Unikrn's offering has been hard to miss, and even billionaire investor Mark Cuban has made news publicly backing the token. Unikrn is a U.S. based eSportsbook company that allows users to bet on professional video gaming. What we found interesting about this token offering is that the company already has a successful virtual token called the Unikoin, which has been used for bets and prizes on their platform. According to CEO Rahul Sood, they have had over 250 million Unikoins turned over in just two years. To understand why they are turning to a Blockchain token, we spoke with Rahul.
Why move into Blockchain technology?
Over the last two years we built a loyal customer base around our virtual token the Unikoin, and we have spent nearly two years refining the product and the experience. We felt that it was a logical progression to evolve this token into a cryptocurrency we call UnikoinGold, an ERC20 token on the Ethereum blockchain.
Before I answer your question on why Blockchain, let me explain what the Unikoin has done for us as a company:
Building a Global Community: We currently operate regulated betting operations in Australia, New Zealand, the UK, Ireland and the Isle of Man. The current Unikoin allowed us to offer free-to-play betting where we couldn't yet offer real-money wagers. It opened our platform around the world so we could engage the community and give them something fun to do on our platform.
Modeling New Betting Products: We use the Unikoin to test drive new betting experiences, including skill and live spectator betting experiences. This allows us to see if they could be financially sound and scalable.
Testing New Betting Markets: We now have a list of new markets that are super hot for esports betting, and they're all waiting for us to come in with a token of value.
Improving the efficacy of our sportsbook: It took 2 years to develop and almost fully automate our ability to create reliable and consistent odds across every major esports title. The Unikoin allows us to test potential profitability of the sportsbook.
For the last two years the Unikoin has been a token of consumption throughout our platform, and UnikoinGold will allow us to add a number of new features from gold ticket raffles, interacting with professional teams, tournament prize pools, and of course our betting products.
So why Blockchain and Crypto?
We have three big reasons that Unikrn is going to crypto;
Time to Market: Our intent is NOT to circumvent gambling laws – that would be a terrible move. Working within regulation, this move will accelerate our time to market since we don't have to deal with multiple currencies and terribly archaic banking systems. It's traditional banking that makes our business difficult to scale, not betting regulations.
Value to the User: Our users have all but begged us to bring more value to the Unikoin model, whereby they could use Unikoins on our platform, bet with them, participate in tournaments, open special raffle rooms, and earn them in various ways.. We have a number of decentralized applications that we are developing to allow users to earn and use their tokens in clever ways that don't necessarily involve betting.
Our Community Fit: We have interviewed our users and many of them actually have crypto wallets. They already trade currencies, and they like to bet on esports. There is a good crossover between our communities. It's a natural fit.
In the end, the timing couldn't be better – we have the right product, the right industry, a loyal and growing user base and we believe this will open up a large new segment of users in a global market. It's incredibly exciting and we're glad that our community has a chance to participate in the token sale.
What functions will the token serve?
UnikoinGold will open up a range of possibilities for our users in many countries. You'll be able to use the token for live spectator betting and eventually skill-based betting on our full suite of markets on our esportsbook. Our live betting product will be the new standard for the industry, allowing our users to place microbets live on major esports matches globally. You can participate in raffles, access exclusive raffle rooms with UnikoinGold, earn Unikoin Silver, and interact with your favorite esports personalities in unique ways.
Tell us about the structure of the token sale?
There are too many ICO's where people don't understand that raising the most money will likely be detrimental for the future value of that token. We see that no-Cap ICO's with massive floats are essentially downhill cliffs that will never recover.
We have also seen many tokens that are actually securities. Some groups are offering things like voting rights and shares or equity and profit sharing with their tokens. Such a structure requires additional regulation to safeguard the community. As many of us have seen, the SEC is now getting involved as some tokens will be deemed as securities. The SEC isn't here to stifle innovation, they're actually doing the right thing.
UnikoinGold is a token of value, a cryptocurrency that is a natural fit to our business model. Unikoins will become the benchmark for our business. We know that the more people who want to use it, the more demand they'll have, which means we are building a great product
We also know that throwing out a giant float of tokens is simply a bad idea. Why sell so many if you don't need to? Why cater to speculators over your own community? Why strip value away from your token and burn your users and the crypto community? This has to stop.
So Unikrn is structuring the token as follows;
Token Distribution: Total Tokens: 1 Billion
Token Sale 20%: To be sold to the public in a combination of a pre-sale and crowdsale. This will include people in our existing community.
Unikrn Betting Reserve 15%: We are a betting company. Since users bet against the house using our odds, we have to be able to manage risk and pay them when they win (and collect when the lose). This betting reserve will also allow us to scale the business significantly since we can risk manage for other operators who want to license our platform.
Marketing & Partnerships 15%: We currently own stakes in teams and our own tournament platform. There are many ways we plan to market and grow Unikrn through influencers in our community and partnerships with publishers.
Development & Contractors 20%: We are developing two new betting platforms for UnikoinGold, and on top of this we're continuing to evolve ournon gambling highly engaging experiences that involve our community and esports personalities. All of these experiences use our token in various ways. Pay attention to our roadmap as we deliver more details in the upcoming months.
Team Pool 10%: We have a global team in 5 countries. Unikrn is planning to add more talent in Berlin, Seattle, Sydney and Las Vegas.
Company Cold Storage 20%: By holding 20% in cold storage we are limiting the pool of tokens in the market early. We want the community to see value in UnikoinGold, and we will only release tokens at the appropriate time, for example when we have taken too many out of circulation via our platform.
What sets Unikrn apart from other eSports tokens?
Unikrn is at the cutting edge of Esports. We have a tech savvy community of people that love us. We have ownership in top esports teams. We have our own tournament series. We also have the most reputable sportsbook for esports in the world. To get a flavor for our business check the Unikrn website and unikrn.com.
We're unique in that we already have an established business, real customers and an unparalleled group of investors behind us. It's rare to find an esports business that has such a strong foundation and even rarer to find one that is uniquely placed to capitalize on the technological shift that is happening with cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology.
As you know, our investors include people such as Mark Cuban, Ashton Kutcher, Shari Redstone, Elisabeth Murdoch, 500 Startups, Tabcorp and many others. Our team members are the best in the world at what they do, we've built a world-class sportsbook for esports and we're positioned to grow exponentially.
Will UnikoinGold tokens be traded on exchanges?
Yes, you'll be able to trade UnikoinGold on major exchanges. We're working on the details and we will continue to release news on our website at www.unikoingold.com. Anyone looking to participate should go to the site, read the Whitepaper and register for the presale which is open now.
Final Considerations
As many of you know, the SEC came out with a strong position on certain ICOs and token sales yesterday.
Our legal firm Perkins Coie just came out with their position. Along with them we have seen positions from Cooley, and Debevoise & Plimpton. We can confirm, as we've always known, that some tokens are in fact securities, while others are real tokens of value, or currencies.
We are happy that the SEC came out with their position, they are absolutely doing the right thing. The cryptocurrency space needs regulation to protect consumers and the broader community.
I highly encourage you to read the position from Perkins Coie.
Thank you, and you can look forward to more updates on UnikoinGold and Unikrn. As always you may find us on Twitter @unikrnco and participate in our new Discord community.
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