Market Outlook and Road Map for 2019
Firstly, a big thank you
Before outlining our updated roadmap for 2019, we would like to take this opportunity to thank all of our community, staff, collaborators and token purchasers, for the amazing support and positive feedback we have enjoyed for the past year. Your support has really helped us drive forward despite market conditions being challenging and unpredictable throughout most of 2018.
Market Review
We see a great opportunity for recovery this year, following the wild highs of 2017 and the sobering lows of 2018. As conditions become less volatile, we believe that crypto currency will make steady gains as the market matures and digital assets attract more institutional investment and mainstream adoption. What’s most encouraging for us personally is that despite the huge downturn in many areas of the market, the small number of companies that grew and prospered in 2018 were actually the crypto lenders such as Nexo who launched in 2018. Not only did Nexo thrive in a bear market, but they also managed to make a profit and pay out dividends of just under one million US dollars to their token holders.
As Bloomberg also reported on the 2nd of January this year; companies involved in crypto lending have been making profit from day one and are hiring staff and expanding whilst other companies are downsizing or going out of business. The Bloomberg review of companies who lend against crypto collateral includes BlockFi, who reported a 10-fold rise in revenues and its customer base since June 2018, the point at which Mike Novogratz’s Galaxy Digital Ventures invested $52.5 million into the lending platform. Zac Prince, CEO at BlockFi revealed that it has “never had a loss of principal,” and that its model (like that of Lendo), really is low risk. BlockFi, like some of its competitors, is also planning to expand its product offering, such is the strength of the demand.
Michael Moro, CEO of Genesis Capital, told Bloomberg: “The bear market has certainly helped — at least it has fuelled the growth.” Genesis, which formed in March 2018 to let institutional investors borrow crypto assets by depositing US dollars, has already issued $700 million in loans. And Genesis is set for further growth in 2019, with plans to double its staff and move into the Asian markets. Moro said: “We’ve certainly proven that there is market demand, that there’s product fit and that it’s time to invest even more in this side of the business.”
This is all very positive news for Lendo as it’s clear that the demand for crypto loans will be high in both bull and bear markets. This indicates that we have a very strong long term business model in place.
For full information read the article: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-02/thriving-on-bitcoin-s-bust-lenders-aid-both-fanatics-and-shorts
Key dates on our roadmap
1. Listing of ELT on exchange — end of January 2019
ELT will be listed on at least 2 major exchanges by the end of January, with more to come during the first quarter. We will only work with exchanges that are ranked in the top 20 by volume on Coin Market Cap. One of the reasons we have waited to list ELT following the end of the ICO is that we are giving all of our token purchaser’s time to complete all the necessary KYC to enable them to trade their tokens as soon as we launch on exchange. We are also being very selective about which exchanges we work with.
2. User generation marketing campaigns — Ongoing
As well as continuing our B2C marketing campaigns to attract more users to the system, we are also working very hard on several key strategic partnerships who will bring us large numbers of card users and also potential borrowers. The key to building utility and value for the token is ensuring we have as large a number of users as possible and this is one of our key areas of focus. One of the reason so many ICO’s failed in 2018 is that there was no ‘real world’ use for their products or services, so in this trading environment, a token without a use case is destined to eventually fail. Lendo is delighted to have already created a database of over 60,000 card applicants and over €199 million value in loan requests. We aim to bring our number of actual card users up to at least 200,000 by the end of 2019 and thus create value in both the company and the ELT token.
3. Lendo cards and IBAN accounts go live April 2019
We are currently finalising agreements with a major card provider in order to go fully operational with our cards and IBAN accounts by the end of the first quarter of 2019. The process has been slower than we first estimated due to increased regulation and more stringent licensing arrangements than were required in the past, but we are confident that we can meet this revised deadline as the process is well under way.
4. First crypto loans become available — May 2019
Again, we have encountered longer delays than expected regarding the licensing and regulatory requirements of becoming operational, but our crypto loans will follow very shortly on the back of the card programme going live to the public. Building the company on solid foundations and ensuring we commence operations with a large database of customers from day one is in our opinion the best way to ensure long term success.
5. Institutional funding and partnerships — May 2019 onwards
Once we have gone live and operational with our card and loan programme we aim to accelerate the growth of the company through institutional funding and partnerships. Part of this process will be to raise capital through a series of fund raising rounds. This will give us access to the levels of liquidity and funding necessary to create a truly global company with the ability to service a large number of consumers in diverse locations around the world. Our goals of truly borderless lending on a massive scale will be achieved much more rapidly with institutional approval, funding and support. Lendo has always sought to be the bridge between the crypto community and mainstream financial services and this is where we believe long term sustainability lies. As a company we have never limited ourselves to the belief that every aspect of crypto currency and the blockchain has to operate in a decentralised utopia. Our stated aim has always been to work with the system rather than against it and in many ways we can see that 2018 was the year where the crypto community has had a big wake-up call and realised that an obsession with decentralisation can lead to the collapse and death of many otherwise exciting projects. On that note we wish everyone in the industry a successful and prosperous year ahead and hope that we can all learn from the lessons of 2018!
