We want cryptocurrency to be more accessible in New Zealand

Hello everyone, my name is Chai Kim, CEO and co-founder of Coingrid Limited.

Coingrid is a cryptocurrency startup company based in Christchurch who aims to launch an Initial Coin Offering (ICO) in 4 weeks’ time. Our aim is to make cryptocurrency more accessible in New Zealand by offering our services for cheaper fees (on par with Binance - lowest in the world) and increased usability (we believe a lot of cryptocurrency exchanges are confusing and hard to use).

Bitcoin has proven to be more stable than various fiat currencies. Also, a lot of businesses are creating their own tokens and/or adapting digital ledger technology to work more efficiently.

Coingrid’s core value is very simple: we want cryptocurrency to be accepted in New Zealand as an alternate means of payment. We accept that it has to be regulated to a certain extent (for example, there are anti money laundering regulations to consider) but at the same time it should not be given unfair treatment without proper consideration. We connect this value with a common issue that cryptocurrency projects are facing, that is, being unfairly treated by New Zealand banks. As shown in recent news articles, there have been various cases of cryptocurrency businesses and investors having their accounts shut down by banks. This practice essentially undermines New Zealand’s ability to enter the fourth industrial revolution. Coingrid is currently in discussion with multiple banks, and we are doing our best to comply with local regulations and guidelines; this is one of the reasons why we delayed our ICO date.

Although the Financial Markets Authority (FMA) does not approve or endorse offers, we have engaged with the FMA in relation to our whitepaper. The FMA has not indicated that it currently has concerns with the drafting of the paper (please note the FMA has not assessed the substance of the offer, nor Coingrid's business processes, nor other documentation). Coingrid is also a registered financial service provider in New Zealand and our goal is to break the barrier between banks and cryptocurrency. Coingrid hopes to become the bridge that joins these two sectors.

I have received feedback on our project. We equally appreciate your support and criticism and we do not take your comments lightly. We are Kiwis trying to provide better services to other Kiwi cryptocurrency enthusiasts. We make the following preliminary comments:

1. Our token is a utility token that will provide access to our exchange. When our user base and trade volume increases, we expect the demand for our token to increase. Coingrid will aim to secure our user base and trade volume by providing our services for some of the lowest transaction fees available on the market and creating an inflow of new traders (hence, our option of offering a 'simple' trading mode).

2. Coingrid has a small development team. As seen on our prototype and our token contracts, we believe our team is more than competent to carry out this job. We even have a team member who has experience in creating a cryptocurrency exchange. We anticipate that there may be some concern about the lack of developers on our team, however, it is our intention to recruit more developers after our ICO ends. Most of our ICO funds will be utilised for human resources.

3. Most New Zealand exchanges do not support NZD and/or banking. As stated above, we find this extremely unfair and unreasonable. Even our closest neighbour, Australia, has banks that support cryptocurrency. This creates an impression that New Zealand is slow in terms of adapting this new technology which is why we are taking our time to proceed with our business. At Coingrid, we want to be perfect in terms of regulatory issues so that banks and Government branches have no concerns about our business. We have two lawyers in our team (although they did not act as lawyers for this project, their understanding of the law and experience has helped immensely) and also engaged with a third party law firm to act on behalf of us.

We appreciate your support and your interest. Please feel free to send us any further questions and we will do our best to answer them in as much detail as possible.

Thank you

Chai Kim
CEO/Co-founder
www.facebook.com/coingridnz