Author: Alphan Maina (Page 3)

Morgan Stanley, one of the largest investment banks in the world is rumored to the in the process of creating a product that will allow its clients to swap fiat currency for bitcoin and vice versa. As noted by CCN, this sixth largest bank here in the United States in terms of assets is quietly developing a derivatives product that will benefit clients who are interested in investing in Bitcoin.

The report indicates that the U.S bank will provide smart contracts that will provide investors with the much-needed synthetic exposure to the trading of bitcoin on various exchange platforms. Another verified source also revealed that investors will be able to go long or short using price return swaps. The bank will charge a fee for each transaction to support the functionalism of the platform.
Note that CEO James Gorman had earlier indicated that the bank would not allow its clients to trade in cryptos directly using the bank. The sudden change of heart could have been informed by the sharp increase in value of the market as well as widespread adoption and creation of new digital currencies. The product is almost completely and currently waiting internal approval for it to be made available to the customers.
This bank joins an increasing number of financial institutions who are evaluating the best ways of incorporating cryptocurrencies into their financial operations. Citigroup and Goldman Sachs have also hinted about providing bitcoin derivatives products to their customers.

Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) New Product

In other news related to cryptocurrency trading, Intercontinental Exchange is in the process of creating the first physically delivered bitcoin futures product. Note that ICE is the largest stock exchange platform in the world at the moment. Once this new product is launched, investors will be able to settle contracts using actual BTC instead of fiat currency such as the US dollar. In fact, most of the bitcoin futures products offered by platforms such as CBOE and Chicago based exchanges CME relying heavily on fiat currency.

Closing Remarks

The news that Morgan Stanley is in the final stages of launching a product that will cater for customers who are interested in cryptocurrency is good news for the industry. It shows that banks and governments have understood how blockchain technology works and are no longer afraid that trading in cryptocurrencies could affect the economy negatively.

Continued development of similar products will help increase the number of people who invest in the currencies. It will also help spread the world about the power of having digital assets to countries that are yet to adopt this technology fully. Nonetheless, it is important for the banks and governments to work together to create policies that will promote the growth of the industry. These policies will ensure that all parties involved get value for money and don’t end up losing money on wrong deals. Cryptocurrency and blockchain technology is here to say and will continue to improve lives of millions of people from all across the globe.

AlphaPoint, one of the leading blockchain technology based companies in the world, has announced that it will soon launch cryptocurrency indexes and technology that will allow it to create smart baskets specifically for cryptocurrencies.

As noted by HPC Wire, the company is focused on giving companies the ability to digitize their assets and as well, as operate digital asset exchanges in any part of the world. The statistical performance of AlphaPoint Indexes will have a significant positive impact on the cryptocurrency markets.
The smart basket functionality extends to the company technology and is in line with its goal of digitizing and creating white label asset exchange platforms. Full implementation of these two developments will see the company become the premier provider of products that can be used to benchmark performance of digital assets.

AlphaPoint Leaders Index

AlphaPoint Leaders Index is made of between 8 and 15 tokens that cover approximately 805 of the global cryptocurrency market capitalization. It will give a clear picture of the highest valued crypto assets in the world.

AlphaPoint Fast Movers Index

AlphaPoint Fast Movers Index will be made up of 8-15 tokens in terms of trading volume. Unlike AlphaPoint Leaders Index, this one will give a clear picture of the liquid crypto assets in the market.
Apart from giving asset managers as well as individual industry leaders the ability to monitor performance of assets against the broad cryptocurrency market, the AlphaPoint indexes can also be licensed and used to create derivatives of multiple products.

AlphaPoint Exchange Product

By making full use of AlphaPoint Exchange product, the company will be able to reproduce the performance of the underlying indexes. More importantly, it will give exchange operators the ability to create additional products for their clientele without spending a fortune.

AlphaPoint Smart Baskets

AlphaPoint Smart Baskets framework is designed by professionals who have years of experience in this industry and are committed to ensure that it delivers the expected results. The framework has the ability to create a token that resonates with the performance of the foundation or underlying indexes. It achieves this goal by automating the simultaneous purchase sale and bid offers on the cryptocurrencies listed in the licensed index.
One of the main advantages that investors will get from AlphaPoint Smart Baskets is that they will now have the opportunity to take broader and confident positions in the cryptocurrency niche and at the same time be passively involved in re-balancing their portfolios.

When making this announcement, the company officials stated that they were excited to finally provide a transparent index that is based on rules and regulations. The company is also confident that the products will soon become the most trusted and reliable benchmark in the ever-growing cryptocurrency industry. The Chief Executive Officer also stated that just like the existing exchange technology and digitization, the data powered tools would give institutions the muscle they need to come up with new products in the cryptocurrency world.

According to a new report done by ChronoBank and reported by CCN, a majority of cryptocurrency investor prefer being paid in bitcoins. The report also show reveals that most of them are disappointed that employers are not willing to pay their salaries in form of altcoins and bitcoins.

Effect of Price Changes of Crypto Wage Earners

The survey polled 445 cryptocurrency investors and enthusiast who are already planning to invest in several digital currencies in the near future. The survey found out that 66% of the respondents have no problem receiving their wages in form of bitcoin or any other globally traded cryptocurrency.
30% of the people polled said that they are confident that companies or enterprises in their respective countries will change their policies to be able to process employees’ salaries in bitcoin. However, a majority of US respondents were skeptical about that due to the many challenges that they felt are hindering widespread adoption of cryptos.
83% of the survey respondents said that they were willing to receive bonus payment payments from their employees in form of bitcoin or any other altcoin in the market. The survey also went an extra mile to ask question related to taxation of digital currencies. An overwhelming 52% of the respondents said that they were ready to pay taxes to the government for the digital revenue they generate from cryptocurrency trading.
65% of respondents from the United States also said they were ready to pay taxes but surprisingly on 30% of Russian crypto investors were willing to pay the said taxes. In a nutshell, 60% of the young cryptocurrency investors had no problem paying taxes for the earnings and cryptocurrency transactions.
It is also important to note that most of the respondents were from Russia, U.S, and Australia as these are the three countries with the highest level of cryptocurrency adoption. 92% of the respondents were male, 40% were aged between 25 and 34 years, while 75% were employed in companies and some were working for the government.
ChronoBank is of the idea that introduction of crypto payment method would not only benefit employees but also the employers. Having a reserve of bitcoin or any other altcoin for purposes of paying salaries means that the company can choose to trade them when the prices are right to meet their daily operating costs.

Uncertainty about Regulations

Surprisingly, the survey showed that most of the people who were polled did not have a clear idea of the set rules and regulations regarding receiving and trading cryptocurrency. Even though different companies are busy coming up with policies and legislation to govern the industry, most of the investors don’t have adequate information about the new laws.
Finally, respondents who work in human resource department are of the idea that blockchain technology will soon be used to process payments as it is more secure and reliable than the existing systems. 57% of the people polled said that they strongly believed that cryptos would have a positive impact on the economy.

Lendsbay ICO Review

Lendsbay is a digital lending platform for the informal lending market. The informal lending market is a market in which friends, relatives, acquaintances, and other individuals lend money to each other. Banks, credit card issues, mortgage lenders, and leasing providers are not a part of this market. These entities make up the formal lending market. Lendsbay plans to use an app and blockchain technology to solve a lot of the problems that currently exist with the informal lending market, and to make informal lending easier and more secure for both borrowers and for lenders. 

Problems with the Current Informal Lending Ecosystem 

The reason why Lendsbay was founded is because the current informal lending ecosystem just has too many problems. There are six main problems with the current informal lending ecosystem. These problems are no formal loan records, no contracts, no credit history, no integration with the formal lending segment, no market-based mechanism for determining interest rates, and no tools for risk management. 

No loan records and no contracts are a problem because when disputes arise, there is no documentation that displays that a loan agreement or that a contractual agreement ever took place. So, the borrowing party can simply deny that a loan was ever given. This prevents the lender from being able to hold the borrower accountable in the event that the borrower defaults on the loan repayments. It also prevents the borrower from being able to hold the lender accountable if the lender fails to lend the agreed upon amount of money. No credit history is a problem because it prevents lenders from having any idea of the borrower’s creditworthiness. No integration with the formal lending segment is an issue because performance and behavior in the formal lending segment does not carry over to the informal lending segment. No market-based mechanism for determining interest rates is problematic because this can result in random and inconsistent interest rates. Finally no tools for risk management is an issue because there is no credit rating, diversification, or insurance, which makes the entire market riskier. 

How does Lendsbay Work? 

Lendsbay has an app that users can download to find informal borrowers or lenders. When they find the lender or the borrower they are looking for, they can agree to a loan amount. A record of this agreement is stored on app, which can be used later on for proof of the terms of the agreement. Through the app, social groups can come together to pool financial resources for lending. These groups are called “bays.” This is ideal for social groups, colleges, clubs, or other groups of people who would rather lend as a part of a group than do it individually. 

Another key feature of the Lendsbay platform is that blockchain technology is used to store the credit rating information of the users. This solves the problem of not being able to determine the borrower’s creditworthiness. The Lendsbay app also uses blockchain technology to facilitate financial transactions between parties on the platform. This helps to keep all transactions organized, secure, and undisputable. Finally, the Lendsbay app creates the elements of an ecosystem for financial relations. These elements include mutual insurance, purchasing, selling items, leasing items, and decision making systems. 

Why Lendsbay? 

The Lendsbay app essentially solves all six key problems with the current informal lending ecosystem. This means that anyone who would like to participate in informal lending can do so with the Lendsbay app in a way that is safe, secure, and much more advanced than without it. Without the Lendsbay app, doing informal lending goes something like this… Joey heard that his friend’s nephew needs a five thousand dollar loan. Joey would like to make some money through lending with interest, so he tells his friend he will give his nephew the $5,000 at a ten percent interest rate. This may seem relatively simple. However, Joey has no idea what his friend’s nephew’s credit score is, he has no idea if the nephew will pay him back, and he has no idea if he would be able to enforce the agreement in a court of law if the nephew did not repay him. So, in short, informal lending can be a nightmare with the current methods available. 

However, with Lendsbay, if Joey wanted to make some money through lending, he could just log onto the Lendsbay app, view available borrowers, check their credit scores, find one he likes, make a loan offer, have that offered accepted, have a record kept for that offer, and lend the money on the app.

The money would be sent in cryptocurrency using blockchain technology and the payments would also be sent in cryptocurrency using blockchain technology. So, with Lendsbay, all of the stress, risk, and hassle that currently exists in the informal lending market is eliminated. 

Final Thoughts

Lendsbay is exactly what the informal lending market needs. Right now, it is messy, risky, stressful, and inefficient. Lendsbay could genuinely change all this for anyone who wants to participate in the informal lending market. In fact, Lendsbay could not only fix the existing informal lending market, but it could create new and exciting opportunities for entrepreneurs who really want to dive into this market. Because borrowers will be so much easier to find, and their creditworthiness will be so much easier to determine, informal lenders may be able to quickly scale their lending operations. 

The new Lendsbay digital lending environment will also help to provide convenience and efficiency for informal borrowers who will no longer have to hound their friends and relatives for loans if they get rejected by the banks. So, essentially, Lendsbay has a lot of potential to dramatically improve the informal lending market, and to create new and exciting opportunities both for informal lenders and for informal borrowers. It is a very exciting project, and Lendsbay has the potential to be a solid ICO. 

 Lendsbay has the potential to change the informal lending landscape for the better. It could add security, efficiency, and convenience to this marketplace; all of which are needed and are missing from the currency market. It is an ICO to keep an eye on.

UK Finance Minister, Phillip Hammond, has pledged to oversee the development of vibrant Cryptocurrency markets in the country. The Minister went on to state that the Cryptocurrency markets would be improved through a formulation of effective policies, which are customized for the UK markets. The world’s fifth-biggest economy (Nominal GDP) is one of the most significant Cryptocurrency markets.

To effectively formulate the policies, the UK government ordered the Financial Control Authority (FCA) and the Bank of England to select a panel of Financial experts to deliberate on the role of Cryptocurrencies in the UK and the regulatory framework to be considered. The UK, therefore, becomes one of the major global financial leaders to initiate a task force to deliberate on the set of structures for regulating the Cryptocurrencies. The French AMF and the US, the House of Representatives Committee on Finance, Securities and Trade has kickstarted the process.

This move, by the UK, comes after the G20 Summit declared that the Cryptocurrencies are Assets rather than currencies. The G2O, however, advised the relevant global institutions such as the World Bank, OECD, FCB and the SFSG to draft framework for sustainable policy formulation.

The British Financial Technology form – Fintech – is expected to partner with Britain’s long-term trade partner, Australia in Cryptocurrency markets. The British strategy “Financial Technology” (Fintech) is expected, under this deal to be operational in Australia. This deal, additionally, entails the transfer of laws and regulation concerning Cryptocurrencies herein referred as “Fintech.” Under this strategy, Australia will constitute an Institution called Fintech Australia, and Britain’s will Innovate Fintech. The two institutions are expected to collaborate on all matters touching on Cryptocurrencies. The UK and Australia markets combined have a population of about 100 million people, which translates to a vast market with massive potential.

The UK Finance Minister further expressed the nations wish to be a front-runner in Cryptocurrencies trade which he termed as a digital evolution. The new laws to be formulated will regulate the UK ICO markets and Cryptocurrencies to enhance transparency and accountability. Furthermore, regulation will ensure that ICOs and Cryptocurrencies are stabilized so that they become sustainable investment approaches to raising capital, earning interests and paying taxes to the government.

However, despite the assurance of better days ahead by Charlotte Croswell, CEO Innovate Fintech, the Bank of England and the FCA are yet to assure the British Market that the Cryptocurrency ventures a are safe investments following earlier warnings of uncontrolled volatility

What to expect

The US, France and other countries have set precedence for government interventions in crypto markets. With the UK on board, we hope to see more states following suit and initiating processes of framework development to support crypto markets.

It is becoming clear to the world that the G20 has already welcomed Cryptocurrencies as a new technology worth nurturing for the future financial services expansion. Before the July 2018 Cryptocurrencies testimonial presentation to the G20, we expect that more countries would have developed a conducive environment for ICOs and Cryptocurrencies.

More startup technology firms will flout the ICOs and Cryptocurrencies process would soar in this positive news. As investors get their stake before a price surge. As at March 22, 13h00, the Bitcoin Price was trading at a high of $9,084.78 and low of 8, 745.32; Pundits are optimistic that the price on the world’s most famous virtual currency would hit $9,500.00 as governments, the G20 and many corporates undo the adverse effect of Google and Facebook ban in their endorsements of validity and viability.

Cryptocurrency Markets Bearish

On Thursday Morning, the Cryptocurrency markets plunged to new lows, or below $8000, in a delayed reaction to negative publicity from Google. This publicity is raising skepticism in the already volatile markets where investors have been experiencing short-term shocks since 2013 when China started discouraging her nationals from participating in the trade.

The market leader Bitcoin’s lost 13.25% of its value in the wake of the ban; this loss has cumulatively seen Bitcoin shed off a mind-boggling approximate of 43% of share value from January 2018. According to market data, the Bitcoin Market was trading at $14,111.98 as the year began. On the other hand, Ethereum and Ripple currencies’ values are down by 14.54% and 16.58% to trade at %593.6 and $0.66 respectively. Summarily, according to Coin Market Cap report, all but two Cryptocurrencies’ stocks are trading in lows ranging between 11% to 26%.

Google Follows Facebook Move And Bans Gambling Advertisements

Google, a US-based global leading search engine, and advertisement firm issued a statement in March 2018, prohibiting “bad advertisements” effective from June 2018 on the AdWords platform. Google’s, in a document released to the media, stated that Cryptocurrencies’ information which includes; Cryptocurrency exchanges, Cryptocurrency trade reviews, Initial Coin Offering (ICO) and crypto wallets are “bad” advertisements as they are speculative and largely lack policy regulations. Google further stated that cryptocurrencies are emerging threats to Google services users and they have a “moral and ethical obligation” to protect Google users from “deceptive and misleading promotions.”

Google has followed in the footsteps of the arch-business rival, Facebook. Similarly, Facebook had, in January this year, banned all Cryptocurrency advertisements in a move that was geared to restore Facebook to its intended purpose of enhancing social relationships in the world; these social relationships had systematically being replaced by advertisements, which were unwarranted.

Financial Analysts Forecasts

Market analysts are sharply divided on the impact of the negative publicity from Google and Facebook. On one side, the market analysts state that Facebook, which is a vital advertising platform in the world, with almost similar market influence to Google, initiated the ban and the markets only experienced short-term bearish trends before reverting to bullish growth. Following this analogy, these market analysts predict that Cryptocurrency markets will regain their bullish patterns that will see more ICO traded in the coming months. However, they cannot predict when the markets will recover. Will it be a matter of days, weeks, months or years? Amongst them, it is suspected that some investors are propagating these sentiments to lower the value of the significant cryptocurrencies in anticipation of massive ICO buyouts.

On the other hand, some market analysts allude that this recent negative publicity is one too many and the Cryptocurrency markets will never recover. Their perspective premised on Google’s prominent social standing globally. It is widely believed that Google has nailed the last nail and investors will be rushing to sell off their shares anticipating further losses.

The main aim of Grain ICO is to create a solution that will enable organizations to manage work agreements that are on the Blockchain technology. This platform also creates a quick payment mechanism that can be used by these companies.

Grain.io assists firms save billions of money by offering middleman services that would, in turn, lower the processing costs of the payments that are remitted. Grain.io is basically a backend solution that enables freelancer platforms and labor management systems to consolidate financial transactions and smart contract on the Blockchain. GRAIN has been able to reinvent how organizations work and give the workers an opportunity of sharing their work success on the main platform.

How GRAIN.io Works

Apart from easing the labor contracts, GRAIN also helps in other ways. The GRAIN ecosystem, at the same time, also introduces prompt, compliant, as well as a mechanism of fair payment; all these by ensuring that full security is maintained.

It has also incorporated the introduction of an online saving account that workers can use for any contract across the system. This service can also be used to pay for shorter-term needs or even pay into the pension. As a way of offering a feasible solution for enabling work agreements in various organizations across the globe, GRAIN will comply with any kind of regulation that is connected to labor.

In an effort of safeguarding both sides of the entire transaction, the protocol used by GRAIN also involves a special technique that can be used to handle the volatility faced by the digital currencies.

By applying the GRAIN.io Blockchain, a number of possibilities are opened. These are possibilities that can be used by Human Resource developers, payrollers, staffing agencies, accounting software as well as a host of other options.

In brief, the main duty of GRAIN is to give the hundred-billion-euro payroll industry not only a secure but also a free and transparent ecosystem by advancing the current system to one that entirely works by sharing principle.

The Benefits of Using the GRAIN.io Platform

It saves organizations huge sums of funds. GRAIN provides companies with a cheap alternative that would reduce the amount they use in labor. When they opt to use Grain for organizing their work agreements, they can save massive funds they would have used in acquiring expensive intermediaries and payroll services.

A Share of the Transaction Fees

With each transaction, the transaction partners will stand a chance of getting up to 50% of the fee that is imposed on the customers.

No More Late Payment

With GRAIN, workers will never have to complain about late payments. All will be better off with this platform, and they would always share in the success.

The Team

The GRAIN.io is headed by Onno Hektor, who earlier worked with Microsoft as the director. Mr. Hektor is the president of the board and is closely assisted by André Bonvanie and Erik Koster, who are both board members. Jeroen van Megchelen works for GRAIN as the blockchain expert. The other senior officials that make up the team are Lucas Huizinga, Artem Gorev, Philippe Vanderhoydonck; and Hans Hoogerveen & Steen Deurloo, who are both members of the advisory board.

Artists are free souls. What guides them is their passion. They hate all limits, as limitations hinder their creativity and ultimately, the quality of the art they make. Our world ended up in a situation where artists are completely in the hands of financial behemoths – recording labels and streaming platforms such as Spotify or Apple Music. Ultimately, it is up to these entities whether their compositions get published and whether they gain any recognition. Musicians are chained by the regulations of these companies. Fees can be high, cutting a lot of profit from musicians. For an up and coming artist, this can make the road to stardom very tough. VOXXO is an ICO that wishes to release artists from these restrictions.

The Goals of VOXXO

VOXXO attempts to integrate cryptocurrency and blockchain technologies to the music world. It aims to halt filtering of content, so that every artist can become heard, not just the ones with large label support. The ERC20 token will grant extra bonuses to its users on the VOXXO platform. There will be options to pay with other cryptocurrencies, but without the extras. If you do not want to pay, you will still be able to listen to music freely, but with ads every two songs. Otherwise, there will be no limitations, unlike Spotify, which doesn’t let you play specific songs as a free user when your trial time runs out, only compositions from random playlists, hopefully based around your interests.

Payments would be based on as many hours as you want to listen, without any monthly subscriptions. There will be chances to win free concert tickets and the option to listen to live gigs. For musicians, there are licensing options, which require no complex paperwork. Artists would earn funds when users listen to their songs with VOXXO. Thanks to collaboration with organizations like ASCAP, BMI and PRS, a cryptocurrency revenue collection system will be established. It’s a big deal, because small time artists find it difficult to earn money off copyright.

VOXXO Team

Team of this project is quite small. While we’re at it, I’d like to point out that the whitepaper is littered with spelling errors and bad formatting. Apparently, the list it going to be updated after sale #1 finishes, but I believe that a mere four people is not enough for something as complex as an ICO. It could be justified if it was a squad of 4 prodigies, but it isn’t. Unimpressive resumes with no achievements that stand out. No real experience in managing companies. I wouldn’t trust these people with my money. Not mentioning that the LinkedIn profiles aren’t even in English, and I had to use Google translate to make sense of them.

Social Media, Summary

I don’t need to bother with a lengthy description. VOXXO has less than thousand likes on all social media. I can only see them talked about in forums like bitcointalk.org, with only 8 pages in the thread since November. To pad this section out a bit, I’ll mention that I can’t shake the feeling that VOXXO isn’t really trying to “free the artists”. The project to me seems like simply replacing the current model with a copy, but with cryptocurrency and blockchain functionalities added. Features like users voting for the songs to just get inside the platform, or paying with your tokens to have a higher power vote during live event votes doesn’t seem quite fair to me. The one with the most money wins. Nothing changes. As an artist and a musician, I’m suspicious of this project. I wouldn’t invest a penny in this.

At the advent of cryptocurrencies, they were mined by relatively small entities. Single persons, mining with just their personal computers, without any specialized hardware needed. As the networks grew, more and more processing power was required. Only high end PC’s could mine. And then, you needed a whole farm to make a profit. Therefore, it became unaffordable for everyone but the select few. Or companies specializing in just that. Now you need an ASIC stack to mine Bitcoin. This defeats one of key principles in design of the cryptocurrency – decentralization. The network is still kind of decentralized, but decentralized as in few thousand pools owning the majority of the mining power. Not the most optimal solution. Envion, an ICO company, wants a return to the era of personal mining.

Summary of Envion ICO

An additional issue, which I didn’t mention in the intro, is of course, the ever growing power cost of mining BTC. This has a negative effect on the environment. We should aim to decrease power costs, not increase them. Not only you have to own expensive hardware, you need to pay large electricity bills, further worsening the situation of network democracy, where it’s interests are in the hands of the “elite”, owning the biggest farms.

Envion has developed a system of MMUs, Mobile Mining Units, that can tap electicity directly at the source. Green power like solar, hydro or wind, or fossil fuel power plants would be given intermodal containers equipped with mining hardware, communication and industry 4.0 automation features. Breakthrough cooling system included, costing less than 1% of total system power consumption. Envion is a fusion of the blockchain and renewable energies.

Token name EVN, it uses the ERC-20 standard. The token holder is privileged to receive 100% of earnings of the proprietary Envion mining operation, 35% from third-party operations, voting and veto in important company strategy decisions. Sale started on 15th December, 2017, and will end January 14th, 2018.

Envion Team and Impressions

Reading the whitepaper, you can see there is no flashy presentation. It’s showcased in a way as if you were reading a scientific document, not a sales pitch. That’s a bonus to me. A lot of ICOs seem like downright scammy pyramid schemes or MLM. This one earned my respect with its honest approach. Moving onto the team itself, it’s full of seasoned experts. Matthias Woestmann, CEO, is an enterpreneur, investor and media professional. He co-financed a $300M solar company. Having two decades of experience, he surely knows what he’s doing. The rest of the team isn’t divided into specific positions, but their general roles. Felix Krusenbaum handles finance, Johnatan Koch the technology. Both of them are experienced IT professionals with over 10 years of experience. This team as a whole is a huge hit. I’ve reviewed profiles of everyone on board, and I can say I’m impressed. Envion spells success.

Socia Media and Press

Envion has a HUGE following for an ICO, which I’ve seen at 5k likes max. Their Facebook page has ten times that. Apparently, they managed to raise $34 million dollars in first few days of the ICO. Impressive! People are drawn to the idea of connecting blockchain and renewable energy technologies. The cryptocurrency community sure loves Envion.

Risks and Opportunities of Envion ICO

I can see this ICO being highly successful. The project has made such an impression on me that I am going to invest a few dollars into it, personally. However, as with every investment, please research what you’re investing in and make your own judgement. We are not responsible for any losses you could have by investing in this or another ICO. Still, I highly believe this ICO can net some serious profit for it’s investors and make waves in the technology world.

If you want to get something manufactured, you’ll quickly run into problems. Unless, of course, you’re a large company, a giant in the field, with a ton of money and connections. The rest of the market doesn’t look as good. A significant number of buyers has trouble with finding the right manufacturing suppliers. Businesses lack intellectual property protection; the issue of IP is a large concern. SyncFab, an ICO for the manufacturing industry, wishes to resolve these problems.

Use Cases of SyncFab, Description of the Project

The company is attempting to create a decentralized market connecting buyers and manufacturers without any intermediaries. Payments would be guaranteed through smart contracts, and manufacturing supply chains would make use of a blockchain powered by the MFG token.

With MFG, you can create unique bids to stimulate manufacturers to offer better prices. Loyalty rewards can be offered for reordering. Discounts can be made available. The token will be ERC20, as usual, and on the Ethereum blockchain. It will be required to pay transaction fees on the platform.

Financial Details of SyncFab

At time of writing, the token sale is live. SyncFab is not a huge project in terms of money poured inside. It has a soft cap of 30k ETH, and a hard cap of 60k ETH, with the minimum goal being 10k ETH. One ETH will equal in price to 1250 MFG. 300,000,000 MFG tokens will be available for sale.

The SyncFab Team

CEO of SyncFab, Jeremy Goodwin, is an eloquent man. Fluent in Chinese and French, passionate about AI, blockchain and Bitcoin. From his LinkedIn profile, we learn that SyncFab is a partner to the D.O.E & D.O.C Clean Energy Smart Manufacturing Innovation Initiative (CESMII), appointed by the White House and US Departments of Energy and Commerce plus the National Network for Manufacturing Innovation, worth $140MM. Quite an achievement!

Andy Le Tong, CSO, is a serial entrepreneur, recognized for his achievements in the video game industry. The massively multiplayer online game portal MMOABC, of which he was a CEO, received attention of millions of North American gamers. He didn’t spend a penny on advertisement, and that was before the age of social media!

The team consists of 9 members and 10 advisers. Each one has an impressive resume. Advisers have worked at companies like PayPal, eBay, Apple and JPMorgan. One word can sum up this team: solid. I can see the project becoming successful, if only by the merit of it’s members.

SyncFab Press Coverage

Social media and press coverage of this project is no less impressive. SyncFab is partnered by many big names, including Berkeley University and Stanford University. As mentioned earlier, the White House itself has ties with this project, too. It earned a 97% score in the Aingel blog ICO scoring series. The scoring is based on a Monte Carlo wrapped machine learning algorithm developed at New Your University, where more than 6,000 startup founders were analyzed.

On Facebook, they have high engagement, as the post about token launch was given reactions by 3,5 thousand people. The page has almost 5k likes, quite good for an ICO, which usually averages at 1-2k. Their Twitter enjoys a good number of retweets and likes, in the 50-100 range on average per post, with the follower count at almost 5 thousand, like the Facebook page. The community seems to be in high spirits about SyncFab.

The Final Verdict on SyncFab

Personally, I’m not knowledgeable about the manufacturing industry. This project, to fully comprehend, would need some real-life experience and understanding of the problems presented, beyond what’s included in the whitepaper. Perhaps this is why the hard cap is a mere 60k ETH; other projects estimate to have much greater interest. Definitely, it’s not for the layman. From a purely financial standpoint though, as a potential investor, I can see this project worth investing in, especially with these recommendations from the White House and University of Berkeley. It touches upon an issue that many want to become resolved.