Welcome to this write-up about Swiss start-up Fyooz and their coin $FYZ! The article is a summary of public information about what Fyooz wants to achieve and how, together with some personal thoughts. The purpose is purely educational, please don't consider this a financial advise. I encourage you to do more research on Fyooz as there is a lot to find out.
To be fair and transparent I do hold some FYZ tokens because I like the idea how they plan to bring cryptocurrency adoption to mainstream population.
Fyooz vision
In the last two decades there we have witnessed a massive transfer of our attention from a physical into an online world. Oil is not the most valuable market anymore. It’s data. Data we create by what we pay attention to. Our attention is being monetized and as of now, we are mostly giving it away for free and our options to financially participate are limited.
Fyooz is a start-up based in Switzerland with a vision that people should be free to share and trade anything with anyone at anytime. As ‘likes’ became the currency for attention, Fyooz creates a marketplace for everything that interests people. This interest can concentrate on social movements, brands, influencers, destinations, events, and celebrities from the entertainment and sports industry. It can also be project-related: Think of a cause people care about or an artist people admire. Think of a small business in your own neighborhood you want to support or a scientific idea you feel is worth pursuing. As basically everything can be tokenized and traded, Fyooz allows you to invest in anything that is valuable to you.
“Fyooz is a really exciting new project that brings back to life one of the original promises of the whole blockchain and cryptocurrency revolution.” — Tom Lyons, Director of ConsenSys
How does it work?
I like to think of Fyooz as a way to separate true supporters from passive followers and turn them into active investors. Simply imagine that you have an app in your phone that allows you to not only like and follow people/ideas you like. It allows you to invest in these people and ideas by buying their tokens and to benefit from their success, both emotionally and financially.
Fyooz develops and operates a plug and play platform where stars, brands, celebrities, idols, ideas, destinations etc. can create their own ERC20 tokens. These tokens will be issued and traded on Fyooz platform. To operate the marketplace for the trading of Star Tokens, the company behind Fyooz, Urknall AG, created and issued its own payment token called the Fyooz Coin (FYZ).
Star Token issuance
Tokens representing stars, celebrities, idols, projects etc are called Star Tokens. To reach mainstream population, issuing Star Tokens has to be easy to do for a Star and it has to be even easier for fans to buy Star Tokens. And it will be.
If a Star wants to be tokenized, he/she simply has to reach out to Fyooz team. They provide a full advisory service and will guide Stars through the process and make sure everything is set up correctly and legally compliant. It's worth mentioning here that in order to make everything in Fyooz ecosystem law compliant Fyooz works with a global leader in that manner — MME — which is the same company that legitimized Ethereum in Switzerland.
The issuer of the Star Token (a Star) is free to define the price of their token, supply, if he wants to use a whitelist or pre-registration for initial Star Token sale or if he wants to sell all his tokens or keep some.
The generation of Star Token is free of charge. However, the initial Star Token Sale may be subject to a fee. This fee won't be charged to the Star directly. Instead the Star will covenant in the Fyooz Issuer Terms that he will use a pre-defined percentage of the proceeds from the Star Token Sale to purchase Fyooz Coins from the company that will be a subject to vesting.
Star Token functionalities
Star tokens are utility tokens. Current regulatory environment does not allow Star Tokens a functionality where Stars could directly share some of their profits with Star Token holders. But as one of founders said in the AMA with Duck DAO in this regard - “Nothing is impossible”
So as of now, what are functionalities Star Tokens can offer to their holders? I'll provide examples so you can get an idea but possibilities are endless:
- A sports brand creates a limited edition of sneakers for token holders only
- A musician offers token holders a certain number of music lessons per year (for free or at a special rate)
- A bar offers token holders a special discounts to drinks or events tickets. Or a seating section whenever they visit
- An artist invites his token holders to an exhibition/show once a year
- A marketing (or any other area) expert offers to token holders a free consultation in his area of expertise. Or a monthly newsletter with useful info
- A musician offers entry into backstage durigng his shows to token holders. Or offers an auction for holders for some of stuff he used during show.
- A sports person or a team offers meet and greet with token holders after a sports event
- A film production studio gives token holders access to the movie stream one week ahead of the official premiere
- Token holders can participate in a poll regarding a concert location.
- Token holders can be part of the design process of a consumer good
- An actor offers token holders to participate in a video chat
And much much more, sky is the limit here and you probably get the idea now.
I like to think of buying Star Tokens as of buying “a membership” that makes me closer to someone I support, that gives me access to exclusive products, privileges, services or content that other people don’t have, and that “membership” will grow in value if the person/idea/brand I support becomes more successful.
Fyooz is creating a marketplace for very new type of investment which I think can be pretty easily understood and adopted by mainstream population because people will be able to evaluate their investment.
Being unable to evaluate an investment is often the reason people choose not to invest at all. Stocks, commodities or cryptocurrencies, all these markets seem extremely complex to mainstream population and they cannot evaluate particular investment opportunities. They cannot tell if a particular company stocks are good or bad and why. If it's good time to buy gold, oil or Bitcoin.
With Fyooz, people have a chance to invest in someone/something they can easily relate to because they:
Believe in it - People can invest in a Star they already know and support. They most likely personally believe it is or will be successful and endorse their success.
See value - Star Token holders know exactly what benefits/values holding the token brings to them.
Have some understanding of it - I don't want to generalise here too much, but my general opinion says that if I support someone (be it a sportsman, F1 driver, an artist, a musician..), I'm probably familiar with the industry they're involved in (or at least I subjectively think I am).
Having some basic understanding about the industry and knowing where the inherent value of my investment comes from helps me subjectively evaluate why other people will or will not buy these tokens in future. Believing that my Star will be successful I can conclude it will attract more attention from more people and (at least some of them) will probably also want to have those benefits I have as a token holder, which will increase demand for the token and cause the price to go higher.
If there are enough people believing price of their Star token will go up, well, then chances are that it will. When people have a financial incentive on a success of a Star, they are much more likely to engage, support and promote it.
“Fyooz is a very interesting concept. It’s almost like stock market for pupular culture” — Martin Kistler, founder and CEO of Ignition Creative
Why should Star supporters buy Star Tokens?
- Emotional benefit — It creates a very different emotional bond between a Star and a Supporter compared to when you only “like” their profile. There is only a limited amount of Star Tokens of a respective Star while “likes” are not.
- Participation — Fyooz is giving access to exclusive products, services, content and privileges to Star Token holders.
- Financial — By increasing the value of the token, supporters receive a return on their investment if the brand, star or a project receives greater attention and demand, which will make the token more desirable and thus appreciate in price.
Why should Stars issue their own Star Tokens?
- To differentiate true active believers from passive fans. Star token holders will be much likely to actively engage in what you do and to support/promote you because they benefit from your success as well.
- To get closer to your true supporters and create new emotional bonds.
- To generate new stream of revenue. When many people believe in a your token and want to participate financially, it increases in value
- To gain extra exposure by being part of Fyooz ecosytem.
“I like Fyooz. Influencers are in the end built thanks to the following, but the following usually doesn't get a stake in the success. Now we have another dimension to offer to the community.” — Ivan on Tech, Cryptocurrency influencer with over 250k followers on youtube.
How do I buy/trade a Star Token?
Do I need to have previous cryptocurrency experience? No!
Fyooz team is very well aware that in order to reach mainstream population, buying Star Tokens must be very easy and intuitive, and it will be thanks to the Tokomat.
The Tokomat is the interface between Buyers and Sellers of Star Tokens. Similar to an ATM, it is used to deposit Fiat or Crypto (FYZ, BTC, ETH) and to buy Star Tokens. The team has allegedly closed a deal with a credit card provider so people will soon be able to buy Star Tokens with their credit card!
The Tokomat can be integrated into any app or website as a widget and it aims to make the process of buying Star Tokens as simple as possible. Every issuer of a Star Token can easily integrate the Tokomat into their existing infrastructure. The purchased coins are credited to a secure and non-custodial crypto account, the Fyooz wallet (which is automatically generated when a user creates an account on the Fyooz platform), at the end of the process.
There you go. Buying Star Tokens cannot be much easier than that.
Now that an app user has bought his Star Tokens, he can simply hodl or (and that will probably be much more fun) he can trade them on the Fyooz exchange.
Fyooz exchange
The Fyooz Exchange is a ‘secondary market’ trading platform for individual Star Tokens and it is integrated into the Fyooz application. The Fyooz Exchange is built on the 0x protocol and is operated by Urknall AG. It allows users to find, create, fill, or cancel Buy and Sell orders for listed Star Tokens. Stop limit orders will be available too. Star Tokens that are traded on the Fyooz Exchange are always under control of the users and stored in the user’s wallets as the platform is non-custodial.
But hey, Star Tokens and FYZ tokens are based on Ethereum. Does that mean a user have to buy Ether in order to trade on the marketplace? No!
The network fees that are payable to validators of the Ethereum blockchain (so called gas fee) will be paid by a Meta Transactions Relayer on behalf of the Users. This means that the User does not require to hold any ETH in order to buy or sell Star Tokens on the Fyooz Exchange.
And to make Star Tokens trading even better experience, all users will have 1 trade per hour for free! Should they decide to make more than one trade per hour, they will be charged $1-4 for doing so.
FYZ coin and it's role in the ecosystem
Fyooz Coin must be introduced for regulatory reasons. The Fyooz Coin is a regulated hybrid utility & payment token that meets KYC/AML requirements and is counterbalanced by Fiat and other cryptocurrencies as trading objects. Fyooz Coins can, therefore, be sold in many jurisdictions around of the world. It is only in this setting that it is possible to create and sell Star Tokens and subsequently make them tradable on the Fyooz marketplace.
Fyooz Coin also delivers critical liquidity for the Fyooz marketplace, as it will take time for network effect to kick-in.
The Fyooz Coin (FYZ) enables trading on the Fyooz Exchange. Pairs on the platform are always FYZ <>Star Token. It’s the platforms’ currency. Fyooz Coins are needed to buy and sell Star Tokens. Even when a user buys Star Token with fiat via credit card, there is a step that is invisible to him where his fiat is first used to buy FYZ coin from the company and then the FYZ coin is used to buy a Star Token. If the platform is a success, this will greatly enhance demand for FYZ coin.
Tokenomics
Price of FYZ coin: $2,20 in the time of writing.
Marketcap: around $1,300,000
Total supply: 50 000 000FYZ.
Circulating supply: 650 000FYZ (+some that were added to exchanges for liquidity)
Now this might look pretty scary — there are a lot of uncirculating tokens that will hit the market. Scary only until you find out that all team tokens are locked for 1 year and that tokens sold in seed sales will be released slowly over the course of next 2 years.
As for private sales, there were 1,3m FYZ coins sold in total. 650k is already in circualtion, the other 650k will be released during next 3 months.
As for seed sales, there were 6m FYZ coins sold in total. First 12 months they are released at 2%/month speed. Following 12 months at 4%/month speed and then the rest on 25th month.
So even after all coins from private sale are unlocked, circulating supply will still be very limited and will be increasing pretty slowly. See more on tokenomics here.
The team also said that there will be an option to earn more FYZ coins by staking. They are already in talks with a large staking pool operator for a partnership.
Some personal speculations at the end.
The team has already released few videos of Stars that will be tokenized at the platform on their Twitter. They had a positive shoutout from Alfa Romeo F1 team CCO and from the CEO of Ignition creative (check the list of their clients btw). Furthermore, they allegedly are in talks with:
- F1 Alfa Romeo team
- Sports shoes manufacturer with ties to Stars
- Hollywood people
- e-sports industry
- international music labels
- German entertainment giants
- William Morris Endeavour
- international Sportsmen
- and more
As for FYZ coin, its' usecase within the platform is pretty straightforward and the price will in longer term reflect success of the platform. My personal take is that if Fyooz platform attracts users to buy Star Tokens representing their Stars, these users might get quickly attracted to FYZ coin as well, as that's what allows them buying Star Tokens. If they like the idea behind Fyooz, they might like to speculate on FYZ coin success too. But maybe not of course.
I also find it interesting that in mid-long term perspective, Fyooz team wants to expand a distribution network. Sales (token acquisition) will not be managed centrally by Fyooz, but an ecosystem of agencies will be crated around it.
To conclude I just really like the idea and vision of Fyooz. The team seems to be very experienced in their area of expertise and extremely well connected across many industries.
Success of their platform will be highly dependent whether they manage to attract big names get tokenized, which in turn will bring masses to use the app. If they manage to do, and seeing some of their marketing visual content I believe they can, I can see this picking up pretty quickly.
If someone I support gets tokenized on Fyooz, FYZ might actually be the first altcoin I'm ever going to use in my real life.
And that's about it. I hope you enjoyed reading the article. If you did, don't forget to give it some claps and share it with your friends.
Don't forget to do your own due diligence on the project before you start putting your money in. Some sources to help you:
Wiki (alternative to whitepaper) — the primary source of information for this article
AMA with DUCK Dao community (where I found about this project in a first place)
