What is this XYO stuff all about anyway?!

Thanks again to those of you who have congratulated me on my appointment to the XYO Company Advisory Board; it’s great to have a more active role in helping to get the XY Oracle Network off the ground, and I’m very excited about the future.

Many of you have contacted me with questions, and I thought it might be helpful to share some notes for anyone else who wants to know more about XYO from an independent perspective.

It’s obvious from the questions and posts that I see on Facebook that many of you are new to investing and new to crypto, and so I’ve tried to write this in layperson’s terms and avoid too much technical jargon to make it as accessible as possible!

Why did the founders change the name of the company?

The founders changed the name of the company from: “XY – The Findables Company” to just “XYO Company” in January 2019.

I believe that this has been done in order to reflect better the value of the XY Oracle (XYO) Network, which is to provide a persistent, permanent record of the locations of physical objects, not just to make them findable.

The XYO brand has gained a lot of traction in the market and in the community, and so it makes sense that the team decided to change the name to reflect this.

The change in company name does not invalidate your investment or your certificate; they are still valid.

What is the difference between XYO Shares and XYO Tokens?

Equity or shares are a formal record of your investment in the XYO Company, making you a shareholder; you are officially registered as such. You could sell your shares to someone who wants to buy them now (while the company is private) or potentially after an IPO (initial public offering), when the company would go from being privately held to being publicly traded. The shares are legally regulated assets, and a company called Carta keeps track of everyone’s shareholding in a centralized database on behalf of XYO.

An XYO token is a virtual asset using the ERC20 token standard, which is based on the Ethereum blockchain and cryptocurrency and is created and managed using smart contracts. XYO tokens can be stored in any electronic wallet that can handle the Ethereum cryptocurrency but will only be visible in a crypto wallet that supports ERC20 tokens.

ERC20 tokens are not legally regulated, and there is no centralized record of your holdings.

Where do you store your cryptocurrencies and assets?

I store my cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin, Ethereum, and LiteCoin) on a Ledger Nano S hardware wallet and the bulk of my ERC20 tokens (XYO) in my MetaMask wallet.

I have some of my XYO tokens (around 500,000) on my Ledger Nano S, but I will not be able to see or manage them there until there is support for ERC20 tokens by Ledger Nano S, so I consider it to be a safe long-term backup — they are there, but there is no way to see them there.

Where can I track the value of my XYO Company shares?

XYO company shares are not publicly traded, and so you cannot track their value; they are worth what you paid for them, or what someone else is willing to pay you for them if they contact you.

You will not be able to track them on a public exchange (e.g., NASDAQ or FTSE) until the XYO Company has an IPO (Initial Public Offering) and becomes a publicly traded company. If that happens one day, then you will be able to track, buy, and sell shares in XYO in the same way you would any other publicly traded company.

Typically, a company has to trade for many years before it can have an IPO and make its share available publicly; Uber was founded in 2009 and has traded for nearly nine (9) years and has a global business, but it still has not become publicly traded, although it has announced plans to do so soon.

Where can I track the value of XYO Tokens?

ERC20 tokens do not have a regulated share price like a publicly traded share, and so there is not a single, definitive place that you can go to see the market price.

You can use different cryptocurrency exchanges (e.g., IDEX, KuCoin, or LATOKEN) to see the prices at which XYO tokens are being traded, and you can buy or sell them on these and some other exchanges.

Why haven’t the tokens gone up in value yet?

Because the network is only just getting started, and so the full value of the tokens has not yet been realized.

When will the value of XYO tokens go up?

The value of tokens can go up or down, and there is no guarantee of when prices will change.

It is my personal belief that the value of XYO tokens will increase significantly only once the XYO network is fully operational, and I would anticipate this taking at least two years because of the global nature of the opportunity and the need to have oracles and sentinels all over the world to power the network.

So, how will I make money?

You could potentially make money in one of three ways:

The value of XYO shares could increase significantly because the company IPOs and the shares become publicly traded, or because another company decides to buy XYO Company and offers a higher price to shareholders than they paid for their shares when originally purchased.

The value of XYO tokens could increase significantly once the network is fully operational, and existing token holders (or HODLers) could sell their tokens on an exchange to people or companies that want them.

You could generate XYO Tokens by operating XYO Network components (Sentinels or Bridges for most people) that participate in the creation of answers produced by Diviners. When fully operational, operators of Sentinels and Bridges will be rewarded for being involved in the creation of the answers used to power the XYO Network. This is “geo-mining,” and should not be confused with mining Bitcoin or mining Ethereum, which is a different, energy-intensive process.

How much money can I make?

No one can answer this question with certainty now, but if the XYO Network becomes successful, then the people who invested early and helped to establish the concept should benefit from an increase in the value of the company and an increase in the value of the tokens.

Why did you invest in XYO Company?

I invested because I believe in the concept, I agree with the vision of the founders, and I am impressed by the strength of the leadership team.

I think that the XYO Network will deliver many, many benefits for both organizations and individuals around the world, and I want it to be a great success.

How long will you hold on to your investment?

When I invested in XYO shares, I anticipated it taking three to five years to realize a significant return on my shares.

I will hold on to my tokens for as long as it takes for the XYO Network to become fully established and for tokens to become valuable.

Are you geo-mining?

Yes, I have two geo-mining kits set-up in Washington DC. These kits are really in test mode now, and so I do not expect to generate many tokens this way until later in 2019 when I think that we will see a lot more traffic on the network and many more devices interacting with each other to create verification of location. Because they are located in a busy city, both are likely to have many opportunities to interact in the future due to the high density of people and devices here.

Are you excited?

Yes, I’m very excited — being able to provide permanent, independent, trustless records of physical location will be valuable in many different use cases, and I am delighted to be part of this movement!

There are no guarantees that this investment will pay off, but I’m very confident that it will.

I hope that some of you find this helpful!

Marcus Delano East