BTRIC Logo with Wordmark

We are very pleased to announce our launch and BFD Token fundraising campaign. Please check out our website at https://www.btric.org and white paper for more information. Through business incubation and other initiatives, we’re going to work broadly with the community to Decentralize the World! Our full contact information is on our website and at the bottom of this announcement.

Do you work in the field? We’re also building our team and leadership. Check soon for a separate announcement regarding that or get in touch.

Our Mission

Blockchain Technology Research Innovations Corporation (BTRIC) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit charitable organization that is devoted to fostering emerging technologies, through business incubation and other initiatives, that decentralize the control structures that have entrenched global systems for centuries.

Through our business incubation program, we identify, foster, research and develop projects that leverage emerging technologies to create a better world. We infuse these projects with best-practices guidance and work with all stakeholders — innovators, engineers, advisors, marketers, partner organizations, and donors — to bring next-generation, so-called “Internet 3.0”, projects to life. When a project has completed the incubation process, it separates from BTRIC and becomes an independent business, ready for investment, growth, and prepared to shatter paradigms.

Our other initiatives focus on promoting women and diversity in projects, standardizing regulatory compliance, and facilitating the development of standards that promote the common good of all projects in our space. Our work is released under open licenses, and we invite participation from anyone interested in governance or any other aspect of our work. Our finances, policies, procedures, and activities are fully transparent.

Contributions to BTRIC — monetary, asset, and in-kind — may be tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law. Consult with a qualified tax advisor for more information.

Executive Summary

The world is just beginning to realize the potential of so-called “Internet 3.0” emerging technologies. These technologies, which include consensus-based distributed ledger (DLT), cryptocurrencies and tokens, Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), Deep Learning (DL), Augmented and Virtual Reality (AR/VR), Content Creator Control (CCC), and Personal Data Store (PDS) hold great promise and a real potential to reshape business and society. The paradigm-shift we are just now beginning to enter, the Decentralization Revolution, holds the promise of dismantling structures of power and control, some of which have existed for centuries. This circumstance presents an enormous opportunity to bring about change to the very fabric and structure of modern society, and, further, to modernize parts of the world that has not been practicable to implement at scale until now.

While this opportunity is vast, it is not without its challenges. While funding of emerging technology business ventures through Initial Coin or Token Offerings (ICO/ITO) is a growing form of fundraising, many serious issues have emerged about the quality of projects that have made offerings. Without a doubt, there are model examples of well-run projects that have successfully, and in compliance with all applicable laws, raised funds through these offerings. On the other hand, there have been a number of projects that have been shown to lack one or more components necessary for the successful implementation of viable businesses. There has been instances of alleged fraud and material misrepresentations made concerning some offerings, funds stolen or misappropriated, and legal actions by regulators and investors. Finally, and crucially, delivering on an ICO — more than just raising funds, but delivering the final project — requires a team with expertise in diverse areas. Assembling, maintaining, and focusing the efforts of such a team can be expensive, time consuming, and difficult for those who are traditional innovators (i.e. people with great ideas and/or coding skills to bring those ideas to fruition).

In August of 2017, Blockchain Technology Research Innovations Corporation (BTRIC, pronounced like “bit trick”), incorporated as a non-profit charitable organization to meet these challenges and deliver real value to stakeholders in the emerging technology community, from innovators to funders, as an economic development organization focused on fostering promising projects that leverage emerging technologies. Many economic development organizations are geographically based, boosting the economies of a community, state, or country. BTRIC is a global organization and invites projects that will advance free market economies worldwide.

We will forge partnerships with leaders in the community to participate in advancing projects that we are incubating, either as donors, engineers, advisors, or other parts of the project team. Without micromanaging, we will provide much needed structure and oversight to ensure that projects meet their milestones, adopt best practices, overcome challenges, and ship projects.

When a project has completed the incubation process, it will be separated from BTRIC and spun-off as an investment grade independent business, ready to launch. It will meet all legal and regulatory standards applicable to the field of the project (i.e. a food testing project will meet applicable food handling regulations), as well as any investment model it is pursuing (such as VC, angel investment, crowdfunding, or SEC requirements). It will be poised for growth. Subject to any limitations of the chosen jurisdiction, funding model, and regulatory environment, donors who supported the project will be rewarded by the spun-off entity (typically ensured through appropriate covenants in its founding documents). Those partners and people who worked on the project will be in a prime position to continue their relationship with the new entity, and the donors who helped incubate the separate entity could be investors (if permitted by applicable law).

Opportunity for donors and business partners

The opportunity for persons and businesses to become involved in BTRIC, as donors, projects, engineers, marketing professionals, advisors, and others is outstanding. BTRIC’s objective is to make promising ideas into startup businesses as well as promote larger initiatives that benefit the entire ecosystem of emerging technology businesses, and through the support of donors, including asset and in-kind donations, we will make that a reality. Our organization is intended to complement the existing ecosystem by serving as a middle-point between projects with potential, and organizations that help those projects raise operational funds. All parties that work with BTRIC will be impressed with the work that we do to enable great outcomes for projects and the ecosystem as a whole.

BTRIC is conducting a fundraising campaign that we’re calling an Initial Donor Offering (IDO), to raise the funds needed for our launch and 2018 operations. We are highly motivated to get up and running quickly as indicated in our launch milestone chart. Now is the time to build a solid non-profit business incubator that will foster projects through their development phase and into viable, investment-grade businesses.

Donors to BTRIC’s IDO will receive at least one BTRIC Founding Donor Token (BFD) for each dollar (USD) that they contribute (up to the fundraising target). At the time we launch our platform, everyone that then possesses BFD tokens will receive a free grant of a new token or cryptocurrency (working name BTRIC Coin) described in our white paper. Donors, and the public, will be able to contribute BTRIC Coin to the projects of their choosing, and in this way, they can play a real and important role in advancing the development of individual projects, while also keeping BTRIC operating as an organization.

We are excited to participate in accelerating the Decentralization Revolution — the transfer of power and control from the few at the top, to the many distributed throughout the world, enabling the shortening and broadening of the capitalist pyramid. Together with our donors, projects, and the partners we work with, we will reinvent business models, and build and launch viable businesses. Ultimately, society as a whole will benefit, with a world that is more transparent, more balanced, and with fairer distribution of wealth.

We look forward to working with you to make a real difference in this viable, very needed, and long-overdue paradigm-shift.

Our Initiatives

BTRIC Project Incubation Program

Our key initiative is the BTRIC Project Incubation Program (PIP). It’s objective is to identify, foster, promote, and launch emerging technology projects that are in the planning, research, and development phases. Projects that are incubated by BTRIC will emerge as separate, independent businesses, investment-grade and meeting all applicable requirements for their investment offering. Our donors will support projects through their development phase, and some of them may go on to be investors in the projects that emerge.

Our mission is similar to that of traditional, brick-and-mortar business incubators, but we are focused on providing an incubation program for projects based on emerging technologies, as well as other initiatives that will foster growth in the emerging technology ecosystem. Rather than a focus on a particular geography, we focus on the transformative technologies that are just beginning to make profound changes to society and open markets. Like any business incubator, our goal is to build better businesses and promote economic growth by facilitating well-designed projects, progress, and positive outcomes.

Initial PIP Projects

As we grow, we will be working with more projects that will emerge as great businesses. (We may have some more to announce during our fundraising campaign!) At launch, we will begin work on incubating the following projects (please review our white paper for more information on each):

“Cryptocurrency for Good” (working name)

This project, “Cryptocurrency for Good”, proposes to increase the use of cryptocurrency by charitable organizations by enabling people to donate to any 501(c)(3) charity with proceeds paid in cryptocurrency. As one of the goals in the cryptocurrency ecosystem is to increase its usability and widespread adoption, this project targets one business segment to increase adoption — non-profit charitable organizations. Like Amazon Smile, this program will not require a charity to register in advance. Funds received will be remitted to the directed charity as cryptocurrency. It is our belief that Bitcoin would be the best cryptocurrency to use, at least initially, because of its recognition and relatively wide acceptance.

When this project has completed our incubation program, it will be launched as a separate non-profit organization.

“Sea to Table” (working name)

Illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing and seafood fraud undermine the sustainability of U.S. and global seafood stocks and negatively impact general ecosystem health. At the same time, IUU fishing and fraudulent seafood products distort legal markets and unfairly compete with the products of law-abiding fishers and seafood industries globally. This issue is so significant to the health of the U.S. seafood industry that it was the subject of a Presidential Taskforce. The materials from the Taskforce are available at http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/ia/iuu/taskforce.html.

This project, “Sea to Table”, will create a fully compliant traceability system for seafood that is caught, farmed, or imported into the United States. This project will build a specialized distributed ledger and engineer IoT devices developed to track and transmit location information concerning seafood in transit between the point of harvest (or, in some cases, point of importation) and the end-user (restaurant, wholesaler, or retailer). It will enable consumers to scan a QR code that will be able to detail its journey and establish the full chain of custody of the seafood.

When this project has completed our incubation program, it will be launched as a for-profit corporation, marketing turnkey tracability hardware and software to the seafood industry and fisheries management bodies.

“Cryptocurrency Federal Credit Union” (working name)

In the United States, both individuals and businesses involved in cryptocurrency face real challenges in maintaining relationships with financial institutions. One reason may be because these institutions see cryptocurrency as a threat to their viability and business models (which in many ways it is). However, we believe that most of the reason is due to the high regulatory and supervisory burdens associated with cryptocurrency-related transactions, which are often seen by regulators as “high risk” transactions. Numerous reporting and compliance requirements, including anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) requirements, are often time-consuming, manual processes performed by smaller financial institutions, while larger institutions often view this extra effort for a minute subset of its accounts as not worth it from a ROI perspective. This problem has not abated over time. In fact, though it is difficult to know for sure, evidence suggests that this practice may have increased as banks have become more aware of cryptocurrency exchange businesses in recent years.

This project, “Cryptocurrency Federal Credit Union” (working name), proposes to investigate, and if deemed feasible and with sufficient community support, seek a federal credit union charter from the National Credit Union Association (NCUA). If successfully chartered, the business created would be a federal credit union, a type of financial institution that is owned by, and can pay dividends to, its members, which can include U.S.-based individuals and their businesses. The institution would specialize in the types of “high risk” compliance that is integral to current regulations for accounts that transact cryptocurrency. It would be able to offer the full array of services that a federal credit union can legally offer, including savings and checking accounts, debit cards, ACH settlement, merchant services, etc. It is clear that a reliable financial institution that specializes in working with members who transact in cryptocurrency would be a beneficial addition to the ecosystem. We believe a member-owned credit union to be appealing to more of the cryptocurrency ecosystem than a traditional chartered bank. While the eventual goal of cryptocurrency is to eliminate much of the need for traditional financial institutions, the need exists today for a reliable financial institution to help bridge the gap for those consumers and businesses that deal heavily in cryptocurrency. Such an entity can help existing consumers and businesses in the cryptocurrency ecosystem, as well as enable easier launches for new people and businesses entering the field.

This project has two incubation phases. First, surveying the people and businesses in the cryptocurrency ecosystem to determine if sufficient support for a credit union exists. If so, the second phase would prepare for and make application to the NCUA for a federal credit union charter. When this project has completed our incubation program, it would become a separate business which would be a chartered federal credit union.

BTRIC Institute

BTRIC Institute is our advocacy initiative. While 501(c)(3) non-profit organizations are limited in some ways regarding the types of advocacy they can perform with respect to support for specific legislation, and are prohibited from supporting or opposing candidates for office, there is much we can do within the limits of the law.

Our Founding Trustees have extensive experience in advocacy, spending much of their careers advocating Federal lawmakers and policy-makers and are very familiar with how to conduct effective advocacy. We plan to use our knowledge to promote adoption of emerging technologies, such as consensus-based distributed ledger technology, for use in government and the private sector to transform society. We also plan to advocate for common sense, practical regulation of digital assets, such as cryptocurrency and tokens, that protect the ecosystem, provide regulatory clarity, and enable — rather than stifle — innovations in the field.

BTRIC Institute will be partnering with other non-profit organizations, such as Coin Center, The Linux Foundation, ICANN, IANA, EFF, and others to advance our initiatives and work with policy-makers to grow and maintain a vibrant emerging technology ecosystem. BTRIC Institute will also conduct other work in developing, refining, and promoting best-practices that can be used by those in the emerging technology ecosystem, such as:

Promotion of women and diversity in projects in the emerging technology ecosystem, both as users as well as project participants;

in projects in the emerging technology ecosystem, both as users as well as project participants; Open frameworks for best-practices in KYC/AML compliance in various jurisdictions;

in various jurisdictions; Open frameworks for best-practices for security practices for distributed ledgers, including those for cryptocurrency;

including those for cryptocurrency; Open standards and registries for identifiers (such as exchange ticker symbols, TCP ports, and address formats/namespaces) used to represent cryptocurrency and tokens;

Open standards to address legal, ethical, and practical issues regarding ownership and control of content created by users; and

and Freely available educational and promotional materials to introduce policy-makers to emerging technologies and their potential to reshape society in profound ways.

BTRIC Labs

BTRIC Labs will be the core of our research and development efforts that are not specific to any project being incubated. It is the place within BTRIC to explore “blue sky” concepts and approaches. It will also be the initiative under which our staff engineers are given license to contribute to promising open-source projects that form the core of the ecosystem. We believe that, while some areas of the ecosystem (such as Bitcoin) have a number of paid engineers that advance the open-source project, many other projects have not had the same success in retaining paid engineers, web developers, testers, documenters, and other experts. BTRIC will allow our staff to devote some of their time to advancing free, open source projects that benefit the ecosystem as a whole. Initially, BTRIC Labs plans to focus on two key areas:

Decentralization of user-created content, such as microblogging, social media, sound, video, search indicies, and other data that is currently held in large business “silos”, such as Twitter, Facebook, and Google. A practical and scalable approach to decentralization of this content, as well as a decentralized manner that content creators are monetized, is a crucial step to liberating information from traditional and new media gatekeepers.

Scaling and usability issues that currently hold back worldwide, mass adoption of cryptocurrencies as a replacement for current payment methods, such as payment cards. This problem also has implications for other uses of consensus-based distributed ledger technology. We believe this problem must be overcome, enabling transaction volumes that are commensurate with global payment card volume, in order for a full and true paradigm-shift to take place. This problem is complicated by several factors, but the work in advancing approaches to overcome it will benefit the entire cryptocurrency ecosystem.

Structure and governance

BTRIC is a New Jersey non-profit corporation and is subject to the jurisdiction of the State of New Jersey and United States federal law. It has been recognized by the Internal Revenue Service as a Section 501(c)(3) public charity. As a corporation, it must have certain structures that are legally required, such as a Board of Trustees.

Even though we are required under current law to have a Board of Trustees that is, from a legal perspective, at the top of the governance structure, BTRIC intends to adopt an open form of governance.

Our Founding Trustees are experienced with project management for public and private sector projects, with specific experience in the launch and management of non-profit organizations. We consider our Founding Trustees as caretakers that will operate the organization in an open and transparent manner while putting in place legally-vetted Bylaws that allow for a concentric circles organizational structure. These Bylaws (which will be Creative Commons licensed and open for use by any organization), once completed and adopted, will embrace open governance that we hope becomes the model for many non-profit and even for-profit organizations that operate in the ecosystem.

BTRIC’s Executive Director is the only paid member of the Board of Trustees, though other Trustees can receive reimbursement for reasonable expenses incurred in connection with their duties as a Trustee. Our Executive Director supervises operations, staff and contractors, and is responsible to the rest of the Board of Trustees. The Executive Director, while serving on the Board of Trustees, does not vote except to cast the deciding vote in cases of a tie.

We believe in a transparent, fluid governance structure based on concentric circles, concepts partially described by Heather Marsh in her book, Binding Chaos: Systems of Mass Collaboration. This book, which is Creative Commons licensed, is downloadable from her blog at https://georgiebc.wordpress.com/2013/05/24/binding-chaos/. The book can be purchased in printed form from Amazon.com at https://www.amazon.com/Binding-Chaos-collaboration-global-scale/dp/1489527680/, and donations can be made on her website. Many open source projects implement parts of this type of governance without recognizing it, and BTRIC Institute hopes to document and provide templates that can serve as tools for new organizations to follow.

No later than August 30, 2018, BTRIC will be operating under final adopted Bylaws that embody this open governance model. By that date, the one year anniversary of formation of BTRIC, we will have increased the Board of Trustees to at least seven people (so that our Founding Trustees are not a majority). We are currently seeking interest from people involved in our projects and others in the community. Other Board members can be involved in projects, but must adhere to our Code of Ethics and any conflicts of interest must be disclosed if they arise.

It is important to have just enough of a structure to ensure that our mission can be accomplished, without the bureaucracy that has been shown to cause issues relating to dominant personalities and factions within other organizations. These issues often take the focus away from the idea and the overall mission. By adopting open governance, we strive to include a much wider spectrum of ideas when considering decisions.

Do you have what it takes to be a BFD? (That’s BTRIC Founding Donor)

To launch BTRIC, we are conducting a donation campaign with a special-purpose token given to those who contribute to our fundraising drive. This token, called “BTRIC Founding Donor Token” (BFD) will be given at a 1:1 ratio based on the USD value of donations contributed toward the campaign. There is a fixed amount of tokens that have been created, and all tokens will be distributed at the end of the fundraising campaign. If we do not reach our target, all remaining tokens will be distributed pro-rata. If we reach our target early, the fundraising campaign will end.

As made clear throughout this announcement, our BFD fundraising campaign is not an offering to invest in a business. It is a donation to a non-profit charitable organization. We plan on doing great things, providing real benefit and economic value to our projects, our partners, and the ecosystem in advancing the Decentralization Revolution. The BFD fundraising campaign allows us to get to work and hit the ground running in doing that!

How to donate to the BFD fundraising campaign

BTRIC will give each Founding Donor one (1) BFD token for each USD donated through the IDO fundraising campaign process. The fundraising campaign will begin on January 1, 2018 and end on or before February 15, 2018. If the fundraising target is met sooner, the campaign will end. If the target is not met, the excess BFD will be distributed pro-rata.

Donations to the BFD Token fundraising campaign can be made as follows:

On our website, a checkout process is available for donations, at https://www.btric.org. Through our website, donations can be made by several cryptocurrencies through the CoinPayments.net gateway, PayPal, Stripe, and ACH/bank wire.

Donations can also be arranged by contacting BTRIC through email at donations@btric.org or by telephone at +1 732–719–6839. For your safety, do not send any private information, including financial information, through email as it is an unsecure form of communication.

BTRIC Founding Donor Token details

Token name: BTRIC Founding Donor Token

Token symbol: BFD

Fundraising dates: January 1, 2018 to February 15, 2018

Token use: Represents monetary or cryptocurrency asset donation to BTRIC. Holders of BFD will be granted “BTRIC Coin” token or currency when issued (Q2 of 2018).

Token type: ERC20 smart contract deployed on the Ethereum blockchain. The BFD token supports eight [8] decimal places.

Compiler version: v0.4.18+commit.9cf6e910

Tokens generated: 500,000 (fixed amount)

Token details URL: https://etherscan.io/token/0x117a4db782f29598d9627a57be5ed331f6aa446c

Contract address URL: https://etherscan.io/address/0x117a4db782f29598d9627a57be5ed331f6aa446c

Token vault address URL: https://etherscan.io/address/0xd4ff4eb15308ea72914d243a7b141a5ef1df40dd

Token verified: Yes, on Etherscan.io.

Token repository URL: https://github.com/btric/bfd-token

Fundraising goal: $500,000.00 USD

If goal is reached early? Fundraiser will end early.

If goal is not reached? Remaining BFD will be distributed pro-rata.

Token distribution: Token distribution within 10 business days of the end of the fundraising campaign.

For more information

We welcome your ideas, questions, feedback, and suggestions. Please feel free to reach out through any of the channels below. We’d love to hear your thoughts!

Thank you for your support of Blockchain Technology Research Innovations Corporation! Together we will seize this unique moment in world history to bring real and lasting change through the Decentralization Revolution!