Decentralised applications (DApp) are all the craze lately, and there are dozens which are currently being developed. Here’s one that I feel could be the first to reach 1 billion downloads.
Humaniq is currently being developed by a group of people with vast experience in the cryptocurrency and mobile sector. Their vision is to help solve an exponential number of social and economic problems across the world, which will also be operated as a ‘profit with a purpose’ company. To help tackle economic issues like poverty in emerging countries such as Kenya and Indonesia by offering another solution to those communities who are currently suffering from financial exclusion. Many of whom live on less than $3.00 a day. Most of these communities have zero formal identification, little education and are for the most part, bankless.
Their mission statement is simple…
“Our goal is to provide financial services to over two billion unbanked people around the world, and now we’re in a much better position to achieve this thanks to the extremely enthusiastic support of the people who have contributed to our HMQ token sale.”
As a modern internet startup, instead of the traditional IPO format used on Wall Street, Humaniq has just performed one of the world’s most successful ICOs (Initial Coin Offering) to sell the Humaniq tokens that will be used in their future platform known as HMQ.
Alex Fork, Co-Founder and President said. “To everyone who believes in us and has contributed to our pre-ICO and ICO, thank you. Without you, Humaniq would not be possible and now we can focus on converting the trust of our team and supporters into measurable benefits for the two-billion unbanked people across the world who are the reason for Humaniq’s existence”.
The CEO of Humaniq, Dinis Guarda has also founded other successful ventures like intelligentHQ.com. He has recently worked on projects with the UN and governments, as well as other reputable international news agencies, FinTech and consumer companies such as Reuters, MasterCard, P&G, and Nike. This is someone who understands the current crisis that is currently being played out across countless developing countries. Which is what really comforts me about this project.
Guarda has always looked at blockchain technology as “more of an enabler than a destroyer.” At this time, many traditional charities are ignoring new technology. Technology that could help them reach the people they want to help more quickly and safely. Guarda comments that “charities that ignore new technology will fail. If an NGO builds value it will survive.”
The ICO lasted for a total of 21 days and ended April 27th, 2017, with just over $5 million and more than 11,500 different investors. The ICO was so successful that they were quickly accepted to a FinTech Startup Acceleration Program called ThinkRise, which will be located in their new Shoreditch space in Barclays with other fintech business based startups. Co-Founder Dmitry Kaminskiy expressed delight about joining the global network of talent that Barclays and ThinkRise are supporting.
Humaniq said that the product launch (mobile apps) will be officially launched as soon as this July, as stated in the project whitepaper. In September, the company will begin expanding the project to underdeveloped regions in Africa, Asia and Latin America. The company also plans to further decentralize its structure, with the integration of virtual cards and aligned fintech start-ups in 2018.
Co-founder Dmitry Kaminskiy also added that “Our Blockchain-Ethereum platform will help tackle barriers to economic inclusion through technology, and our platform will enable users to access banking using simple biometric technology such as face-recognition.”
Missed the ICO?
Not to worry. HMQ can be exchanged directly for bitcoin on bittrex.com. The total market capital is only $30m and daily volumes are sometimes less than $300,000. Currently, HMQ is sitting at about $0.20 USD a token. So, if you felt like you missed your opportunity with the ICO, there might still be a chance. This project has a lot of unique developments coming our way, and the app is still under development.
eToro’s Senior Market Analyst, Mati Greenspan, had this to say…
“Here at eToro, we were very glad to see such an important project being taken on by such talented people. This is the right idea, the right time, and the right team. It clearly has all the elements of a successful startup. Humaniq and eToro share a common goal, to bring financial services to more people in a simple and friendly way. We wish them the best of success going forward!”
Company Profile
While the ability to donate or lend money is one of the functions of Humaniq, its vision is much larger than that. Specifically it aims to facilitate the following:
- Give people a biometric identity.
- Offer microlending services to people at affordable and fair rates after they establish identity.
- Offer the ability to earn cryptocurrency by doing digital work on their devices (similar to Amazon Mechanical Turk).
- Offer the ability to convert that cryptocurrency into fiat currency on the ground at real locations.
- Offer remittance services that will be almost at zero cost and instant for senders from outside the country.
- Offering incentives to people (traders and investors) the ability to donate or lend money (at zero to fair interest rates) and have a mobile relationship with the people they engage with – to help lift them out of poverty – thereby empowering them. Like Kiva but without the high interest costs of agents in the middle.
- Provide a strong and unique utility value to the cryptocurrency they issue in the ICO for the initial supporters of the project.
- Disrupt the incumbents currently clogging up the value chain and offer a cleaner, fairer and more honest financial infrastructure that has the potential of lifting people out of poverty quickly.