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The Equity Nirvana and Doom Loop Cycles

Quick back story/info on me (@voliswell) is that I’m focused on quantitative-based market structure trading (and maybe some macro-overlays kinda…sorta…when they make sense...which they don’t right now). I’m also involved in software development. I’ve built and sold a couple SaaS companies and I’m now building another one (while also operating a prop trading shop). My prop shop started building apps for our own use in 2017. Those apps have since morphed into vigtec.io, which is an ecosystem of market indicators, options tools, live charts, prebuilt algos, etc. constructed to help you find your market edge and squeeze the juice from the market (we have a web and mobile version on iOS now that are beta). We use it ourselves every day and now other people can use it to as there is a free version for everyone. We’re actively working on it day in and day out as its still a work in progress and hope that we continue to get user feedback and it’s able to keep growing at the rate it has been. We’re ultimately getting to the place now where we’re allowing other people to build on top of the platform itself and make their own indicators and tools etc. to share with others to use. But enough about that, let me get to the point of this post.
We have a general thesis (and its A ‘THESIS’) about the current market structure and volatility dynamics that started in 2017. This thesis is that there are now only 2 regime cycles existent in the market that ping pong with back and forth with massive consequence:
  1. Equity Nirvana
  2. The Doom Loop
I’ll seek to address them here as a what/so what layout below.
What: Equity Nirvana Cycle
This is just an example of the larger Nirvana and Doom cycles (SPY - S&P 500 ETF)
These are prolonged periods of what feels like a constant “skullduggery-like” buy-side bid market structure action (bottom left to top right in charts) that have no price auction back and forth between buyers and sellers to discover fair value level by level in the market. These periods are hallmarked by suppressed volatility and non-existent selling action in equities that occur because of a combination (or all of) the following:
Here is another example of the Nirvana and Doom Cycles (DIA - Dow Jones Indust. ETF)
But don’t take my word for it. Seems that this is no longer a secret and it’s now encouraged by all to take advantage of easy money. Check out this Barron’s article from December 10, 2020.
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https://preview.redd.it/3v780hjmkm461.png?width=610&format=png&auto=webp&s=b374570f27c2eef921d9bcbea75d1cccc2c5464b
Although Equity Nirvana feels ‘oh-so-good when it hits your lips’ as Frank the Tank from the movie Old School says…it does have very uncomfortable side effects. It’s a lot like drugs in a sense. The euphoria is great but the come-down is brutal and you need more and more of it in order to sustain the high. The come down for Equity Nirvana is what we call ‘The Doom Loop’.
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What: The Doom Loop
These are periods that are the exact opposite of Equity Nirvana. Doom Loops are exactly what they sound like...they feel like “utter merciless doom” for the longs that give no opportunity to exit. Doom Loops are periods of rampant realized volatility, indiscriminate selling, liquidation, and anywhere between 3-5 sigma intraday trading ranges that don’t stop for 3-4 weeks. These periods are hallmarked by wild index volatility, violent short squeezes, “good-collateral” indiscriminate liquidations, and cross-asset volatility:
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Here is the VIX proxy (VXX) showing vol suppression (Nirvana) and then Spikes (Doom)
Ultimately, the Doom Loop is just the exact equal and opposite reaction to the Equity Nirvana cycle. It becomes extremely violent because of the indiscriminate (throw it all out) nature of the algorithmic market that exists and the fact that the vol suppression schemas are so widely used and institutionally accepted (and they get blowtorched, squeezed, and have to cover which exacerbates volatility velocity)…then pour on that the gasoline that comes from the organic (and intended/unintended) growth of the options market because of the free trading apps and you get a market dumpster fire that rages out of control.
The Fed and the Treasury, in my opinion, are keenly aware of this cycle and adamantly try to avoid the shift in regimes from Nirvana to Doom at all costs because it’s becoming harder and harder to stop the Doom Cycles without resorting to exponentially more outlandish monetary and fiscal policy that continually borderlines the surreal/bizarre each time to calm the fire (which is the first mission of the Fed ‘PUT’). For example, in April of this year they just simply said ‘fuck it’ and came out and bought the HYG ETF directly and are now the largest holder of it because had they not, the Doom Cycle in motion at that time would’ve tested the 1880 ES level, which could’ve put the entire financial system in a cannibalistic spiral.
So What: Why should I care?
As you can see from the above text and charts, there’s no mention of EBITDA, P/E, FCF, P/R, rotations, NAV, MPT, IPO, SPAC, etc. Why? Because they don’t really carry much merit in a world that is driven by periods of excess liquidity (Equity Nirvana) vs. periods of an absence of liquidity (Doom Loops).
When products are indiscriminately bought in a Nirvana cycle (and it’s simply not logical to assess real world measurements to indiscriminate machine purchasing .exe programs) then there’s no measurement/analysis necessary other than “is there liquidity or the perception of excess liquidity at this time” (delivered via the mechanism of the Fed put). Hence the ‘stonks always go up’ memes and statements. Why? Because in a sense, when there’s excess liquidity, based on the staples of the Equity Nirvana cycle, they will…simply go up. Inversely, when there’s a point/period where the liquidity is insufficient, the Doom Loop starts to eat the markets and the hunt for real liquidity is on (which is denominated in $USD/cash – hence why the $USD will not be going to zero anytime soon) and this is done level by level to the downside.
So, is it as simple of an answer as whether the Fed and Treasury have supplied the markets with enough excess liquidity to ignite and ride the Nirvana Cycle? Not so fast. It’s not. It’s arguable to say that the Fed’s mandate now is vol suppression and ensuring that there’s excess liquidity. But ultimately the market is simply too dynamic and to passive/automated for this to be the case. It’s not that the Fed pulled the liquidity from the markets in February 2018, December 2018, or March 2020. That wasn’t the case. It was that the market simply became an ouroboros – it started to consume itself. In each case so far, the Fed induced excess (each new Nirvana cycle) became so great that the market collapsed from a lack of liquidity availability at the elevated levels to sustain higher prices (in effect the market becomes only sustainable by the ‘greater fool’ theory). This kicks off the Doom Loop and as the velocity gets going, the snake begins to eat itself starting with the tail.
Each time the Fed and Treasury have to come back with a liquidity floor “PUT” even more baffling/bizarre than the last cycle, which ultimately initiates a new Nirvana cycle and…rinse and repeat. This time, it appears that we’re inching potentially closer to this overall Nirvana/Doom regime shift cycle conclusion that appears to have started in early 2017 here in early 2021, but that’s just conjecture…because theoretically it can continue as long as there’s belief in the latest concoction of the floor “PUT” that’s thrown under the market – even if they are surreal.
What does all this really mean at the end of the day? Well, everything…or nothing. I’m just all about knowing the game that I’m playing personally. Here’s why I say that with this little example as it gives you an idea of just how volatile this regime shifting has become and how old MPT models can’t function while these regimes exist (and these are just rough approximations so relax):
Here’s a buy and hold scenario if you placed $ in the SPY in early 2017
- Up 20% by Jan 2018
- Up 3-4% after XIV implosion in Feb 2018 (15% drop)
- Up 25% in Sept 2018
- Down 5% by Christmas Eve 2018 (30% drop)
- Up 40% by early 2020
- Down almost 10% by mid-March 2020 (50% drop)
- Up 55% by end of 2020
Reaching for your vomit bag yet? This isn’t just in SPY (which should historically be a moderately volatile, but not like this…this resembles an ICO or pot or junior mining stock). If you overlay this same time period on other assets like banks, semis, small caps, credit, etc., they’re shockingly even more exacerbated.
It’s imperative to realize at this stage of “investing” that you’re not playing a game of “investing.” You’re playing a game of “liquidity” and to win you need to understand and identify the regimes. If you do this well, you can dampen the volatility to your portfolios and also outperform more easily.
In the next post, I’ll discuss tools and strategies to identify the regime cycles and then some thoughts around trading strategies (which at the end of the day will always be your own). Stay tuned and always watch your six.
Parting shot…why I am not a ‘macro’ analyst? Look at this…macro made sense until end of 2017. You can say it’s well, bifurcated from the markets…(and I won’t waste your time by showing you 20 more just like this because all the macro charts of global economics change at the end of 2017/beginning of 2018).
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https://preview.redd.it/xhviqlgjlm461.png?width=624&format=png&auto=webp&s=7a821b1feaa156a3a9daf0445d0c9197ed989776
submitted by voliswell to thecorporation [link] [comments]

[EVENT] The Fourteenth Five Year Plan: Made in China 2025

Overview

The CCP issues five year plans to help gather the nation into a trajectory of the future which will bring prosperity and wellbeing to all. These moments of National focus make China able to truly leap forward, and nothing exemplifies that as much as the twenty year journey to become the world's second superpower from our Y2K context of having an economy still smaller than Italy's. Now, China is the engine of global growth and global pandemics, and Chinese policy sets the pace of global affairs like never before.
Xi Jinping's Fourteenth Five Year Plan spells out how the CCP will continue that trajectory, with the broad outline being the full transition from being a nation defined as "the World's Workshop" to being a sophisticated tertiary and quarterniary Economy, driving global innovation, and shedding the factory landscape, little by little.
 

XIV Five Year Plan

 

1.Industry 4.0 行业四

 
Industry 4.0 is the subset of the fourth industrial revolution that concerns industry. This will concern areas of the Nation which are not normally classified as an industry, such as smart cities. Industry 4.0 will see Chinese factories have machines which are augmented with wireless connectivity and sensors, connected to a system that can visualise the entire production line and make decisions on its own.
This component will steer the national economy towards automation and data exchange in manufacturing technologies and processes which include cyber-physical systems (CPS), the internet of things (IoT), industrial internet of things (IIOT), cloud computing, cognitive computing and artificial intelligence.
Industry 4.0 will comprise the following trajectories for manufacturing and industrial production:
Within modular structured smart factories, cyber-physical systems monitor physical processes, create a virtual copy of the physical world and make decentralized decisions. Over the Internet of Things, cyber-physical systems communicate and cooperate with each other and with humans in real-time both internally and across organizational services offered and used by participants of the value chain. The correlation of the speed of technological development and, as a result, socio-economic and infrastructural transformations with human life allow us to state a qualitative leap in the speed of development, which marks a transition to a new time era.
 

2."Green China" 绿色中国

 

Green China Part 1

 
Chinese production of certain Green technologies - solar panels and wind turbines, for instance, is already going at a considerable speed. Yet, with the exception of the Coronavirus lockdown, China is still too polluted, too given over to wasteland, and too careless with our portion of the world's exceptional wildlife species. Green China will encompass new efforts to combat climate change, and pollution, but also nurture Chinese green spaces, in a manner not seen in some parts of China for decades.
The industrial and collective componants of Green China will focus on empowering large Corporations within China to target key serctors in Green and sustainable technologies, so that output and productivity remain mated to our goals and outcomes. These will be an adaptation of our Made in China 2025 goals which formed the Spine of this Five Year Plan. These key industrial players will solicit additional international partners, to ensure that Chinese capacity and investment marries the global need and desire for thiese specifics. The key industrial players in Green China will be:
 
These robust industrial focii will have to be joined to an overall national strategy that targets key areas of growth beyond 2021, making domestic production of those things a muych larger proportion of our consumption:
 
Selected Industry| 2021 |2027 Mobile Phone Chips| 34% |45% Industrial Robotics| 50% |75% Aerospace| 7% |15% Maritime Components| 60% |80% Renewable Energy Equipment| 10% |80% Agricultural Vehicles| 30% |60% Medical Devices| 50% |80% Basic Manufacturing Components| 40% |80%
 

Green China Part 2

 
The second aspect to Green China in #14FYP builds on the past Five Year Plan, which encouraged and stimulated "Everyone is an entrepreneur, creativity of the masses (大众创业，万众创新)". In this, families and homeowners will be led to cultivate green spaces in and around their homes, to ensure that our colossal cities to not remain endless seas of concrete, but instead become places of peace and vitality. The Party will augment tis by deliberately building more Green Spaces in the cities, and devoting large swathes of the land around them to non-harvested forests, parkland, and other natural reserves. Teams of gardeners and foresters will revivify the Chinese noble tradition of cultivating living things, and trees, edible plants, flowers, and birdong, will become a new soundtrack in Chinese cities.
The harmony between the needs of Chinese people and families, and those of the State, is a typically Chinese elegance, and further work will be done to ensure the creation of "Moderately prosperous society 小康社会", building a thriving middle class. Bridging welfare gaps between poorer pockets of rural and urban areas, with the stratospheric wealth of the City Centres, is an important componant of Green China. Stimulating domestic demand is key to this, and for that, Chinese people must have more access to capital and resources. In the spirit of Green China, this will turn neighbourhoods into havens of propserity and wellbeing. Thus, "Green=Green", and we will hopefully live to see the death of an attitude that suggests Green means that growth and profit have to die.
 

3."Economy needs a Rule of Law" (建构法制经济)

 
In combination with the privatization of economic activity within China, the government has begun to seek measure to address the structural imbalances in the national financial system. During the proceeding economic boom, capital flow has been disproportionately skewed towards SOEs, while micro, small, and medium enterprises have significantly less access. Additionally, low lending rates have contributed to excessive investment and high capital intensity, particularly in the wake of the recent financial crisis. Notably, the government's prominent and important role in national credit allocation at the central and provincial levels has led to the accumulation of liabilities not easily quantified, owing to limitations on monitoring, data collection, and governmental data exchange.
These issues will eventually lead to glaring inefficiencies and slowdowns in the national financial system, preventing the system as a whole from servicing an increasingly dynamic, sophisticated, internationally integrated economy driven by increased marketization. At the same time, globalization of Chinese firms and market capitalization of a growing middle class will begin to stress the financial system, potentially leading to exacerbation of these problems, including liquidity of capital in the next decade as the economy cools. To address these issues, the reforms must comprehensively build the foundation of a balanced, sound, and safe financial system able to meet these growing needs.
A critical priority that will be tackled first is the issue of the government controlled interest rate. Gradually, the PBOC will begin to implement greater flexibility of interest rates, which base their conditions off carefully considered market factors in the credit system, rather than political policy; for example, the central bank be given a high degree of autonomy to begin using these flexible rates to manage liquidity, rather than the previous reliance on credit ceilings.
Flexible interest rates from an autonomously controlled central bank will pave the way for credit-controlled financial decisions, relying on financial principles and analysis, precipitating a comprehensive overhaul of governance and organizations. Specifically, in state-owned financial institutions, state ownership functions, agencies, and practices will be reviewed, using lessons from examples of international best practice and failures. In addition, efforts will be made to further diversify the ownership structure in state-owned banks and further reduce the shares held by the state.
To address the under regulation systematic in the politically motivated financial market, the government has laid out a series of measures to strengthen the independence of regulators over the next decade. Staffing, funding, enforcement powers and resolution discretion will be gradually increased regional and provincial level institutions. Limits will be placed on emergency liquidity support to solvent banks facing short term liquidity problems - a common politically motivated play in the past. Standing facilities will begin to operate automatically to provide liquidity support to all domestically incorporated institutions, with the establishment of clear legal guidelines to govern and limit the use of fiscal resources in these instances.
The government will also facilitate the establishment of an efficient legal framework, including requirements of higher standards of disclosure, auditing, and accounting. Structural reforms will begin to streamline the court system to deal with troubled or insolvent banks and firms, both private and public, in a timely fashion. This framework will also include a measure to deal with IPOs, shifting from a merit based approval system to a fully disclosed and legal approach. Finally, a financial commission has been established to provide the outline and implementation of a small debtor deposit insurance scheme.
 

4.Age Wave 年龄波

 
China is set to experience a demographic transition unseen in modern history precipitated by three decades of restrictive population control. In 1975, there were six children in the nation for every one elderly citizen; by 2035, current trends indicate there will be two elders for every one child - a stunning reversal. Indeed, from the current year until 2035, Chinese authorities project that a contraction of 79 million working age adults in the workforce will begin to profoundly change the economy, and by 2050, 438 million Chinese will be elderly. The challenge facing the government is to confront the "age wave" of coming citizens, which rivals that of any developed nation, with undeveloped resources, insulating the economy and society from stress brought about during the transition.
The government has begun to confront this problem head on. Underscoring the seriousness with which Party members view the challenge, Secretary Jinping recently attended the 17th China International Conference on Insurance and Risk Management at Grand Link Hotel in Guilin, Guangxi Zhuang, a first in his career at the head of the party. While there, he pressed insurance firms to meet the demands of the coming social paradigm shift, saying "Unless China prepares for the coming challenges, a retirement crisis of immense proportions looms - just over the horizon."
To meet the challenge, China has begun to prepare a radical overhaul of the retirement system, which itself will realize enormous long term benefits, with coverage that is broad and benefits that are affordable and adequate to the average senior. The government has mandated a "poverty-free floor", where the engineering of the system will include a universal boundary of protection covering all Chinese elders, whether they participate or not. Above the minimum boundary, China will begin implementing expanded retirement savings coverage, transforming the system currently in place into a national system of adequately funded personal accounts with strict public regulation and directed by private investment.
 

Part 1: Reforming the Basic Pension System

 
As it currently stands, China operates a mandatory "basic pension system" for urban workers, created to replace the SOE system of the planned economy's early days. The system consists of a pay-as-you-go benefit scheme and a personal retirement account, and has been intended to cover the entirety of the rapidly urbanized workforce. However, current projections show that coverage is not universal, but instead sits at 65% and is highly concentrated among workers at SOEs. Structural issues also plague the current system, including large amounts of inherited unfunded liabilities from the breakup or mergers of SOEs, low rates of return on contributions, and virtually no portability. In the vast floating migrant populations of the rural countryside, there is no formal system for retirement. These rural workers are categorically excluded from the pension systems of the cities. To reform the system and meet the challenges of the age wave, the State Council has issued a new law that supplements 2015's Decision on the Reform of the State Employee Pension System, which was brought about to equalize the private and public sector systems.
The reform plan is built on four core principles. First, the government will create a universal floor of protection against poverty in old age that will cover all Chinese citizens, regardless of whether they have contributed to the basic pension system. The second step is to lower the basic pension system's contribution rate by socializing the cost of it's unfunded liabilities, having the central government directly assume the burden - that is known as the legacy cost of SOEs. Third, the pension system will be gradually transformed from a two-tier to a national system of publicly regulated but privately managed and invested personal accounts; fully funded, fully portable, and offering participants a market rate of return. Finally, supplementary coverage will be expanded under the new enterprise annuity system that had taken effect in 2015.
 

Part 2: Social Pensions

 
To create a universal floor of protection, China will be forced to assume a different tact than developed nations, not able to rely on a redistributive benefits of a contributory public pension system due to the magnitude of those needing to be insured in a relatively brief window. Instead, China will assume a general revenue financed system of old-age support; a "social pension," jointly financed by the central and provincial governments. The eligibility age will initially be set at 60, with benefits varying by residence due to the huge geographical and regional disparities in the standard of living. However, the floor of the universal benefits will be pegged at 20 percent of the average local wage for the region, which is higher than the current minimum living standard guarantee under the urban pension system.
This zero tier system will be means-tested, with benefits being phased out gradually as incomes rise. This means that a Chinese elder aged 60 or older with no other income source would be eligible for the full benefit tier, while a similarly aged elder with an income equal to the local wage would receive zero. This is a vast improvement from the current system, which simply props income to the current poverty threshold. The floor of protection will be phased in gradually as the basic pension systems are rolled back or converted, with universal coverage being established between 2025-2036. CCP estimates have pegged the cost of the means-tested benefit system at less than one-third of the current basic pension system were it to be expanded nationally, at 1% of the national GDP by 2035.
 

Part 3: A National Pension

 
To adequately create a suitable pool of wealth enabling Chinese elders to spend retirement at a standard of living approximating their working years, the best solution is, as mentioned, a fully funded national system. This will begin by phasing out the first tier of the current pay-as-you-go basic pension system, which is accomplished through the means-based floor above, while enlarging the second personal account tier. When this transition completes in the next several years, the total contribution rate for the new pension system (aka second tier, which is the only system remaining) will be 18 percent of covered payroll, with 16 percent of that flowing to personal accounts to finance retiree and aged survivors benefits, and the remaining 2 percent earmarked for insurance to survivor benefits.
Central government subsidies to the local social security bureaus, which are currently at 15%, will be gradually increased year over year until 2032 until they cover 100% of current benefits, while workers will continue to contribute 8% of their current paychecks to personal retirement accounts, as today. As the government subsidies grow, the current 20% employer contribution rate will be gradually decreased to 10%. In addition, the accrued benefits of workers who have not yet retired or are younger than 55 will be credited to their personal accounts in the form of interest-earning government "retirement bonds," avoiding a lengthy transition phase that would be seen in a pay-as-you-go system of perhaps 75 years or more.
The subsidy cost to the government will not be trivial, but will be manageable. Current estimates put the subsidy to the pension system at 2.5% of GDP a decade from now when the system is fully operational, making the poverty floor + subsidy cost 3.5% of GDP at it's peak. However, the transition costs would begin to moderate in the 2030s and 2040s as current beneficiaries and workers who have accrued substantial benefits begin to die off.
To address the rural issue, coverage will be made mandatory for wage and salary workers at town and village enterprises (TVEs), with a combined employer-employee contribution rate at 8% initially and increased by 1% year over year until it reaches 18%. To minimize the shock of an increased contribution by TVEs, the central government will begin mandating local governments to subsidize part of the TVE contributions. By 2030, coverage will be made mandatory for migrant and non-TVE workers at a lower subsidized contribution rate.
 

Part 4: Personal Allocation System & Regulation

 
The system is not a fully privatized system; the assets in these accounts will be personally owned and privately managed within the framework of a public social program, regulated and supervised by the government. Workers will be able to choose between competing personal account management companies (PAMCs) which are set up by participating financial services firms. Contributions will be routed directly to the PAMCs, which invest and administer these accounts.
This will necessitate regulation overhaul. China will structure a strong and independent regulation system that will be constituted as an independent government agency with it's own professional staff, gathered from the Ministry of Finance, Human Resources, Social Security and the People's Bank. The pension regulator would be responsible for certifying fund managers, establishing guidelines for allocation, fee structure, and reporting, and for policing the system. Within this regulation, the authorities involved will be responsible for reliable routing, recordkeeping, and functioning of the regulatory systems.
A fully independent and regulated system will provide many important advantages. Workers will be less likely to view these personal savings as a tax from the government, increasing contribution rates and improving incentives to participate, which will in turn broaden the coverage and reduce the cost of the floor protection for those not participating. It will also improve the broadening of Chinese capital markets, which has been a major reform proposal for the government since 2018, and assist in the long term maintenance of savings, investment, and living standard growth.

5.Military Reform

China's continued reforms of the PLA shall speed up in the trajectory of C4ISR, with all branches of the PLA being subject to robust reorganisation designed to cut our dependence on uneducated servant-soldiers, and turn our battle force into a comprehensive modern unit as large and as powerful as any on earth. Infantry reforms are ualready underway, but this is but a small fragment of the total:

Summary

phew
I am indebted to S01780, Relativity_One and wikipedia for much of this text.
submitted by peter_j_ to GlobalPowers [link] [comments]

A specific mechanism For future / impending recession (?)

When it comes to timing "the drop" the issue most relevant is the trigger. Which is somewhat chicken and egg, but in 2008's case, it was the sub-prime mortgage crisis. So what happens in ____?
My new hunch says we finally have an impending trigger for a similar but less severe contraction in the market. I think it will start with the end of the current wave of IPOs as UBER and Lyft become insolvent.
Combined, Uber and Lyft employ almost 3,000,000 Americans (sorry, I mean CUSTOMERS). The labor force is likely to contract by somewhere between 5,000,000 and 10,000,000 jobs during the next downturn, so this figure alone is sufficient for up to half of the potential losses needed for a correction. Automation in retail and transportation is likely to result in significant additional losses into the aforementioned range. And construction is also likely to be impacted quite badly.
Now, while the above is not inevitable, I think it is likely. Next, we look at the housing market across the country.
With losses sustained deeply from 2008-2012, I calculated the max deviation (spring 2012 in most cities) from 2000 values, and used that to gauge the state of the market in the 20 metro areas the Case Schiller Index covers. The below numbers show what value we could expect IF A DOWNTURN OCCURS based on rolling forward the resiliency (or lack thereof depending on the metro) of 2008-2012's numbers.
Metro area / 2019 Case Schiller # / 2020-2024 Case Schiller bottom # / 2007-12 bottom change / 2019-2024 bottom change compared to 2008-12
DC: 227->250 (+10.1%) (-30.3%) / (+40.4%)
NYC: 202->214 (+5.9%) (-27.9%) / (+33.8%)
Miami: 240->174 (-27.5%) (-51.1%) (+23.6%)
San Diego: 251->198 (-21.1%) (-41.4%) / (+20.3%)
LA: 281->220 (-21.7%) (-41.6%) (+19.9%)
Tampa: 214->148 (-30.9%) (-47.9%) (+17.0%)
Chicago: 142->103 (-27.5%) (-39.1%) (+11.6%)
Boston: 215->192 (-10.7%) (-19.8%) / (+9.1%)
Phoenix: 187->100 (-47.6%) (-56%) (+8.4%)
Minneapolis: 171->120 (-29.8%) (-38%) (+8.2%)
Las Vegas: 190->80 (-57.9%) (-61.7%) (+3.8%)
SFO: 258->150 (-41.9%) (-42.7%) (+.8%)
Portland: 232->158 (-31.9%) (-31.0%) (-.9%)
Seattle: 244->158 (-35.3%) (-32.8%) (-2.5%)
Cleveland: 122->88 (-28.9%) (-23.6%) (-5.3%)
Atlanta: 149->66 (-45.7%) (-39%) (-6.7%)
Charlotte: 160->118 (-26.3%) (-18.8%) (-7.5%)
Denver: 216->144 (-33.3%) (-12.9%) (-20.4%)
Dallas: 188->126 (-33.0%) (-11.3%) (-21.7%)
Detroit: 123->36 (-73.3%) (-46.5%) (-26.8%)
As you can see, home prices this boom have increased VERY unevenly and very differently from 2000->2007 in most metro areas. It would appear most metros (12/20) are more resilient to the next downturn, however, there are a handful that appear to be substantially more inflated this cycle than last, which could be in for particularly nasty shocks by 2024 (Detroit, Dallas, Denver, Charlotte and Atlanta round out the worst potential vs. the last recession, although Vegas home prices could still decrease by almost 60% this bust).
Looking at housing prices, one has to ask: what is fundamentally different from the last bust? We may have stricter lending policies, but is there any SUSTAINABLE reason Vegas home prices have returned to 2007 levels, or is the same thing happening? And I think the same thing is happening -- incomes and employment have surely not doubled since 2012, in Vegas or anywhere else. And perspectives in DC + NYC are doubly-clouded because in these regions, there really ISN'T much of a bubble, as prices stabilized and didn't run up after 2012 after remaining highest in the country vs. other metros compared to the 2000 baseline.
So, my thesis is as follows.
1) UBER and LYFT IPOs are amongst a slew of cash-grabs at the market high as easy money begins to run dry.
2) UBER and LYFT are going to fail within 1-2 years, probably closer to 1 year. The failure of the current tech boom could be catalyst to a brief severe market correction and a more sustained substantial adjustment. Perhaps 30% at height of the crash but new all-time highs will still be set within a few years (by 2024 / 2025). Most sectors will recover fairly quickly, except those that go bust entirely (ridesharing, possibly co-working / WEWORK).
3) When the market crashes thanks to the failure of UBER and LYFT, there is going to be a substantial component of the US labor force that becomes instantaneously unemployed. With home prices already falling, this sets off the larger changes that spiral through the bottom of the economy resulting in decreased consumer spending and additional layoffs within 1-2 years in peripheral industries.
4) The employment downturn coincides with a worsening drop in housing prices, and the market spirals to levels worse than 2008 in a handful of metros. Dallas and Denver have both seen unprecedented growth and are the most iconic "new" examples of the 2020-2021 recession. But Las Vegas, Phoenix, Atlanta, and Detroit also take it on the chin, slightly better or substantially worse than 2008-2012. I would wager that ride-sharing underwrites or allows a very substantial portion of mortgages being written in these metros (5-10%), which become the prime catalyst of a focused but severe housing bust.
5) By 2024, the worst of the bust will be over, with home prices nationally averaging a relatively minor 20% correction from 2018 prices. At this point, the worst-impacted areas will still be at lows, while some cities, led by DC and NYC, surpass #s seen in the late 2010s. Unemployment will become increasingly systemic as new opportunities dwindle with the accelerated shift to automated labor and while overall numbers aren't as bad as 2008-2012, 2019-2024 becomes much more potent to effecting potential political action (and instability) due to the ramifications to general employment.
And that's that! Please share your thoughts.
submitted by developmentfiend to stocks [link] [comments]

I've put together a post that has, what I think, is all the possible (english) information on SmartContainers' ICO out there

Okay, so this is going to be really long in terms of posts here. I actually have to cut out some info to make it under 40000 characters for reddit...
Typically in the market there are Currency and Utility coins. Profit-Share Tokens are relatively new, and while this ICO has 2 tokens, the profit share token is definitely the main attraction, as it's tied to a very, very promising company. This company is SmartContainers Group, and their tokens are SMARC (profit-share token) and LOGI (more on LOGI later).
“Smart Containers Group, formerly REP AG (Swiss registry of commerce, UID: CHE- 141.664.882), is a Swiss based, high tech company that provides the safest temperature controlled containers to transport sensitive pharma goods and food around the world. Our purpose is to secure sensitive goods and to make sure no compromised product is ever delivered to anyone.” - whitepaper

Product

SmartContainers Group is a holding company for SkyCell.
SkyCell is the company Smart Containers Group uses to rent/sell their containers to clients around the world.
Our containers transport some of the most expensive and temperature-sensitive goods in the pharmaceutical industry. These goods need a particularly careful and accurate protection. Through our highly secure and efficient container design, we assure the best possible protection against temperature excursions. In combination with a cutting-edge technology, it enables us to provide containers with easy handling, maximum loading capacity and highest performance on the market.
More than 50 man-years of research and development poured into the creation of an unprecedented, highly efficient insulation. This cutting-edge technology reflects a maximum of radiation while minimizing heat conducting. It is the most patent protected insulation technology on the market.
The ingenious SkyCell R&D team invented a completely new, cooling technology, that stores five times more energy than traditional methods to keep the container at a steady temperature. Consequently, SkyCell containers are automatically recharged in a cooling chamber without any manual interference. Nothing can be mixed up since all parts are integrated and fixed.
The ingenious SkyCell R&D team invented a completely new, cooling technology, that stores five times more energy than traditional methods to keep the container at a steady temperature.
 
“oh, our product needs better cooling? Okay, let’s just invent a better cooling technology, no biggie”. Who heads that team, Rick Sanchez?
I asked about this tech during their AMA, here's what they said:
Cooling technology: Yes, our containers are state of the art. Nico has developed a cooling material that freezes at 5.5°C. So if you put it in a cooling chamber that has a lower temperature, it automatically freezes and if the temperature is higher it melts. Basically, the system works like a huge ice cube that is empty in the middle. The centre of the ice cube has a steady temperature of 0° until at least 1 side of the ice cube has melted. It's the same principle for SkyCell containers, but at 5.5°C
 
The patented-in house developed cooling technology stores five times more energy than traditional methods to keep the container at a consistent temperature. After use, they are ‘recharged’ in a cooling chamber without any need for manual intervention, increasing productivity of the business and reducing cost.
I’ve forgotten to mention something so far about their product [the containers]. They’re literally (not figuratively, literally) the most advanced container ON EARTH.
 
From their ICO FAQ: Where do you position yourself compared to Envirotainer? Envirotainer is the number one container company with the largest container fleet today. We are currently fourth globally, but we reached this position in less than 5 years operating in this space. SkyCell containers have been tested and shown to be technologically superior to Envirotainer containers (5x more runtime, up to 35% lighter) which translates into safer pharma distribution and cost savings as well as a reduced CO2 footprint.
 
We are currently fourth globally, but we reached this position in less than 5 years operating in this space.
 
Another thing that’s pretty impressive, 4th largest company in their entire field… after just 5 years… but back to the main point of that statement: “SkyCell containers have been tested and shown to be technologically superior to Envirotainer containers (5x more runtime, up to 35% lighter) which translates into safer pharma distribution and cost savings as well as a reduced CO2 footprint.”.
 
Watching a video from a blockchain conference in Switzerland, I got a fair bit of info from the CEO, Richard. I’ll be quoting him in that video a few times in this post, and here’s the first: “In my industry, we talk about how many shipments go wrong - and the average is 8.5%. So for 8.5% of pharma shipments for example, the [proper] temperature is not maintained. In our case [with Smart Containers], it’s less than 0.1%. That’s 75 times better. Richard also speaks in this video about how they will be able to eliminate the amount of shipments happening every year, due to the decentralized nature of this whole system, there will be less need to send packages to places far from their end destination, to make the delivery easier on the shipping side. We’ve all had packages come from across the ocean, only for it to fly 1500 Km past us to be shipped back our way next week…
 

LogiChain

”There are 200 documents are required, or exchanged, to make one shipment happen… we estimate we can bring this down to 8” Richard Ettl, CEO
Logistics is an old industry. it started out on paper, moved through the fax, early ages of the information era, early email, current email, and is now ready to move onto the blockchain.
LOGI CHAIN GOALS
 
“By using blockchain technology, we can decentralize logistics and create autonomous containers – container 4.0. This container will know who’s renting it, when the contract ends and when to invoice the customer. That’s why we’ve created the LOGI CHAIN platform. It allows us to create a seamless, fully integrated, digital logistics process that everyone can use for free.” - Richard Ettl, CEO
“Well-established processes often generate inefficiencies that we simply accept. And of course everyone knows change is painful. But at Smart Containers, we see things differently. Change is the only way to improve. We think that every process should not only be optimized but redefined and redesigned. Logistics today is highly centralized. It’s incredibly inefficient. So many wasted kilometers to huge warehouses.” Nico Ros, CTO
 
There will be more than one blockchain at play with this system as well. The info that people deserve to know will be available on a public blockchain like Ethereum, the weight, material safety data sheets, the storage conditions (which as said up above, 8.5% of pharma shipments have issues with, and Smart Containers brings that down to below 0.1%), as well as at the same time, the info that shouldn’t be public to everyone (Bills, invoices, etc) would be stored on a blockchain like Fabric or HyperLedger. LOGI will be the fuel for the LOGI Chain.
CMO Carla elaborating on LogiChain:
The LOGI project finds good echoes with logistics players but even more with blockchain infrastructures like NEM, EOS and NEO.
Emirates for once was enthusiastic about the project and definitely wants to join the foundation. As you know, the government of Dubai is focussing on applying blockchain asap to multiple industries.
We are also in exchange with ShipChain, who are running a similar project in the US. Our goal is to collaborate with a maximum of projects around the world.
The LOGI Chain Foundation will be set up in July, right at the end of the ICO. Dr. Fabian Schär, our valued Advisor, will be in charge of defining how the LOGI Chain Foundation will develop in the next 2-3 years. We think that we will be able to put out a PoC based on SkyCell until the end of the year.
We have not yet decided on which blockchain platform to build the LOGI CHAIN. We are highly delighted with NEM since they are already operative and offer a private and public blockchain on the same protocol.
 
One Chain to Connect them all - LOGI CHAIN
One platform to get all players up to speed, to handle all documents and permissions in one place. No more floods of emails. No more polluting the environment with senseless printing of documents. No more compatibility problems and clashes of individualized systems.
To show you how vast the amount of documents (and by this emails circulated) find a list of common documents needed for one air freight shipment below:
Documents of origin, Material safety sheet, Airway bill, Bill of lading, Transport order, Customs declaration documents & bills, Invoices, Product data sheet, Storage conditions, Transport conditions, Multiple service provider billings, Licenses, etc.
This adds up to the gigantic number of about 200 manually processed emails per shipment.
A combination of public and permission based chains will allow for all players in the ecosystem to store documents needed in the logistics processes. We are looking at multiple platforms to build the LOGI CHAIN on top including NEM, Fabric, Corda, EOS and NEO.
 

Team

I’ll be using bits and pieces taken from their white paper and LinkedIn pages.
The Smart Containers team includes over 80 people, and is growing every year.
Richard Ettl - Co-Founder, CEO - LinkedIn
Richard wanted to know how things worked since he was a child. He has a passion for engineering and management. Growing up in Vienna, Austria and studying in Stanford USA and the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, he started his career at Bobst Group, a leading producer of packaging machines worldwide. In 2009, he decided to launch his own business together with his university friend Nico. After wide reaching scientific research and various proof of concepts, they founded today’s Smart Containers Group as well as SkyCell in 2012. Since then he has lead the companies to commercial success, seamlessly finding the right partners and investors at crucial points, as well as convincing more and more clients of the unrivaled benefits of the SkyCell offer
 
Nico Ros - Co-Founder, CTO - LinkedIn
Nico Ros, Chief Technology Officer & Co-Founder Nico is the mastermind behind Smart Containers Group and its technology. Growing up in Basel, Switzerland, he discovered his passion for mathematics very early on and therefore came to study mathematics, physics and engineering. Being a natural talent, he had already won prestigious architectural prizes during his studies and quickly became managing partner at ZPF an engineering company in Basel. He has constructed the most expensive buildings in Switzerland in collaboration with the famous architects Herzog & DeMeuron. Nico’s key strength lies not only in his state of the art engineering know how but also in his efficient management of teams, leading highly complex, multimillion projects to success. However, engineering alone did not suffice Nico. Having a passion for business and management, he decided to complete additional studies at the University of Fribourg, meeting Richard along the way. Everyone who meets Nico rapidly becomes aware of his sharp mind and his passion to invent new technologies. It is therefore not surprising, that both him and Richard ended up together where they are today.
 
Andreas Ernst - CFO - LinkedIn
Andreas is the true logistic finance expert in the company. He spent all his career in various finance roles of logistic service providers: from Swissair (today Swiss International Airlines), to Swissport (biggest ground service provider for airlines) where he filled the role as regional CFO for the Middle East and Africa. His last role before joining Smart Containers Group was CFO of Unitpool (now called Unilode), which is the largest independent air-freight container pooling company in the world.
 
Thomas Taroni - Head of IT - LinkedIn
Thomas is an IT-architecture mastermind. His first claim to fame is the creation of the largest media database, shared by all media houses in Switzerland: more than two million articles are uploaded every year, then queried and shared seamlessly and efficiently among multiple news companies. He founded his own IT company to design IT architectures focusing on process automation (eliminating paper and endless emails), and as a result won other clients (large banks, pharma companies and even publicly tendered government contracts). SkyCell became his client, when they needed a bespoke asset management system to track and trace their containers around the world. He joined SkyCell four years ago and since his tenure, has become the head of IT for all companies of Smart Containers Group.
 
Carla Bünger - CMO & Business Development Manager - LinkedIn
Carla is a marketing and sales expert. Building strong brands on solid foundations and convincing clients to buy its underlying products gives her huge satisfaction. She collected her experience through managing various international consumer brands, for companies such as Nestlé, Lindt and Coty. However, she discovered her passion for Blockchain technology roughly 18 months ago and has since been actively participating in the com - munity of Crypto Valley in Switzerland. The sheer endless application possibilities make her strive for more and she is drawing energy and enthusiasm from developing new business schemes around the subject. Her “can do” attitude helped to put together the high level advisory team around our ICO.
 

Advisors

Strategic advisor: Oliver Bussmann, is CEO and Founder of Bussmann Advisory, former CIO of UBS and SAP as well as the President of the Crypto Valley Association. “our main advisor” - Richard
Strategic advisor: Marc Bettinger, Altcoin and Blockchain specialist and investor, Co-Host Altcoin Meetup Switzerland (Bitcoin Association Switzerland)
Strategic Advisor: Fabian Schär is Managing Director of the Center for Innovative Finance at the University of Basel. His research focus is on the potential and applications of blockchain. In addition, he works as a lecturer in blockchain technology at the University of Basel, the University of Applied Sciences in Business Administration Zurich (HWZ) and the University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland (FHNW).
 
Technology Partner: Lykke Corp. our highly trustworthy expert in smart contract programming and ICO execution. (Lykke also audited their ICO smartcontract)
Legal Advisor: Gabriela Hauser-Spuehler was part of the team of MME, the well-known law firm in the crypto space.
Communication Advisor: David Wachsman and Emma Walker from Wachsman PR, the crypto community’s most experienced PR agency.
Richard also states they hired a lawyer that worked on the Ethereum ICO, but I don’t know if it’s Gabriela up there or another person.

Tokens

Min. investment = $500 USD for ICO, $5000 for presale (largest portion of supply), $250k for private sale.
There are two tokens as mentioned before: SMARC and LOGI. I’m more into SMARC because it’s safe (safe once the payouts start of course, as soon as a coin has a clear value like this, BTC moving up or down doesn’t matter to you), as well as obviously very attractive if you think of the long term profits.
 
Every year, the company’s annual shareholder meeting takes place, during which the shareholders will agree (or negotiate) on a proposal by the Smart Containers’ board about how much of the company profits is to be paid to the shareholders that year. 20% of that amount is taken, converted to ETH, and fairly distributed to the token holders.
Since the cofounders and all token holders will have aligned interests and incentives, we are all in a positive-sum-game. We do not want to use the ICO as a speculative springboard, but as way of funding innovation and change the world. Both Richard and Nico are committed for the long-term and not interested in a quick exit. Our aim is to use the collected funds to continue pushing the following business areas:
• Continue scaling of SkyCell in both B2B and B2C
• Establish FoodGuardians - the main goal if the ICO is to build and scale FoodGuardians
• Establish the of LOGI CHAIN Foundation
• Regularly evaluate organic scaling vs. M&A
• Evaluate IPO at relevant time
We are raising funds through an ICO to grow our container businesses in pharma and food. We push SkyCell from no. 4 to the no. 1 provider in the next 2-3 years.
 
The CEO in this video explains pretty easily why one would want to put money into this ICO over others:
“Why invest? [referring to SMARC] Simple question. It’s an up and coming company with revenue, multiple millions a year, most ICO’s have white papers…[we have much more than that].”
That's pretty clear. You can invest in random Xcoin ICO where they have some half-baked token that might see some level of adoption if it isn't just a cash grab, or you could invest in an actual multimillion-dollar company and be a part of it as it scales into what could potentially be a multibillion dollar entity.
 

The following is taken from the ICO, Legal, and Company FAQ

How will the profit share payouts work? 20% of dividends will be paid in ETH to all holders of SMARC tokens that are in circulation at the time of the payout. A given business year ends on 31st December each year with a general assembly held annually around mid-February. Therefore, dividend payout is expected around mid-March each year. In the event of a total sale of Smart Containers or the exit of one of its lines of business, the holders of SMARC tokens will receive a 20% participation of proceeds
 
Is there a future profit statement? No listed company can make an estimation or a commitment to a future return. To do so would neither be professional nor ethical. For Smart Containers, as with any company, profits may often depend upon a number of external factors, such as the general trust in blockchain technology. The question to be assessed is how fast a new disruptive technology can replace an old system. We believe that Smart Containers Group is well-positioned to facilitate this disruption, with a strong plan going forward and experienced team working to successfully implement blockchain technology in the supply chain. 5 years of industry experience, the 4th largest container fleet and a motivated team; that’s more than any idea whitepaper ICO.
 
What specific rights come with my investment? The SMARC token is a profit share token. When the company generates profits and the company’s general assembly approves a dividend payout, 20% of the defined funds attributed to dividends will be distributed proportionally to holders of SMARC tokens in circulation. In contrast, the LOGI token is a utility token that can be used to pay for transactions on the LOGI CHAIN, an open-source logistics platform for all stakeholders in the logistics field with the goal to create a seamless, fully integrated, digital logistics process.
 
Smart Containers will pay out a dividend to SMARC token holders. This would imply that the SMARC token is a security token. Are you compliant with financial regulation? Smart Containers tokens is not classified as a security in Switzerland under current law. This may be different in other jurisdictions such as the USA. Hence the SMARC token is not eligible for sale in certain jurisdictions. Our benchmark is the Modum token sale from June 2017. We have elected to use the same legal structure as it was accepted by regulators in Switzerland and well received by the ICO community and exchanges.
 
What is the vesting schedule for team and advisors tokens? Everyone will receive SMARC and LOGI tokens at the same time. Minting will occur at the end of the token sale. Advisors will have lock up periods depending on how many tokens they receive. Team members have a lock up period of 12 months.
 
Are SkyCell containers an approved ULD according to IATA regulations? SkyCell containers are exempt from the ULD rules by IATA. This has the huge advantage that, compared to our competitors, the SkyCell container can not only fly but can also leave the airport. Skycell containers are therefore a door-to-door solution. Our competitors’ containers, on the other hand, have to be unloaded at the airport and packed into a new transport unit in order to continue their journey from the airport to the final destination, increasing the risk of temperature excursion, and loss.
 
Are there financial statements? If so, are they audited, and by whom? Yes, there are financial statements for all our companies. They are audited by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). To preserve our competitive advantage in the market, we have decided not to publish our financial figures online at this moment in time.
 
Are Modum and Smart Containers competitors? Modum and Smart Containers are not competitors, more future partners. Modum rents/sells sensors to track and trace shipments on temperature, whereas Smart Containers rents/sells the containers, in which products including sensors are put inside. Of course our containers have sensors that record data for quality control, but Smart Containers does not sell these data sets. In the end Modum and Smart Containers will address to the same clients - Smart Containers provides the container and Modum will put a sensor in it.
 
How many airlines fly SkyCell containers? In addition to our major partners, Emirates and CargoLux, more than 30 airlines fly SkyCell containers.
 
What destinations does SkyCell serve? SkyCell is a global company. We are shipping containers around the world and reach each pharma client within 24-48 hours. This is accomplished through our airline partners, that can fly ready-to-use containers to more than 150 airports.
 

Profit Sharing Mechanism

During the annual shareholder meeting, the shareholders in the form of the general assembly (Annual General Assembly) decide on a proposal by Smart Containers’ board regarding the usage of profit as recognized in the annual financial statements of Smart Containers in the form of distribution of dividends. Distribution of a dividend on shares shall be announced in the “Tokenholder Information” section of the Smart Containers website; such announcement shall include the date and time of the dividend payment and the dividend amount per ordinary share in USD as well as the ETH/USD exchange rate which shall become applicable, as derived from publicly available and reliable quotes. Within 20 business days of the date of the resolution passed by the Annual General Assembly regarding dividend payments to the shareholders of Smart Containers, Smart Containers will make available a Profit Share Amount to each authenticated Tokenholder equal to 20% (twenty percent) of all dividends agreed to being distributed per share to the shareholders, divided by the total number of issued SMARC Tokens (To further explain for clarity, all Tokenholders combined will receive an amount equal to 20% of the amount received by all shareholders combined.). SMARC Tokenholders shall receive these payments in ETH, at an average exchange rate specified by Smart Containers.
 

FoodGuardians

“Imagine your tomatoes tasting 1 day ‘fresher”.
One of the main reasons for the SMARC/LOGI ICO is to raise the funds to fuel the growth of FoodGuardians alongside SkyCell.
According to their CEO, SkyCell is constantly asked “can your containers be used for food?”, but there are several issues with shipping food and medicine together. This is where FoodGuardians comes in.
FoodGuardians offers the next generation of reusable containers and boxes to transport regionally and globally temperature sensitive food products.The combination of patented cooling technology, cutting edge insulation and Blockchain infrastructure allows to redefine the product’s freshness and traceability.
Our vision is to allow your local butcher to order your favorite steak directly from the producing farm and sending it straight to your grill party. (All without the buyer even leaving his home, let alone going to store)
 
Advantages of using FoodGuardians
 
Each FoodGuardians container can be tracked around the world on:
 
The phrase “Imagine your tomatoes tasting 1 day ‘fresher” has been used by the CEO a couple times, and is more or less the FoodGuardian slogan. This is referring to the fact that not only can FoodGuardian and SkyCell containers save cost, CO2, and man/brainpower, but they can also make shipments faster when combined with the blockchain (LOGI Chain) and Smart Contracts. when everything is accounted for at every second with almost as little room for human error as possible, things are far more efficient.
We are launching our first food application – we will announce a collaboration before June for a solution that can be used to ship overnight online fresh food to people homes and can be used to supply hospitals and restaurants as well.
FoodGuardians and SkyCell are two of the many possible use-cases for SmartContainers' tech:
"Other use cases. Yes indeed. We are just getting started!! However, it makes sense to focus on scaling SkyCell and FoodGuardians before starting something new. In the end we are a tech company. We have defined 7 use cases around the insulation technology. We have started with the most relevant 2 but will certainly continue."
 

SkyCellONE

SkyCell is looking to bring a business-to-consumer solution to market, that was developed and tested with one of the top 20 pharma companies in the world. The direct to patient market is estimated to increase to a 2.5 billion USD market in the future, with no other competition yet aside from styrofoam containers that are disposed of after one use. The SkyCell ONE can also be co-branded by a partner, such as a pharmacy chain that could rent it out for home delivery, business trips or even holidays.
The product is temperature stable for up to 72 hours, can be recharged passively in a fridge, or temp-controlled warehouse or truck. Currently it’s best in class for size and weight, but that’s probably down to there being no competition! Trials have been undergoing since June 2017 with an orphan drug product, and go live is expected in Q2 2018. - Cryptowithoutborders article
The SkyCell ONE container is showcased HERE
THIS could be a massive money maker. There is currently no direct pharma-2-consumer shipping service, because it really wasn’t profitable, or manageable on a central database. They can even sell this product to other supply chain entities to use. The direct to patient market is estimated to increase to a 2.5 billion USD market in the future, with no other competition yet, aside from styrofoam containers that get disposed of after a single
Q&A: Smart Containers’ Richard Ettl on Blockchain, Pharma, and how His Company’s Hardware and Software is Disrupting the Logistics Industry - Nexchange.com
We are launching also additional sizes – so we are launching a very small box to ship pharma directly to patients' homes. Amazon just recently announced that they will postpone entering the pharma distribution space, as they do not have the technology to ship to patients homes in a temperature controlled manner. We are bringing this to market later this year. This will increase the convenience of patients and reduce the costs in the healthcare system.
 

Organs

I just finished listening to this podcast (20 minutes long, but you can skip the intro stuff to make it shorter of course). I’m now twice as excited as I was before. I’m going to type out a large chunk of the podcast. I’ll be paraphrasing slightly, so I don’t have to type every “uhh” or anything, plus he sometimes starts one sentence before finishing another.
“We have some prototypes, that we built, for example, for the Children’s Hospital here in Zurich, where we’ve designed a container that can transport living skin.” [Interviewer; “Wow.”] “So for young children that suffer skin diseases that could be almost fatal, like cancer, they grow this… patch of skin, and then that skin needs to be transported, and kept at body temperature so… roughly 37 degrees Celsius. There we designed them a box that did this for 10 days, autonomously.” [“That’s amazing…”] “Yeah, we did this because we wanted to learn how to interact and work with hospitals, this is a highly specialized application, and the next step could be organ logistics, because most of the organs today are transported on ice, because that’s the standard set in the 70’s, but studies have shown that if your transport certain tissue at room temperature, it is significantly better for the tissue than if you transport it on ice.”
I can guarantee you every major hospital on earth is going to want their hands on this container that can allow them to transport both living skin, and potentially organs in the future. The fact that in this day and age we’re still throwing people’s kidneys/lungs/etc in a bucket of ice is a little weird.
From the recent AMA:
Our Container BT5: The name stands for Body Temperature 5 L content. It transports skin grafts that was cultured for children with burn accidends. The temperature range is 37°c. Nico (our CTO) was so taken by this project, that he developped this container only for this purpose for a company calles Cutiss (a start-up from Zurich). We currently only have around 10 of these containers in use. It is not produced in on a large scale. We could market it, but have bigger opportunities to tackle first with the SkyCell one. You can only focus on 1-2 projects at a time. The BT5 is a beautiful project, but will need manpower to scale production and then manpower to market it.
 

Competition

Envirotainer, The leading company in this field, has only a matter of time before they’re overtaken. SmartContainer Group’s containers are proven to be superior (5x as efficient, 35% lighter, self-charging, etc, etc, read up above for the whole deal). According to the Googles, Envirotainer’s best year (2015) saw a profit of $50,000,000. It’s logical to assume that Smartcontainers will surpass them as the top dog, and at the same time be pulling in much more profit over time by serving both pharma, and the food industry (Envirotainer only does pharma). By accepting cryptocurrency payments, saving them a fair bit in fees from cross border payments, they’ll also net a small % more in profits annually.
I asked about the state of their competition. Turns out, Envirotainer (or more specifically the private equity firm that owns them) offered SmartContainers a buy out of $125m. This was one of countless offers they've turned down, because they believe they can scale the company to much further value. The firm selling Envirotainer has been trying to find a buying for the past 3 years, at $1b. No one will buy them, because anyone who knows their shit in that industry knows SmartContainers will overtake them in no time.
From April's AMA:
Our 2 biggest competitors are for sale. Envirotainer (biggest player) is owned by a Private Equity company that wants to sell it for 1 b USD. it already tries to sell for 3 years. SkyCell is considered a threat to the valuation of Envirotainer, since we are winning one client after the other from them. While Envirotainer is the largest player with a huge sales force and well established client contacts, they are still operating on an "old" technology. SkyCell is technology leader, has lighter containers, reduces CO2 emissions and is considered to be the future.
2 days ago, a private equity company requested a meeting to see the valuation of SkyCell and evaluate to buy. We have already been approached several times. We are treated as the bride in the market. However, Richard and Nico think we can scale the business much more before we should consider to sell. We are just getting started.
We have won 3 large accounts in Q1. Today we have 1200 containers. By the end of the year, it will be 2000. Our business plan estimates that SkyCell will be profitable in 2019. Therefore you can expect first dividends in Q1 2020.
 

Official Projections

Another redditor asked for "optimistic expectations for potential profits" during their ama, here was their answer:
How does a profit of 21 m USD on Smart Containers total in 2020 sound? This figure will then quadruple in 2021 to 76 m USD.
As you can see, this would mean that by 2021 tokenholders would not even have broken even yet. I myself am fine with this, i'm expecting to hold SMARC until the end (be it I die or the company sells, in which case i'll enjoy that fat exit payout). The potential gains from 2020-2030 are far more worth it to me than trying to make it in one year with heavy risk.
So why invest in this over a random shitcoin that might moon? If you're here to turn $1000 into $1m and get out by the end of the year, good luck, don't invest in smarc. If you're realistic and are aware that crypto will only be so volatile for so long, go ahead and think about putting a bit of your portfolio in something that will have actual value, lasting long after the shitcoins die. Crypto market could crash at any time, but that doesn't mean that SmartContainers as a company goes anywhere, nor their profits. I don't think I need to explain any further.

So…

A 5 year old company, with over 100,000 collective hours of R&D put into their products, with currently just under 100 innovative patents, that is already the 4th largest of it’s kind in the world, with the top product in their field on earth, is doing an ICO that is fully backed by the Swiss government, with a token that is due 20% of all future shareholder payouts, as well as 20% of any potential exit profits (the company being purchased). They’re already this big, and you can benefit from both their success, and their expansion into new markets.
There’s nothing stopping SmartContainers Group/SkyCell/FoodGuardians from working with VeChain in the future either. Or Walton, or Wabi, Devery, OriginTrail, Ambrosus, all of em.
 

Links4U:

SmartContainers
https://smartcontainers.ch/
https://foodguardians.ch
https://skycell.ch/
Whitepaper
FAQ
Terms of Token Sale
CryptoWithBorders Article
Medium post reviewing SmartContainers
Interview with Richard Ettl, Co-Founder & CEO of Smart Containers on SMARC Token Sale | TechBullion
Interview with Richard Ettl - CryptoRich - Richard talks about some of their patents in this video, I think about 20 minutes in. Whole thing was worth watching imo
Podcast on how Blockchain + Smart Contracts will change how we ship things globally - 20 minutes, I REALLY recommend you listen through it, but do skip the intro if you want.
CEO Richard Ettl speaking at Crypto Finance Conference in St.Moritz - about 14 minutes, also highly recommend you watch this as well.
SkyCell Video
Strategic Advisor Oliver Bussman (President of the Crypto Valley Association, Former CIO of UBS and SAP), on SmartContainers
Marc Bettinger on why he took an advisory role with SmartContainers - (many may know him as "altcoindad")
Michael Guzik - Former 'Head of Blockchain' at PWC, current Head of ICO advisory at Lykke - why he's involved with the Smarc/Logi ICO
AMA with Carla Bünger - CMO & Business Development Manager of SmartContainers
AMA with Thomas Taroni - Head of IT of Smart Containers
Q&A w/ Richard Ettl - Nexchange
 
Should you invest in this? I sure am, and am very glad to even be offered the opportunity, but it’s up to you. Read through this post if you haven't yet, then click these links and decide for yourself. Don't go all in of course, since this is a profit share token, there is much less risk, therefore less short term reward. The long term reward is what we're looking at here, don't buy into the ICO and then complain that you aren't getting 1000% ROI payouts by year one.
submitted by Haramburglar to RFIDBlockchain [link] [comments]

Only 2 days left to whitelist for SMARC ICO, an ICO for a profit-share token being held by an already multi-million dollar company.

- Credit to Haramburglar for this post, and for giving me the notepad file he wrote it in so I could share it where I wished, without even asking for credit
Okay, so this is going to be really long in terms of posts here. I actually have to cut out some info to make it under 40000 characters for reddit...
Typically in the market there are Currency and Utility coins. Profit-Share Tokens are relatively new, and while this ICO has 2 tokens, the profit share token is definitely the main attraction, as it's tied to a very, very promising company. This company is SmartContainers Group, and their tokens are SMARC (profit-share token) and LOGI (more on LOGI later).
“Smart Containers Group, formerly REP AG (Swiss registry of commerce, UID: CHE- 141.664.882), is a Swiss based, high tech company that provides the safest temperature controlled containers to transport sensitive pharma goods and food around the world. Our purpose is to secure sensitive goods and to make sure no compromised product is ever delivered to anyone.” - whitepaper

Product

SmartContainers Group is a holding company for SkyCell.
SkyCell is the company Smart Containers Group uses to rent/sell their containers to clients around the world.
Our containers transport some of the most expensive and temperature-sensitive goods in the pharmaceutical industry. These goods need a particularly careful and accurate protection. Through our highly secure and efficient container design, we assure the best possible protection against temperature excursions. In combination with a cutting-edge technology, it enables us to provide containers with easy handling, maximum loading capacity and highest performance on the market.
More than 50 man-years of research and development poured into the creation of an unprecedented, highly efficient insulation. This cutting-edge technology reflects a maximum of radiation while minimizing heat conducting. It is the most patent protected insulation technology on the market.
The ingenious SkyCell R&D team invented a completely new, cooling technology, that stores five times more energy than traditional methods to keep the container at a steady temperature. Consequently, SkyCell containers are automatically recharged in a cooling chamber without any manual interference. Nothing can be mixed up since all parts are integrated and fixed.
The ingenious SkyCell R&D team invented a completely new, cooling technology, that stores five times more energy than traditional methods to keep the container at a steady temperature.
 
“oh, our product needs better cooling? Okay, let’s just invent a better cooling technology, no biggie”. Who heads that team, Rick Sanchez?
I asked about this tech during their AMA, here's what they said:
Cooling technology: Yes, our containers are state of the art. Nico has developed a cooling material that freezes at 5.5°C. So if you put it in a cooling chamber that has a lower temperature, it automatically freezes and if the temperature is higher it melts. Basically, the system works like a huge ice cube that is empty in the middle. The centre of the ice cube has a steady temperature of 0° until at least 1 side of the ice cube has melted. It's the same principle for SkyCell containers, but at 5.5°C
 
The patented-in house developed cooling technology stores five times more energy than traditional methods to keep the container at a consistent temperature. After use, they are ‘recharged’ in a cooling chamber without any need for manual intervention, increasing productivity of the business and reducing cost.
I’ve forgotten to mention something so far about their product [the containers]. They’re literally (not figuratively, literally) the most advanced container ON EARTH.
 
From their ICO FAQ: Where do you position yourself compared to Envirotainer? Envirotainer is the number one container company with the largest container fleet today. We are currently fourth globally, but we reached this position in less than 5 years operating in this space. SkyCell containers have been tested and shown to be technologically superior to Envirotainer containers (5x more runtime, up to 35% lighter) which translates into safer pharma distribution and cost savings as well as a reduced CO2 footprint.
 
We are currently fourth globally, but we reached this position in less than 5 years operating in this space.
 
Another thing that’s pretty impressive, 4th largest company in their entire field… after just 5 years… but back to the main point of that statement: “SkyCell containers have been tested and shown to be technologically superior to Envirotainer containers (5x more runtime, up to 35% lighter) which translates into safer pharma distribution and cost savings as well as a reduced CO2 footprint.”.
 
Watching a video from a blockchain conference in Switzerland, I got a fair bit of info from the CEO, Richard. I’ll be quoting him in that video a few times in this post, and here’s the first: “In my industry, we talk about how many shipments go wrong - and the average is 8.5%. So for 8.5% of pharma shipments for example, the [proper] temperature is not maintained. In our case [with Smart Containers], it’s less than 0.1%. That’s 75 times better. Richard also speaks in this video about how they will be able to eliminate the amount of shipments happening every year, due to the decentralized nature of this whole system, there will be less need to send packages to places far from their end destination, to make the delivery easier on the shipping side. We’ve all had packages come from across the ocean, only for it to fly 1500 Km past us to be shipped back our way next week…
 

LogiChain

”There are 200 documents are required, or exchanged, to make one shipment happen… we estimate we can bring this down to 8” Richard Ettl, CEO
Logistics is an old industry. it started out on paper, moved through the fax, early ages of the information era, early email, current email, and is now ready to move onto the blockchain.
LOGI CHAIN GOALS
 
“By using blockchain technology, we can decentralize logistics and create autonomous containers – container 4.0. This container will know who’s renting it, when the contract ends and when to invoice the customer. That’s why we’ve created the LOGI CHAIN platform. It allows us to create a seamless, fully integrated, digital logistics process that everyone can use for free.” - Richard Ettl, CEO
“Well-established processes often generate inefficiencies that we simply accept. And of course everyone knows change is painful. But at Smart Containers, we see things differently. Change is the only way to improve. We think that every process should not only be optimized but redefined and redesigned. Logistics today is highly centralized. It’s incredibly inefficient. So many wasted kilometers to huge warehouses.” Nico Ros, CTO
 
There will be more than one blockchain at play with this system as well. The info that people deserve to know will be available on a public blockchain like Ethereum, the weight, material safety data sheets, the storage conditions (which as said up above, 8.5% of pharma shipments have issues with, and Smart Containers brings that down to below 0.1%), as well as at the same time, the info that shouldn’t be public to everyone (Bills, invoices, etc) would be stored on a blockchain like Fabric or HyperLedger. LOGI will be the fuel for the LOGI Chain.
CMO Carla elaborating on LogiChain:
The LOGI project finds good echoes with logistics players but even more with blockchain infrastructures like NEM, EOS and NEO.
Emirates for once was enthusiastic about the project and definitely wants to join the foundation. As you know, the government of Dubai is focussing on applying blockchain asap to multiple industries.
We are also in exchange with ShipChain, who are running a similar project in the US. Our goal is to collaborate with a maximum of projects around the world.
The LOGI Chain Foundation will be set up in July, right at the end of the ICO. Dr. Fabian Schär, our valued Advisor, will be in charge of defining how the LOGI Chain Foundation will develop in the next 2-3 years. We think that we will be able to put out a PoC based on SkyCell until the end of the year.
We have not yet decided on which blockchain platform to build the LOGI CHAIN. We are highly delighted with NEM since they are already operative and offer a private and public blockchain on the same protocol.
 
One Chain to Connect them all - LOGI CHAIN
One platform to get all players up to speed, to handle all documents and permissions in one place. No more floods of emails. No more polluting the environment with senseless printing of documents. No more compatibility problems and clashes of individualized systems.
To show you how vast the amount of documents (and by this emails circulated) find a list of common documents needed for one air freight shipment below:
Documents of origin, Material safety sheet, Airway bill, Bill of lading, Transport order, Customs declaration documents & bills, Invoices, Product data sheet, Storage conditions, Transport conditions, Multiple service provider billings, Licenses, etc.
This adds up to the gigantic number of about 200 manually processed emails per shipment.
A combination of public and permission based chains will allow for all players in the ecosystem to store documents needed in the logistics processes. We are looking at multiple platforms to build the LOGI CHAIN on top including NEM, Fabric, Corda, EOS and NEO.
 

Team

I’ll be using bits and pieces taken from their white paper and LinkedIn pages.
The Smart Containers team includes over 80 people, and is growing every year.
Richard Ettl - Co-Founder, CEO - LinkedIn
Richard wanted to know how things worked since he was a child. He has a passion for engineering and management. Growing up in Vienna, Austria and studying in Stanford USA and the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, he started his career at Bobst Group, a leading producer of packaging machines worldwide. In 2009, he decided to launch his own business together with his university friend Nico. After wide reaching scientific research and various proof of concepts, they founded today’s Smart Containers Group as well as SkyCell in 2012. Since then he has lead the companies to commercial success, seamlessly finding the right partners and investors at crucial points, as well as convincing more and more clients of the unrivaled benefits of the SkyCell offer
 
Nico Ros - Co-Founder, CTO - LinkedIn
Nico Ros, Chief Technology Officer & Co-Founder Nico is the mastermind behind Smart Containers Group and its technology. Growing up in Basel, Switzerland, he discovered his passion for mathematics very early on and therefore came to study mathematics, physics and engineering. Being a natural talent, he had already won prestigious architectural prizes during his studies and quickly became managing partner at ZPF an engineering company in Basel. He has constructed the most expensive buildings in Switzerland in collaboration with the famous architects Herzog & DeMeuron. Nico’s key strength lies not only in his state of the art engineering know how but also in his efficient management of teams, leading highly complex, multimillion projects to success. However, engineering alone did not suffice Nico. Having a passion for business and management, he decided to complete additional studies at the University of Fribourg, meeting Richard along the way. Everyone who meets Nico rapidly becomes aware of his sharp mind and his passion to invent new technologies. It is therefore not surprising, that both him and Richard ended up together where they are today.
 
Andreas Ernst - CFO - LinkedIn
Andreas is the true logistic finance expert in the company. He spent all his career in various finance roles of logistic service providers: from Swissair (today Swiss International Airlines), to Swissport (biggest ground service provider for airlines) where he filled the role as regional CFO for the Middle East and Africa. His last role before joining Smart Containers Group was CFO of Unitpool (now called Unilode), which is the largest independent air-freight container pooling company in the world.
 
Thomas Taroni - Head of IT - LinkedIn
Thomas is an IT-architecture mastermind. His first claim to fame is the creation of the largest media database, shared by all media houses in Switzerland: more than two million articles are uploaded every year, then queried and shared seamlessly and efficiently among multiple news companies. He founded his own IT company to design IT architectures focusing on process automation (eliminating paper and endless emails), and as a result won other clients (large banks, pharma companies and even publicly tendered government contracts). SkyCell became his client, when they needed a bespoke asset management system to track and trace their containers around the world. He joined SkyCell four years ago and since his tenure, has become the head of IT for all companies of Smart Containers Group.
 
Carla Bünger - CMO & Business Development Manager - LinkedIn
Carla is a marketing and sales expert. Building strong brands on solid foundations and convincing clients to buy its underlying products gives her huge satisfaction. She collected her experience through managing various international consumer brands, for companies such as Nestlé, Lindt and Coty. However, she discovered her passion for Blockchain technology roughly 18 months ago and has since been actively participating in the com - munity of Crypto Valley in Switzerland. The sheer endless application possibilities make her strive for more and she is drawing energy and enthusiasm from developing new business schemes around the subject. Her “can do” attitude helped to put together the high level advisory team around our ICO.
 

Advisors

Strategic advisor: Oliver Bussmann, is CEO and Founder of Bussmann Advisory, former CIO of UBS and SAP as well as the President of the Crypto Valley Association. “our main advisor” - Richard
Strategic advisor: Marc Bettinger, Altcoin and Blockchain specialist and investor, Co-Host Altcoin Meetup Switzerland (Bitcoin Association Switzerland)
Strategic Advisor: Fabian Schär is Managing Director of the Center for Innovative Finance at the University of Basel. His research focus is on the potential and applications of blockchain. In addition, he works as a lecturer in blockchain technology at the University of Basel, the University of Applied Sciences in Business Administration Zurich (HWZ) and the University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland (FHNW).
 
Technology Partner: Lykke Corp. our highly trustworthy expert in smart contract programming and ICO execution. (Lykke also audited their ICO smartcontract)
Legal Advisor: Gabriela Hauser-Spuehler was part of the team of MME, the well-known law firm in the crypto space.
Communication Advisor: David Wachsman and Emma Walker from Wachsman PR, the crypto community’s most experienced PR agency.
Richard also states they hired a lawyer that worked on the Ethereum ICO, but I don’t know if it’s Gabriela up there or another person.

Tokens

Min. investment = $500 USD for ICO, $5000 for presale (largest portion of supply), $250k for private sale.
There are two tokens as mentioned before: SMARC and LOGI. I’m more into SMARC because it’s safe (safe once the payouts start of course, as soon as a coin has a clear value like this, BTC moving up or down doesn’t matter to you), as well as obviously very attractive if you think of the long term profits.
 
Every year, the company’s annual shareholder meeting takes place, during which the shareholders will agree (or negotiate) on a proposal by the Smart Containers’ board about how much of the company profits is to be paid to the shareholders that year. 20% of that amount is taken, converted to ETH, and fairly distributed to the token holders.
Since the cofounders and all token holders will have aligned interests and incentives, we are all in a positive-sum-game. We do not want to use the ICO as a speculative springboard, but as way of funding innovation and change the world. Both Richard and Nico are committed for the long-term and not interested in a quick exit. Our aim is to use the collected funds to continue pushing the following business areas:
• Continue scaling of SkyCell in both B2B and B2C
• Establish FoodGuardians - the main goal if the ICO is to build and scale FoodGuardians
• Establish the of LOGI CHAIN Foundation
• Regularly evaluate organic scaling vs. M&A
• Evaluate IPO at relevant time
We are raising funds through an ICO to grow our container businesses in pharma and food. We push SkyCell from no. 4 to the no. 1 provider in the next 2-3 years.
 
The CEO in this video explains pretty easily why one would want to put money into this ICO over others:
“Why invest? [referring to SMARC] Simple question. It’s an up and coming company with revenue, multiple millions a year, most ICO’s have white papers…[we have much more than that].”
That's pretty clear. You can invest in random Xcoin ICO where they have some half-baked token that might see some level of adoption if it isn't just a cash grab, or you could invest in an actual multimillion-dollar company and be a part of it as it scales into what could potentially be a multibillion dollar entity.
 

The following is taken from the ICO, Legal, and Company FAQ

How will the profit share payouts work? 20% of dividends will be paid in ETH to all holders of SMARC tokens that are in circulation at the time of the payout. A given business year ends on 31st December each year with a general assembly held annually around mid-February. Therefore, dividend payout is expected around mid-March each year. In the event of a total sale of Smart Containers or the exit of one of its lines of business, the holders of SMARC tokens will receive a 20% participation of proceeds
 
Is there a future profit statement? No listed company can make an estimation or a commitment to a future return. To do so would neither be professional nor ethical. For Smart Containers, as with any company, profits may often depend upon a number of external factors, such as the general trust in blockchain technology. The question to be assessed is how fast a new disruptive technology can replace an old system. We believe that Smart Containers Group is well-positioned to facilitate this disruption, with a strong plan going forward and experienced team working to successfully implement blockchain technology in the supply chain. 5 years of industry experience, the 4th largest container fleet and a motivated team; that’s more than any idea whitepaper ICO.
 
What specific rights come with my investment? The SMARC token is a profit share token. When the company generates profits and the company’s general assembly approves a dividend payout, 20% of the defined funds attributed to dividends will be distributed proportionally to holders of SMARC tokens in circulation. In contrast, the LOGI token is a utility token that can be used to pay for transactions on the LOGI CHAIN, an open-source logistics platform for all stakeholders in the logistics field with the goal to create a seamless, fully integrated, digital logistics process.
 
Smart Containers will pay out a dividend to SMARC token holders. This would imply that the SMARC token is a security token. Are you compliant with financial regulation? Smart Containers tokens is not classified as a security in Switzerland under current law. This may be different in other jurisdictions such as the USA. Hence the SMARC token is not eligible for sale in certain jurisdictions. Our benchmark is the Modum token sale from June 2017. We have elected to use the same legal structure as it was accepted by regulators in Switzerland and well received by the ICO community and exchanges.
 
What is the vesting schedule for team and advisors tokens? Everyone will receive SMARC and LOGI tokens at the same time. Minting will occur at the end of the token sale. Advisors will have lock up periods depending on how many tokens they receive. Team members have a lock up period of 12 months.
 
Are SkyCell containers an approved ULD according to IATA regulations? SkyCell containers are exempt from the ULD rules by IATA. This has the huge advantage that, compared to our competitors, the SkyCell container can not only fly but can also leave the airport. Skycell containers are therefore a door-to-door solution. Our competitors’ containers, on the other hand, have to be unloaded at the airport and packed into a new transport unit in order to continue their journey from the airport to the final destination, increasing the risk of temperature excursion, and loss.
 
Are there financial statements? If so, are they audited, and by whom? Yes, there are financial statements for all our companies. They are audited by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). To preserve our competitive advantage in the market, we have decided not to publish our financial figures online at this moment in time.
 
Are Modum and Smart Containers competitors? Modum and Smart Containers are not competitors, more future partners. Modum rents/sells sensors to track and trace shipments on temperature, whereas Smart Containers rents/sells the containers, in which products including sensors are put inside. Of course our containers have sensors that record data for quality control, but Smart Containers does not sell these data sets. In the end Modum and Smart Containers will address to the same clients - Smart Containers provides the container and Modum will put a sensor in it.
 
How many airlines fly SkyCell containers? In addition to our major partners, Emirates and CargoLux, more than 30 airlines fly SkyCell containers.
 
What destinations does SkyCell serve? SkyCell is a global company. We are shipping containers around the world and reach each pharma client within 24-48 hours. This is accomplished through our airline partners, that can fly ready-to-use containers to more than 150 airports.
 

Profit Sharing Mechanism

During the annual shareholder meeting, the shareholders in the form of the general assembly (Annual General Assembly) decide on a proposal by Smart Containers’ board regarding the usage of profit as recognized in the annual financial statements of Smart Containers in the form of distribution of dividends. Distribution of a dividend on shares shall be announced in the “Tokenholder Information” section of the Smart Containers website; such announcement shall include the date and time of the dividend payment and the dividend amount per ordinary share in USD as well as the ETH/USD exchange rate which shall become applicable, as derived from publicly available and reliable quotes. Within 20 business days of the date of the resolution passed by the Annual General Assembly regarding dividend payments to the shareholders of Smart Containers, Smart Containers will make available a Profit Share Amount to each authenticated Tokenholder equal to 20% (twenty percent) of all dividends agreed to being distributed per share to the shareholders, divided by the total number of issued SMARC Tokens (To further explain for clarity, all Tokenholders combined will receive an amount equal to 20% of the amount received by all shareholders combined.). SMARC Tokenholders shall receive these payments in ETH, at an average exchange rate specified by Smart Containers.
 

FoodGuardians

“Imagine your tomatoes tasting 1 day ‘fresher”.
One of the main reasons for the SMARC/LOGI ICO is to raise the funds to fuel the growth of FoodGuardians alongside SkyCell.
According to their CEO, SkyCell is constantly asked “can your containers be used for food?”, but there are several issues with shipping food and medicine together. This is where FoodGuardians comes in.
FoodGuardians offers the next generation of reusable containers and boxes to transport regionally and globally temperature sensitive food products.The combination of patented cooling technology, cutting edge insulation and Blockchain infrastructure allows to redefine the product’s freshness and traceability.
Our vision is to allow your local butcher to order your favorite steak directly from the producing farm and sending it straight to your grill party. (All without the buyer even leaving his home, let alone going to store)
 
Advantages of using FoodGuardians
 
Each FoodGuardians container can be tracked around the world on:
 
The phrase “Imagine your tomatoes tasting 1 day ‘fresher” has been used by the CEO a couple times, and is more or less the FoodGuardian slogan. This is referring to the fact that not only can FoodGuardian and SkyCell containers save cost, CO2, and man/brainpower, but they can also make shipments faster when combined with the blockchain (LOGI Chain) and Smart Contracts. when everything is accounted for at every second with almost as little room for human error as possible, things are far more efficient.
We are launching our first food application – we will announce a collaboration before June for a solution that can be used to ship overnight online fresh food to people homes and can be used to supply hospitals and restaurants as well.
FoodGuardians and SkyCell are two of the many possible use-cases for SmartContainers' tech:
"Other use cases. Yes indeed. We are just getting started!! However, it makes sense to focus on scaling SkyCell and FoodGuardians before starting something new. In the end we are a tech company. We have defined 7 use cases around the insulation technology. We have started with the most relevant 2 but will certainly continue."
 

SkyCellONE

SkyCell is looking to bring a business-to-consumer solution to market, that was developed and tested with one of the top 20 pharma companies in the world. The direct to patient market is estimated to increase to a 2.5 billion USD market in the future, with no other competition yet aside from styrofoam containers that are disposed of after one use. The SkyCell ONE can also be co-branded by a partner, such as a pharmacy chain that could rent it out for home delivery, business trips or even holidays.
The product is temperature stable for up to 72 hours, can be recharged passively in a fridge, or temp-controlled warehouse or truck. Currently it’s best in class for size and weight, but that’s probably down to there being no competition! Trials have been undergoing since June 2017 with an orphan drug product, and go live is expected in Q2 2018. - Cryptowithoutborders article
The SkyCell ONE container is showcased HERE
THIS could be a massive money maker. There is currently no direct pharma-2-consumer shipping service, because it really wasn’t profitable, or manageable on a central database. They can even sell this product to other supply chain entities to use. The direct to patient market is estimated to increase to a 2.5 billion USD market in the future, with no other competition yet, aside from styrofoam containers that get disposed of after a single
Q&A: Smart Containers’ Richard Ettl on Blockchain, Pharma, and how His Company’s Hardware and Software is Disrupting the Logistics Industry - Nexchange.com
We are launching also additional sizes – so we are launching a very small box to ship pharma directly to patients' homes. Amazon just recently announced that they will postpone entering the pharma distribution space, as they do not have the technology to ship to patients homes in a temperature controlled manner. We are bringing this to market later this year. This will increase the convenience of patients and reduce the costs in the healthcare system.
 

Organs

I just finished listening to this podcast (20 minutes long, but you can skip the intro stuff to make it shorter of course). I’m now twice as excited as I was before. I’m going to type out a large chunk of the podcast. I’ll be paraphrasing slightly, so I don’t have to type every “uhh” or anything, plus he sometimes starts one sentence before finishing another.
“We have some prototypes, that we built, for example, for the Children’s Hospital here in Zurich, where we’ve designed a container that can transport living skin.” [Interviewer; “Wow.”] “So for young children that suffer skin diseases that could be almost fatal, like cancer, they grow this… patch of skin, and then that skin needs to be transported, and kept at body temperature so… roughly 37 degrees Celsius. There we designed them a box that did this for 10 days, autonomously.” [“That’s amazing…”] “Yeah, we did this because we wanted to learn how to interact and work with hospitals, this is a highly specialized application, and the next step could be organ logistics, because most of the organs today are transported on ice, because that’s the standard set in the 70’s, but studies have shown that if your transport certain tissue at room temperature, it is significantly better for the tissue than if you transport it on ice.”
I can guarantee you every major hospital on earth is going to want their hands on this container that can allow them to transport both living skin, and potentially organs in the future. The fact that in this day and age we’re still throwing people’s kidneys/lungs/etc in a bucket of ice is a little weird.
From the recent AMA:
Our Container BT5: The name stands for Body Temperature 5 L content. It transports skin grafts that was cultured for children with burn accidends. The temperature range is 37°c. Nico (our CTO) was so taken by this project, that he developped this container only for this purpose for a company calles Cutiss (a start-up from Zurich). We currently only have around 10 of these containers in use. It is not produced in on a large scale. We could market it, but have bigger opportunities to tackle first with the SkyCell one. You can only focus on 1-2 projects at a time. The BT5 is a beautiful project, but will need manpower to scale production and then manpower to market it.
 

Competition

Envirotainer, The leading company in this field, has only a matter of time before they’re overtaken. SmartContainer Group’s containers are proven to be superior (5x as efficient, 35% lighter, self-charging, etc, etc, read up above for the whole deal). According to the Googles, Envirotainer’s best year (2015) saw a profit of $50,000,000. It’s logical to assume that Smartcontainers will surpass them as the top dog, and at the same time be pulling in much more profit over time by serving both pharma, and the food industry (Envirotainer only does pharma). By accepting cryptocurrency payments, saving them a fair bit in fees from cross border payments, they’ll also net a small % more in profits annually.
I asked about the state of their competition. Turns out, Envirotainer (or more specifically the private equity firm that owns them) offered SmartContainers a buy out of $125m. This was one of countless offers they've turned down, because they believe they can scale the company to much further value. The firm selling Envirotainer has been trying to find a buying for the past 3 years, at $1b. No one will buy them, because anyone who knows their shit in that industry knows SmartContainers will overtake them in no time.
From April's AMA:
Our 2 biggest competitors are for sale. Envirotainer (biggest player) is owned by a Private Equity company that wants to sell it for 1 b USD. it already tries to sell for 3 years. SkyCell is considered a threat to the valuation of Envirotainer, since we are winning one client after the other from them. While Envirotainer is the largest player with a huge sales force and well established client contacts, they are still operating on an "old" technology. SkyCell is technology leader, has lighter containers, reduces CO2 emissions and is considered to be the future.
2 days ago, a private equity company requested a meeting to see the valuation of SkyCell and evaluate to buy. We have already been approached several times. We are treated as the bride in the market. However, Richard and Nico think we can scale the business much more before we should consider to sell. We are just getting started.
We have won 3 large accounts in Q1. Today we have 1200 containers. By the end of the year, it will be 2000. Our business plan estimates that SkyCell will be profitable in 2019. Therefore you can expect first dividends in Q1 2020.
 

Official Projections

Another redditor asked for "optimistic expectations for potential profits" during their ama, here was their answer:
How does a profit of 21 m USD on Smart Containers total in 2020 sound? This figure will then quadruple in 2021 to 76 m USD.
As you can see, this would mean that by 2021 tokenholders would not even have broken even yet. I myself am fine with this, i'm expecting to hold SMARC until the end (be it I die or the company sells, in which case i'll enjoy that fat exit payout). The potential gains from 2020-2030 are far more worth it to me than trying to make it in one year with heavy risk.
So why invest in this over a random shitcoin that might moon? If you're here to turn $1000 into $1m and get out by the end of the year, good luck, don't invest in smarc. If you're realistic and are aware that crypto will only be so volatile for so long, go ahead and think about putting a bit of your portfolio in something that will have actual value, lasting long after the shitcoins die. Crypto market could crash at any time, but that doesn't mean that SmartContainers as a company goes anywhere, nor their profits. I don't think I need to explain any further.

So…

A 5 year old company, with over 100,000 collective hours of R&D put into their products, with currently just under 100 innovative patents, that is already the 4th largest of it’s kind in the world, with the top product in their field on earth, is doing an ICO that is fully backed by the Swiss government, with a token that is due 20% of all future shareholder payouts, as well as 20% of any potential exit profits (the company being purchased). They’re already this big, and you can benefit from both their success, and their expansion into new markets.
There’s nothing stopping SmartContainers Group/SkyCell/FoodGuardians from working with VeChain in the future either. Or Walton, or Wabi, Devery, OriginTrail, Ambrosus, all of em.
 

Links4U:

SmartContainers
https://smartcontainers.ch/
https://foodguardians.ch
https://skycell.ch/
Whitepaper
FAQ
Terms of Token Sale
CryptoWithBorders Article
Medium post reviewing SmartContainers
Interview with Richard Ettl, Co-Founder & CEO of Smart Containers on SMARC Token Sale | TechBullion
Interview with Richard Ettl - CryptoRich - Richard talks about some of their patents in this video, I think about 20 minutes in. Whole thing was worth watching imo
Podcast on how Blockchain + Smart Contracts will change how we ship things globally - 20 minutes, I REALLY recommend you listen through it, but do skip the intro if you want.
CEO Richard Ettl speaking at Crypto Finance Conference in St.Moritz - about 14 minutes, also highly recommend you watch this as well.
SkyCell Video
Strategic Advisor Oliver Bussman (President of the Crypto Valley Association, Former CIO of UBS and SAP), on SmartContainers
Marc Bettinger on why he took an advisory role with SmartContainers - (many may know him as "altcoindad")
Michael Guzik - Former 'Head of Blockchain' at PWC, current Head of ICO advisory at Lykke - why he's involved with the Smarc/Logi ICO
AMA with Carla Bünger - CMO & Business Development Manager of SmartContainers
AMA with Thomas Taroni - Head of IT of Smart Containers
Q&A w/ Richard Ettl - Nexchange
 
Should you invest in this? I sure am, and am very glad to even be offered the opportunity, but it’s up to you. Read through this post if you haven't yet, then click these links and decide for yourself. Don't go all in of course, since this is a profit share token, there is much less risk, therefore less short term reward. The long term reward is what we're looking at here, don't buy into the ICO and then complain that you aren't getting 1000% ROI payouts by year one.
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Automation Anywhere is a global leader in Robotic Process Automation (RPA), empowering customers to automate end-to-end business processes with software bots – digital workers that perform repetitive and manual tasks, resulting in dramatic productivity gains, improved customer experience and more engaged employees. Automation Anywhere empowers people whose ideas, thought and focus make the companies they work for great. We deliver the world’s most sophisticated Digital Workforce Platform making work more human by automating business processes and liberating people. Products. Our platform is powerful enough to automate tasks of any complexity, but user-friendly enough for anyone on your team to use Automation Anywhere, Inc. was founded in 2007. The company's line of business includes the wholesale distribution of computers, computer peripheral equipment, and computer software. Automation Anywhere, the robotic process automation (RPA) software company, may look at a public listing as one way to raise more capital to fund growth. Mihir Shukla, co-founder and chief executive, said while it was generating decent enough money to support expansion for now, it would evaluate options. “We have various strategic options (for raising capital) for a firm of our size. UiPath could be looking to double its valuation to over $20 billion in a 2021 IPO. The software startup, which specializes in robotic process automation, told Bloomberg in December that it had confidentially filed for an IPO. SAN JOSE, Calif., Jan. 27, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- OpsVeda, an operational intelligence software company on a mission to make customer operations more agile and profitable, today announced that it Most experts expect Automation Anywhere in the foots steps of UIPath. UIPath announced a funding round at $72 a share a month before their Direct Listing IPO. This will most likely put them over $100 IPO price and we expect to see a $200 trading price. Automation Anywhere should see similar results. I will post here if I get more shares. Automation Anywhere. Pre-IPO's Automation Anywhere. by admin Dec 11, 2020 No comment(s) Prior2IPO gets you access to our network in Pre-IPO companies. Our purpose is to connect you with funds that have the strongest Pre-IPO opportunities in the space. × You must register or login to the website to view this opportunity. Click here to login or register your FREE account and start viewing this Process automation startup UiPath files for IPO expected in the first half of 2021 - SiliconANGLE Last Update on: 10/02/2021 @ 02:00AM Abu Dhabi. EMU . Wednesday Feb 10,2021. Fajr 05:41; Shurooq 06:56; Dhuhr 12 Robotics firm Automation Anywhere mulls IPO as it expands in Middle East. Exclusive: San Jose-headquartered firm is planning to double employee numbers at its regional Dubai base within the next few months . Ankur Kothari, co-founder and chief revenue officer of Automation

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Automaion Anywhere Training in Noida - YouTube

Repetitive, structured business processes that drain resource time and require high accuracy is a great common first step into RPA. Ease of adopting RPA for ... Today I provide stock market analysis on UiPath IPO and UiPath stock ($UIPTH stock). The UI Path IPO date is not currently known; however, the Robotic Proces... automation anywhere run excel macro automation anywhere excel macro automation anywhere Run excel VBA macro automation anywhere macros Please find our channel videos: https://www.youtube.com ... An introduction to WEMO from Belkin, a family of simple, ingenious products that allow you to control home electronics from anywhere. More info about the Bel... automation anywhere, automation anywhere 10.2, automation anywhere analytics, automation anywhere architecture, automation anywhere artificial intelligence, automation anywhere banking, automation ... Best Automation Anywhere Training Institute In Noida Available In Noida. We provide Corporate Training on Automation Anywhere Training Institute – RPAhttp:/... Ce cours pour apprendre Javascript est classé le 1er sur le marché français avec plus de 11.350 étudiants sur Udemy. Actuellement, on fait une promotion de f... Automation Anywhere empowers people by freeing them from repetitive, manual tasks, and making end-to-end business processes more efficient and productive. We... A VERY GOOD CAMERA THAT YOU CAN USE OUTDOORS AND WITH A AFFORDABLE AUTOMATION SYSTEM THAT ALLOWS YOU TO MONITOR FROM ANYWHERE WITHOUT,WITHOUT,AND AGAIN WITHOUT PAYING MONTHLY FEES.FOR MORE ...

automation anywhere ipo 2021

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