This is a special announcement relating to the Kinesis Money product release scheduled for July 1st, 2019. At Kinesis, we are committed to delivering a monetary system that can be used by everyone, wherever they are in the world.
It is with this in mind that we deliver the following update in regards to our Kinesis Money platform, which we formerly referred to as the KMS.
We are postponing the public release of the Kinesis Money platform until August 30th, 2019 for a number of reasons which we outline below.
We will be extending the Initial Minting Offering (IMO) period and KVT sale to end on August 29th, 2019, in line with the adjusted timeline, to allow access to a wider audience wishing to participate in the Kinesis offering.
European regulatory compliance
In Europe, there continues to be significant regulatory and legislative developments within the digital asset space. In consultation with our external legal and tax counsel, we have worked closely with the likes of the Financial Market Authority of Liechtenstein around the development of these new laws. However, the delay in the finalisation of the Blockchain Act, and therefore our ability to ensure our businesses are fully compliant from a regulatory, taxation and reporting perspective, has resulted in a minor extension to our go-live date. The government remains proactive, pro-business, and is well positioned as the financial centre of choice for Europe for the Blockchain industry, and we remain supremely confident that the Liechtenstein regulator and legislature will finalise these matters imminently.
Indonesian developments
In Asia, and Indonesia in particular, our existing partnerships with large government, commercial and member-based organizations, will provide a nation-wide roll-out, with a multitude of physical and technology-based access points and venues for Kinesis and Kinesis products. While this is a large undertaking, the benefits of bringing elements of these to market as soon as possible, will not only benefit the adoption and success of the system, it will also serve as a use-case and milestone to accelerate bringing our other national and government projects we are developing to market in the near future.
Institutional minting clients
Regarding minting and bringing in significant bullion prior to launch, we are currently in discussions with several substantial existing bullion holders who wish to port over via the Exchange Physical for Digital mechanism. In the context of that eventuality, we have undertaken steps to improve and augment our insurance coverages to accommodate such large positions. While the completion of the requisite insurance policies may take some time to finalize, this is a very positive event that will allow us to expand our EPD offerings to other interested large bullion holders.
US participation
Allowing US residents access to the IMO is important to us and extending the IMO period will allow more time for our current US regulatory discussions to present solutions. This could vastly improve volume and acceptance globally and we are working towards a solution, with a hope for a resolution within the new timeline.
Kinesis is also scheduled to launch with a funding portal and SEC registered broker-dealer for investors that are actively looking to participate in opportunities such as Kinesis. This is set to go live in the coming weeks and it makes commercial sense to enable an effective timeline for participants to get involved both with KVTs and to participate in the IMO.
African initiatives
We have recently appointed a Head of Operations, Africa, Christiaan Roesch, and many important developments are underway. We believe it is important to allow enough time to maximise participation across the region.
Additional features upon Kinesis Money release
A significant upside is that Nigel Owens and the technology team have revised their timelines in accordance to these delays and have been able to deliver even more functionality upon release, with some exciting components that will make a big difference. These updates will be released to our community soon, however, we can confirm that a hard wallet solution for KAU and KAG is underway and will allow for KAU and KAG holders to take their holdings offline for cold storage, while remaining eligible for yields.
We hope that the Kinesis community will acknowledge that, despite many of the reasons for our delay being outside of our control, we have tried to balance the needs of our existing KVT participants and IMO minters with regulatory requirements and our increasing global presence.
Thank you for your continued support.
