Part #12

During the past two days, we spent time with CAR friends in Sriracha, Chonburi. The outing activities related to what we learned in class. The outing made us alert at all times along the way to Sriracha, and required our creativity & impromptu skills to interpret assignments & respond in the forms of writing, shooting video, and video production.

Photo Source: ICORA

We participated on behalf of our group, namely like cryptocurrencies e.g. our LTC (or LiteCoin), while other group names are BTC, XRP, OMG.

The CAR program directors, Ajarn Aor -Dr. Karndee Leopairote – CEO of ICORA and K. Opal- Ms. Nintita Loetruangsuphakun – Co-Founder of ICORA & Board Member of Thai Fintech Association, both tried to recap and cite examples to add value on top of what the speakers mentioned to make us understand better as lots of new terms were introduced in this session.

The 1st speaker was Mr. Sathapon Patanakuha, co- founder of Smart Contract Thailand Co., Ltd. The company is an expert in Blockchain, Smart Contract and ICO. He mainly covered the issues regarding Smart Contract.

What is the Smart Contract?
The “Smart Contract ” is computer protocol intended to digitally facilitate, verify or enforce the negotiation or performance of a contract. (source: Wikipedia)

As a “contract” normally specifies the related parties and the purpose of performing the contracted activities to be more effective, some action may be required within a certain period, with description of what will happen if no action it taken as agreed.

Smart Contract will be written as electronic coding and can be classified into 2 types:

1.Operational clauses which can be translated into logic so that we can make a computer understand the terms
2. Descriptive clauses which do not embed conditional logic but relate to a wider legal relationship between the parties.

Why People are so excited about Smart Contract
Smart contract technology can help automate money transfer processes and bypass the middle man, particular government bodies.

ICO Platform Global Marketshare
Mostly (over 80%) use Ethereum for ICO Platform as Ethereum support Solidity language. (Solidity is a contract-oriented, high-level language that supports complex requirements).

7 Coins Approved under Thailand SEC Cryptocurrency Regulation are:
Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, Stellar, Ripple, Ethereum Classic

Scalability Trilemma: SCALABILITY, DECENTRALIZATION, AND SECURITY
Mr. Sathapon mentioned about what Vitalik Buterin (co-founder and inventor of Ethereum) described the‘scalability trilemma’ that blockchain systems can only possess two of the following properties: Scalability, Decentralization, and Security. Currently, blockchains e.g. Bitcoin and Ethereum were designed with a focus on decentralization and security. However, this has come at the expense of scalability, as both blockchains have slow transaction processing times as all full nodes on these respective blockchains must reach consensus before transactions can be processed.

Apply Smart Contract in Health Care
Smart Contract can be applied to health care such as “BLOCK M.D.”, which is Health Information Exchange (HIE) and Electronic Health Records (EHR) on healthcare blockchain platform. This platform enables secure, high-data-integrity interoperability across hospitals, health tech startups, labs, insurances, regulators and, definitely, patients through well-defined API and data

Photo Source: ICORA

Part #13

The 2nd speaker was Mr. Kwai Seng Lee, MD of AIR maker, Entrepreneur and Investor. He explained about how to structure ICO. There are 2 approaches:

1. Speculative Approach e.g. Visionary ICO – mostly strong tech team and interesting business model and wow! Technology with the mission to change the world

2. Conservative Approach – traditional business – such as vending machine business. He focused on the later approach.

Ten Elements to focus in structuring ICO

1.Token Usage

We need to understand token first before design ICO. For example, if we aim to use token to pay for services then it should be “ Utility Token”. In case we aim for revenue or profit sharing then it should be “Security Token”.

2.Token Distribution

Define the suitable proportion to distribute to management team, advisor, reserve for future, private investors and public and also the Lock Up (which is the grace period) Similar to IPO, there are four steps including

  • Pre-ICO: the stage of hiring auditor, initiate whitepaper, quite high risk thus deserving big discount.
  • Private placement: special offering to investors e.g. high ultra high net worth investors
  • Presales: specific but broader group offering
  • Public: mostly no discount
    The whitepaper can be changed until the stage before launching to public.

3.Use of Funds

We need to design how we use the fund and how the token should be used e.g. for the purpose to circulate only within our ecosystem or partially convert back to fiat.

4. Participants

Participants can be private or public investors and the actual final users. Different groups require different supported document e.g. private investor may be interested in pitch deck.

5. Technology

Using the TELEGRAM can help check the feedback of community and the effectiveness of admin. However, in some cases it could be a scam or the response from chatbot.

6.Business models

We need to define the impact to our business in the future. The management of company’s cashflow is also important. After we raise fund e.g. via Ethereum or Bitcoin, we will need to decide whether to exchange all or some portion to Fiat, depending on level of risk/return we can accept.

7. Transactions

  • Issuing ICO is not relating to equity or ownership in a company. The token in circulation could be the transaction that company owes to public (Liability).
  • The rise in token value in the market does not indicate the health of company but only indicates that the token is interesting from investors’ perspective.

8. Finance & Tax

Issuing ICO is subjected to VAT. When issuing ICO, we need to define soft cap (the minimum amount we plan to raise in order for project to proceed) and hard cap (the maximum amount we can accept).

9. Legal & Regulations

Before starting ICO, it must be ensured that ICO is fully compliant with laws & regulations. Different countries have different stages of regulations/ legal development.

10. Jurisdiction & Entities

Corporate formation & right jurisdictions/licenses depend on the territory of main investors, users and the market.

Photo Source: ICORA

For the next step, we will need to work with our team to come up with our ICO case. We are planning to update you once again next week. Let’s stay tuned!

Author: Waleeporn Sayasit, Corporate Communications Director, TCC Technology
Advisor: Dr. Karndee Leopairote, CEO, ICORA
Editor: John Bickel, Senior Consultant, TCC Technology
Source: ICORA ‘s class, CryptoAsset Revolution (CAR) #1