Timing a Token Launch
It’s March 2020. Countries across Asia are closed for travel and movement. Italy has come under the global spotlight because of its strict and indefinite lockdown period. Spain isn’t far behind. The world is becoming alert to a new, deadly virus and supermarkets are being overrun by panic buyers. Economists are predicting a formidable depression and the stock markets are reacting with huge sell-offs, generating more panic.
Meanwhile, London and the UK are still open for business. When will Boris follow Italy, Spain, France and Germany and announce a similar lockdown?
Along with four of my colleagues, I stood in a 90% empty London Excel for Blockchain Technology World (incidentally the venue that was turned into the 4,500 bed Nightingale Field Hospital the very next week). Why wasn’t this event cancelled or postponed? After all, delegates, exhibitors and visitors usually travel from all over the world to attend this annual event and many of those countries were already restricted from travelling.
It’s safe to say that March 2020 was not the right time to launch a private token sale; the outlook was gloomy, there were bigger things to focus on and this was all on top of an already bruised market sentiment for altcoin investors, who were struggling to make a return following the two-year bear market.
Timing is everything.
Who, at the turn of the year, thought that 2020 would involve attending virtual events, networking with avatars and celebrating when Google Meets finally added a tiled view to their video conferencing service? Who at the turn of the year, thought we’d spend Saturday nights playing online quizzes in fictional pubs with our friends and family? The challenges we all faced during 2020 will be a topic for generations to come.
Time is a healer.
September 2020. Six months on and whilst global cases continue to climb as pandemic epicenters shift and countries ease restrictions, the feeling is more positive. Europe has experienced beautiful summer weather and people have had time to reflect on what is important to them. For many, spending considerable time at home with their nearest and dearest has changed their perspective and those businesses that have survived, have embraced a new normality that is helping to increase productivity and improve the work-life balance of their employees. To grow in this scenario is testament to the resilience of the human spirit and our industry. We will not be beaten! We have a vision and nothing will stand in our way of achieving that! Perhaps these are straplines that should be emblazoned across the t-shirts of every blockchain and tech startup. Maybe even a tattoo…
There’s a new buzz in the industry, in fact there are a few; DeFi. Oracles. Uniswap. BTC is up. Alts are up. Sentiment is positive and the market has returned with aplomb. Not only is the market timing better, we and others have had an extra six months of higher productivity, further platform development, additional revenue generation and user base growth, which has scaled significantly.
Let’s take a look at the tech giants. Apple is valued at over $2 trillion – that’s double what it was in March and larger than the entire FTSE 100 value. Amazon isn’t far behind and younger tech companies such as Zoom and Slack have also benefited from the pandemic. Why? Because offices, restaurants and shops had to shut down, employees needed better equipment so they could work from home and consumers needed somewhere online to spend their money.
Cloud platforms and telco businesses have also benefited from increased online activity, but never has there been such a microscopic lens on finances. Whilst the tech industry has largely succeeded, other industries are on their knees and one stark fact remains: current cloud costs are simply too expensive. A more sustainable solution is required then, to make cloud computing more affordable and more accessible for an exascaling global audience. This is what the Cudo team is focused on building; a distributed cloud platform that can be used for a multitude of use cases, including oracle services for other blockchains, AI, video rendering and blockchain computing. A sharing economy platform, that like Airbnb or Uber, provides a lower-cost consumer option, whilst distributing the revenue to a network of hardware suppliers.
Cudo is going beyond that though; we believe our suppliers should be rewarded further whilst also building security and transparency into the platform. This forms the use case for our CUDOS token where staking earns rewards at the same time as creating a reputation system for devices and validating successful computing jobs. Launching in March would have been premature, there would have been no utility at the time for the token and the market wasn’t right. The six-month pause was a blessing in disguise.
Timing is everything.
Pete Hill , Director at Cudo Ventures
If you would like to learn more about the Cudo platform and CUDOS token, please visit www.cudos.org or contact [email protected]. We’re not just an idea, we’re a reality.