eWallet: UK Fiat-Dash Exchange - Update Thread

Hello chaps!

Another week and another relatively boring update for you, we are all working hard towards our deadlines fo rthe month and hopefully will be putting a few new articles up on our site today to flesh out our learning centre and about Dash sections.

Alex has been working on our application and has made significant progress with our ID verification side of things and the sending of Dash to customers (via the testnet at the moment of course!).
 
dashinstant said:
Hi Ash,

Looks like you’re doing some good work here.

You do have some tough competition however, as Uphold allow the purchase of Dash with UK credit / debit cards and bank transfer, and their UX is first class.

I like the fact that you are UK and Dash focused. I think there’s a big market to be tapped here.

I enjoyed the 4 articles on the home page. They are nicely written and will help newbies.

Couple of minor typos:

From “Crypto Privacy”

who you are or were you are from the wallet address. (should be Where)

From “InstantSend”

but it is also technically that the debit card they are using is stolen or the cash they have is a forgery. (The word ‘possible’ is missing.)

Also, the hyperlinks in the articles take ppl away from your site, perhaps you should set it so that a new tab or window is opened, otherwise you may lose visitors?

Keep up the good work.

The site and idea is nice.

All the best,

Dashinstant.
Click to expand...

I thought Uphold just used exchange APIs in the background.. I could be wrong.
 
You may be right.

All I know is that I bought some Dash with a UK credit card, and I sold some Dash for £ Sterling and had it transferred to my UK bank account, just like Coinbase would allow with their cryptos I presume.... (although I'm not certain because Coinbase don't allow Dash of course, so I don't have a Coinbase account!)

The Uphold interface is really nice, and they have a few other interesting features as well.

I like them although the fees are arguably a little high. But, what the heck, they are supporting Dash, so we should support them! :)
 
Hello again!

This week has been much the same as the previous, writing content and development, should hopefully see some new content being added on the site in the near future with a larger update covering all of our May milestones soon!

There will hopefully be some new articles going live this week covering why we like Cryptocurrency in general and various other areas!
 
@GrandMasterDash @dashinstant - Thank you both for your enduring support, we're trucking on and really excited about the coming updates and getting our platform live.

You're completely spot on regarding Uphold, we've all used it and like their service, they've solved a lot of the problems we identified in the market place from the offset. When we went live they had frozen all card payment but they've re-enabled this and kept it live which is excellent. When it comes to us and them I'd be quite happy with our service being seen in the same light as theirs and I would be doing them a disservice saying anything different. However there is a lot of room in the market and a multi-pronged approach, especially where one has a UK focus and is closely tied to the DAO. Having both platforms would only be beneficial for Dash, I can't say I particularly see uphold as competition either, yes they are a similar product but our real competition is awareness and adoption. The front lines haven't even been drawn yet and won't be drawn until the audience is established, giving consumers choice, education and adding competition into the marketplace is beneficial for the users and investors at the end of the day.
 
Another check in update here chaps! Sorry it isn't more exciting but we are working hard towards our month end goals!

Ash has been putting the final touches on our marketing plan and changing it where needed, taking into account changes in our budget and Google's changes.

Later on this week expect a much more interesting update, Alex will also be providing an update on the progress of Development!
 
Hello, update from Alex - unfortunately the spam prevention measures were blocking him from posting this himself:

Hello all,

With two months of full-time work into the eWallet exchange application, it's time for the first update from the development team. That's just me for now due to budget constraints. Despite that, we've made good progress all round. Here's a rough breakdown of the aspects:

- Application scaffold
- Exchange rate aggregation from numerous sources
- Identity validation document upload with manual verification
- Rough exchange browser application (built with react)
- Bizops browser application
- Integration with a dash node running on the test network
- Partial integration with two credit card processors
- Utilisation of the amazon simple email service

While the actual code isn't production ready at the moment with very few tests, the above provides the full flow of functionality when using the testnet and payment sandboxes.
This means a test user can:
1) Visit our development version of the exchange site.
2) Request a new order for dash.
3) Receive a responsive email with the link for identity validation.
4) Upload KYC docs and wait for confirmation email.
5) Make a test payment with fake card details.
6) See the dash client notification that the transaction has been submitted and is awaiting blockchain confirmations.

The next month I'll be working through refactoring areas of the codebase which are not very maintainable, writing tests, focusing on how all the various errors will bubble up to the user with well written responses - essentially a lot of sanding down the rough edges and generally trying to bring it to you as a high-fidelity demo for your feedback.

We were in two minds whether to host what we have so far on an aws instance so you could have a play and recieve some test dash, however the current UI was created purely for testing.

We'd rather manage expectations for now by showing you what it will look like without functionality as opposed to a usable demo without sleek and sexy asethetics.

So that's it for my first write up, thanks for reading.

My next scheduled update will be at the end of June along with a useable demo before the August full launch.

Stay tuned,
Alex.
Click to expand...
 
Hi guys, here's some light reading for you (hah):

Marketing Strategy Doc
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gQ12kMQoX6ahfSbJBebaqdZYWPActG8sfjWLvIOEmX0/edit?usp=sharing

In other news here's a peak at our dashboard:
http://ewallet.co.uk/design/dashboard-mockup.png

Intentionally simplistic and modelled off Coinbase (reasoning explained in that marketing strategy doc, in short it's about user experience and familiarity). We're looking forward to showing you a more in-depth look later in June.

More exciting news
We'll be going to see Dash Core Inc & Kuvacash at Moneyconf in Dublin from June 11th - 13th.

More to follow!
 
GrandMasterDash said:
Do you think a dash price chart on the dashboard is best suited to your customers? Or might it better to show the customer's monthly buying and selling?
Click to expand...

Thanks for the feedback - It's a good point. We've based the initial layout off of Coinbase and whilst they do many things right they're far from perfect. We'll be developing all of these as react components so we'll be able to shift them around as necessary (at some point maybe even giving the user the power to customise their dashboard).

In terms of the feedback we initially were reaching out to people with questions as we went but our thinking at the moment is as we're revising and reiterating a lot of what we're doing it makes sense to compile a feedback survey for users to complete in their own time towards the end of the initial build which will inform our layouts & offering a bit more.

On this one though, what do you think the most important components would be and what order should they be in? Here's our list thus far:

Transaction Record (Line graph)
Transaction Record (List format)
Account Holdings (Dash/Gbp, Line graph)
Account Holdings (Pie)
Account Holdings (Static Info)
Dash Value Tracker
Dash Conversion Tool
Purchase Widget
 
Also, video update time!


Really do appreciate any feedback you guys can give us whether that's in design, functionality, approach or otherwise.

Marketing Strategy
Insight into what we're doing, including a little about why and how.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gQ12kMQoX6ahfSbJBebaqdZYWPActG8sfjWLvIOEmX0/edit?usp=sharing

Public Spend Sheet
We're logging our expenses publicly, only thing that differs to the private info is the private info has invoices attached (with personal info on them) - we're happy to show all invoices to Dash Watch or in private as we're completely open.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1XQvoacJyY-JOz7iIs1IbcE74u5hca4eQeGX6Fw2TBME/edit#gid=0

System Spec
Alex's initial spec of the system and how the various moving parts of it work, we're happy to help others operating in this space and provide more insight to anyone that it would help.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Xe1QLCgO4zLMYbtBuJJ9fbDLaQNPFnJGwLmJ0KEi18g/edit

Latest Dev Update
With an upcoming front-end demo and potentially a slightly advanced beta launch Alex has provided his first developer insight highlighting where he's up to and the next steps:

Hello all,

With two months of full-time work into the eWallet exchange application, it's time for the first update from the development team. That's just me for now due to budget constraints. Despite that, we've made good progress all round. Here's a rough breakdown of the aspects:

- Application scaffold
- Exchange rate aggregation from numerous sources
- Identity validation document upload with manual verification
- Rough exchange browser application (built with react)
- Bizops browser application
- Integration with a dash node running on the test network
- Partial integration with two credit card processors
- Utilisation of the amazon simple email service

While the actual code isn't production ready at the moment with very few tests, the above provides the full flow of functionality when using the testnet and payment sandboxes.
This means a test user can:
1) Visit our development version of the exchange site.
2) Request a new order for dash.
3) Receive a responsive email with the link for identity validation.
4) Upload KYC docs and wait for confirmation email.
5) Make a test payment with fake card details.
6) See the dash client notification that the transaction has been submitted and is awaiting blockchain confirmations.

The next month I'll be working through refactoring areas of the codebase which are not very maintainable, writing tests, focusing on how all the various errors will bubble up to the user with well written responses - essentially a lot of sanding down the rough edges and generally trying to bring it to you as a high-fidelity demo for your feedback.

We were in two minds whether to host what we have so far on an aws instance so you could have a play and recieve some test dash, however the current UI was created purely for testing.

We'd rather manage expectations for now by showing you what it will look like without functionality as opposed to a usable demo without sleek and sexy asethetics.

So that's it for my first write up, thanks for reading.

My next scheduled update will be at the end of June along with a useable demo before the August full launch.

Stay tuned,
Alex.
Click to expand...
 
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Hmm, tough one, but my thought is, though this is meant to be a fiat-to-dash exchange, I think a more bank-like experience is preferable. Therefore, I would go with monthly bar charts instead of line charts. I also think, a dash value tracker is not that important. I mean, great to see while the value of dash is going up, but off-putting when it's going down. I imagine the user already has a sense of why they are buying or selling dash.

Preferred order:

Account Holdings (Static Info)
Account Holdings (Pie)
Purchase Widget (collapsible?)
Dash Conversion Tool (collapsible? please elaborate)
Account Holdings (Dash/Gbp, monthly bar chart)
Transaction Record (List format)

Not sure about:
Transaction Record (Bar / Line graph)

Would keep off the dashboard:
Dash Value Tracker


AshFrancis said:
Thanks for the feedback - It's a good point. We've based the initial layout off of Coinbase and whilst they do many things right they're far from perfect. We'll be developing all of these as react components so we'll be able to shift them around as necessary (at some point maybe even giving the user the power to customise their dashboard).

In terms of the feedback we initially were reaching out to people with questions as we went but our thinking at the moment is as we're revising and reiterating a lot of what we're doing it makes sense to compile a feedback survey for users to complete in their own time towards the end of the initial build which will inform our layouts & offering a bit more.

On this one though, what do you think the most important components would be and what order should they be in? Here's our list thus far:

Transaction Record (Line graph)
Transaction Record (List format)
Account Holdings (Dash/Gbp, Line graph)
Account Holdings (Pie)
Account Holdings (Static Info)
Dash Value Tracker
Dash Conversion Tool
Purchase Widget
Click to expand...
 
Hi again chaps,

Hope you have had a chance to look at our Marketing Strategy Doc (if its of interest to you!) We are all hard at work (or well Ash isn't right now, he is on holiday in Canada!) on our deadlines, sadly we are a little behind schedule at the moment, mainly due to our lower than expected budget, but we are pushing to get everything completed as soon as possible.

We are now working towards our June deadlines but will also be finishing up some stuff from May that is still outstanding!
 
Time for another update!

Firstly our apologies for not posting last week's update, we were in Dublin at Moneyconf meeting with the other teams and some of the Dash core team.

Over the past couple of weeks we have been working on various areas of the site, we have numerous articles that we hope to be pushing to our live site soon covering many aspects of cryptocurrency and Dash.

Our marketing plan, as outlined in the post by Ash is now live hopefully by the end of the month we will have some results to look into.

Alex is working on various aspects of development and will be putting together an update for next week.
 
Another Monday, another update!

Quick reminder to take a look at our public expenses doc if you haven't already:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...07157016563726375232&usp=sheets_home&ths=true

Not much to update today as we're gearing up to launch a few of things by the end of the month, however next week you can expect:

- A development update from Alex along with recordings of him using the application (awesome)
- A video of my face updating you on everything thats been happening this month (still pretty good)
- Marketing data on our initial test... (It went pretty well, but with optimisation could be a fair bit better)
- A peak of our landing page to complement our launch version - this will be for queries like 'how to buy Dash' and some affiliate / partner referrals
- Some more bits and bobs (customer support info, some articles, videos, etc)

Side note, I thought I'd posted but thanks @GrandMasterDash - we'll put as much of that into the launch app as possible.

Cheers,
Ash
 
Quick thought.. do you think perhaps it would be better to market it as eWallet.uk instead of the legacy .co.uk? Obviously both domain suffixes should point to the same place, but I mean in terms of marketing. It's true not many people have switched to the newer / shorter extension, but personally I prefer the shorter extension.
 
GrandMasterDash said:
Quick thought.. do you think perhaps it would be better to market it as eWallet.uk instead of the legacy .co.uk? Obviously both domain suffixes should point to the same place, but I mean in terms of marketing. It's true not many people have switched to the newer / shorter extension, but personally I prefer the shorter extension.
Click to expand...

Good suggestion - we did consider using the shorter TLD. As you point out, in terms of awareness its just not there yet - I also prefer the shorter extension and I'm sure in time it will be more utilised as larger brands make the switch. Trust is key for us and a lack of awareness of the .UK top level domain and trust that is associated with .co.uk (all major UK banks for example) makes us feel its not quite right for us just yet.
 
Test Marketing Update
Due to the dip in Dash/GBP pricing we've had to scale back our marketing test substantially, however we have got some good insight from these campaigns.

We ran both generic and precise google search campaigns on Dash related keywords (some knowledge based, some with buyer intent) using keywords like:
[what is dash]
[dash cryptocurrency]
[buy dash]
[buy dash coin]
[buy dash cryptocurrency]
....
in total there were around 30 keywords used, nearly all used exact matching but with a couple of BMMs thrown in.

We also ran some generic ads on +dash to see performance on such generic terms.

So, what did the results look like?

From £137.30 ($180) spent we received 184 clicks (CPC of about £0.75 - $1)

This resulted in 47 partial conversions, meaning the user clicked either:
'Log in'
'Open My eWallet'
'Get Started Now'
'Open My Account'
Each of these trigger a pop-up box asking for an email address

Of these 47 partial conversions, we had 19 full conversions, meaning the user provided their email.

That shows pretty good intent to convert and we're surprised at the email signups, though some of them may be fake or repeats. Our list isn't exactly massive (at about 30 emails now) but its nice to see some interest coming in and the intent of users to buy / sign up from Adwords conversions.

So cost per conversion of about £15 / $20.

With some CRO work (and the site actually live) we think we can bring this down considerably, obviously an email conversion is very different from a purchase but its still a positive signal and we're happy with the performance of this campaign. Once we're live we will be doing a lot more varying marketing tests from content discovery networks through to paid placements on industry sites (CMC / CoinGecko / Etc.) to find avenues with really strong return on ad spend.
 
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