Ladies and gentlemen, this will be the first of an ongoing series of weekly updates that we will be providing our investment community. In time, it will be extended to cover a wide range of topics and as a forum to answer questions received. If you would like your question posted and answered here, send your question to cto@bezop.io.

Today, we’ll be providing updates on the following activities:

* Support

* PR

* Bounty Program

* “Investor” comment on SEC

* The 10% Buyback program update

* What’s happening with the Exchanges

* The Months Ahead

Support

Internally, we’ve had some interesting discussions about support. Ultimately, there will be a robust support program in place for merchants that utilize our system that will include integrated chat and a formal help desk. This is a very different function, however, from the current status and activity of the existing support team. The current support team is exclusively focused on the support of you, our investors, and we’ve readily admitted that that function was seriously broken. There are two aspects to this — first, there is the legitimate support of the mass majority of our investors, and then, second, there is the ongoing impact of individuals that continue to try to scam or defraud, really, all of us…not just the “corporate” us. We can’t begin to describe the nature and frequency of the attacks we receive on a daily basis. Just trust in one single statement that I am going to make — our highest priority and obligation is to protect and grow the value of our BEZ. Any activity that serves to undermine that value undermines all of us. This includes our mistakes and failures to the actions of those that would serve to de-value our investment, intentional or not. Today, we have five people manning support for our investors. Additionally, our CTO also provides assistance on cases that get accelerated.

We are continuing to look at support and looking to ways to enhance and improve the support we provide. While I am not inviting attacks because 1) they don’t do anyone any good, and 2) I will just totally ignore them, I am inviting you to write to my email address with positive criticism and suggestions where you feel we’ve fallen short in the support provided and what you feel would be a positive improvement to that experience.

We have the structure in place and we’re now looking to how we can make it a more positive experience for each of you — thank you.

PR/Communications

As previously stated, timely and accurate communications is critical to the success of any company. In an effort to address this, our CTO will be issuing a “Weekly Report” beginning with this one. The purpose of this report is to provide our community with up-to-date, open, and timely communications about ongoing activities.

Bounty Program

By way of some background, the Bounty Program was originally designed to run for thirty (30) days, from December 24th to January 23rd. We sold out, however, on January 9th closing the program with week three and four not holding. The original individual cap per user was 2000 tokens for four weeks of work being completed. This applies to the legendary and hero members and since only two weeks were completed, the maximum cap is, therefore, cut in half to 1000 tokens. Now, when you contrast this with the submitted spreadsheet, you can see claims by members that do not hold legendary or hero status claiming over 6000 tokens (or 3 eth).

As with most Bounty programs, our Bounty Program was contracted out to a third party to run. Typically, the Program Manager just does his thing and reports back. Unfortunately, we’ve seen reports where people have been claiming 5000 tokens when the maximum cap per user per week is 1000 tokens due to the shortened program period. Also, please be aware, we will not honor or recognize work that was either 1) not requested, or 2) sub-standard by any measure. For example, if you claim to have translated something into another language, you need to have proof that the work as actually requested, and the work must be up to par. It can’t just be something that you sloppily threw together in ten minutes just to try and claim tokens; rather, it must be something that was both requested and performed to the community standard.

So please be aware we are closely scrutinizing the bounty program. We will happily honor and pay for legitimate work product and subsequent effort; however, we will not honor something that was poorly done and clearly substandard.

An “Investor” Comment on FB Addressed

An investor made a series of comments on Facebook that I thought should be addressed. His comment or question was, “What’s going to happen to BEZ for not following SEC rule and doing KYC…” etc.

First, let me begin by saying that the BEZ has ZERO value. It’s ONLY value is on our network. It’s a UTILITY token. It’s used exclusively on our network as an exchange in value for products or services delivered between a merchant and his/her customer. This market is not regulated by the SEC (more comments on that to follow farther down). So, the simple answer to your question is, “Nothing is going to happen to BEZ.”

Bezzopians, this is ALL about the development of an e-commerce platform that initially runs natively on the ethereum blockchain and which will eventually run on our own network. It’s value over time will be determined by its liquidity in the market and by the demand for our system. We are preparing to deliver a major surprise to the market that will thrill you and help strengthen our liquidity and position in the market. We know we face tremendous odds with a potential announcement by Amazon on April 27th that could change everything, and which would then be quickly followed by other majors like eBay. But just think! Just think if we are there first. Not only that but just think if we are there first with a system that is easy to use, easy to set up, and that can provide the millions of small businesses with a vehicle to get the merchandise on the market with little effort and significant value by totally eliminating the middlemen. Just think!

We’ve faced incredible odds and screams of fraud and claims of “scammers!” and yet we are still here. We are still working around the clock; and, we are working toward one singular goal that will change everything. Most, if not all, of you bought into this vision and all we ask is that you help us build the on the dream. If you can’t or don’t want to then why on earth did you invest in this? …help us achieve the dream of a truly easy to use e-commerce system for all those small business people around the world that want to get their shop on the market quickly and easily. How about it? So, you ask what more you can do? You can help talk up the product in the marketplace, in Facebook, on Twitter, in any forum you have access to…we need your help to build the perceived value of this system so when it’s ready and people are looking to buy an e-commerce system they are not just hearing about us for the first time…they’ve been hearing about us and they are chomping at the bit to get access to their very own e-commerce system built on blockchain — why? Because it’s fast. It’s transparent. It’s decentralized and it’s secure. It offers the merchant an alternative to the guerillas out there that sock them with all kinds of fees and fails to deliver on a simple to use platform. Talk it up…that’s what you can do. Just remember…this isn’t just for us…this is for you and the value of your investment and building on the liquidity of that investment so you can get what you came for. Talk it up!

10% Buy-Back Program

First and foremost, we WILL launch our 10% buyback on the announcement of the very next exchange. When this next exchange goes online, within 24 hours of it going live, we will announce and launch the program.

Now, as a follow-up to what was reported before…

We have been actively working through our buyback program to offset the actions of a single individual that has gone to great lengths setting up bots as well as numerous individual personal accounts, all of which we were able to trace back to this individual. The end result is this: on Etherdelta, we have bought back 900K worth of tokens and on HITBTC, we have bought back 1.1 million tokens.

We will slowly reintroduce these tokens back into the market once the market stabilizes and we recover some of the funds that were lost due to the valuation shifts in the market. This, however, is a task that will come later — certainly not now.

Again, What’s with the Price?

So, there are a variety of things that affect the price on an exchange and especially for a utility token such as ours. First, for the less experienced investors in our family, let me tell you a little bit about market makers. To understand market makers is to better understand liquidity which is sorely lacking in the Ethereum blockchain market. In fact, I would dare to say that liquidity is the biggest challenge and biggest risk for playing in the ethereum blockchain market and in particular for a token such as ours. You see, the ethereum blockchain market lacks firm commitment and participation by market makers and way too many tokens. This is also a byproduct of the lack of having a regulatory authority. No regulatory authority and tokens run amok and market makers resist participating and lack of liquidity abounds.

Liquidity

So, what is liquidity? Liquidity is the ability to quickly convert from your token of choice to cash. The longer it takes, the lower the liquidity. It’s a measure of buyers and sellers. Let’s say you want to sell your token; well, in order to sell your token, you need a buyer. The lack of a buyer means the longer it will take for you to convert your token to cash because you are actively looking for a buyer. The greater the disproportional measure between buyers and sellers the greater the volatility and dramatic swings in the market. The more sellers than buyers mean the sellers have to lower their price in order to attract a buyer. After a token has gone through the ICO process, if it has failed to get acceptance or developed universal appeal, the lighter the trading…the fewer the buyers and the greater number of sellers. There are quite literally hundreds of tokens that trade lightly if they trade at all.

Let’s look at Aeron (ARN) as an example. Aeron had a market cap of $12.3 million on December 24, 2017, and yet the 24-hour trade volume that day was $20 million. This means that the trade volume completely outstripped this token’s entire market cap. So, what was the result? The result was that ARN jumped 50% from $.55 to $1.05 on December 24th during above normal trading volume on Christmas eve and Christmas day, but then on the 26th of December, the coin fell 25% to $.75 while 24-hour volume had fallen to $6 million and the market cap was $8.9 million. Up 50% one day and down 25% the next. This is a highly speculative token with huge price swings principally due to an imbalance in buyers and sellers and a lack of liquidity — this could readily be just 10 to 20 buyers in a $6 million dollar 24-hour volume window — not a healthy market.

So, what makes a market healthy? How about looking to Wall Street and how they introduce a new asset for your answer.

Market Makers

So, if we take a look at Wall Street, during an IPO, a company will hire market makers to support the stock. Now, believe it or not, this IS done in the ICO market. In fact, it’s a very positive sign and we need far more market makers and far fewer tokens to help build liquidity into the Ethereum market. You see, market makers buy and sell assets several times a day. Market makers may earn or lose a little with each trade, but what they are accomplishing is the act of increasing liquidity in a particular asset and being paid by the asset’s owner to do so. Over the span of assets, with the practiced involvement of experienced market makers, liquidity is introduced, and the market is evened out between buyer and sellers. Well, almost…

The difference between Wall Street and Crypto Lane is that Wall Street compresses the trading into a fixed period of time from 9:30 AM to 4 PM, Monday through Friday, and by doing so they create a high-volume liquid market. On Crypto Lane, you can trade 24 hours a day, seven days a week with no break, which by its nature creates a potentially unhealthy market. Why? Because you can end up with periods of time with literally no buyers and sellers and other periods where they are seriously out of balance resulting in a volatile and unhealthy market.

So, what are we going to do? We have to act according to the appropriate playbook as much as we can. We need to introduce market makers in the mix to help build liquidity in our token and we need to help stabilize the market by introducing something which will help ease the volatility. So, for now, stick with the notion of market makers and watch what we do in the coming month because what we all need is an increase in demand and a decrease in the instability and volatility of the market.

Exchanges

As everyone is now aware, we are on HITBTC. We will soon be listed on another exchange. Contractually, we cannot discuss who or when. Just know that we will be announcing a new exchange in the near future. When we do, we will announce the Buy-back program within 24 hours of the exchange’s announcement. One last thing, people were asking, almost incredulously, why were not on CoinMarketCap. Folks, you don’t get listed on CMC until you achieve a daily average in trades of 100K. That’s why we didn’t list immediately.

What’s to Come?

Recognizing much of what I just described, Bezop is actively interviewing PR firms as well as groups capable of bringing to the table those activities that will help secure the liquidity of our token while helping to deliver the messaging that will help not only stabilize the market but help us to get it excited. After all, the more excited the market is about what we’re doing the greater the engagement and the greater the result. Hence, having the correct resources and doing the right things at the right time, can, and will at a moment’s notice turn things around. Just look at what happened when John McAfee announced us as the token of the week.

What If?

So, let’s play a quick game of what if. What if we are properly positioned with our product in the market before Amazon announces a move into the crypto market by announcing they’ll begin accepting Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies. Think about this a minute… How exciting will things become if we actually have merchants trading on our platform from around the world before Amazon announces they are going to start accepting cryptocurrencies. What if we are positioned in the market with a functioning product before Amazon and eBay and others announce and what if our messaging is tight, and unified and professionally delivered and our tokens liquidity is down to where it should be because we’ve engaged market makers to help us make this happen?

I don’t know…maybe I am just dreaming wildly here…but what if?

Summary

Like I said, our team is unified more unified than ever before. We’ve invested in the staff (support, public relations, development), and we ARE working toward the long game. We expect to be in a very solid position by the end of March — LIGHT YEARS away from where we are today. We truly appreciate each and every person that invested in and believed in this project. We only ask that you reassess your thinking at the end of March from today. We believe you will see a very different company in a different position. You supported us with your money; we ask that you continue to support us as we integrate all the changes planned into the company. If you want to realize the dream then talk it up. We have to build the perception of value so when our system goes live merchants line up around the corner to get on. By building that excitement, you will help build the value of your tokens and in turn, increase the liquidity of your investment. Thank you!