I have watched quite a few ICOs from the sidelines and have participated in fewer than 4 ICOs myself. As I have noted in an earlier article, I was tracking Civic and was looking forward to take part in their ICO but missed it entirely due to issues with ETH backlogs. That is a story for another time.
I am reviewing lot of ICOs to see which one makes sense for a small investor like myself (I am talking about $50 to $1000 per investment kind). Hopefully these ICOs will bring enough cash flow in the future so I can put in more investments into the exciting world changing projects.
If you are a small investor, like me, who is divesting small savings from salary/cutting down on vacation/entertainment, etc. into Crypto world hoping that you will catch the next ‘internet’ wave of our times, then I want to cordially invite you to this series.
As this is the first one in the series, I would like to set the format in which these reviews are going to be presented.
The decision I come to will be based on a 100 point scoring system. Anything above 70 may be a good bet for my risk tolerance. Anything below 70, I would not personally invest in. Again, this is based on my research, opinion and my risk tolerance. These factors may not suit your investment criteria.
Points Alocation
The points will be distributed based on the basis of following aspects:
- Disruption, solution, innovation, novelty to an existing solution (I will highlight what the project under review brings) that the project promises to bring forth will have maximum of 40 points
- Development team and future plan will carry a maximum of 20 points.
- Active presence in the market will carry a maximum of 15 points.
- Number of payment choices offered for ICO participation will carry 5 points.
- Discretionary Author’s bias, naivety, ignorance or otherwise lack of predicting future will carry 20 points.
Verdict will be declared as i)I am in, which means I would invest in the ICO, where possible or ii) I am iffy, which means I would go in if I have spare $$s or iii) I am outta here, which means, I have decided that this ICO is not for me, this does NOT mean the ICO project itself is not good, its just not something I feel comfortable investing in.
With that, let’s get on with our first review in the series.
ICO Review Series #1: HIVE Project
From Hive Project page: “Hive provides new financial liquidity to small businesses by leveraging blockchain technology, giving them a range of crypto-currency based financing options.”
1) Solution: This is long time coming. I am glad to see this taking shape as part of BlockChain revolution. It is one of the biggest issues for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to collect cash after a sale has happened.
Typical invoices have a 60 to 90 days terms of payment. That means, SMEs struggle with cash flow and that impedes their chance to leverage the business opportunities.
The Hive Project website lays out good details including the 3 year plan with potential geographic expansion.
This project has the first mover advantage (for being the first in this space on the blockchain) as well as aiming at the SMEs that most blockchain projects seem to ignore. Any project that aims at helping businesses has a great potential to prosper (think of Stratis).
This project also has potential to turn into a full-fledged credit rating system for SMEs that participate on the Hive Project invoice platform. This, if pulled off, is an excellent project in itself.
Given that this project has first mover advantage, serves businesses (especially SMEs) and has a decent business blueprint, including expanding into a credit rating source for SMEs and giving them a better chance at accessing their $$s, I offer it 30 points.
I have to take 10 points away because of the fact that most SMEs have not yet looked into BlockChain technology and it would be interesting to see how Hive encourages SMEs onto its platform.
2) Team: Jure Soklic, CEO of Hive Project has over 13 years’ experience (according to his LinkedIn profile). Dejan Jovanovic, CTO comes with 25 years of experience in the technology and Oliver Muldoon strengthens the team as Finance Lead from UK.
Domen Ursic, CMO has experience with ICONOMI ICO and brings that knowledge to this ICO.
Richard D. Titus, who was named Wired magazine’s top 100 people, was pulled on board of Hive Project, which should do good in terms of getting market’s attention to this ICO.
I have a pet peeve about the profiles on Hive webpage. I don’t care if the pictures posted on the official profile page are casual or suited up, what bothers me is the poor quality.
3) Active presence in the Market: Hive Project’s website is refreshingly professional and filled with useful information. They have a decent whitepaper that discusses the issue they are solving and their general game plan with a 3 year vision.
The Medium page is brimming with lot of buzz and social media is generally active.
One of the key aspect to measure market activeness is the rate at which the responses on social media boards like Bitcointalk, Twitter and Slack are posted. I have seen an active participation by the Hive team on the message boards.
Although their plan lays most aspects, it would have been more assuring to the investors if they included a detailed game plan as to how they hope to bring SMEs on to Blockchain platform. Probably, bringing Richard on board is to help with that aspect? Only time will tell.
This is a big uncertainty and with any new idea, this kind of uncertainty lurks. For what Hive team brings to the table, I am assigning 15 points.
4) Acceptable crypto currencies to participate in the ICO: Bitcoin and Ether. Of the maximum supply of 500 million coins, 375 million will be offered in the ICO. Not available for US citizens or residents. For the lack of choice (whether it is because of technology restrictions or otherwise, I simply don’t care (call me naïve) and have come to expect more options, because it was done before) I am assigning 0 points.
5) Author’s Bias: Of the 100s of ICOs that are sprouting like wild mushroom, there are some projects that I have been studying. Hive happens to be one of them and a project that I was happy to study because of the SME market that they are targeting. Potential advantage of being first mover, branching out into credit rating arena and solid team now joined by Richard D. Titus, all lead me to offer 15 points.
Verdict: I am in.
I don’t say that lightly. If I were allowed in US to participate in this ICO, I would jump on Hive Project at once.
As I mentioned in the beginning of this article, I am small investor who is divesting small part of my salary into Crypto universe. I am hoping that I am on the verge of the next Internet boom, however, the fact that no more than 1% (approx.) of the world population is currently part of crypto financial system and in the event of an unlikely clamping down by bureaucratic suits, all my investment may go bust or if more and more people join the revolution, my small investments could mean something in few years.
And in such a potentially speculative space, my speculation is subject to known and unknown errors.
Possible hurdles:
- Not a lot of SMEs are on BlockChain at the moment
- Identifying the ‘genuine’ SMEs from scammers
Go through Hive Project’s site, whitepaper before deciding to invest.
You can use their Investor guide to understand the method in which you can contribute.
If you would like for me to review an ICO that you are looking into, drop a note in the comments. I cannot promise that I will be able to review all requests but it will try to if my schedule permits. Your comments will also help keep me in the know about the ICOs that I may have missed.
*Disclaimer: Opinion. Not an advice. The verdict in the article is according to me and for me. It may not suit you. Please read the article as an opinion and conduct your own research before deciding to invest.
Next ICO in this series will be: Populous. Consider following to read future ICO reviews.
All pictures and clips used in the article to the project belong to respective owners. Other pictures are from pixabay.com
@rkreddy Can you do one on Indorse?
UPDATE: Where will Hive be in 3 years?
Nice ICO. Extremely promising! Go SloCrypto!
nice job. however you will not be doing another series. why? populous is sold out since saturday
Thank you Celtic-tiger...as of last week when I was researching and writing this article - populous was still scheduled but I see that it has sold out in presale...it is a project with lot of potential to disrupt the market...no issues, I will pick another exciting project, Tezos, perhaps...
Your welcome. I think its the only ico to sell out in pre sale?! It will be the most intresting coin to follow in a few months because of this plus its platform is 90% built with customers already lined up. Check out my blog on Aventus I think it has a strong use case and potential. Also only 6M coins.
Yes, it is one of the most exciting projects after CIVIC that I have been waiting on and I missed the ICO boat on both! These I will be watching out to get in when they hit exchanges...
Congratulations @rkreddy - This post was one of the most shared posts on the web from the Steemit website during the past week. You were featured in my report, here.
That is very encouraging Trevorlyman. I am really happy about. I had decided, whether I get enough votes/responses or not, I will continue to post my ICO Review Series and your note just gave me new sense of encouragement...Thank you!
Awesome! I'm glad to hear it, and you earned it! :)
Sweet review! I wrote a short 'fluff' review of Hive myself. I think it is very promising as well. Even though Populous was sold out, a lot of new cryptos are being released every month. I'm sure you'll find one that'll spark your interest. If you do, I'll be here to read it :)
Thank you Akariko...I am glad to see fellow Hive supporter!
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I am looking at trueflip - sounds interesting.
Atulesh - I have posted the Aventus review per your request. Was too late for Trueflip.
yes Trueflip runs already a product, incentive for tokenholder is good, the communication to investors is ok but not really strong (it's often an issue with hidden slack channels and so on), the central idea is great but i think also on the other hand something odd to raise money for the jackpot. Someone can argue that they would run away with the filled pot, i don't think so from what i've seen. Recently they made an announcement with a photo from iGaming Super Show in Amsterdam. I'm already in.
I'm curious too about Aventus. Their concept sounds interesting and they have a clear comparison table to competitors like TenX did perfectly in their sector.
I have also done Aventus review ...
Thanks for the hint i'll look into soon. From what i know they have delayed their ICO date because of the market correction.
great article with much depth. I'm also in HIVE. The central idea to support the huge market of small and medium sized businesses is a great idea i think. Your article reminds me of my adventures with ICO's so far and i think i should do an article on the 25 points method provided by Julian from TenX. It's also a good evaluation of an ICO. He mentioned that he need 5 hours to look into an ICO.
@rkreddy i've added my article with the 25 points system ICO evaluation
Lubap Creator:Luba Petrusha, Pysanky2011, CC BY-SA 3.0
Excellent review sir! I do love a well analysed and thought out review. I also love the idea of HIVE being an SME myself so hopefully it is an attraction in of itself to other SME's looking for faster liquidity. Looking forward to reading your next reviews. Keep em coming!
Next one on BitClave will be available tomorrow (Monday 24th)! It's in final review.
Great article. Thanks a lot, was very helpful to make the move.
Its loooking good
Just follow their updates, they got 20000 SMEs from Slovenia...and this is not even beginning, this is one of the best teams that have been focused on the project...a definite long-term