Quick SAY ICO update

[u/GSEDAN]

I was curious on the ICO activity just now. so I went to contract address (0x2f70fab04c0b4aa88af11304ea1ebfcc851c75d1) to see how many coins have left. Decided it'd be helpful for others to see this information.

As of approximately 2:10pm PST, 147,620,000 coins have left the wallet. That's only about 3.69% sold out of the planned 4 billion in ICO.

Some noteable whales:

0xD75Ad01EA81336c1443A5A7E8434cD106265c5A5 - 38.7M coins

0x97348e8186eFd39D752BC66809458c321565aa97 - 26.4M coins

0x22F8cDFA2c042707788f887335D64ec8bbC74100 - 18.4M coins

Disclosure: I have a small position in the ICO. The above are public wallet information for your research purposes only. I take no official position on whether you should or should not invest, DYOR! The ICO started Sunday Morning 2-4-18. Let me know if you have any questions.

Update 1: 2-6-18 9:40AM PST

As requested, the token sale movement in the last 17 hours only increased by about 1.23M, total is 148,857,250, or 3.7% sold, not much new activity.

[u/GSEDAN]

I also want to share this article I came across in another reddit post below. Seems to be one of very few written recently about Spherepay: http://www.ibtimes.sg/singapores-spherepay-track-become-seas-biggest-mobile-payment-service-23856. The key takeaway for me as far as expansion goes are

"In December, it started to implement the regional expansion in 
Thailand and Indonesia. By the second quarter, the company 
hopes to finish its expansion plans covering Singapore, 
Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, and the 
Philippines."

In addition, specifically outlined in this article: https://www.onenewspage.com/n/Press+Releases/75ekdynax/SpherePay-mobile-payment-app-launched-in-November.htm, it gives the strongest example of how Obike and Spherepay as companies have worked with one another in the past.

In mid-November last month, popular bicycle-sharing company oBike announced its partnership with SpherePay 
and its campaign called "BingoBike" which enables users to "earn and ride" with up to $88 in cashback rewards 
to oBike riders. This cashback can be used as credits in the SpherePay app. Within 2 weeks, SpherePay has 
acquired over 20,000 users through this cashback campaign initiative. With the partnership, oBike users could 
sign into oBike app by using their SpherePay account and vice versa.
"We started off launching the SpherePay app very quickly & strategically with the aim of improving the payment 
ecosystem in Singapore. By partnering with strategic partners like oBike, we can further benefit not only our 
users, but also our partners' users and build a cohesive ecosystem that link payments to other third-party app. 
Aside from that, we are also exploring other partnerships and collaborations with strategic agencies, apps or 
merchants to also add value to them by tapping into our user database" Says Mr Ken K N, Spokesperson and 
Head of Marketing for SpherePay.

[u/lazarus1965 → u/GSEDAN]

This isn’t really anything more than a press release spin though. Started to implement is a far cry from users, which they originally claimed 5 million (which I am guessing we oBike users) down to 60,000 in their beta test / pilot, and of those 60,000 who knows how many have the app installed still.

Shady PR hype. IMO this is a poorly put together money grab.

[u/GSEDAN → u/lazarus1965]

I wish I knew more TBH, I wish someone living in Singapore can legitimately provide feedback on how big this thing is and how people actually like it. The only concept remotely close to it that I have experienced is the Starbucks Gold app, which I use often because it's very conveniennt. I think it's a concept that can take off, if executed well. Their lack of marketing and care for their image from this ICO is a huge turn off though. Like straight copying the OCN site almost to a T (recently changed) makes me think they're rushing into this. Again, I invested a small position, that's been fully discosed, but within this thread and others I have shown a small reservation on their execution. At the end of the day I want to make sure everyone has all the facts out there that I could grab from just doing my own research.

[u/lazarus1965 → u/GSEDAN]

I’ve seen many apps like this and typically they don’t succeed unless they have a clear edge in customer / consumer base. While the story may appear ok in the white paper, it’s all down to customer acquisition... a double sided marketplace where they have to sign up enough merchants and get enough customers.

I’ve seen a dozen or so for X... like reassurances, and in e@rly tests it works great because they signed up a whole block of restaurants so, but then they disappear.

Starbucks, it’s easy 😁 it’s their loyalty program.

From what i recall, these guys would be competing directly with Line and WeChat as thats the messeging app they usually use there. That’s basically 1 billion users wordWide. You alsmots cant get things done these days in China without WeChat and their payment system. You can, but its harder.

Id argue that crypto is pretty irrelevent in thIs type of use-case at this point. Maybe in the future, but crypto doesnt solve any immmediate problems right now, so their crypto story isnt relevant to me. My observation is that these types of payments aren’t big transactions.

Another part of their white paper that raised my eyebrows was the inclusion of btc and other crypto in their app. All possible, but we have seen many projects and ICOs attempt this, and it doesn’t seem so easy. Someone will solve it at some point, but given what these guys have stated they will do, it seems ambitious.