social problems facing almost all states, and especially emerging countries where MSMEs take for about 90% of registered enterprises.
Exactly the founders of the MSMEs are bringing the majority of modern innovations to our world covering the lion's share of unemployment, export and import and restructure the economy as a whole. And at the same time such a business has unique characteristics and small size that does not require huge initial investments and provides a quick turnover of resources and high growth dynamics. In addition the development of MSMEs contributes to stabilization in the political and social spheres of the economies of emerging countries simply because the majority of representatives of this business come to this area from the social layer of “ordinary people” or are in close contact with them. Also due to their size and characteristics MSMEs are much more flexible and unlike large enterprises adapt more quickly and follow the trends within a rapidly changing business environment.
Governments of many world countries also consider the growth of MSMEs to be one of their main priorities and directions, intending to create around 600 million jobs by 2030 which today are very necessary to meet global demand and to lower unemployment.
But, unfortunately not all the creative and talented people have the opportunity to become an entrepreneur for a number of obvious reasons, among which the main ones are: the difficulty or even the complete inability to obtain initial capital, investment or credit for their enterprise, as well as the lack of proper infrastructure and legal framework for the establishment, maintenance and unhindered development of such enterprises. The root of these problems is the lack of trust to the MSMEs, especially at the early stages of their development. They are not trusted by banks nor suppliers, nor potential customers. Ultimately even potential employees are very reluctant to agree to work at a newly created enterprises with a neutral reputation in the labor market.
And the guys from the Indonesian blockchain startup called Tokoin started to solve the problem of trust in the MSMEs sector. By the way Tokoin has recently conducted 2 rounds of IEO of their project on the KuCoin Spotlight platform and raised $ 1 million during these stages of financing and obtained $ 13 million while all fundraising stages (as indicated by the icodrops.com resource) that at the moment is considered as a very successful case of fundraising on the ICO/IEO market and this indicates a considerable loan of investors confidence in this startup.
So let's figure out what Tokoin is and what exactly the team of the project offers to solve the problems described above.
"Our mission is to facilitate trustworthy data exchanges in a specified platform so that MSMEs will be able to meet their needs for financing and business services without complicating intermediaries. The more prosperous MSMEs’ economy will lead to the sustainability of a country’s economy."
- Tokoin's Team
Tokoin is a blockchain-based platform that establishes a digital identity and business reputation among all of the participants in the newly created own ecosystem which is a consistent and acceptable measure of trust of a specific MSME unit for suppliers, financial institutions or other participants and users of the platform. Tokoin suggests creating an authoritative profile for the MSME by collecting and processing non-financial data, for example that the MSME provides through the KYC procedure and other company business data and information about the company's daily activities and market behavior including purchasing ability, etc. All this data will be recorded in a “digital ledger” which is exactly a blockchain register where all the daily transactions of the enterprises are converted into a valuable asset and are a certain mark of trust and reputation of the enterprises which in turn gives them access to the business services of the platform partners that were unavailable to the MSMEs earlier.
A good reputation and a high confidence rating of MSMEs opens the doors for them to various Tokoin's partners, financial institutions where enterprises can receive financing, insurance or any other support for their projects what they could not receive earlier due to a lack of information, authority and trust to them on the part of such institutions. And as you know such financing or lending is essential for survival in case of unexpected changes of market conditions where the MSMEs usually operates every day of their life.
Tokoin is developing a platform for building strong, valuable and long-term partnerships that will transform MSMEs into an attractive, functional ecosystem consisting of selected business profiles that are ready to cooperate fruitfully and together develop not only their ideas and projects but also the global economy as a whole being one of the key mechanisms of such development.
Tokoin is going to help solving MSMEs problems in three ways:
1. By creation of a digital certificate for the MSME on the Tokoin platform where the collected and compiled information about the enterprise will always remain relevant and reliable that will allow all ecosystem participants to receive reliable information 24 hours a day and 365 days a year. By the way the ecosystem participants who will be called “data miners”, will be responsible for the accuracy and input of the information provided, these will be directly the Tokoin's platform employees at the first time.
2. Tokoin creates a digital technological infrastructure for registering, processing and managing data and turns it into a valuable unit for the functioning of the platform as well as helping MSMEs adapt to using their data to obtain new capabilities and services within the platform.
3. On the Tokoin platform MSMEs with a positive reputation and a high rating receive a lot of opportunities for financing and access to various business services from the platform's members-partners that creates all the conditions for the growth, development and establishment of valuable and fruitful partnerships.
A very important nuance is that the MSMEs can be digitally identified not only online through the Tokoin dApp which is usual and convenient today but also offline by visiting the Tokoin's kiosks and filling out all the necessary for registration documents and forms. Also in order to attract as many offline distributors as possible into the ecosystem the Tokoin platform will cover all MSMEs transactions using online search from the moment of ordering the product until payment is completed using the Tokoin's POS device and mobile application. This solution will help to quickly and efficiently expand the ecosystem and the impact of Tokoin to a huge scale in all areas of doing business by MSMEs representatives and accordingly will increase the utility functionality of the TOKO token.
TOKO token and its role in the functioning of the Tokoin ecosystem
The TOKO token was originally issued on the Ethereum blockchain and it is the ERC20 standard token, but at any time it can be replaced by a token of any other standard or protocol without causing any damage to the functioning of the platform, if the team consider it as a necessary step to provide more functionality, scalability or as a part of the marketing plan of platform development.
The TOKO token is a utility token and is used as a fuel for the operations on the Tokoin platform, namely as a direct incentive for MSMEs to provide their data to the platform and their further verification by data miners. And also for payments or access to the services provided by the platform itself or by the Tokoin's partners.
It should also be emphasized that the scoring of the MSMEs trust is determined by the number of TOKO tokens that they receiving as a direct incentive for each set of data provided. Also the access to the sets of services provided by the platform’s participats and partners is opened only after the MSME collects a certain number of such coins (credit points). Other participants, for instance consulting or advertising platforms, in order to receive and analyze the data in their favor are also required to purchase and stake a certain number of TOKO tokens. Research companies, government agencies or advertisers that are not members of the Tokoin platform community if they want to access the platform participants' data or advertise their services there are also required to provide a certain number of TOKO tokens for this, which will later be used as a direct incentive for the MSMEs for providing data to the platform.
Schematically the using of TOKO tokens looks like on the picture below:
TOKO token metrics
Token ticker: TOKO
Token type: ERC20 (Ethereum blockchain)
Contract address: 0x0c963a1b52eb97c5e457c7d76696f8b95c3087ed
The number of TOKO holders as of 10/07/2019: 6953 addresses
Total amount of tokens: 2,000,000,000 TOKO
Allocated for sale: 700,000,000 TOKO
Hard cap: $ 25,000,000
Soft cap: $ 8,000,000
The number of tokens allocated to the private sale: 275,000,000 TOKO
Token price for private investors: Tier 1 - $ 0.027, T. 2 - $ 0.030, T. 3 - $ 0.036, T. 4 - $ 0.040, T. 5 - $ 0.045
Private sale tokens vesting: 0.14% of the total TOKO will be available immediately after IEO and listing, the rest will be gradually released over the next 11 months.
Allocated to the Flash Sale: 0.56% of the total TOKO (all amount released)
Token price for Flash Sale: $ 0.054
Allocated for sale on IEO KuCoin Spotlight: 50,000,000 TOKO
Time for IEO on KuCoin Spotlight Platform: August 23, 2019 at 09:59:59 a.m. (UTC +8)
Token price on IEO KuCoin Spotlight Platform: $ 0.02
Fundraising goal for IEO KuCoin Spotlight sale: $ 1,000,000 (100% raised)
Initial circulation of tokens: 64,000,000 TOKO
TOKO token distribution
Industry Fund: 40%
Sale to investors: 35%
Team and early supporters: 10%
Treasury: 10%
Advisers: 5%
Spending of received funds
Product Development: 50%
Marketing: 35%
Operating expenses: 10%
Reserve: 5%
Roadmap
The project roadmap begins from the end of last year with the development of the wallet and the beginning of private token sales. Apparently the team had many meetings with potential investors which aroused confidence in them since there were a lot of tokens sold. The next what we recently watched was the official launch of the project, IEO on KuCoin Spotlight and listing of the project there in USDT pair only that actually turned out to be a very good idea so as not to catch falling knives paired with bitcoin or main altcoins. At the moment we are waiting for the announcement from the team about the launch of the reputation mechanism, data vizualizing, the launch of the Partner Suite platform and attracting of 50,000 users to the Tokoin ecosystem that is quite ambitious and I look forward to news from the team.
After that the next key steps for me are the launch of Tokoin dApp in the main net as well as the launch of the network of POS terminals in Indonesia and the involvement of 10,000 participants in this network, what the team promised to do in the first quarter of 2020.
Further we will find many more interesting plans and solutions from the team until the second quarter of 2021, including: the development of AI solutions for Tokoin, the expansion of the user base to 500,000 only in Indonesia, the integration of AI solutions for financial and logistics partners, and much more. So, as people say wait and see. And i will say ok.
The team
An experienced and ambitious team is always one of the most important components of a project or startup and in case of Tokoin we have it. Most of the members of the main team and project advisers are true veterans and virtuosos of their field and for many years are in key positions in their sectors. But nevertheless some of them stand out brighter than others. And right on them I propose to draw our attention. By far the most outstanding of all is the founder and CEO of Tokoin Reiner Rahardja who currently ranks second in the ranking of Indonesia's most successful young entrepreneurs under 40. He is deservedly called the main MSMEs accelerator in Indonesia. And his holding group consists of such industry portfolios as: mining, general trade, fishing and shipping, corporate merchandising, retail and agribusiness.
Already at the age of 20 years Reiner received a bachelor degree in business administration in just 2.5 years of study at the University of South Queensland in Australia, and at the same time worked at once in three large companies simultaneously the turnover of each were exceeding one billion US dollars per year. I must to say that Reiner himself was already earning around 25 million rupees per month at that time, that was really a lot. Reiner Raharja is definitely one of the leading entrepreneurs in Indonesia with a clean and transparent reputation who not only manages to successfully build and develop new areas of his business but also help others do the same with their projects. Reiner’s company has even received an award for the enormous contribution and training of entrepreneurs as “The Best and Most Recommended Business Acceleration Company”. Reiner can simultaneously manage and play in a team what is a very important skill for a leader in a modern business environment. Thanks to Reiner, his merits and reputation Tokoin brand is already recognized around the world.
The second most important person in the project team is Tokoin Co-Founder and CTO Welly Salim whose experience in similar positions has now been more than 15 years. His resume highlights key positions such as vice president of engineering and operation at booster.com, technical leader at mig33.com, founder of the first Asian social networks such as emeimei.com, friendx.com, ekawan.com and many other significant projects.
And the third and last person I mention here is Tokoin COO Eddy Christian Ng. Eddie has more than 10 years of experience in developing business and banking. Previously worked a lot in positions responsible for communication with the public, clients and partners of companies. Has a lot of successful experience in conducting business negotiations. He is also a co-founder of the Internet platform focused on goods for interior and furniture livaza.com where he was responsible for a lot of processes in the work of the company. He graduated from the Canadian University of Simon Fraser, received a bachelor degree in general subjects and economics.
Important partnerships
Tomochain. Cooperation involves the use of Tomochain's blockchain infrastructure with upscale scalability and transaction speed, as well as the ease and reliability of network auditing. Also the Tomochain network is compatible with Ethereum based protocols what makes it easy to integrate the elements of one network into another.
Sahabat UMKM is the Indonesian MSME community the partnership with which gives Tokoin the opportunity to thoroughly study this sector of the economy both in general and individually for each enterprise as well as attract new partners to the ecosystem where it will be much easier and more comfortable for MSME participants to develop their projects.
ralaly.com is an Indonesian largest B2B marketplace founded in 2013. The partnership was concluded in November 2018. This partnership gives Tokoin access to a platform where more than 600,000 items in 1,000 subcategories represented by more than 100 brands and trademarks. But not even this is more important but the fact that this platform has about 400,000 customers and 500,000 suppliers who interact with each other on this marketplace giving out 3.3 million unique visits per month. This is a very valuable and important partnership that with proper organization of cooperation will bring great benefits not only to Tokoin but to all other participants of the process.
Pasarpolis, is a major insurance agency which was the first in Indonesia. Within the framework of this partnership MSMEs will have access to insurance for their business what is vital for ensuring stability and unhindered development.
Refereum, is a blockchain startup that recently conducted an ICO (February 2018) and specializes in stimulating and rewarding all kinds of influencers who advertise games through their channels. As a part of this collaboration Tokoin plans to conduct different marketing campaigns through the Refereum platform.
D.STREET, is a large Korean blockchain media platform that in cooperation with Tokoin will provide global media coverage and marketing strategies aimed to a large number of consumers and enthusiasts.
Block Crafters Capital, is a group of experts in the field of blockchain, startups, finance and investment. In the course of cooperation they will use their connections, influence and infrastructure in the crypto industry to ensure the rapid and deep introduction of Tokoin into the world of blockchain and cryptocurrencies.
Bifrost, is an Indonesian blockchain startup specializing in middleware for bridging decentralized applications with protocols of various blockchains. This partnership will ensure the high technology, scalability and performance of Tokoin dApp by unifying the key advantages of various blockchain protocols through the Bifrost platform.
Infinito, is a separate and already quite developed blockchain ecosystem which includes various products, services and solutions for both private customers and corporate. Founded in 2016 with the main office located in Singapore. This partnership involves the integration of Infinito Wallet into Tokoin dApp which today has about 75,000 active users per month and more than 450,000 downloads. The wallet is convenient to use and supports all the top cryptocurrencies and more than 2,000 tokens of various protocols.
Tokoin also has close cooperation with Indonesian government agencies such as the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Ministry of Industry of the Republic of Indonesia and the Ministry of Trade of the Republic of Indonesia. During this collaboration with the aforementioned authorities Tokoin receives tremendous support from the government which connects the platform with many potential participants in the ecosystem as well as advises and helps with resolving issues within the legal framework of the industry. Tokoin in turn teaches government agencies the latest digital technologies and the blockchain as well as how to use them profitably within the whole state.
Summary
Summing up the results of this review I would like to note that this is the first crypto startup on my memory in this sphere that has every chance of fully realizing its goals and objectives. Even if only in Indonesia so far this is a huge step towards the development of the global economy. The Tokoin project in my humble opinion has really huge potential and is close in spirit to very many brilliant, creative and ambitious people around the world with similar goals and interests. So it is quite possible that very soon one of them somewhere in the USA, China or Europe will pick up this wave of enthusiasm and continue to realize the idea of Reiner Rahardja in his country having established close partnership with the Tokoin Indonesian office.
This project, its team and partners after a full and detailed analysis to me personally inspiring confidence and only positive emotions and energy and I sincerely wish the Tokoin team to achieve unprecedented heights in realizing their goals and ambitions.
Useful links for studying the project