An interview with DMarket’s CEO Volodymyr Panchenko. Must read!

Dear Steemit readers!
In my previous blog, I promised to publish my exclusive interview with Volodymyr Panchenko, CEO and founder of DMarket, the first global marketplace for trading in-game items.
I was lucky enough to catch Volodymyr during the World Blockchain Summit in London, and he explained to me a lot about the processes that are going on in the company before the main ICO. Let me remind you that I invested some ETH during their four-day token sale.
Here it is. Do not judge me too strongly—I’m still improving my journalistic skills.

Me: “What’s the hard cap for the main ICO, and what is the policy toward presale? Any discounts, bonuses, whitelists?”

VP: “The hard cap of DMarket’s main token sale is 100.000.000 tokens—that is around $40 million. Out of that number of tokens, we are ready to allocate 25.000.000 tokens (apx. $10 million) as a hard cap for presale with a minimum transaction of $50.000. No discounts or bonuses. It will start on October 30th.
We have already exceeded many times over the hard cap for the presale before it even started. The list of investors is very large. That’s why we decided to give preference to those investors who can bring in not only money, but real value to DMarket, like taking part in the company’s development.
The hard cap for the public sale is 75.000.000 tokens (apx. $30 million). The public sales stars on 3d of November and will continue till 17th of November.
Once again: there are no bonuses or discounts. We are forming the whitelist for the crowdsale, as we are witnessing increasing interest in our main DMarket token sale.
According to our policy, there will be a limited number of DMarket tokens sold to a single party. As I’ve been repeating all the time, we want to spread DMarket tokens to as many investors and real gamers as possible.”

Me: “If you reach your hard cap during your main token sale, you will have around $50M together with the $11M that you raised during your short token sale. How will you use the main funds? Do you have a plan for the next few years?”

VP: “We do have use of the funds noted in our white paper. It covers four years, including 2017. Anybody can check out the ‘Use of Funds’ for DMarket. We are a public company that is doing strategic planning, and our hard cap is based on certain calculations. For example, this year we are planning to spend $2.3M for the platforms’ development. Our plan for the marketplace development for the next four years is 34.6% of all funds.”

Me: “What about product development for now? I have heard some concerns about it.”

VP: “No concerns stand out. Everything is going according to the road map. In October 2017, we will show the alpha version (testnet) of the platform. I would say that big steps have been taken for the last six months. For example, the company conducted the primary blockchain research and chose the blockchain platform for the product, implemented the blockchain by using the framework Exonum, and the DMarket software architecture was developed. DMarket also developed an API that allows game developers to connect to the platform; the company developed a meta service to store media information on all digital assets, as well as the API for the meta service, and the marketplace that uses both blockchain and meta service (the prototype of the end product) was created.”

Me: “I have seen that some people were asking you if you are going to involve a ‘third party’ to control all costs. Will you?”

VP: “Well, we have created the DMarket platform to avoid third parties by using blockchain and smart contracts (laughing). But to answer your question, no, we are not going to involve any third parties that will control us. We do not need it. DMarket is a public company, and our guarantees are based on the strong reputation of our founders, advisors, and partners. We are open, and once again, anybody can check out our Use of Funds statement by clicking to view our White paper. Besides, our investors are receiving monthly reports on all company’s costs. So, if you would like to receive our report, join our token sale in November. The report looks fabulous (smiling)!”

Me: “I do receive your monthly report, thanks! As your investor, I would like to know—when will I receive my tokens, and when can I actually use them?”

VP: “The DMarket tokens will be sent to the user’s personal respective cryptocurrency wallet by the end of the DMarket token sale phase #2, as defined in the white paper and on the website. After 30-60 days, the tokens will appear on the stock exchange.”

Me: “In one of your recent interviews, you said that the turnover of the in-game items will reach almost half a trillion US dollars. How come?”

VP: “The estimated in-game trading turnover is currently $4 billion, and it only works for a couple of games. The core issues that lock in-game item market development are technology and trading security. During every other trade, hundreds of thousands of databases from every game and every publisher have to be synchronized with each other. But the most important factor is that there is a risk of third-party interference in the trading process. DMarket resolved both issues with blockchain technology. By offering an opportunity to buy and sell in-game assets to all gamers globally, DMarket creates a new in-game item economy worth more than $450 billion and turns virtual items into real assets with the help of blockchain technology.”

If anybody has more questions for Volodymyr, please let me know in the comments, as Volodymyr promised to tell me more soon.
Hope you’ve enjoyed reading.
Cheers, and see you soon!