Media

Watch the Blockpass <> TOZEX Virtual Fireside Chat

June 2020
On May 26th, 2020, CEOs of Blockpass and Tozex, Adam Vaziri and Remy Ozcan have come together and joined a virtual fireside chat moderated by Blockpass COO, Hans Lombardo. In the previous article, we have summarized the content of the chat for fans who couldn't wait. The video recording is now available, watch it now to learn more about the Blockpass and Tozex strategic partnerships and Adam and Remy's views on the crypto market and economy in general. Don't miss out!

[embed]https://youtu.be/5qyX8unhMcY[/embed]

Transcript

Hans: we are really happy that we pulled this all together. We are excited about working with Tozex and happy to promote it everywhere. You know I think maybe just get right into questions. The idea is to talk about the partnership and also about Tozex, what kind of exchange Tozex is, what is the vision behind it, why was it that you and Chris decided to build an exchange?

Remy: Yeah so thank you for this opportunity to discuss more deeply about our partnerships and we deeply think that this partnership will be strategic for us and we contribute to professionalize our industry by using Blockpass services. But first of all as you said what is exactly Tozex. Tozex is more of a crypto exchange, Tozex made the bridge between primary and secondary market for digital assets. Our vision is that we are going to be a token based economy and this economy will be based on digital assets so we need to provide an infrastructure which allows entrepreneurs and investors to create, manage and exchange all of those digital assets in a specific context in a fully compliant regulatory framework. That’s why we have designed Tozex as a tokenization platform which allows entrepreneurs to get funded by using token based fundraising mechanisms like ICOs, like STOs and also by using an innovative crowd-lending protocol we have designed, we have called it Believers Reward Offering. So we offer various tools to provide a way to enter in this token based economy. Where are we going to be? In at least 5-years more or less, we will be deeply used for those kinds of services, that’s why we are providing this kind of services by using Tozex’s platform. 

Hans: Wow, that’s very impressive and interesting for the BRO concept. Why do you think it's so important for these offerings to be compliant, to fulfill KYC AML in comprehensive ways? Maybe both of you can answer this question. Go ahead first Adam.

Remy: It is a good question, I don’t know if Adam wants to start to give an answer to it. If you want, I can start.

Adam: Yeah I mean the point is that you know cryptocurrency when it started we're talking about the early 2010 that type of period, it was very much unregulated. The whole industry didn’t really regulate even know how to define cryptocurrency and digital assets issued on cryptocurrency. I remember when I started as a lawyer in 2013, people were you know using bitcoin to issue assets which were called color coins and they were thinking we can issue shares on the blockchain. I mean these are not new concepts in crypto, these are very old concepts but you know we've gone a long way from that period of time where people didn't even know how to define cryptocurrency from the legal point of view to where we are today where the whole industry is regulated. You know FATF which is the supranational body creating guidelines for national regulators to institute regulations within their own countries to capture businesses and certain new sectors, and that if you wouldn't trickle down effect that's happened. You know it took three four years for it to happen but now it's happening as of this year. So pretty much across the board whether you're exchanging cryptocurrency, whether you're involved in some kind of trade involving cryptocurrency you are going to be regulated. If you're raising finance by issuing cryptocurrencies and receiving cryptocurrencies and you are regulated so it's a pervasive form of regulation that affects the entire industry and the starting block of addressing that is identity If you get that sorted then you can enjoy you know the fruits of the cryptocurrency industry without the friction that comes with KYC. I mean the thought of having to every time i want to access an asset or interact with a certain type of platform that i have to redo my KYC, the user experience is terrible whereas the idea of blockchain is that we're trying to create a new internet so what do we need for new in the internet we need a self-sovereign identity approach people in control of their identities and they share their identity as platforms services and assets and that's the genesis of Blockpass and we are very excited to see that segway in the mutual understanding that Tozex has with us in instituting and making that journey actually happens.

Remy: Yes, I totally share your view. We need to jump into a new era for blockchain industry and regulations contribute to professionalizing and structuring our blockchain industry and this industry needs regulation to provide a more comfortable framework for both sides -  entrepreneurs and investors where each party has its own responsibilities and duties. That's why Tozex wants to offer a way to initiate easily at cost effective price various types of token offerings as we produce at ICOs, STOs and BROs but in a fully compliant way with the Fifth Anti-Money laundering European Directive which is fully applicable to every blockchain services provider in Europe since January 2020 and also with GDPR because we need to provide this context because investors want to be protected at least at minimum and entrepreneurs want to evolve in a comfortable and secure framework.

The reality is, in Europe, in the world, we have seen three different strategies from governments - the first one is to apply the current financial regulation to those token offerings, it is the case from United States for example; the second approach is to say okay we need to have a customized approach and create a dedicated framework, it's exactly where Switzerland, France, Malta, Portugal and other countries has properly gone; and the third strategy was what China has made since few years ago is to ban token offering and you will see there will come an entire industry from time to time and we think using a unique digital identity provide a way to evolve in this ecosystem in an effortless way and without suffering from any issue regarding regulation. That's why for us it's really important to make strategic partnerships like the one with Blockpass to evolve and propose professionalized tools to all people who want to enter in this industry without suffering from issues in terms of price security or technical expertise is really really important for us.

Hans: Great, that's great, fantastic. I'd like to know more about the BRO, the Believers’ Reward Offering you started pre-registration on Monday. So what are the phases you have pre-registration and then what comes later and what's the schedule?

Remy: Yes! The pre-registration has started today. This is the beginning of something huge, we hope will change how blockchain based startups could be funded by using stable coins but basically the BRO is the Believers’ Reward Offering which is the first crowd-lending protocol based on stable coins. The BRO allows companies to finance their development by borrowing stable coins from contributors around the world. This is basically what is the BRO and BRO offers a way to be a sustainable alternative to ICOs and STOs as a new token-based fundraising mechanism because the BRO has been designed to avoid token pump-and-dump phenomenon to limit the volatility of the token itself and foster the growth by providing equal treatment to all contributors, and they will have an opportunity just to offer a way to invest by contributing by sending stable coins for example, it could be 100 and they will be fully reimbursed with their own stable coins they used at 50 percent and the other 50 will be reimbursed by using the TOZ tokens and we will deliver also an interest rate because it's basically a loan and when it's a loan you have to deliver a rate and this rate is really attractive because it depends on the amount invested but also on the period, the period is from 12 months to 18 months and you will be able to get 10 between 20 to 50 interest rates at the end of the loan date. We decided to call it a Believers’ Reward Offering, why? Because we deeply believe on the fact that investors and entrepreneurs can go in the same direction and we want to to reward every contributor for their belief, each quarter they will be able to have a choice to withdraw their tokens to be able to sell them or to continue by staking them and by staking them they continue to provide us their confidence on the project, they still believe on the project and in our capacity to deliver what we have already promised and for us is really really important to have a strong community and to evolve with our believers’ community in a transparent and fair way because every terms and condition of this contribution will be coded on the smart contract. There is no place for a bad face, everything will be transparent and definitive. Nobody can change the terms, the terms will be respected until the end and this is the first time in history in our industry when we use stable coins rewards specific mechanisms and a loan innovative approach. This is what we have designed, it's for our community and we will demonstrate it's a sustainable way to raise funds by starting the Believers’ Reward Offering on June 23 2020 and now the pre-registration offers a way for everyone to get five percent additional bonus and the ability to start investment before the official date of the BRO scheduled June 23rd of 2020.

Hans: Okay, great fantastic! Adam, what do you think about how Tozex is a is such a great partner for Blockpass and Blockpass’ goals for 2020?

Adam: Yeah, I mean for us we're looking for important partnerships that help us understand really how we can build a better product and Tozez really believes in kind of our journey and our vision and Blockpass. and it's a kind of mutual relationship. We learn from them and hopefully we provide them the best tool and to serve their own users and this type of partnership is the type of long-standing partnerships that we need in order for us to really develop a product that the industry loves and that's our goal. Our goal is nothing more simple than building something that everyone will love. Not okay well this is just a tool right. Everyone hates KYC,I mean everyone hates it, it's something that people can love and that's really important and to do that you need to be working with people who are at the front lines of the industry and who are dealing with the day-to-day customers who are you know financing for themselves and financing for others and we'll be dealing with each and every issue that those customers face and for us it's a very exciting partnership that we very much look forward to, but to make these partnerships work you know it takes two to tango and in this case you know we need to work with people that embrace the type of technology type of user experience that we want to bring to the world, you know simple principles of giving people their own digital identity, allowing crypto to be compliant. You know we believe that those two formulas when combined will create really the Genesis of the new industry and the new internet. That’s something I am really excited about working on with Tozex.

Remy: Yes, and if I can complete what you said about this strategic partnership because for us using and working with Blockpass will simplify investors’ identification and all the KYC processes will be made easily in just question of nature of quite seconds and that allows and ensuring that companies focus on compliance remains on at the forefront with the AML Fifth Directive and GDPR will be both satisfied, and our members of the Believers’ community will be able to create a unique digital identity one time in just few seconds which allows to navigate effortless in the entire Tozex ecosystem. Thanks to the Blockpass solution, Blockpass has developed a web, a mobile application and online service which allows to automate the process of KYC verification and it provides a way to structure and professionalize our industry and i thank you Blockpass for this.

Adam:  Well, thank you Remy and thank you for joining us in this journey and you know we look forward to supporting you as you go forward into your first phase of this project which is the pre-registration, so we'll be following it very very closely.

Hans: So what do you guys think about the crypto markets in general. I mean the world had a pretty shocking start to this year, what do you think about crypto markets and how they will perform and you know bitcoin kind of had some volatility? But how people approach crypto markets throughout the rest of this year? 

Adam: Instability in the world creates one you know, it creates an inverse effect in crypto and of course in the gold markets if you're looking at gold markets, you know they're experiencing appreciation over the past couple of years it's not only just recently. But we have to bear in mind that the the journey of crypto is one that is not necessarily in opposition but is presented as an alternative to the financial system, so if bitcoin increases in price and if the volatility around bitcoin increases over in the short term and this is an indicator to a certain extent of how bitcoin and crypto essentially act as a counterbalance to what's happening in the financial industry. And of course there are nuances to this approach and you know for example like when you create seven trillion dollars overnight which is what the Federal Reserve has done and that will pop up stock markets of course, so it's not really a binary thing it's not like suddenly we enter it into a financial crisis and the result is that bitcoin goes up, that's not the case we enter into a financial crisis and actually stock market goes up but that's because we've created you know quantitative easing in the economy. 

But you know I think what is absolutely intriguing and this is also amazing about how the industry works is that creating zillions of coins. With the traditional economy we are used to, a physical economy where you meet with people or go to a shop and hand over the cash and then they give you goods and that is the traditional economy that's existed for thousands of years. Then you have additional economy that came from the information age which allows you to consume services online etc., and then you have the decentralized economy which is a peer-to-peer based on the information age architecture that allows people to interact in a permissionless fashion and that is essentially the fruit of cryptos on speed and so by having that like three-tiered approach which you create what's I would call a diversified economy and so it's you know it's about embracing all three and not excluding one the benefit of the other. There's a very big question you're asking and to be honest.

Hans: I knew it was!

Remy: It's an important question. You are right to highlight this because the Covid-19 just reveals a deeper problem in our current financial system. It reveals that we can suffer from huge trouble in case financial current financial system collapses because now we just have seen the limits of the current monetary policies from central from central banks as you already just highlighted is with the Fed and with the UCB also which prints trillions and trillions of fiat currencies just to allow and increase a better circulation of the money in the entire global financial ecosystem. The reality is the defaulting one why so many central banks are currently thinking about creating their own central bank digital currency.

It's obvious when you understand exactly how blockchain technology works and what could be the benefit for a central bank to use and manage a crypto version of its own currency instead of managing the current fiat currencies as we currently know it. The main benefit is the ability to to be more reactive in the distribution of the money itself because as you said just few minutes ago, it's a peer-to-peer technology which allows directly people to make transactions between them without need to use services of intermediaries and this is a major step in in monetary history, because if you create a crypto version it allows a central bank to reach exactly the objective and goals for which a central bank has been created. The first one is the financial stability, by using a CBDC you'll be able to have in a quite real time and exactly cartography on where the money is currently located which is not the case currently because they need commercial banks to make specific reporting and every states of the the economic union or monetary union to make this reporting so it means that they don't have the ability to know exactly where is where is the money and how it is distributed.

That's the first point, the second point is the ability to fight against anti-money laundering and against the terrorism financing because blockchain technology offers a way to trace every transaction of a specific asset, thanks twisted to its characteristic. It's exactly the same with bitcoin and it will be exactly the same with the CBDC so it provides them a certainty about the integrity of the money itself that the second interest for a central bank is to have a traceability of the money. The third one is really easy to set up because they just need to have a wallet connected to a bank account so commercial banks will probably open the wallet for their clients. I think this is the the best way to improve and growth rapidly the use of of of a CBDC and by making that you decrease the use of the cash itself and a central bank wants a cashless society as revealed by the Switzerland Central Bank which was the first to delete the cash of its entire society and it's exactly where we are going to be because they want to to decrease the use of the cash because with cash nobody says except the both parties why this money was exchanged and where is gonna be. So when you take a look at those principles it's obvious central banks will use it and I hope it will be used to improve our own financial ecosystem for the benefits of citizens and entrepreneurs instead of the benefits of people behind these financial infrastructure.  

That's the reality of our current financial situation and I think we need to go deeper on this because this crisis reveals the need to change deeply how our financial system works and you can count on me because I contribute to it because as an advisor of European Polyamic regarding the use of blockchain technology trust me when i told you that we discussed about a CBDC since almost more than one year enough. So it's not just an idea, it will be a reality in our respective economic regions and areas in the coming years for sure and we will be well positioned to see this evolution because we are well placed in the street to see that.

Hans: That's that's true. I mean the "Digital Yuan" has been discussed by the Chinese central bank for more than two years now. It's been in discussion so don't know when that's going to go through.

Remy: We'll see.

Hans: What else would you guys like to add before we call it a day? Is there anything you'd like to add Adam?

Adam: Yeah I mean I think you know for me it's as i was saying earlier it's working with a partner that we have strategic goals and you know on the one hand Tozex, they want to bring you know stable coins to the market and use and leverage that to add value to enterprises, on the other hand we want to provide people with the tools to manage their own digital identity. These are very much aligned goals and one benefits the other very much so you know we've had this interview and thanks a lot and organizing this, but i'm sure there'll be many more conversations to come that we can record and talk about you know what's the next milestone in the collaboration etc. you know down the line and so yeah we very much look forward to the beginning of our collaboration. So thanks very much for your time, look forward to meeting you sometime in person in Paris or somewhere else around the world.

Remy: Yes, it will be a luxury to see other people in the coming weeks but yes of course let me know when you come to Paris. I know various places that you will really appreciate to see how the blockchain industry in France is really dynamic and I would be more than happy to connect you with the other clients we have because Tozex is a product powered by Crypto For All which is one of the the top French blockchain engineering and consulting services.

We have set up with my associate but also my brother Christopher in 2015 and if you need anything feel free to ask and we hope you will be part of the third edition of the Paris Blockchain Summit which will come when we will be able to make to make it and we hope it will be in the coming months and feel free to ask and i really happy to work with with Blockpass. This is really important for us, this chapter is really strategic for us because we have achieved two years of research and developments to offer this version which is everybody can take a look on Tozex.io and use our services for free to be convinced by it's sustainable and it works, and with what we have achieved, we are really proud of it because nobody in this industry has achieved what we have produced, a way to automate the process of creation management and exchange of digital assets. And we thank Blockpass to provide a new layer of in our infrastructure which allows everyone to enter into Tozex ecosystem without suffer from any issues regarding anti-money laundering or GDPR.

Hans: Okay, thanks a lot! Thank you very much for joining us and let's stay in touch let us know if you need anything we can send you the video once we've got it uploaded. We're practically cousins because Adam grew up in France. I don't know if you know that.

Remy: Really?

Adam: Speaking in French

Remy: Speaking in French

Hans: And of course you know Thomas, our CTO is French as well.

Remy: Oh so, Hans you love French people because you know that many of them..

Hans: I’ve never met a French person that I didn’t like.

Remy:  I will send you a few croissants by using DHL. 

Hans: How about some cheese too?

Remy: Okay, no worries I also have cheese for you!

Hans: Alright! Have a great day!

Remy: Thank you

Subtitles: Thanks for watching, more info at www.blockpass.org

To register for Tozex's service, please visit www.blockpass.org/marketplace and click sign up or visit www.tozex.io for more information.