Dear community supporters, May was an exciting month here at DomRaider as we are making great strides to expand our business, our teams and our development. This month’s progress will be extremely important for the future progress of our project. There’s been a lot going on lately, so let us share with you some of our latest updates on the most important things that have happened with DomRaider, the DomRaider Token and Auctionity.
DRT price dynamics
After yet another bearish period, the crypto market has begun to recover and this has benefited the DRT. Its value stabilized and later regained strength in early May. This and the fact that we are well on our way, sticking to our roadmap sent a positive signal to DRT holders and supporters. These past few days, Bitcoin, Ether and all the crypto market have been crashing. But many analysts are predicting a huge rise ahead for Bitcoin. As for the DRT price, and as we have always repeated, its value will be highly dependent on the development of our blockchain-powered auction solution.
On Telegram, someone said “No pump!!”. And another one answered “no pump, no dump. One word: stable.”
The number of token holders has also increased, and we can now boast more than 8100 DRT holders. The value of the Domraider token will be proportional to the number of Domraider token holders. The more holders of the DomRaider Token there are, the more the token value will increase. That is why we have decided to launch a partnership with the Sandblock Team this month (more info below).
We are always listening to our community: we know that over Q1-Q2, some contributors have been disappointed (as they are with the entirety of the cryptocurrency market). However, the 2018 roadmap for the DomRaider Token is packed with exciting features and we have an incredible team with realistic goals to support our project.
DomRaider CEO auditioned by French Parliament on Crypto Currencies
As part of the information mission on crypto currencies chaired by Eric Woerth, chairman of the Finance Committee, DomRaider represented by Tristan Colombet, its founder and CEO, was auditioned Monday, May 28 by the French National Assembly. We are really honored to have been consulted and given our recommandations to defend the blockchain technology.
On the basis of its expertise, DomRaider, through its founder Tristan Colombet, demonstrated during its audition the immense array of opportunities and development offered by blockchain technology:
There is no doubt that the French digital ecosystem can stand out thanks to the excellence of its reservoir of expertise. It is important today not to succumb to the temptation of a too restrictive regulation that could stifle a sector still in full definition. On the contrary, France must promote a simple and evolving framework to make our country a leader.
Strong of our experience in the field of crypto currencies, Initial Coin Offering and Blockchain, we gave our analysis of the potential development offered by blockchains and crypto-assets and delivered 5 principal recommendations in order to motivate the development of a suitable legislative and fiscal framework:
- Providing an accounting and tax clarification: essential to attract ICO initiators and to avoid relocation of those already present on the French territory.
- Regulating the exchange points: Being a mandatory point of entry and exit gate in the field of crypto-assets, the various actors proposing purchase or sale against official currencies have a central role to play.. Systematising KYC / AML control process would reduce the risk of fraud.
- Allowing and promoting experimentation: giving free rein to experimentation is vital, ideally by introducing incentive regulation, at least by having public decision makers with an open mind.
- Reassuring credit institutions: banks community’s reluctance towards crypto-assets may be understandable in regards of their multiple compliance obligations, but the current situation of total and systematic blockage is unjustified and damaging for companies wishing to innovate in the Blockchain. As things stand at the present, the risk of relocation is a reality.
- Experimenting with official crypto-assets: the appearance of crypto-euros could be a major turning point in the generalization and adoption of uses of blockchain technology. It is essential that the national and European authorities embark as quickly as possible on their experimentation.
France can stand out, provided it does not prevent innovation.
Crypto Collectible Context
In May, we have also been witnessing important milestones in the field of crypto collectibles and there seems to be a growing interest for these assets as we see more and more varieties being created everyday. The phenomenon around collectible assets began last year with the advent of CryptoKitties and the enthusiasm around non-fungible tokens (ERC721) has not wavered since. Crypto Collectibles are more than a passing craze. It is easy to see why when you look at the potential of crypto collectible technology, including: securing digital ownership, protecting intellectual property, tracking digital assets and over all creating real world value.
A recent event that was most revealing of the appeal for crypto collectibles was Christie’s auctions organized in Queens on May 12. (About that, we previously mentioned in our April news that big auction houses such as Sotheby’s or Christie’s were showing a growing interest for digital art and crypto assets). Several digital art assets were sold at this event, the high point being the sale of the ‘Celestial Cyber Dimension’, an ERC721 CryptoKitty piece of art, for $140,000. The proceeds of this events went to charity.
Record $140,000 CryptoKitty sale going to the great cause of supporting creatives working at the intersection of blockchain and art. Thanks to the bidders, @rareartlabs, @EtherealSummit, @CodexProtocol and our community. Our Kitties couldn’t be more happy. 😻 #EtherealNY pic.twitter.com/T95qU9sqEb
— CryptoKitties (@CryptoKitties) 13 mai 2018
Another crypto-related event this month involved the sale of basketball-themed CryptoKitties named CurryKitties after the basketball player Stephen Curry. 3 CryptoKitties were created to celebrate the player of the Golden State Warriors and were meant to be sold at auctions. The particularity of these auctions is that they were Dutch auctions. With Dutch auctions, a starting price is fixed and goes down until a bidder decides to bid, thus immediately winning the auction at the price he just bid on. This auction process has the advantage of being fairly easy to set from a technical point of view, and it is especially on blockchain. However, Dutch auctions are much less effective at creating values. Indeed, this type of auctions tends to bring the price of an asset down instead of giving it value like traditional English auctions do. That is where the limit of Dutch auctions appears as the 3 CurryKitties initially put of for bids were eventually cancelled by CryptoKitties:
The CurryKitties are taking a cat nap. We have reason to believe Stephen wasn’t as involved in the CurryKitties as we thought.
Too bad for Stephen Curry and CryptoKitties. Missed three-point-shooting auction performance, “probably due to the weather”. 😉
Finally, Stephen Curry missed the @CryptoKitties shooting! 😿🏀
« Stephen Curry for CryptoKitties. The CurryKitties are taking a cat nap. We have reason to believeStephen wasn’t as involved in the CurryKitties as we thought » – @StephenCurry30 #CurryKitties #CryptoKitties pic.twitter.com/HA8WjEFI8y— Romuald Clermont (@Romu_Clermont) 23 mai 2018
On a more serious note, when we assess the already-existing uses of blockchain, we notice that the great majority of auction processes rely on Dutch auctions, using a descending price system. That is not what DomRaider envisions for auctions in the Auctionity project. As a matter of fact, the global auction market largely uses ascending price mechanics (the price goes up as the auction goes), it is the most common system and the most widely known. It is therefore logical that blockchain should adapt to this requirement. Even if the technical approach is much more complicated in this case.
Recent news have showed us that new markets are emerging and that the tables are turning. Auctionity is already surveying these new tracks to try and determine what the market will need tomorrow.
Our aim is to create a product that is as close as possible to our users’ needs and to answer the demands of the market. In this regard, ERC721 assets seem to be a promising field.
Payment Guarantee is coming
This month, we have been working a lot on infrastructure to ensure its reliability and scalability as we are pushing forward with the development of the platform. We managed to make significant progress towards the big release, there are two important things coming in June: the World Cup ⚽️ (Allez la France ! 🇫🇷) and our much awaited feature, Payment Guarantee! This new release is the most anticipated step in the development of Auctionity.
Etienne Roudeix— Blockchain Product Manager, further elaborates on Auctionity and the progress made over the past month:
A key part of Auctionity is the ability to use the power of blockchain to decentralize real-time auctions while also making them safer, faster and more reliable.
The release of payment guarantee is scheduled for the end of June. This feature is a cutting-edge technology feature and will revolutionize the auction market.
Auctionity usages
We have spent countless hours developing the blockchain auction ecosystem and common questions that come up about our solution are along the lines of “How can I use it” or “What concrete applications do you suggest”? While developing Auctionity we also planned for an easy way to use the platform and turn it into an intuitive and user-friendly ecosystem. We are still finalizing the last strategic points before the reveal of the big picture, which will happen in the coming days. One thing is certain, though (no overselling involved here): this is going to be big! This will revolutionize the auction world (and even more) as well as raise the value of the DRT. Your patience will be rewarded!
Then, in June we will give you more details about how this payment guarantee will work. We will further explain the big picture of Auctionity and what kind of collectibles users will be able to put up for bids. We are really thrilled about how greatly things are taking shape for Auctionity. We are getting there!
Partnership with Sandblock
To prepare for the launch of our dedicated club for token holders (see below), we have launched a partnership with Sandblock to reward DRT holders for their loyalty. This partnership has received a good amount of coverage from the two communities, bringing great exposure to both brands.
It is still time to participate! Feel free to go on a little card-hunting trip to catch all the 10 auction-themed cards we have scattered across our social media channels!
A dedicated club for DRT Holders
As you already know, we highly value our community. In an endeavour to reward our DRT holders for their support, we have decided to give them something special to show our appreciation. This Club will provide special benefits and rewards to holders across several levels which can be unlocked through simple actions. Members will have the option to buy DRT easily through credit card, get first-hand information before official release but more importantly, they will get access to exclusive online auction rooms to bid on selected items. These auction rooms are our Proof of Concept for the Auctionity platform and will demonstrate a first usable version for our community. The aim is to show the possibilities of blockchain auctions and proves that our product is perfectly functional.
Introducing Auctionity Core Dev team
Developing our project is important but we never forget to share with the community how things are going — this regular monthly digest and all the other articles published on medium stand as proof. We particularly wish to share the behind the scenes of teamwork with you. This is why we shot a short video of Etienne, Product Manager for Auctionity, introducing the Auctionity Core Dev team. Well, this is obviously not our entire team at around Auctionity as we have other support teams at work but this one is dedicated to the development part of the blockchain project. It will give you a small glimpse so you can know the team better after watching this short video:
New members in the DomRaider team
We continue to strengthen our operation teams, especially with the recent addition of Yoan and Camille as our two new developers.
In May, Yoan joined DomRaider to strengthen our engineering growth.
We also hired an additional team mate: Camille joins DomRaider’s forces as a developer, dedicated to the DomRaider Token team. They have just arrived at DomRaider so let’s wait a little bit and we will introduce you them to you soon.
June line-up for DomRaider
This month, other highly talented professionals will be joining the DomRaider team. We will tell you more about them soon so stay tuned!
Meanwhile this month will conclude the last sprint for the development of the most anticipated feature to date: payment guarantee shall be delivered before the end of june. The launch of this important feature will open a field of new opportunities. As soon as it goes live we will keep you updated and give you more details about how it works and how it will change the auction market through Auctionity’s blockchain solution.
We will publish the updated DomRaider and Auctionity roadmap goals for the rest of the year. We haven’t missed a core tech focused goal yet!
Thank you so much for your support: we are honored that you chose to be part of our story. We keep up our efforts and we will give you further updates in the coming days.
Join us on our Telegram Group to keep up to date on the latest features of DomRaider and to discuss with the community. We will announce important news there as well. Hope to see you soon!
