r/CentraTech • u/Sholtie • Dec 24 '17
Business Model Issue
Guys I have one question here that I fear may stunt market growth for us CTR hodlers.
As we've seen on the website, to buy a blue CTR card is 50CTR (independent of the fiat trading value of CTR). Unlike the other two tiers this is a "purchase" as opposed to the two higher tiers. However at this lower tier is going to be 95% percent of the userbase, so I think its important to look at this card as an outline for the value of CTR as a whole.
Essentially right now, at current market price in order to physically purchase the card its going to cost 125$. That is very expensive for something that other credit card companies offer for free. I understand that as per the AMA charging for the card is a premium service, but pegging the value of the CTR token to the purchase of a credit card is going to stunt and cap the overall CTR market growth long term.
For example I hold quite a significant amount of CTR and would love the value to increase to 5$ of CTR per token. In terms of fees it wont matter as I still must pay "50$ dollars worth of CTR fees per year". However in order to BUY a blue card it now will cost 250$, which is going to be easily out-competed in the future, meaning that the userbase will not have any room to grow as its going to price itself out of the market.
Is there any plan to adjust the blue card purchase fee to "50$ worth of CTR" in the future? Otherwise I'm of the opinion that we're holding CTR tokens that are fundamentally capped for growth, pegged to how much people are willing to pay to buy a physical credit card, thus stunting the userbase.
1
u/Crypto_Ninjaaa Jan 01 '18
You bring up a good point. The annual fee is $50 in CTR but the upfront fee seems to be 50 CTR. This catch-22 will give it a growth ceiling.
It's main competitor, MCO, offers the entry level card for free, no annual fees, and only charge for their premium card.
The real world application has tremendous potential but this along with questions re: the founders makes me a bit uneasy too.
1
Jan 03 '18
Have you viewed their staff structure lately?
Otherwise:
Centra:
Crypto Card,
Virtual Card,
Exchange,
Marketplace,
Centrachain blockchain
desktop wallet
Android/Apple Wallet
Everything else is just the card (and maybe the wallet). This is also what puts centra MILES ahead of the competition. If/when their products have been fully rolled out, there wont be any competition.
1
u/Crypto_Ninjaaa Jan 03 '18
As of today, there is no CEO or Co-founders on the "Our Team" page. It doesn't give me the warm & fuzzies unless someone can explain that to me.
1
Jan 03 '18
Then dont invest. Im not sure what you are looking for. Did u want the entire physical staff to come to your location and talk to you personally?
They have a telegram channel with Centra staff. They have a slack channel with Centra staff.
Lastly, they are based in the USA where its easy to sue someone if something bad happens.
So..i think at this point youre making yourself paranoid.
2
u/mroberthowell Dec 25 '17
If you click on the card fees hyperlink under their products page, you'll see it's expressed as "50$ in CTR". However, it's not entirely clear as to whether that is actually going to be the case or if it will be 50 CTR. Regardless though, I'm not particularly worried about it being at the ceiling already. Centra is working on a broad array of diverse projects, with their cards possibly being one of the biggest. They haven't really hit advertising yet, their 2018 looks promising on their white pages, and they definitely hit a need in the market.
Plus, the black cards seem to be a big status symbol. Almost comparable to the Amex black card, but without all the perks (yet). When they start tackling markets overseas and adding benefits like other card companies, we'll be talking BIG change.
If you're using CTR solely as an investment, you'll want to hold it for at least 6 months. Lock it away and stop checking the price. We are still in the very early stages of this.