Draft NOW Product Family Integration.

[Eric_Stanek]

NOW Product Family Integration:

The priority of PIVX has shifted towards increasing awareness, and building Use Cases, in order to increase Adoption. A small part of that, is getting integrated on as many 3rd party wallets as possible. This gets PIVX exposed to people that use those wallets, and prefer to only use one app for holding their crypto. When researching 3rd party wallets, the NOW Wallet hit my radar.

Turns out, they are part of a group of offerings, called the NOW Product Family. I reached out to them, and a discussion took place on Telegram, with many other PIVians interacting as well. The entire discussion is shared in the #now_products channel in the PIVX Community Discord, under the Business Development category.

Here are the products/services we are primarily interested in:

Product:	Website:	Description:
ChangeNOW	https://ChangeNow.io/	No KYC and no limit crypto exchange.
NOW wallet	https://WalletNOW.app/	Hold 40+ blockchains and 1,000's of tokens.
NOW payments	https://NOWpayments.io/	Crypto payment processor for 3,000+ merchants.
NOW custody	https://NOWcustody.com/	Secured storage serving 8 industries.

Note that we also discussed the integration with Guardarian for a fiat <--to/from--> PIVX on/off ramp. (Visa, Mastercard, SEPA, Swift) But, while there is a strong relationship between Guardarian and NOW Products, they are a separate company. Further Guardarian integration is not a requirement for the NOW Products. As such, it will be discussed as a separate proposal at a future date.

Another issue, is that PIVX is already 'partially' integrated into ChangeNOW, NOW payments and Guardarian. What we are paying for is 'full' integration into those products. I will be brutally honest here .... after asking a few times for clarification, it is still not clear to me what the difference is. It feels like we are being asked to pay for features already existing. Hopefully, things will become clear in the feedback to this proposal. I can then incorporate that into the final proposal before submission to the network for voting.

The cost to get integrated into the above listed 4 products would typically be:

Products:	Normal Cost: (USD)	Discounted Cost: (USD)
ChangeNOW + NOWcustody	$35,000	$35,000
NOW wallet	$15,000	$10,000
NOW payments	$5,000	$0
Total:​	$55,000	$45,000

I encourage everyone to read through the entire conversation in the #now_products channel in the PIVX Community Discord. It would be a large amount of effort to summarize it all here.

Also, there is a video from a different crypto project with the Change NOW products team that is very helpful too. Please watch it as well. https://www.youtube.com/live/EyzuVaFUgW0?feature=share

If this project is submitted to the network for MNOs to vote on, and it passes and is funded, I don't see that there is much work at all for our development team. There would however be a lot of opportunities for Social and Marketing which is great.

There are many other perks too, like the opportunity for MyPIVXwallet (MPW) to integrate with the ChangeNOW exchange API, so that you could perhaps exchange from BTC to/from PIVX, or purchase PIVX using Visa/Mastercard, while staying in MPW. That feature is not the best for those focused on privacy, but is very important for on-boarding new users to PIVX with their first $20, $50 or $100 investment.

Assuming that the PIVX price stays at $0.40 USD, and that $45K USD is the best price they can offer, we are looking at a proposal of 112,500 PIV.

This is a complex proposal. Please, PLEASE, PLEASE review it in detail, and provide feedback! Even if you can't vote, you absolutely can complete some due diligence and provide feedback that can affect how a Masternode Owner will vote!

I am not expecting this proposal to be ready for the next Super Block, but it would be great if it is ready for the following Super Block in April.

Thanks in advance for your questions and constructive critique!

 

[sh_rn]

This proposal and the discussion with the Now Group has been confusing and I think we still don't have clear information for anyone to be able to vote on this.

PIVX is already listed and available on ChangeNow and their API, where you can swap PIVX in both directions with BTC and many other currencies. This means we can add a widget to MPW right now, and also to the PIVX website.
PIVX is already listed on Guardarian where you can buy PIVX with FIAT. You cannot sell PIVX for FIAT but why would the DAO pay ~$25,000 to list on their partner site where users can already buy PIVX with USD and EUROS? To use their API you need to contact them directly.
PIVX is already listed on NowCustody as you can see in the attached screenshot. I haven't tested this but unless their website is incorrect then it looks like we would be paying $35k for something we already have.

I had never heard of Now Wallet until a few weeks ago. Without having a rough idea of how many users they have then I'd say $15k is a lot of money to spend for a wallet listing that has no other benefits to PIVX.

The NowPayments integration is an important one, and imo, probably worth the $5k fee as it opens up opportunities for ecommerce integrations and checkouts with PIVX. That's definitely something we could do with along with the upcoming BTCPayServer work.

Personally I see only minimal benefits to this proposal (ie Now Payments integration) but maybe the Now team can provide more information and explain clearly how exactly the new integrations will benefit PIVX compared to what we already have.

 

[Eric_Stanek]

Bassam, from ChangeNOW added this feedback in the Telegram chat.

"Concerning the part that PIVX is partially integrated and the service it is already available, Let me explain it in a more technical way. For the buy side we just proxy the request to PIVX to one of our liquidity providers, but the in reality the network is not integrated. For the sell part we need to be fully integrate the network to support the coin. I hope it is clear now."

 

[Eric_Stanek]

Something to consider:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1630946183936868354

 

[Eric_Stanek]

I thought it would be far more work, but after reading through the Telegram chat, I found these various points that I will list here in no particular order or priority.

1. CoinsBee said that as long as PIVX gets added to NOW Payments, they can accept PIVX as payment for GIft Cards.
2. NOW Wallet is a non-custodial solution that would allow PIVX to be stored and exchanged with 500+ assets already present in the wallet, as well fiat-to-crypto gateway.
3. The fiat onramp is available for most of Europe and also USA/Canada.
4. It is required that PIVX be listed with high volume on one of Binance, KuCoin, Gate.io, Huobi, Pancakeswap, Uniswap, Quickswap or a few others. (Currently, the only one in the list PIVX is listed on, is Binance.)
5. ChangeNOW is already integrated with a few DEXs. (Pancakeswap , Uniswap , and Quickswap.) None currently list PIVX, but it shows their commitment to supporting DEXs.
6. The ChangeNOW exchange and NOWwallet are offered as a White Label service too. Those other wallets could easily setup a PIVX node, and list PIVX too.
7. PIVX is only available for buy in the API, because the network is not integrated, which makes PIVX unavailble for off-ramp for Guardarian, and from the sell option on widgets and API users.

At this point, this forum post, contains the entirety of the important communication points between PIVX and Telegram.

The 'mirrored' Discord channel will be archived, but kept for reference should anyone want to review it there.

As such, ALL future communications about this proposal should be added here in the forum.

Thanks!

 

[Jeffrey]

ChangeNow is a massive + reputable player in this field. Given the potential for us being listed by many others that utilise their white label service. I am in high support of a full integration with their services. Personally I have not used their wallet service so can’t give much feedback on that, I did attempt to download it but seems it’s not available in the Singapore App Store on iOS? but since we have a minimal amount of mobile wallets it is always good to get added to more. Plus users can exchange within the wallet adding extreme simplicity.
I’d love to see PIVX listed with more reputable services and this is definitely one of them with an entourage of benefits. So I vote yes.

 

[sh_rn]

ChangeNow is a massive + reputable player in this field. Given the potential for us being listed by many others that utilise their white label service. I am in high support of a full integration with their services. Personally I have not used their wallet service so can’t give much feedback on that, I did attempt to download it but seems it’s not available in the Singapore App Store on iOS? but since we have a minimal amount of mobile wallets it is always good to get added to more. Plus users can exchange within the wallet adding extreme simplicity.
I’d love to see PIVX listed with more reputable services and this is definitely one of them with an entourage of benefits. So I vote yes.

I think there’s plenty of benefits too. But don’t you think some points need approaching with them and clarifying before the DAO pays tens of thousands of dollars for services we already have access to? Are you really ok with paying $25k for a fiat off-ramp when we already have full access to the on-ramp for eg?
And paying $35k for now custody which we are already fully integrated with?

 

[flow11]

I think there’s plenty of benefits too. But don’t you think some points need approaching with them and clarifying before the DAO pays tens of thousands of dollars for services we already have access to? Are you really ok with paying $25k for a fiat off-ramp when we already have full access to the on-ramp for eg?
And paying $35k for now custody which we are already fully integrated with?

It's not completely clear to me also.
But alone the fact that it's a big player in the crypto space is worth it according to my opinion. It will bring PIVX huge exposure and means it's will be fully integrated into the product family.
Still it would be interesting to know some details

 

[Eric_Stanek]

My guess, is that they have designed their product offering to 'suck you in' to their platform. For example, maybe we only pay for NOW Payments, which is $5K. Then, we THINK we have enabled 3,000 merchants to accept PIVX. But, those merchants, all want their accounts settled in fiat. They don't have the time or energy for the accounting hassle, to deal with selling crypto to get fiat. However, if PIVX is in their dashboard, where they can 'check the box' to accept PIVX, but it comes with the exception that there is no SELL functionality with PIVX, and it can't be converted to fiat automatically for them, what do you think they are going to do? I bet 99% of them refuse to accept PIVX as a payment method, and then we have paid $5K USD for nothing.

I do not know if this scenario is true. Absolutely we need to ask questions. But, assuming we can get the high value offered value by just paying $5K USD, is likely flawed. If I have this right - I would agree it isn't exactly ethical to price things that way, but they get to set their rules, and we get to negotiate. First step, is we ask questions.

 

[sh_rn]

It's not completely clear to me also.
But alone the fact that it's a big player in the crypto space is worth it according to my opinion. It will bring PIVX huge exposure and means it's will be fully integrated into the product family.
Still it would be interesting to know some details

At this point the value from exposure is based entirely on subjective opinion given that we have not been provided with any data for users, volume of transactions etc etc.

here are the questions i believe we should be asking before this goes any further:

1. what is the cost for enabling the fiat off-ramp with Guardarian?
2. how many active users does NowWallet have?
3. what is the cost for enabling PIVX > BTC swaps on ChangeNow?
4. what is the cost for access to the Guardarian API?
5. why are we being quoted $35k for NowCustody integration when we are already fully integrated?
6. does ChangeNow use some other method instead of exchange APIs to provide the PIVX > BTC swaps? ie: how is this different technically from BTC > PIVX swaps?

 

[flow11]

The data similarweb is providing, even the free data is already saying a lot about service performance, as all the data are from google analytics according to them.

So I checked their website ranks and their numbers of visitors and it's giving me a feeling, see details below

I'm always using this data also for my projects and it helped me understand a lot about performance and the competitors' performance and actions

classification:

GREEN: DEFINITILEY GOOD
ORANGE: DEFINITELY POTENTIAL
RED: NO INTERACTION YET - NOT INTERESTING YET

Service	Link	Rank	visitors last month	average time on site:
changenow.io	https://www.similarweb.com/website/changenow.io/#overview	84632	437k	00:03:45
walletnow.app	https://www.similarweb.com/website/walletnow.app/#overview	578340	67,7k	00:00:22
nowpayments.io	https://www.similarweb.com/website/nowpayments.io/#overview	111691	430,1k	00:03:37
nowcustody.com	https://www.similarweb.com/website/nowcustody.com/#overview	10464146	-	-
guardarian.com	https://www.similarweb.com/website/guardarian.com/#overview	465527	73k	00:06:04

1. about guardarian I assume you want to know the follow-up costs after the proposal as it's not included in this proposal
4 As this proposal is for the change product family I'm only referencing these costs to that, but in general, it's good to question what the guardarian cooperation might bring for what cost in future and consider that for the evaluation also

QUOTE ERIC :

"Note that we also discussed the integration with Guardarian for a fiat <--to/from--> PIVX on/off ramp. (Visa, Mastercard, SEPA, Swift) But, while there is a strong relationship between Guardarian and NOW Products, they are a separate company. Further Guardarian integration is not a requirement for the NOW Products. As such, it will be discussed as a separate proposal at a future date."
I think guardarian isn't included here.


2. From the given data would assume it's ~ 500 - 2000- but it's a good question that we should ask!

3. tbh I don't get the question in this context. Doesn't that already work?

5 . that's the most interesting question for me, also because nowcustody has not much interaction right now. And I don't really understand this business model and what it might bring

6. agree!

 

[Jeffrey]

At this point the value from exposure is based entirely on subjective opinion given that we have not been provided with any data for users, volume of transactions etc etc.

here are the questions i believe we should be asking before this goes any further:

1. what is the cost for enabling the fiat off-ramp with Guardarian?
2. how many active users does NowWallet have?
3. what is the cost for enabling PIVX > BTC swaps on ChangeNow?
4. what is the cost for access to the Guardarian API?
5. why are we being quoted $35k for NowCustody integration when we are already fully integrated?
6. does ChangeNow use some other method instead of exchange APIs to provide the PIVX > BTC swaps? ie: how is this different technically from BTC > PIVX swaps?

1. the original cost of the integration is 25k but I think I can get you a discount for it.


2.) 16k users


3. the cost is 35k and it will not be with btc only it will be with all 850+ assets that we currently have





4. guardarian api is already present in changenow api and it is for free





5. the integration is 35k for the exchange but now custody will be a result


second so far pivx is only availble for buy option, which means we only proxy such request from LP we do not have the coin integrated in non of our products

 

[sh_rn]

just for info. as of today...