BitcoinX: So, who are you and what is your position at ICOS?
ICOS: Niсk Evdokimov, a co-founder of ICOBox.
BitcoinX: Tell us – what is ICOS? What is the main idea behind the project and why did you decide to start it?
ICOS: Founded in 2017, ICOBox offers fixed-price services to projects seeking to sell their products and services via ICOs. As part of its fixed-price flat-fee packages ICOBox provides technical, legal and marketing solutions. ICOBox was founded by three blockchain visionaries: Nick Evdokimov, a co-founder of SeoPult, an ex-CEO of AdInTop, and the CEO and co-founder of Cryptonomos, Mike Raitsyn, a serial entrepreneur, and Anar Babaev, a Head of Digital Marketing at Cryptonomos.
Many projects seeking to conduct an ICO are promising but underfunded. For them, paying even the low price tag of 50 BTC is a struggle. These companies would benefit from the ICOBox’s launch of its ICOS token. The essence of the project is to raise funds by selling ICOS tokens.
All net proceeds from the ICOS token offering will be directed to cover the cost of ICOBox services to help promising projects selected by the vote of ICOS token holders to conduct their ICOs . Funds to cover the cost of ICOBox services are allocated based on the standard pricing of ICOBox services . The project seeking to receive ICOBox’s services via this arrangement can apply to receive any one, two or all three ICOBox’s solutions. To ensure the spending transparency, ICOBox will open to all ICOS token holders real-time access to ICO statistics about the number of ICOs completed, the number of ICOs in progress (with a projected timeline), and the amount of funds spent.
BitcoinX: Blockchain technology is expected to alter the landscape and/or create efficiencies in almost every industry. In what ways does your technology address these?
ICOS: While many people are still just wondering about the blockchain technology, it is becoming increasingly clear that it will become the main driver for the transformation of most branches of the economy. The emergence of blockchain, a new revolutionary technology, divided the progressive public into two camps – supporters and skeptics. Half of them believe that blockchain can make the same impact as the Internet did in its time. The other half sees no serious future for the technology.
I believe that the economic and social potential of blockchain can fundamentally change the very foundations of markets in all sectors.
ICOBox aims to stabilize the ICO market through mass ICO campaign production, which will facilitate its decentralization and diversification. ICOBox occupies a unique market niche because it is the first company positioned on both sides of the market – that of a party conducting ICOs, since ICOBox offers professional ICO solutions, and a token holder, because the company also buys tokens of other ICOs.
BitcoinX: When and why did you first decide to do an ICO?
ICOS: When the Ethereum platform first launched in July of 2015, I began to follow ICOs. The amounts Ethereum was collecting back then were relatively small – $3-9 million, but the scale expanded rapidly. We started thinking about creating our own platform which would specialize on ICO services. At the time this niche was pretty much unoccupied.
BitcoinX: Tell us about what preparation was required to get the project to this point?
ICOS: Due to the rapidly growing demand for ICOs, this market is overloaded: A huge number of customers are served by only a handful of agencies that provide turnkey ICO services. Their services are quite expensive, the process takes several months, and the wait times are very long.
We are thrilled to make ICO technology available to interesting startups whose main worry is their inability to cover their business startup costs. With our own ICO, ICOBox is opening crowdselling know-how, which in the past was only available to blockchain startups, to the whole wide business world.
BitcoinX: What makes this project especially exciting for ICO participants? What makes them want to join?
ICOS: Starting August 9, 2017 and running for 32 days, ICOBox will be selling tokens to access its platform. Our ICOS token will grant its holders the right to vote in the selection of pre-screened ICOs and to buy selected tokens with a fixed discount of (on average) 75%.
The purpose of ICObox’s ICOS token sale is to attract funds to pay for ICOs of new projects conducted with ICOBox’s tools and to offer ICOS token holders a discount on the newly issued tokens of such ICOs, which they can exchange for their ICOS tokens at an average ratio of 1:4.
It is very important that the IСOS tokens allow their owners not only to buy tokens of other companies at an average discount of 75%, but also allows them to vote for the selection of projects to be given ICOBox’s tools. Moreover, ICOS token can be exchanged at the same rate for tokens of other companies at any time, from the start of presale until after the completion of the ICO, as long as the relevant tokens are available on ICOS platform.
BitcoinX: Where are you in the actual development phase of the project?
ICOS: ICOBox project token sale has already launched, over 10 client ICOs are currently being organized, two of which have already been publicly announced: TokenStars (tokenization of celebrities, starting with professional tennis players – Anastasia Myskina is acting as the advisor to the project) and ParagonCoin (tokenization of cannabis infrastructure – famous rapper The Game came out publicly in support of the project).
The public sale of ICOS tokens started on August 15, 2017 and will run until 12 pm PDT on September 15, 2017. The minimum purchase is just 1 ICOS token @ 0.01– 0.012 BTC, depending on the date and time of the purchase.
BitcoinX: After a successful ICO, what is the timeline for coming to market?
ICOS: On October 2, 2017, ICOS token holders will vote to select the 10 best projects to be given the ICOBox’s tools. ICOBox intends to continue this arrangement at a pace of 10 projects per week in Q4 2017, increasing its output to 15 projects per week in Q1 2018 and 20 projects per week in Q2 2018, arriving at 800 projects in the first year of its operations. Further details are available at icos.icobox.io.
BitcoinX: Are you focused in any specific geographic areas?
ICOS: We are focusing on key markets, which are determined by languages more than geography. Our first priority is English, the second and third-one – Chinese and Japanese, with Russian following close on their heels.
BitcoinX: For those who have read your whitepaper and other info, is there anything else you want to add to convince them to participate?
ICOS: It is important to realize that the ICO legal framework is in the early stages of its development. One has to pay close attention to legal compliance. In some countries – for example, in Japan, cryptocurrencies are officially recognized, and certain other countries do not allow them at all. So before embarking on an ICO projects need to carefully contemplate their token structure, and use professional ICO services if their teams do not have sufficient experience conducting ICOs. For potential token holders we recommend to closely study the project’s White Paper, and to weigh the risks and benefits of each product. There are many exciting projects about to come out on the market, and ICOS is a safe key unlocking deep discounts on many of them.
