Tech Bureau, a Japan based fintech and cryptocurrency group company has announced its plan for escrow lock-up (lock-in) on 33% of total CMS tokens issued by its own COMSA service, a complete Initial Coin Offering (ICO), fundraising, and cross-chaining platform built on the NEM blockchain protocol. CMS lock-up will occur after token sale ends November, 6th, 2017 14:00 JST. After that, it will also lock up 25% of the total Zaif token issuance, the cryptocurrency exchange also owned and operated by Tech Bureau.

Tech Bureau also plans to implement escrow lock-up on upcoming ICO projects that use COMSA as their platform service.

What is lock-up for “blockchain tokens”?

Within the context of an emergent blockchain technology and industry, and no existing escrow organizations or services in the industry that meet the standard of Japanese business practices, ICO lock-up securely holds in reserve, for a specified period, issuers’ undistributed tokens to prevent them from being sold or transferred. Lock-up is designed to preclude wrongful use of tokens by issuers and protect user assets.

How does lock-up work?

Tech Bureau invites COMSA ICO Committee members to utilize the lock-up service in conjunction with ICOs. Participants take the role of cosignatory, and the cryptographic contract reserves the locked-up tokens for a specified period.

How does multi-signature and the cryptographic contract work?

The NEM protocol allows for the creation of “M-of-N” multi-signature accounts, meaning M can be any number equal to or less than N, e.g., 3-of-5 and 5-of-10. The contract enables several people to administer to the activity of an account, control the cryptocurrency and other tokens from the account, or create additional contracts.

The multi-signature function secures the contract by encrypting e-signatures, thereby precluding impersonation. Once an account is converted to a multi-signature account, transactions can no longer be initiated from that account except by one of the co-signatories.

Zaif Token Lock-up Implementation Plan

Currently Zaif tokens are issued on the Counterparty protocol, but since there are no safe and stable tools to create multi-signature accounts on that protocol, Tech Bureau will migrate Zaif tokens to the NEM protocol which has a secure multi-signature capability.

To migrate the tokens to the NEM protocol, a conversion program needs to be developed and tested. Testing and quality assurance will be done to ensure that the migration environment meets public audit standards, after which the below plan and schedule will be executed:

Planned lock-up token amount: 22.5 billion Zaif, 25% of total issuance

Lock-up period: until the end of December 2018

Transfer a certain number of Zaif token to the nominated account for public audit by the end of November, 2017

Confirm co-signatories for the escrow account by mid-January 2018

Launch the conversion tool for transferring Zaif tokens on the Counterparty protocol to the NEM protocol by the end of January 2018

Transfer the designated Zaif tokens for lock-up to the NEM protocol by mid-February 2018

Transfer all locked-up Zaif tokens to the multi-signature escrow account by the end of February 2018

CMS Token Lock-up Plan

After Tech Bureau ends its own COMSA token sale on November 6th, 2017 (JST), the CMS tokens will be issued on both NEM and Ethereum blockchain protocols within the same month, as the tool provides for multi-signature on both protocols. So, CMS token lock-up, carried out before the plan for Zaif tokens, will be executed shortly after the issuance closes on both blockchains simultaneously.

Planned lock-up token amount is 33% of total issuance

Lock-up period: until the end of December 2018

After the COMSA token sale closes, the number of locked-up tokens will be fixed by mid-November, 2017.

Selection of the co-signatories for escrow will be done by the end of November, 2017

Transfer of all Zaif tokens designated for lock-up to the multi-signature escrow account will be done by the end of December 2017

The total issuance of CMS tokens will be fixed based on total sales when Tech Bureau closes its sale, and only CMS and Zaif tokens owned by Tech Bureau are planned for this instance of escrow lock-up.

Upcoming Deployments

As noted above, plans to execute escrow lock-ups for upcoming COMSA based ICO projects are in the pipeline.