A Message from Andy Tian, CEO and co-founder of Uplive

Hi everyone,

Welcome to our fourth weekly update! As you know, we have started our GIFTO Angel program, calling for volunteers around the world to help us grow a healthy community. Please ping one of our admin’s for more information if you haven’t seen our Angel application form.

For this week, I’d like to give everyone an update of our Alpha Test and current market conditions in Korea, which many of you have expressed interest in.

GIFTO Alpha Test

We have begun our Alpha test of the GIFTO protocol with over 100 of our broadcasters within Uplive. The tests have been successful so far and we have collected very valuable feedback that is going into the next iteration, for example

Broadcasters want to be able to view gift animations that fans have sent

Users who are not friends with the broadcaster must first send a friend request before chatting

As you can see, this is a typical consumer product development process, which used to be internal to a company as it prepares its product in-house before finally releasing the final version to the general public. However, we would like to be able to bring some of you from the community on board to help us with the testing as well, in order to get more robust feedback to help improve the product. Useful feedback on the product will require some time investment, so we would like to invite 100 volunteer testers from our community, who can sign up on a first-come-first-served basis at the following website: http://bit.ly/2BAz0Ox. You will able to participate first hand in developing our product.

Alpha Test Screenshots

Step1. Pick gifts for your new dashboard

Step2. Copy your new gift dashboard’s link

Step 3.Paste your new dashboard link under your creative content! (Share to YT, IG or FB)

Step 4. Click the link copied from “Step 2” to send virtual gifts!

https://youtu.be/MDTXgoCQVkE

Those selected will then be given a link to create your own gift dashboard to test out the initial gifting experience on the Web, which will be tied to Facebook for now. Please keep in mind that this is still the Alpha version of GIFTO, meaning it is for tests only and not ready to be a commercial product yet, but you can see the overall experience of sending a virtual gift through a web link, on any social platform.

The feature in this Alpha version are as follows:

Broadcasters can pick a set of gifts which match with their creative content from the Uplive gift database and create a total personalized gift dashboard. For example, if your content is “Food Hunting”, you could select all the food gifts from Uplive for your gift dashboard

Fans can communicate with broadcaster directly through Instant Messaging, which is already supported in this web version, allowing broadcasters to better connect with their fans from all platforms

This Alpha is aimed for use by current broadcasters as well as Uplives user base. Therefore, the currency being used will still be the in-app currency for Uplive, uDiamonds

GTO tokens will be integrated as part of the Wallet roll out beginning in late February

We structured this way so we can test the user experience of gift sending FIRST, and iterate on this quickly, while our Wallet development is ongoing

Broadcasters cannot customize or change the pricing of the gifts that they have selected yet

As we continue to test and iterate on the Alpha version of GIFTO, work will also continue on our Beta version, which is still on track for its scheduled March release and will have the following features:

Gifts are purchasable by GTO tokens from our HTML5 based wallet

Broadcasters will be able to view gifts that fans sent and playback animations

Both fans and broadcasters could get IM notifications through not only the web version but also through Uplive app

More personalized features for broadcasters to edit their gift dashboard

Enhance experience for fans regarding getting feedback from broadcasters after they send gifts

And more features, some we are sure will come from our test volunteers!

Korean Market

Many of you asked how our Korea market efforts are going, so we would like to give you guys a quick update here.

Korea is one of our most important markets, for several reasons:

It is the biggest Ethereum trading market with some of the biggest exchanges in the world

Crypto has become truly a mass market phenomenon, not just for the techno community

Korea is also the entertainment industry capital of Asia, with its content leading the trends not only in Asia, but world wide too

Korea is the birthplace of live streaming, with Afreeca TV pioneering live streaming model overall 10 years ago

We established our Seoul office in Dec, and in less than 2 months already have 20 staff across our Uplive live streaming business and GIFTO team. I believe we have the largest and most local team of any international blockchain project. You will see the impact of our resource deployment towards end of Q1.

Our local team also gave us the best view into the changing regulatory environment in Korea. Several updates for you guys, of course, with the caveat that anything can and will change in future

In Jan, all exchanges were asked by government to stop new user registration and new token listing. Upon further review, government has allowed exchanges to accept new user registrations once again starting in Feb

Government has not decided whether to issue official licenses yet to exchanges, such as the ones in Japan. Industry experts believe that government wants to review the landscape further before taking big legislative actions. This means exchanges are still legal to operate

However, exchanges are now required to pay the standard corporate income taxes that previously were not completely enforced due to lack of clarity on crypto current market

Local Korean companies are still not allowed to conduct public token sales, although it is unclear if private sales are completely legal

Many of the major corporations in Korea are proactively engaging in blockchain-related business via investment and/or direct participation

A few of the most relevant articles are attached here:

Should gains on digital coins be taxed? On Jan. 23, the financial authorities announced that banks will begin issuing new trading accounts for digital coins Tuesday under a new real-name account trading system. Under the plan, current anonymous accounts for virtual coins will be banned. This can be taken as a sign that the government will continue to allow transactions of decentralized currencies with a minimum of restrictions and regulations.

Source: http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/biz/2018/01/488_243170.html

On Jan. 23, the financial authorities announced that banks will begin issuing new trading accounts for digital coins Tuesday under a new real-name account trading system. Under the plan, current anonymous accounts for virtual coins will be banned. This can be taken as a sign that the government will continue to allow transactions of decentralized currencies with a minimum of restrictions and regulations. Source: http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/biz/2018/01/488_243170.html Dongyeon Kim “Cryptocurrency will be taxed… reviewing international examples” Dongyeon Kim, Minister of Strategy and Finance/Economic, said that officials are reviewing capital gains and other incomes related issues, VAT and alternatives, as well as benchmarking international cases. He also added that cryptocurrency will be taxed, so the subject of taxation is under review. “We are actively responding to the cryptocurrency situation but at the same time we are also mindful of the possibilities for the use of blockchain and its applications.”

Source:http://news.naver.com/main/read.nhn?mode=LSD&mid=sec&sid1=101&oid=001&aid=0009836262

Dongyeon Kim, Minister of Strategy and Finance/Economic, said that officials are reviewing capital gains and other incomes related issues, VAT and alternatives, as well as benchmarking international cases. He also added that cryptocurrency will be taxed, so the subject of taxation is under review. “We are actively responding to the cryptocurrency situation but at the same time we are also mindful of the possibilities for the use of blockchain and its applications.” Source:http://news.naver.com/main/read.nhn?mode=LSD&mid=sec&sid1=101&oid=001&aid=0009836262 Wemakeprice and Bithumb to cooperate to develop cryptocurrency-linked payment system. Internet Shopping Mall, Wemakeprice and cryptocurrency exchange, Bithumb plan to develop a system that uses cryptocurrency in conjunction with Wonder Pay, a simple settlement service of Wemakeprice. Wemakeprice is aiming to make shoppers to pay for the products by 12 kinds of cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin, Etherium, Ripple, etc. via Wonder Pay.

Source:http://news.naver.com/main/read.nhn?mode=LSD&mid=sec&sid1=101&oid=015&aid=0003885642

Internet Shopping Mall, Wemakeprice and cryptocurrency exchange, Bithumb plan to develop a system that uses cryptocurrency in conjunction with Wonder Pay, a simple settlement service of Wemakeprice. Wemakeprice is aiming to make shoppers to pay for the products by 12 kinds of cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin, Etherium, Ripple, etc. via Wonder Pay. Source:http://news.naver.com/main/read.nhn?mode=LSD&mid=sec&sid1=101&oid=015&aid=0003885642 Naver seeking to tie-up with HTS, the 4th ranked cryptocurrency exchange. Naver subsidiary, LINE, has recently been known to be aggressively seeking cryptocurrency-related business by introducing simple payment services, LINE Pay, in Japan, Thailand and Taiwan. Some cryptocurrency exchanges have been confirmed to have investment-related meetings with LINE, with some industry watchers saying, “LINE is about to enter the cryptocurrency market, and is reviewing several companies.”

Source:http://news.naver.com/main/read.nhn?mode=LSD&mid=sec&sid1=105&oid=079&aid=0003059813

Our overall goal in 2018 remains the same: to create the biggest consumer application for blockchain technology, measured not by hype, but by the actual number of users. And that takes time, but hopefully with our ongoing tests as well as our expanding team in Korea, we will take a giant step forward towards realising our goal.

Until next week!

Andy and the GIFTO Team

Uplive, Gifto, and our partners in the news

1）On the Belt and Road: Live-streaming app boosts cross-cultural exchanges in Egypt

CCTV Global, China’s largest media house, recently featured Uplive and its impact in Egypt, as China continues with its Belt and Road initiative. With the initiative’s advancement, Uplive has seen great opportunities and is making its history in the country as we bring Asia’s live-streaming phenomenon to Egypt, while building a bridge for cross-cultural communication.

2） Uplive ready to create the future of live streaming

Taiwan’s United Daily News has a report on Uplive’s progress, as we continue to expand our services in our bid to revolutionize the live streaming industry with GIFTO.

3） Uplive Girls receive support during training

China Times published an update on our very own Uplive Girls and the training and support that they have been getting on their road to stardom.