It’s actually a Titan implant under the skin, and a transparent plastic insert with a metallic base that sticks on top of it.
Nah, bad joke aside, that image is by far the dodgiest thing on that website.
It really undermines their credibility for me…
I mean… people really have no clue about how implants work… so preying on that ignorance + cyberpunk fantasy (which is on the rise on current social media) is just a marketing low blow that only makes things worst…
That’s a great video!
It’s important to state that… everything said in the video are things that the most active of us already knew. We had already asked @amal before…
Yet Walletmor page got even those of us confused about those things, so much that we needed 2 threads here and a new video to finally understand what is Walletmor!
So imagine how confusing (or worst, misleading) is that site for people who does not have the same knowledge as we do!!
Yeah but in other threads over multiple weeks, and the video is in more detail.
Sure, but I guess they know they’ll have to put in some more work there.
I kinda hope they get some internet celebrities in on it.
I guess even someone in hollywood would get a payment implant if they get the first $XK free
I hope walletmor will make this a bit more mainstream and in the long run, enable Apex payments.
Adding the video here was really good!
I was not criticizing the video, neither you for posting it!
I just pointed out that if even people who knew all the hardship the credit card companies put on the implants got so confused by Walletmor’s site…
That means for sure people will get misleaded.
And as @Coma pointed out already… if people feel this is a dodgy business, it’s only going to become even harder for all of us.
And I only raise those concerns because I totally agree with you:
as long as the implant is not considered “medical” it doesn’t need to be approved by any specific agency like FDA etc. When we talk about any sort of items that are put inside of the body only for the aesthetic purposes, they are consider “safe” by default. Imagine every earring manufacturer having to certify every piece of jewelry they make…
Of course, as a company we had to provide all the information to the clinic, where things as materials, responsibility, manufacturer, maintaining conditions, expiration time etc are clarified. But even if everything is fine it is still up to the surgeon who also takes responsibility for performing particular injection. So the surgeon or the clinic may say no they are not sure about the data we provide. But from a legal perspective it is fine.
for now our strategy is to reach out only to the most educated people who are already familiar with the concept. As we can all see, even you guys have a number of objections and that is why we are not planning any major marketing campaign now. In the first batch, we will release only 120 implants and focus on the feedback we will get from you, and then adjust everything to make sure the commercials we release will be compelling, straightforward and well suited for the masses. I am already grateful for all the opinions and discoveries. I noted them down and will take them into account when introducing the first updates by the end of January and February.
I am gonna say it again: we are starving for your feedback, especially constructive critics. Please, hit me with everything you can think of!
Is there somewhere we should be watching?
purely Walletmor’s and DT’s social media channels.
Are you going to lead the charge by being the first Ambassador recipient and filming of the “first commercially available payment implants”?
I have my payment implant since March 2020, so the answer is Yes. I am gonna endorse Walletmor myself. For now I do customer service myself
I’m in the bodmod-scene for 20 years now, I know there is no such a thing - you can basically create earrings made with tons of nickle or earrings that actually damage your body, and it gets done. But that doesn’t mean that those things are good, and serious piercers will never ever install them.
So I’m slightly against a statement like…
… simply because I know lots of items for aesthetic purposes that are not only un-safe, but actually damaging or dangerous. And it depends on your own knowledge and the knowledge of your piercer etc. not to put them in.
That’s why I was so surprised that any surgeon would agree to install a non-sterile, non-neccessary device into anyone without actually risking their job.
Like you say,
No single doctor or surgeon I know would do that.
And even my artist was a bit reserved about it - but he didn’t risk his job for that.
Hmm, an implant for the discerning elite. I like it
Say Wojtek, I have a question - but please don’t take it the wrong way: my understanding is that, at least for the time being, the Walletmor implant will be an iCard conversion. iCard is in Bulgaria.
I know times have changed, and it’s a regulated / certified European financial institution (at least that’s what they say on their website). But… I’ve been to Bulgaria, and it doesn’t make me all warm and fuzzy. Even their stating that they’re “backed by the Bulgarian National Bank” is more worrying than reassuring.
What recourse do I have if things go south? Am I looking at hiring a high-power lawyer to sue someone across borders with little chances of getting redress? Should I open a burner account at my bank to link the iCard to?
What I meant is that such item is considered ‘safe’ according to the law. Of course, it may contain substances that may not be bio-safe, and that is why we have a clear procedure in the EU, which describes the safety checks and standards that need to be met. But those things should be undertaken only when there are serious concerns and proofs that the product is not safe.
That’s correct. For now, that is the only doable solution to bring the idea of the payment implants to life as a single solution (let’s not forget that we still need to call it Ambassadorship because of the legal constraints, which is another hurdle).
I have been working with @amal since April 2019 to construct the implant and then make it available for the masses. We analyzed dozen of strategies on how to get this thing up and running and, trust us, that is the most sensible strategy to start and approach the big players on the market later on.
Even though it is doable from the technological point of view, and I would say it is pretty easy, the most difficult part is to onboard a partner who will endorse us. Unfortunately, in 2020 there was no possibility for us to launch payment implant (under whichever brand) in any “more legitimate” way. That is why we decided to establish a new entity, a new brand, reach out to the educated customers, get a few hundred/thousand customers onboard, and then approach the big guys with stiff data and reliable claims “Hey, that’s safe, it works fine, and people want it.” And that is crucial when you build a startup like that.
We already got 3 ideas on how to get on another level, but each of these options requires a validated business concept. And that is why we are doing it the we are
Ok, I totally see your point. I have been to Bulgaria myself this year and did some research. For those of you who haven’t been there - Bulgaria is far from a cashless society. Most of the transactions are done in cash, and you can hardly see a restaurant in a major city that accepts cards, not to mention contactless payments. I know what sort of impression it may create.
However, let’s not forget that iCard holds the EMI status (Electronic Money Institution - that is what we are looking to get), which is supervised by the Bulgarian National Bank. Of course, it is a standard type of financial license that may be issued in every EU country. According to the EU law, there are no differences in the standards that you need to meet as a company to get the EMI status, no matter if you are registered in Bulgaria, Poland, Sweden, or the UK (for now). The checklist is 11-page long, and it contains 100+ documents. To be honest, I established my own account out there before Walletmor was launched, and I was sure about my money.
What is more, I got in touch with several web-developers and fin-tech related software houses (which was my primer focus until this implant’s launch), and I got clear feedback that the procedures are always the same, no matter if you are registered in the UK, Poland, Sweden, Lithuania or Bulgaria.
Alright fair enough. I trust your judgment. To be fair, it’s been more a few years since I’ve been there, but it seemed like stepping into the 19th century. I’ve spent some time in rural Romania in the Mureș area, and even that place seemed less backward.
Re your and Amal’s tech creds and solution-finding abilities, I have no worry about those
Yeah, I get that - and with the examples I stated, I wanted to say that, despite being “safe” by law, several things are not neccessary a good idea to implant or insert into your body in any other way. So if you have a “safe” item (that’s actually not really safe at all), say some earrings made of a not very biocompatible material, you have to rely on your piercer to tell you “hell nah, I won’t pierce you with that, that’s not a good idea”. If your piercer decides to pierce you with that nontheless, he is not responsible for what goes wrong, because you sign a form beforehands where you basically agree with all possible risks that may occur.
If I take a… dunno, metal implant coated with nickel, which can lead to a massive reaction inside my body, and go to a surgeon and ask him to implant that into my body, I strongly expect the surgeon to refuse. Because he might be held responsible for what goes wrong, because he has sworn the hippocratic oath and because something like this, if gone public, will lead to a massive backlash no surgeon would ever risk. And because of the same reasons, I am just very surprised that you found “real” surgeons willing to implant non-sterile and non-necessary implants. Like I said, bodmod-artists might risk that, because they are working in a pretty experimental field anyways, but surgeons?
Surgeons are allowed to make mistake as long as they can justify it: for instance, they broke someone’s ribcage giving them a heart massage because that’s better than the patient dying. Not ideal, possibly avoidable, but understandable given the cirmstances.
Or they might be allowed by an ethics committee after reviewing some difficult-to-choose options, or their research project.
In any case, they act when they’re sure they can justify why they’ve chosen to act in court, is the short of it.
As for the Hippocratic Oath, that’s another matter altogether: it prevents doctors from interfering with a functioning body. Or said another way, it prevents them from performing unnecessary acts - including of course, performing unnecessary body modifications and implanting unnecessary implants. Only in some cases are such body modifications deemed necessary: for example sex change operations. But usually, again, they do it because the alternative for the patient is worse.
In our case, we’re fine before getting the body modifications we want, and we’re possibly better afterwards. But crucially for doctors, the alternative to not doing anything is not worse than doing something - hence their refusing to do anything. Unless you can prove convincingly that not getting that Haworth implant or that Walletmor implant will lead you to fall into a deep depression and commit suicide, and that no other course of action will cure your depression. But that’s pretty unlikely.
And they give you quite a bit to read before performing an operation, telling you what might all go wrong, so they can’t be held responsible if something bad happens. I’m partly fine with that, though it leads to some cases where a doctor makes some serious fault and cannot be held responsible for it, but that’s a different story.
This is the part where it gets interesting, and that’s just what I wanted to say - I seriously doubt any not-so-shady surgeon will ever install an unneccesary implant into a healthy, full-working body. That’s what we have bodmod-artists for, and it still leaves a big grey area of things those artists are not trained for and the surgeons are not allowed to do.
So again - why do those hair-implant-surgeons (who already look shady to me) agree to implant the Walletmor? Or rather “anything the customer wants”, as long as it is more or less safe? This does simply not strengthen my trust in those guys…
Thing is, it doesn’t even concern me, but if it looks a bit strange to me, I might not be the only one…
Cosmetic surgery is like the outhouse of the medical house: they’re technically part of the property, but it kind of stinks. It’s on the fringe of what’s acceptable from a medical standpoint. In theory, it shouldn’t be allowed to exist. My personal theory is that it does and it’s legal because rich people want it, and because influencial surgeons make a metric fuckton of money on the side with it.
That’s why I asked a while ago whether cosmetic surgeons were approachable for our kinds of non-essential procedures because they’re already walking the fine line.
And sometimes not even that…
I think it’s totally okay that cosmetic surgery exists - to each his own, as long as everyone’s happy with the outcome. But there were tons of storys about things that went really bad with those guys, simply because people wanted to save money and ended up with implanting unsafe stuff. I think, today, there are definitely safe and well-operating cosmetic surgeons who do great work and help people be happier with the way they look - and who pay a lot for that, so, kinda win-win-situation.
But if there are cosmetic surgeons who already have a shady homepage, claiming strange things and are willing to implant non-sterile things - I’m not sure if it’s a good idea to recommend them.
Oh I’m fine with cosmetic surgery. I’m fine with anything personally, as long as people who wish something fully understand what they’re in for before getting it.
I’m just saying, by the criteria set by the very medical profession it’s supposed to be part of, cosmetic surgery should even be allowed… I was only commenting on the double-standards in the medical world when it comes to money-making procedures.
