The Kaizen Coin Ico has begun and the cryptokage wanted to know more! Emailing the newly appointed fund manager we discussed the project and learned a little bit about the man behind the coin, Lawrence Fischer.
Originally in an advisory position for the ICO, the thirty-nine (39) year old financial adviser was asked to take over as fund manager amidst changes by the SEC, (DAO tokens became recognized as unregulated securities). When asked about the change in team he responded;
"One problem we have had is the SEC. As all 3 people listed have securities careers up until recently the recent rulings by the SEC basically have scared a lot of people in our sector."
When confronted by the lack of team information on the website he half-jokingly yet poignantly remarked;
" I personally hate social media. I do not have a twitter (outside of the Kaizen one), I have never had the need for a LinkdIn account as I have been working for myself in crypto trading for the last several years. I honestly don't see the need to have my personal life on a pedestal. I am a boring financial guy that sits for 15 hours a day staring at 4 monitors looking for signs of life in a coin."
Understanding his attitude helps to explain the whitepaper which has been criticized as short and bland.
"I actually wish more whitepapers got rid of all the marketing crap and just made the whitepapers about 2 pages. Basically give me the highlights. Kaizen Coin is basically a collection of crypto currency and it pays a dividend in ethereum each quarter. That's all I would have put in the whitepaper. "
I asked him how he got into crypto;
"I got into crypto how a lot of people did, through a friend. Only mine paid a $50 bet he lost with me in 5,000 bitcoin. The terms of the deal were $50, not $50 in bitcoin that I couldn't see, touch, feel. I basically had to take his word on it that it was worth anything at all, and I seriously considered suing his ass. There was no coinbase or Gemini for me to withdraw to fiat. Because it was a low dollar amount, I gave up after a few hours trying to get to it. I later sold it for $500,000. That gave me some financial independence but not enough to go off of for life. It also taught me that there is something to this crypto thing and to be honest, I was a bit embarrassed for not having seen it. I began immersing myself in bitcoin and altcoins. I got in with Ethereum as a new issue and rode that. Late 2015, I began giving friends bitcoin wallets on their cellphones and $50 (what I originally received) and just told them to wait. They told friends and before long I was heading a small investment club. My phone was blowing up for investment advice. I began making youtube videos with several of my picks and the people that came to me had more and more money. I still respond to text messages all hours of the day and night. It is the fuel that keeps me going. Having a education background in sociology and mathematics, I understand and can predict a lot of human behavior. I think this has always been a key in hype with altcoins. As Kaizen gets bigger, I will be bringing on another person. I have actually begun talking to a jr staffer at a VC firm in San Francisco. The hope is he can start looking at some of these ICO through venture capitalists eyes."
Mr Fischer not only has the international resources (The Uruguay HQ location) but the technical and technological capabilities to see such a plan through. Having worked with mining platforms he is well envisioned and prepared for the security challenges holding a digital fund presents.
"Security is very important. For security reasons I cannot go into all measures, but a few of the precautionary ones are as follows: We tweeted the contract address 2 days prior to the launch in regards to some recent coin hacks. As we aren't 'day trading' the accounts, funds are left offline in paper wallets or hardware wallets. Only 2 people have access to funds. We do not advertise where we are located or even a phone number. There is no reason for anyone to visit or call. We are aware of social engineering attempts and actually have a security specialist coming out a week from tomorrow to go over things and inform us of any weaknesses and what we can do better. One area we do not take lightly."
On the more technological standpoint when asked about the change in token strategy he responded;
"The dividends in the form of KZN coin was actually the original plan. We ran with that in an earlier versions of the whitepaper that was sent out to media, coin listing sites, etc. We scrapped that idea as we are minting a finite number of coins with no coins ever being minted further. This would at some point implode the fund or cause it to buyback tokens at a potential premium. We decided a couple weeks before launch to simply make the quarterly dividend payouts using Ethereum to the wallet address the tokens are in. We will be posting both buys and sells after they complete on the site and most likely facebook. There will be monthly progress checks we make internally as well as an audit every 6 months to account for everything. All of this will be posted on the site whether good or bad."
According to coinschedule.com the Kaizen Ico is 19.58% complete and is a day away from completing its Pre-ICO sale.
"We are getting ready to launch some ad campaigns. If target not reached, we will setup a buy wall on one of the exchanges at the price people bought in on and allow people to cash out that no longer want to be involved. Those that do will continue on with us"
Kaizen is not the first crypto fund project and like a lot of Ico's it will be put under a lot of social media scrutiny. I asked Lawrence of any potential problems presented with such a business model?
"I assume you mean a small caliber office like us? Walk into a big chain retail store, then into a small boutique. There is a difference. TAAS fund got to market before us. They are a little bigger. Everyone yelled scam and shitcoin when they started their ICO. They just made their first dividend payment and it was huge. Find me a mutual fund that has a 61% quarterly dividend. We are doing the exact same thing as TAAS, but we have a smaller staff so instead of us keeping 25% profits for ourselves, we keep 5%. I have worked for mutual funds and they could not and would not ever compete with the returns. And that is why sometimes the little guy wins."
So what is stopping lawrence from just running off with the money?
" To be honest, I guess nothing at all physically. People have instilled a trust in us and we plan to reward them with high yields. Over the last few years, I have made more in bitcoin and altcoins that the KaizenCoin is worth, even at the total sellout level. I don't care for flashy things. I still drive a 2014 Toyota Camry. I always thought at this point I was supposed to have a lambo but that really isn't what interests me. If i just one day closed up shop and ran, i'd probably never see my kids/wife again. I am not the type of guy that wants to live life looking over his shoulder either. I like to think I was raised better than that too. In high school I'd go to the movies with all my friends. The plan was to buy one ticket and go from movie to movie once we were inside, theater hop. I always made sure I was the last to buy tickets and i'd buy tickets for all the shows we were planning to see. No one ever checked, my friends never got caught either. I just did it because it was the right thing to do. If I couldn't steal a $4 movie, grand larceny is completely out. I am actually still pondering this question as it is a good question and really should be one I ask before investing in ICO's. I guess whenever a new coin is started, there is hope for a legacy to be built. I don't know if that is the case with me."
In conclusion only time will tell what the Kaizen coin will bring but if this mans words are anything to be believed, Kaizen not only will happen but it may be a force.
I personally will be having a punt and will update here with the results. First dividend is expected in December, will a fool be parted with his money? or will he be rewarded for his intrigue?
*As always, this is not financial advice. Always question the bias of the author and their perspective.
Thanks for this interesting information. I am really glad you took time out to compile this interview report together. I am more interested in KZN now more than ever. I just hope the entry level is not so high to exclude most people out of it. I am following your account henceforth. Hopefully you will always post useful info just like this. Well done!
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