Overview
Sparkle Coin tackles the adoption of cryptocurrency into traditional ecommerce and business transaction space through their three company ecosphere. The Sparkle Coin ecosphere is a group of companies working together to provide the necessary parts for Sparkle Coin to have value based on economic principles as a starting block to build from. The Sparkle Coin cryptocurrency is being introduced with a fully built infrastructure, enabling it to immediately be used in real world transactions for goods and services and liquidation to fiat currencies. Their technology allows people to use cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ether, Litecoin and their Sparkle Coin to seamlessly purchase goods online with major retailers like Amazon, Walmart, Best Buy etc. When people purchase through their VCoinMall, the cryptocurrency is converted, so the retailer receives fiat currency. However, every purchase increases the transaction volume of the Sparkle Coin cryptocurrency which allows the market to drive up the coin value.
The Coin
Sparkle Coin, forked from Bitcoin and Peercoin, allows for POW mining of coins and POS minting of coins. Approximately 1,008 coins are available to be mined daily for 100 years, after which the award block will be halved over time similar to Bitcoin. 1,008 coins per day for 100 years equates to: 36,817,200. Halving of the award block will add additional coins for years more. Block time is set to approximately 10 minutes and 7 Sparkle Coins are awarded per block. Mining is currently available. Minting will also start at the same time as mining with a maturity of a 30-day minimum and a 90-day maximum. This means you will have to hold onto newly acquired Sparkle Coins for 30 days before minting is permitted and you have up to 90 days to mint using those coins. To be clear these coins are fully created and are sent immediately upon investment received where other ICOs require the ICO to end before coin emission occurs.
Lead Executive
President and CEO Victor Wong, previous experience includes CEO of PowerTools, one of a
handful of authorized Mac OS compatible computer makers by Apple Computer. PowerTools designed, produced and sold the most Mac OS computers ever built up at that time(late 90s). 2000 onwards, Mr. Wong was the Founder and CEO of Ecommercesoft, an enterprise providing internet-based business software solutions. Clients include Apple, Lucent Technologies, Lynden B. Johnson Presidential Library. From 2003, Mr. Wong was Co-Founder and CEO (for the first 2.5 years) of Open Labs, the maker of computer enhanced musical instruments. Instruments created by Open Labs were used to produce recorded music and perform live by Timbaland, Maroon 5, Korn, Faith Hill, Madonna, Prince, Lil Jon, Tommy Lee, and many others. In 2010, Mr. Wong launched and acted as CEO of Music Computing, a maker of computer enhanced
musical instruments, particularly keyboard production stations, large screen multi touch controllers and laptop keyboard controllers.
Market
The ecommerce industry provides a massive opportunity across the globe. In 2016, total retail sales across the globe will reach $22.049 trillion, up 6.0% from the previous year. eMarketer estimates sales will top $27 trillion in 2020, even as annual growth rates slow over the next few years, as explored in the eMarketer report, “Worldwide Retail Ecommerce Sales: The eMarketer Forecast for 2016”. While cryptocurrencies continue to gain some acceptance as a payment option, price volatility and the opportunity for speculative investments encourage consumers not to use cryptocurrency to purchase goods and services but rather to trade it. From the perspective of businesses and merchants, cryptocurrencies offer low transaction fees and lower volatility risk resulting from nearly instantaneous settlement, and they eliminate the possibility of chargebacks (the demand by a credit card provider that a retailer make good on the loss of a fraudulent or disputed transaction). Can Sparkle Coin bridge the gap to drive adoption?
Revenue Path
Larger or public online e-tailers have not embraced and offered transacting in cryptocurrencies is because they are often times not supported by a company that can manage, support, and be held accountable, such as Bitcoin. Due to this, the more than $100M+ daily transaction volume is not accessible by these e-tailers. The Sparkle Coin revenue path hinges on the transaction count of Sparkle Coins. VCoin Exchange will release, free of charge, plugins and extensions for the world’s most popular online shopping cart software and services so merchants can easily accept Sparkle Coin, this software allows consumers to pay in Bitcoin, Ether, and Litecoin as well which are converted into Sparkle Coin for the transaction and the merchant can receive the fiat equivalent. The hurdle will be adoption of the shopping cart software as well as consumer education on how to pay with cryptocurrency.
Uniqueness
The product and ICO is unique in that it is a fully developed solution already, not a whitepaper and MVP. The three company set up provides the needed tools for adoption and transactability, but this requires speed to market and network effects to gain massive adoption. As the crypto verse expands can this be the crypto gateway of choice?
Metrics
Sparkle Coin plans to release financial reports showing revenue numbers for operations outside of the token sale. This would be a breath of fresh air in the ICO space. There still needs to be merchant customer acquisition for the VCoin payment option and then there needs to be consumer adoption to drive the transaction volume of Sparkle Coin.
Interview
Matthew Loughran: Tell us about what Sparkle Coin actually does. What big problem does it solve?
Victor Wong: The biggest problem Sparkle Coin resolves is creating real valuations for cryptocurrencies. By creating multiple companies around Sparkle Coin that provides the ability to purchase products and services from virtually any online store in the world, Sparkle Coin can be use as a true currency, providing actual transactions that can be the basis of its value. The exchange allows Sparkle Coin to be traded with other cryptocurrencies or sold for fiat currencies, providing liquidity and real value relative to the existing traditional fiat currencies that any traditional financial person can understand and measure.
Matthew Loughran: Why is it different than other ICOs?
Victor Wong: Since the foundation of Sparkle Coin's value is based on economic principles like supply and demand, we did not provide large discounts for pre-token sales, then a smaller discount for the pre-ICO, and finally a fixed price for the ICO. We started the token sale at $5 per Sparkle Coin and as demand increased from actual purchases, the price of Sparkle Coin went up. Currently it is already at $35.
Matthew Loughran: Your coin value has increased from $5 to $35, what challenges are you facing to move to the next level in coin value?
Victor Wong: The challenge is to insure the price of Sparkle Coin keeps increasing when it is freely traded on VCoin Exchange after the ICO. We have some big press announcements coming up that will help people learn what the long-term value of Sparkle Coin will be and how it may keep increasing in price rapidly because of these partnerships and endorsements. Furthermore, we plan on releasing information on actual revenues and profits from operations outside of the token sale. This will be the first time any cryptocurrency has been able to generate revenues and profits during the first quarter of its operation and before the ICO has been completed. We also want people to understand Sparkle Coin has all the features of Bitcoin with the addition of the extended transactabilty to purchase products and services, which makes it greatly under valued when compared to the price of Bitcoin.
Matthew Loughran: Describe your customer acquisition model post-ICO?
Victor Wong: We will continue to promote the merits of Sparkle Coin and its ecosphere of companies. In addition, we will work with other companies to provide private label tokens built off of the Sparkle Coin (SPRK) blockchain for their own ICOs. We have already had significant interest in this as we can not only provide the tokens, wallets, and other necessary components, but also specialized marketplaces for their industry as a subset of VCoinMALL.com and a currency exchange to list their tokens on VCoin Exchange. We are a turnkey provider. With all this, we see ourselves as a business-centric cryptocurrency and blockchain company, essentially a hybrid of the Bitcoin and Ethereum business models.
Matthew Loughran: How are you facilitating product adoption in your target segments?
Victor Wong: We have publicly announced we will be a business-centric cryptocurrency and blockchain company. By that we mean we will help companies by creating that "last mile" to bring them into the cryptocurrency and blockchain world. In addition, we will continue to grow the number of online merchants in VCoinMALL.com as well as those using the cryptocurrency payment gateway directly on their own online stores. By doing these things, we will create real value for Sparkle Coin, which should increase, usage, demand, and the price, resulting in people purchasing Sparkle Coin for transactions or as an investment asset.
Risk & Opportunity
Any projects will come with there own inherent risks as do any type of investment. The biggest risks I see associated with Sparkle Coin is their ability to produce mass adoption of their transaction software with merchants to generate the network effects the company is after to continue the increase of coin value.
Opportunities of this project yield strong in that the product is fully developed, the coin has already seen a 7x based on market demand not speculation and they are set to open their VCoin Mall in the next few weeks.
Rating
Indicators point that Sparkle Coin will be a long term currency option as it looks to carve out its niche as a true transaction option for consumers. Rating is positive with a stable outlook.
