We would like to thank the community for participating in the AMA. This time in order to make the process run smoothly, we decided to collect and answer the questions beforehand. We also put the questions into the following categories in order to bundle them accordingly:

  • Current Numbers
  • The Team
  • Product
  • GEO Location
  • The Board
  • Marketing
  • Token

Based on feedback we will continue to do it in this format but will make the next AMA in the evening so more community members can participate. Below are the questions.

CURRENT NUMBERS

“How many people do actually use the VETRI-App in D/US/UK?”

As of yesterday, we have 936 active monthly users, this is about a 20% increase week to week.  Note that this is without any marketing, without the referral program, and without any amplification type of initiatives.  Conversion rates are sitting around 20%, but this may change once we begin our amplification program. 

“Can you share the current statistics of VETRI App? Number of users/downloads, number of active users, amount of answered surveys (and success rate compared to all started surveys), amount of paid rewards in VLD, amount of bought gift cards in EUR/USD.”


Any further numbers are too preliminary at the moment considering the state of the app up until the last release.  We hope to share this information once we reach a larger user base.  Note that until last week we didn’t have a substantial rewards program in place so those who stuck with the app were users who wanted to earn VLD for speculation.

THE TEAM

“What happened with Dominique?”

Dominque decided that she needed a professional change, but we still have her as a consultant. 

“Obviously Dominique Kunz left the team. How many persons are in Team now? How many developers are working on developing the app?”

Throughout the past year, the team has fluctuated based on needs.  Towards the beginning, we had up towards 20 people working on VETRI.  As we progressed we have made the team leaner.  We should expect to start hiring again (2x developers 1x PR 1x Community Manager up from 1x management/marketing and 2x developers: 1 front end and 1 backend). Furthermore, we have an external team of consultants/freelancers who we call upon when needed. 

“What happened to Daniel Gasteiger?”

He is the CEO of Procivis AG. Danny’s role at VETRI was limited to the ICO period. 

“Why would you reduce the telegram channel admins/moderators, when telegram is the number one go-to source for crypto projects and new investors (for now at least)?”

We have no intention of reducing our attention to the crypto community. Rather, we prioritize quality over quantity, hence we intend to communicate in a more structured way and focus on pertinence and content.  Finally, let’s not forget that we also need to allocate our attention to the VETRI user community and not just the token speculators. For ultimately it is the users that will lead to sustained price appreciation, not the former. 

PRODUCT

“When will the referral program be in place? And will it be available for DACH region too?”

The current sprint has the referral program as the highest priority, we hope to have a first test iteration later today.  It will be available in Germany, the USA, and the UK.  It will be a bedrock of the app, so every market will have it.  The only time we would see that we need to scale back is if we get a large influx of users and in that case, we would need to pause in order to monitor the quality of the users coming in.

“Can you organize in the community a competition for collecting of suggestions for improvement of the App? The best 5-10 suggestions would get a reward in VLD. The community and the team can select the best suggestions together.”

This is something we will look in the future, but for now, we have a very strict roadmap when it comes to the product.  Also, as we are a survey app, we are able to ask the full userbase when it comes to collecting suggestions or to get votes pertaining to app features.

“What is the point of the data vault at the moment? Is the information stored there used for anything, e.g. finding suitable surveys for the user?”

It is used for targeting, without it, users would not get surveys that are tailored to them.

“On which use case you gonna work once you finished the survey app?”

The next use case will be a digital marketing one, but it will driven and defined by our selection of corporate partner(s).

“Do you plan to use the graduation of prices for the rewards? E.g. 30 EUR for 1000 VLD, 60 EUR for 1900 VLD instead of 2000 VLD (5% discount, you save 100 VLD!), 90 EUR for 2700 VLD instead of 3000 VLD (10% discount, you save 300 VLD!)”

No, we do not for the time being.  We need to be highly competitive with other research apps and thus need to stick with a fixed value.

“Do you plan to implement VLD deposit and withdrawal in the App? My opinion: The withdrawal – yes, the deposit – no, so people do more surveys => VLD shortage, higher price.”

We do plan to integrate an offramp into the app, but this will most likely be sometime next year.

“Are you proud of what you have built in those 2 years?”

Yes, we are very proud.  We did have to make multiple adjustments but the final product is almost out and it is tackling a space that is growing and that is highly visible within the marketing sector.  It is also a space where user data valuation is being exploited by large players in the sector.

“In the whitepaper of VETRI there are 3 use cases: 1. Advertising, 2. Survey, 3. User-generated data. We have now VETRI App for surveys. Do you have any plans for both other use cases?”

We need to have one running perfectly before we jump into the next one.  What I can tell you is for point 3, we didn’t find a buyer who just wanted this data.  Instead, we realized that Advertising and User Generated Data go hand in hand.  We hope to work on new use cases next year.

“Do you have any plans to use own blockchain in the future instead of side chain of Etherium?”

No

“The community made a few suggestions on how to encourage users to keep the tokens longer in the app. What does Vetri think about these suggestions and what ideas do you have?”

We have taken these into consideration, but for the time being, we need to be competitive in this space and hence need to do the same as other survey apps do.  In the future, we will implement strategies, but these will need to be tested once we have a large enough user base from who to get validated statistical data.

“Do you plan to pay special bonuses for people answering a lot of surveys? E.g. for every 30 completed surveys the user will get 5% bonus of completed survey or 3 EUR in VLD or …”

For the time being, no, we already pay the max we can pay when it comes to taking surveys.

GEO LOCATION

“At the moment the app only works in D-UK-USA! What can I do with my VLD here in Italy? (Ico investor)”

For the time being, we recommend holding since you will be able to sell back once we begin the buyback program.

“When Switzerland is available on the survey app?”

We hope to have Switzerland available by the end of the year, but please note that in Switzerland Market Research Agencies tend to use Qualitative research vs. Quantitative.  This means that there is a low daily survey supply.

THE BOARD

“Monique Morrow is President of the VETRI Foundation. She has 41.3k followers on Twitter. I hope she will soon get her followers excited about the VETRI app. Is it planned and if so, when?”

Monique Morrow amplifies tweets that celebrate concretely VETRI progress. Her focus will be to further develop VETRI’s Fair Data program, with the participation of various sister organizations and corporations. Furthermore, when it comes to amplification, we are waiting until we have an optimal product in order not to burn through her reach on a product that is sub-par.

“Monique has a seat on the Vetri Board, she is a well known and respect figure in here field and gets interviewed regularly. Yet every single time she gets interviewed she fails to mention Vetri. Why is that the case? And how much do the three people on the board receive per year for being a member?”

See the previous answer on this topic. Board members do not receive any salary.  

MARKETING

“Why was vetri still nowhere mentioned by lucid? Partnerships should be announced by both parties. Also, why is Monique Morrow so quiet, when she’s the head of the foundation and has a huge following? This makes no sense.”

That’s because you are misinformed:

Lucid announced the partnership on Twitter, their blog, and at the Samplecon 2020 conference in Atlanta. Furthermore, Lucid is waiting on the finalization of our referral program to make some of their partners use VETRI.   As per Monique, her professional following meant we “kept our powder dry” and didn’t wish for her to amplify before we had an optimal product to showcase there. 

“How the referral program looks like for partners who provide a user base?”

The referral will pay users 10% of what referrals make, indefinitely.  This will be the same case for partners

TOKEN

“When will you be able to provide liquidity?”

The liquidity is positively correlated with VETRI’s userbase.  As our user base increases, expect that the liquidity to follow the same trajectory, albeit with a 2-3 month delay. 


“When do you plan to start buying VLD for rewards on the exchange? How much? It was planned for the first half of August.”

As communicated, the first buyback will commence in August, it will be very modest but expected to grow exponentially in size.  Communication regarding volume will be shared post-execution at the end of each month.


“What happens to the tokens that are bought back? Will they be burned?”

These tokens will not be burned, but we expect that approx 25% of tokens will be lost or held forever due to natural uninstalls that occur in an application ecosystem.  This is also akin to airline mileage programs and other survey apps. 

“Utility of the token: Do you plan any airdrops for token holders?”

No, we are not.  The utility of the token will serve as a validity verification/mechanism once we activate the self-sovereign eID/Agnostic portion of the application, along with future use cases.

“Some weeks ago you spoke about listing negotiations with a new exchange. Is there any news pertaining listing?”

We have suspended talks with one exchange in particular. We only have one shot at the application and felt we needed more market validity in order to ensure we would get accepted, and at a reasonable entrance fee.  So most likely we’re looking at November to resume the process. 

“As an ICO investor there is absolutely no chance to even sell the coin at ICO prices. What can you provide in terms of that?”

That’s correct. Crypto investments are very high risk investment products. (see ICO terms and conditions).  As for what we are doing about, please see above and below.

But perhaps we can offer a more satisfying answer by saying this:

Out of the thousands of tokens out there, over 55% are associated with abandonned, defunct projects (so-called zombie coins) and / or straight out scams, estimated to represent 29%. Of the remaining “good” projects, less than 10% have a proven real-life, purposeful application and use of the tokens by established companies, organizations and people. VLD is one of those tokens. 

“Utility of the token: Do you plan any special utility for token holders? We need some incentives to buy the tokens on the exchange through random people, who a) are using the App and b) are NOT using the App.”

In the first phase of the market research use case, our goal has been to develop a product that is comparable to the competition in functionality, and we plan to focus on user growth and algorithm optimization.  Once we feel like we have a large enough user base, we will then focus on phase 2 which will be to attract Market Research agencies to go directly through us vs. an API.  This will make their cost 30% cheaper, will mean they would need to purchase tokens from the exchange,  but will also mean that they will need to pre-pay vs. run on 90 days invoicing like they currently do.

“Are you interested in increasing the value of the VETRI-coin? What are your activities therefore?”

The value of a crypto currency with limited supply increases along with the members of the network /ecosystem using it. That’s what we are doing every day. Reflection of these activities in the price have a 2-3 month delay due to 2 factors:

  • Cycle of payment 
  • Low user base we started off from 

“What exactly is the plan to gain traction in this busy market, when altcoins/projects are giving huge upside/gains left and right? Was there no plan to act fast in such a situation?”

Our intention has always been product first, if we were to drive visibility to VETRI for a subpar product the time and resources spent would be wasted and so would be the gains.