We live in interesting times for sure. Some businesses thrive and others are fighting for survival. Many of them have no idea what is coming or even what to do. For some of them, the pandemic was like a “pause” button when leaders and decision-makers were able to zoom out and look at the situation from different angles. Not just to adjust to the “new normal” but to go back to the original idea…and more.
One of them who is never out of groundbreaking ideas is Roberto Hroval, founder and chairman of Hong Kong´s Patentreal Corporation, and PP8 Corp. Ltd, UK. We asked him how his flagship project, Project Phoenix8, is evolving and adjusting to the new situation.
Washington Herald: Mr. Hroval, we noticed that during the corona-times, every company creates its own unique story. Some companies needed to adopt heavily while others run their businesses with not-so-many changes. How this situation affected your business plans?
Roberto Hroval: Thanks for the invitation, I really appreciate it. As you know, our branch offices are located in three locations, China included. We were forced to postpone, among other things, all the dates related to machinery distribution from there. With every delivery, we usually send the team of engineers along to assemble and start the plant and coach the local engineers on how to work with it.
China citizens were unable to obtain visas to travel around the world so we couldn’t plan the delivery dates precisely. Now, the big pandemic is going on in Europe where our first plant will be located. The situation is not ideal but it is not impossible as well.
We are patient, things will come back to place gradually. On the other hand, we used that time to upgrade some things that are now even better than before.
WH: What are you working on regarding your PP8 project right now?
RH: Well, we didn’t stop working on it for a minute. This whole pandemic situation was a kind of assistance to slow down and re-evaluate the whole situation. Maybe we have been even pushing too hard and too much in the past because we wanted to give our investors some financial gains as soon as possible.
Luckily, the lock-down situation forced us to ask ourselves an important question: is the direction 100% correct, and all tasks are fully aligned? Some things bothered us from the beginning. Now was a perfect time to think clearly about them again and adjust them.
WH: What kind of things are we talking about?
RH: I mainly mean all this cryptocurrency scene. We are old-school people and we know how to do business. We know how to build machinery and make it work profitably. And we honor tangible values. But when this bitcoin and altcoins rush began, some people suggested us to go public via crypto. Luckily, we were reluctant enough to miss the ICO–initial coin offering–boat. At the time, it felt like we missed something big because most ICOs gathered millions of dollars from investors quite easily.
But that was a blessing in disguise. We knew at the time that this direction was not reliable enough. That is why we created our version, industrial coin private offering–or ICPO–instead. It was quite a bold move at that time but it turned out to be a correct decision. It has a lot of characteristics of an “IPO goes digital” approach. Crypto investors are very “special” kind of people. We assumed, and also made some researches, that they are more gamblers than investors. But we didn´t have a solid, valid proof. Well, a month ago, one of the biggest crypto communities with a few hundred thousand active members conducted a survey. One of the questions was: “We are about to create an online casino. Would you like to play it?” What do you think, how many of them said yes?
WH: I have no slightest idea. Forty percent?
RH: Ninety-seven! Crypto investors are hard-core gamblers. Look, we are not investment gurus. But I don’t need a Harvard diploma to predict that gamblers are not long-term supporters. They want quick spikes of token value, pumps, and dumps. The other thing that bothers us is the wrong data regarding daily trading volume at crypto exchanges. It turned out that very little real transactions are going on. Most of them are created by “bots” or automated software that simulate human transactions.
This was not good enough for us. Too little regulations, way too many fake movements, and the wrong type of people. Not a very good foundation for a billion-dollar-plus project as PP8 is. Unfortunately, there is no workable alternative to it. Don’t get me wrong – cryptocurrencies have some amazing advantages over fiat money. But this is a very young “invention” and it didn’t come to maturity yet.
So we had to reshape the industry to make a good foundation for future development and easy, transparent, strict, rigid environments for our tokens. We do believe that the future is digital. It is not a secret that governments are developing their digital currencies. Many predict that we will see the digital dollar quite soon. China is working on its digital currency–even though a form of digitalized payment is already in use there, by WeChat application with more than a billion users–and Europe and many other countries are working on their digital currency as well.
Listen, we invested our own money into the project. We invited friends and family members to joins us. This is our life-work…and also something that you don’t put aside if it doesn’t meet your expectations, or if you hit the obstacle. You carry on no matter what. So the last thing we would like to have is some gamblers to artificially pump the value of our token, sell it at the highest point and dump it. We wouldn’t have any financial mechanisms and tools to stop them. So at the moment you let them in you put your project in jeopardy. That is when we asked ourselves: “Is this necessary? Isn’t there any better chance?” We didn´t even want to bother with such activities.
So we were looking for some kind of solution where we would be able to keep the advantages of digital currencies but, on the other hand, still keep the semi-classical, old-school stock exchange-touch.
Of course, the situation is even more complicated because we don’t sell financial investment. Our supporters get industrial tokens (iT) that represent material goods – our end products.
So the question was, where can we find a workable solution that offers all of these and some? It turned out that there wasn’t any. So we decided to figure it out and build it from scratch.
WH: Let me stop you here. Do I understand you well that you figured out a new investment model?
RH: Correct. We wanted a kind of hybrid between digital and fiat currency. We see this form as a global financial driver of the future. So we created the environment for the improved token that represents material goods, changeable for company products or ready to be sold on an open market.
We contacted many people, experts of all kinds, but no one had a good enough solution for us. That is why we decided to create our own industrial exchange that will deal with high-value, tangible, nature-friendly, and future-oriented projects only.
WH: So you will establish your own industrial exchange?
RH: Actually, it won’t be a classic stock exchange per se. It would be raw material exchange. We called it an online industrial exchange or OIX. But it will be in digital form and everyone will be able to simply participate in real-time, online. Of course, for that innovation, we needed to invent a kind of personal vault where people will be able to keep industrial goods–or iTokens–as well. So we did it and named it MonaLisa Vault. Everyone who wanted to participate will get his own MonaLisa Vault where his industrial tokens will be saved. The vault will also provide an easy overview of personal status, OIX connectivity, and payouts.
WH: So, MonaLisa? It seems like a very classic name for such a bold and futuristic plan…
RH: Yes, our strategist Nick came out with this name in we loved it instantly. Mona Lisa is not just an old painting. It is a classic. Not too shiny and not the biggest one either. But it is the one. It represents the old school touch of our global heritage. It is reminiscent of the human intellect, trust, and ability. Above all, it never fades. It represents high value, it always fits into modernity, and it is eternal.
WH: Can you tell some more data about your online industrial exchange?
The main reason is to form an environment for PP8 industrial token exchange, of course. But we have big plans to invite other great projects to join our exchange as well. AGE Biomass Ultima will, most likely, will be next. This is another amazing, zero-emission green energy plant that efficiently converts forest garbage to electricity plus high-quality carbon that is used for soil improvement. It increases the plant’s immune resistance and fewer pesticides are needed.
This exchange will be different from everything else you know because it will gather only high-added value projects that have already passed the “proof of concept” phase. It will offer a supporting platform to increase the industrial exploitation phase. All projects will reduce carbon footprint globally and they will have to obtain a special certificate before.
By the way, we are already talking with financial institutions all over the globe to introduce our industrial exchange to investors who are looking for safe, profitable, and future-oriented projects that care about nature and people. We expect hundreds of thousands–if not millions–people to join, starting with about 65.000 participants, and around $100 million in cash. Overall market capitalization will be close to $6 billion, in the short term. We have a very good mathematical background on this model but I can’t give the whole information yet.
WH: What kind of projects will be listed on your exchange and what would be a procedure?
RH: For now, PP8 is our highest priority project and everything else can wait. But I can reveal some guidance. We will, most likely, establish a committee or board of advisors who will perform an audit for each project. We will look for clean, green projects with a high-added value that will serve long-term for humanity that have already successfully passed a proof-of-concept phase.
Like, robotics, new ways of transportation, new medicine, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, gamifying solutions, quantum computing, new clean energy solutions, new materials, and similar. Besides, we will establish a special association–or movement–called We4Next that will also screen the projects, evaluate them, give a warning about possible problems but also suggestions, and somehow connect this kind of business scene. This would be the first global movement that will respectively begin to clean the planet by already proved solutions for where all problems began in the first place – in the industry.
The interview is continued here.
