We’ll like to thank the SureRemit community for their relentless support since we presented the project last December. We’ve never experienced so much movement across the business since we started operations in 2014, but we are energized and pleased with our new direction.

As you know, we completed our ICO earlier than scheduled on January 13, and we went ahead to distribute the RMT to participants at the end of the month. Every step of the process, from pre-sale to distribution came with its own lessons, and while there are many things we could have done differently, we also got a lot of things right. Most important of all, we believe, is our de-emphasis on short-term token value and the traditional drivers of price.

Our focus since the ICO has been on developing the SureRemit application and ensuring that the utility it provides is robust, while hoping to meet the March timeline for its beta release. We have been trying to simplify the user experience to ensure that the app does exactly what it’s supposed to do; that is, enable the purchase of a broad catalog of digital shopping vouchers and payment of mobile airtime and utility bills using the RMT. We have made some progress with this, such as our development of a relationship with TransferTo, which will provide access to mobile airtime across 150 countries. These, we believe, will provide the most exponential value for token-holders in the medium to long term.

We have also been thinking through the process that will enable ordinary, non-crypto-savvy users to utilize the app. This means finding ways for people with bank accounts and debit/credit cards (and even cash) to purchase the RMT in a seamless manner. This is a little more complicated to achieve, but it’s not impossible and we’ve made some progress there as well. We might not be introducing this functionality with the beta, but it will come shortly after its release.

We also noted the concerns of some members of our community about the persistent cryptocurrency bear market immediately following our ICO. As you’d imagine, this has significantly affected the value of our ICO proceeds. Nonetheless, as we’ve always said, we’re not in this for any short-term benefits, and we’re in this for the long-haul. This means that the direction of the market over the course of 2–3 months will not have an impact on the viability of the project. Indeed, we have not had an urgent need to liquidate or utilize the proceeds yet, since a bulk of our spending requirements will come after the app release as shown in our use-of-funds (e.g, marketing and PR).

The SureRemit ICO has been the most successful project out of Africa yet. Expectedly, this has created a lot of curiosity on the continent from entrepreneurs who have projects that could benefit from tokenization and access to global capital. It has also attracted the attention of pro-active regulators looking to get an understanding of the market. For example, Greenhouse Capital, our investor and trustee during the ICO, will be honoring an invitation from the Nigerian Securities and Exchange Commission. While the SureRemit project is not a Nigerian one, its founders are mostly Nigerian, and with the increasing ICO activity now originating from Nigeria (and across Africa) following SureRemit’s success, it makes sense for the local authorities to be proactive about monitoring the movements within the space, and we welcome their proactiveness. The actions of regulators could be critical in creating public awareness and creating protections from opportunists who might be looking to take advantage of non-savvy retail investors. We’ll be updating the community about developments on that front, and we’re pleased to be able to contribute however we can.

I will be speaking with the Fintech, banking and regulatory stakeholders at the International Conference on Responsible and Inclusive Finance in Kigali, Rwanda next week. I’ll be on the panel discussing “The Business of Fintech in Africa — Opportunities and Risks”. SureRemit is also a headline sponsor and participant at the Africa Fintech Summit in Washington DC later in April. We’re looking forward to engaging with our community and customers in this new phase of our development, beginning in the second quarter, and we remain steadfast in our mission to create a product that will finally create an intersection between cryptocurrency and the real world.