THE FIRST AUDIO CRYPTOCURRENCY, SONOCOIN, LAUNCHES IN SWITZERLAND

SonoCoin is the first cryptocurrency based on audio files, and Swisscom Blockchain is the technical partner for this new cryptocurrency founded by Leonid Afanasyev.

Progress never stops; it is inevitable, and Switzerland must play a leading role in cryptocurrencies.

We can be proud of the technologies being developed in Geneva, which will enable secure, instant transactions in many sectors that are still very traditional.

We look forward to seeing these technologies applied to transactions for our various property projects – purchases, sales and rentals – as is already common practice in the US, the United Arab Emirates, Australia, Japan and even Indonesia...

For rentals, this will eliminate the need for ‘connections’, as transactions will take place directly online, offering far greater speed and flexibility, as well as the guarantees provided by these new transactional models.

Thanks to Myret Zaki of the excellent magazine Bilan for the article shared below on our website.

by Alain Farrugia

“Pay with sound”

This is the slogan of SonoCoin, the first Swiss cryptocurrency that makes payments based on sound. Built on a proprietary blockchain, it aims to be 100% Swiss. Using a mobile phone, this technology makes it possible to make remote payments by triggering a pre-determined sound. SonoCoin is already accepted on Google Play and Apple and can be converted into a QR code. The platform, launched in Geneva a year and a half ago by Russian financier Leonid Afanasyev, benefits from the technical expertise of Swisscom, which provides the infrastructure, verifies the security of the code and offers hosting and audit services.

SonoCoin is set to be offered to the public via an Initial Coin Offering (ICO) scheduled for October 2018, which will take place on the SonoCoin website. A sign of success, the pre-sale phase has already closed, the site announces. The founder hopes to raise $30 to $50 million in what could be one of the largest ICOs in Switzerland this year. SonoCoin will rely on Swisscom Blockchain for customer compliance checks and the enforcement of anti-money laundering regulations during transactions. “We are handling the technical and security aspects,” summarises Daniel Haudenschild, CEO of Swisscom Blockchain. “We will stabilise the protocol and ensure it is secure and can be used for large-scale issuances. We will also verify that the ICO is conducted in accordance with Know Your Customer rules.” Legal advice and regulatory structuring in relation to FINMA will be provided by the law firm Wenger & Vieli, based in Zurich and Zug. The firm’s senior partner, Martin Hess, worked for over 20 years as legal counsel to the Swiss National Bank (SNB).

Based on the Swisscom Blockchain

During the ICO, investors using any cryptocurrency will be able to participate via electronic wallets, the addresses of which will be verified. For investments in traditional currency, SonoCoin will work with local banking institutions.

Swisscom Blockchain is the Swiss operator’s unit that provides blockchain-based services to the corporate sector, and whose clients also include the platform for China’s leading cryptocurrency, NEO. Swisscom has also launched a training course in the field of blockchain. The first will take place in Zurich in July and October, with a further course to follow in Geneva, announces Daniel Haudenschild.

“With SonoCoin, Switzerland has an innovative cryptocurrency and Swiss technology,” says Leonid Afanasyev. The founder of SonoCoin is first and foremost a finance veteran with 20 years’ experience. In 2007, he founded Crown Capital Group, a Swiss asset management firm. Previously, he worked at Morgan Stanley and Prudential Securities, where he managed the IPOs of major companies. This serial entrepreneur also founded Govermedia Plus in Russia, as well as Skytec, a fintech company specialising in payment processing. He explains that the idea for SonoCoin evolved from his blockchain-based e-commerce platform founded in Russia. He had found five or six talented engineers in Russia and, like many finance professionals who have switched to blockchain, decided to venture into cryptocurrencies. The programmers are based in Russia, but a team is due to come and work in Geneva, where the platform’s management is based at the Passage des Lions, at Crown Capital Group’s headquarters.

A simple melody as a key and password

One of his partners in the ICO, Edward Karr, an American with whom the founder previously worked at Prudential Securities, has become his investment partner. Leonid Afanasyev and Edward Karr have also met with Geneva’s economic development agency and hope that SonoCoin will give a boost to the canton’s dynamism, which recently published guidelines on ICOs. Furthermore, Professor Jean-Henry Morin, head of the Department of Information Sciences at the University of Geneva, has joined the project’s Advisory Board. “SonoCoin, the world’s first sound-based cryptocurrency, will be our blockchain team’s first idea, but not the last; it will be followed by a series of innovative ideas,” enthuses Leonid Afanasyev.

In his view, the cryptocurrency landscape is overcrowded. “The value of most ICOs, particularly those not based on a finished product, will drop to zero,” he predicts. “But SonoCoin is an operational payment system based on 100 million coins, all of which have already been mined, unlike Bitcoin or Ether, which consume enormous amounts of energy to mine additional coins.” Designed as a payment method for all commercial uses, SonoCoin makes transactions easier than technologies requiring a wallet and a sometimes lengthy identification process. “Here, the audio file itself is the wallet,” explains Edward Karr. In other words, the sound file, which can be sent by email or messaging, represents a certain amount of tokens, and the file’s sound identifier allows the transaction to be completed instantly. A simple melody, which acts as both a key and a password, unlocks the tokens required for the transaction, allowing the transaction to be settled without the wallets used for Bitcoin or Ethereum.

By Myret Zaki

Source: Bilan