Quite a few weeks have passed since we successfully closed the ICO Crowdsale on July 4. Throughout the days that followed, it was officially the centerpiece of our conversations, posts, and reflections.

However, as with any party, next comes the sobering. Not so much sobering from champagne and nearly levitating feelings of joy. Instead, it was time to take off the ICO-hyped glasses, take a closer look at our promises in the Whitepaper, and take two steps back from the whiteboard to see a broader picture.

ICO times

It is still quite amazing what 0xcert has accomplished in the first beautiful days of July.

Not just it became a dear memory of an incredible success to all of us working tirelessly on it for a couple of months, but it was foremost a victory that without the supporters, advisors, partners, and above all — the 0xcert community — wouldn’t have been achievable.

For that, we take our ICO as a promise. And responsibility is now the nucleus of 0xcert as you (will get to) know it.

But first, let’s go back for some numeric fruits.

Some dry metrics of the 0xcert Crowdsale

The 0xcert team worked on average 14-16 hours/day during the weeks preceding the ICO.

The 0xcert Crowdsale was closed and sold out in 96 minutes.

There were 233 participants from 51 countries contributing to the Crowdsale and acquiring 20k ETH worth of ZXC tokens. You can find more stats on our blog.

We managed to raise a record amount of contributions during the bear market in Slovenia, the country ranking 5th globally by the number of ICOs per capita in 2018.

And here is what followed

We have participated at 4 international events from London to Singapore, in one way or another - as attendees, speakers, and/or organizers. The 0xcert protocol was introduced and presented live to hundreds if not thousands of people.

We handed out hundreds of 0xcert t-shirts, the majority of them unique and non-fungible.

We are about to reach and accomplish all our milestones from the Whitepaper after-ICO Roadmap, with the remaining ones already lining up and waiting for their turn to land on the desks of our developers.

Now, these raw numbers are all nice. But what about the substance, real stuff, products, you know — the actual results?

Do as Whitepaper says, not as others do

As we might have implied, some substantial changes to 0xcert as a whole took place, and they are bringing us back closer to what we wanted it to be in the first place.

During the ICO, we spent and invested a crazy amount of knowledge, time, resources, efforts, creative power, skills, and energy to bring to light a viable product with enough supporting material, a credible vision, and a solid plan to execute it. When we launched, we meant every word of our commitments. More so than ever, we still do.

But soon after the post-ICO craze settled, instead of having our compass needle oscillating with every new idea popping up, we had it aligned to point towards maturity and future evolution, and to guide us long-term.

So we turned our focus back to what has been our drive since day one - the 0xcert Whitepaper.

A Whitepaper is (or at least should be) the Bible of a project, especially for those of blockchain dimensions. It is what a project or company brand stands on conceptually, technologically, and strategically.

And here is what ours stipulates:

0xcert Protocol Whitepaper, 2018, p. 43

The easiest way to check our placement in time and planning is to compare it to the 0xcert Roadmap for the second half of 2018:

Q3 2018 - Whitelist/KYC certificate dapp (another PoC for Crowdsale)

Crowdsale PoC certificates used

Protocol draft on Ethereum mainnet (limited)

DEX alpha dapp

Q4 2018 - Protocol 1.0 (Ethereum)

Framework 1.0 (protocol features, application layer)

DEX 1.0 dapp

Minter 1.0 dapp

And what is the actual state of things?

Q3 coming to an end

The 0xcert ICO was not only a success for having reached the hard cap in the middle of a bear market, but it was also a breakthrough for having implemented and pioneered the Crowdsale KYC non-fungible Certificates based on the ERC-721 non-fungible tokens. It is showcasing a solid proof of concept, a turnkey solution for other ICOs and any project looking for a more reliable and personalized KYC procedure.

In combination with onFido certification engine, our KYC certificates proved to be a non-compromisable KYC tool, making it impossible for anyone without a 100% solid identity proof to participate in the Crowdsale.

The second thing we accomplished away from the spotlight was having developed the 0xcert Protocol draft on the Ethereum mainnet. The Protocol is still being polished and checked thoroughly before its release, but quite soon it will see the light of day.

The goal of the Protocol is to serve as a pluggable settlement with an integration layer for different dapps, a few of those are also in our scope of endeavors. Also, in the next few weeks, we will announce a bug bounty related to the protocol and the ERC-721 implementation, as always, doing our best to include a broader developer community in making it the best version possible.

Regarding the DEX alpha dapp, we are proud to say that we have it at the tips of our fingers before letting it go out and into the world. It will be an especially exciting release, since it will be the first tangible, visual, and usable embodiment of the 0xcert protocol, bringing the features of the protocol wrapped in an attractive look and an intuitive UI.

The DEX will run on a set of smart contracts allowing for a trustless exchange of NFTs between parties, resulting in a single atomic operation combining all the factors and data required for successful completion of a transaction.

The dapp's alpha version will provide a test-level experience for the early adopters and holders of NFTs. Curious about it? Follow our blog for updates because soon we're about to see the...

...Q4 taking over

After the protocol draft being set up in Q3, the Framework 1.0 with protocol features and application layer is coming next. Although we are entering the Q4 still perfecting the goals from Q3, we are quite and justifiably confident we'll see the Framework 1.0 completed by the end of the year.

The same goes for DEX 1.0 dapp - after the needed testing of the DEX alpha version, checking and improving it based on early adopters' feedback, the 1.0 version of the DEX should be going out in Q4 just as planned.

And yes, much the same confidence applies to having the Minter 1.0 dapp developed, mainly because it implements functional and operational principals similar to the DEX dapp. It will allow for trustless minting of Xcert non-fungible tokens directly to recipients in a single atomic operation. Through Minter, we are expecting to see a much broader interest in adoption, especially so from traditionally non-digital industries, which would bring our aims of providing blockchain solution to real-world cases much closer to fruition.

Once we have these major after-ICO milestones achieved, all we need next it seeing them gain traction within the target community - developers, NFT owners, and minters. Watching the NFT society and importance of non-fungibility grow daily despite the somewhat stagnation of the crypto market, we are optimistic about the future usability of the fruits of our tireless months-long work and dedication.

No shortcuts to getting it done

Even though September is slipping through our fingers fast, we didn't yet say the final word of Q3. Some big non-fungible announcements are coming your way, so make sure to stay tuned for the Q3 aftermath and the next quarter foundations.

No marketing show-off can make up for or speed up the hard work needed to be done, and our developers are doing their best to perfect the code of the protocol and dapps. We are all looking forward to the day when the community will be able to reap the open-source benefits of their work.

Until then, we appreciate your patience and support, and as always, you'll be the first to hear the news. Now, let's roll our sleeves back up.