Cryptocurrencies and initial coin offerings (ICOs) are rapidly changing the cryptoverse and ICO landscape, prompting startups to adapt in order to find their best path forward.
Hiway, a blockchain industry work marketplace developer, was forced to make changes to their prototype launch plans and crowdsale procedures after spending over two years developing them. Their private sale is currently taking place; their softcap remains unknown while their hardcap stands at $8 million.
Cryptonews.com spoke with Simon Rikmenspoel, Hiway’s founder and CFO, about how their startup has adjusted. Whether or not adaptation has occurred, he reported that their platform is almost ready for public sharing.
How has the recent downturn in the initial coin offering (ICO) market and surge of venture capital funding affected your plans, and how do you respond?
Due to economic concerns, our plans were drastically altered by this event. Instead of conducting traditional fundraising rounds, we focused more on platform development since fewer individuals would express interest through crowdsale due to its tightening economy. Therefore, we allocated less resources towards crowdsale setup in favor of hiring freelancers and getting our platform up and running as our primary objective.
Your website doesn’t provide any details regarding when or where the token (WAY) sale will take place.
At present, our primary priority is releasing our prototype. A utility token relies on people being able to utilize it on our platform; otherwise it wouldn’t exist at all. At this stage of development, we are searching for long-term investors who will support our vision and assist us with expanding our platform.
How is the landscape of blockchain-related startups changing, and what impact has this had on Hiway?
The current landscape appears to be shifting in favor of companies promising to overhaul the industry, drawing much scrutiny and discussion around their initiatives to see if they live up to their promises or cause upheavals in their wake. Our ability to alter this process would be futile; thus we should keep an eye on any developments and be flexible when needed if market needs require it.
Why hasn’t the Hiway prototype been completed yet, per your roadmap?
As we were building the prototype, it surpassed our initial plans. So we adjusted our strategy from producing a prototype with look and feel to one which would enable us to bring freelancers and clients aboard so we could begin developing user bases. Because we value quality over quantity, this required more time.
How does keeping data in a central database, under your own control, help reduce reliance on third parties?
Contracts between parties working together will always remain under their respective control, provided they have one in place. Because data needs to be processed quickly by program, all information will remain centralised; however, hashes of it will still be stored on blockchain technology.
New concepts
Hiway is unveiling two innovative concepts: quality jury and job value reserve. A quality jury ensures that substandard work does not get done, mediating disputes when necessary. Job value reserve, on the other hand, is an automated system which increases freelancers’ WAY token earnings when token prices decline and decreases them when prices increase – this way workers should always receive fair compensation without being negatively impacted by price fluctuations. Initially, Hiway accepts dollars and euros.
People who purchase tokens receive an equal amount in fiat money as rewards. According to its founder, maintaining this same sum as soon as someone purchases tokens is the most intriguing solution.
However, before this feature became live there would be extensive testing and running different scenarios to see how everything worked before going live – “but we believe we are on the right path”.
Rikmenspoel states that the jury system will consist of individuals from within an industry and with various rating scores; those participating will be offered additional bonus ratings as a thank-you for helping to strengthen the system as well as financial compensation.”
Also Read : The decrease in ICOs is reshuffling tokens.
