The Ferrum Network, review by CryptoCaBital
What is the Ferrum Network?
A DAG-Based interoperability network that connects to any blockchain and works natively with fiat currencies. The self-claimed lightning network for every single blockchain. With the combination of several products, Ferrum aims to empower millions of users across the globe.
The ecosystem that they are creating consists of an (already live) exchange, an OTC wallet, a cold-storage wallet and a decentralized exchange all evolving around the FRM token. Let’s find out where this project is coming from, who’s behind it and what we can expect in the near, and not-so-near future.
Kudi Exchange
The product that is already live is the Kudi Exchange, an impressive product, recently featured on BBC, that is focused on emerging economies, in this case West-Africa. The success of cashless systems has been proven before in Kenya, where the ‘M-Pesa’ is taking the roll of central banks giving the citizens the possibility to transfer money across countries and with the ease of a couple clicks. Point here is, there’s still a certain trust to be put with a central party, in this case, the mobile network providers. Kudi Exchange is offering the decentralized alternative for these systems that make it possible for anyone, from local shop owners to bigger shopping malls to transfer funds easily and rapidly. You could see it as a combination between Coinbase, evolving around cryptocurrencies, and Paypal, an efficienct and easy to use system. The exchange has launched in Nigeria, a country with one of the highest Bitcoin transactions across the world, and achieved more than 400 users in their first week. With plans of scaling towards Ghana and Kenya, the future of the Kudi Exchange is looking bright.
Who is behind the project?
When analysing this team the first thing that stands out is the fact that ⅓ of the team consists of PhD’s, that’s impressive already. One of these PhD’s is the CEO and founder, Naiem Yeganeh. Naiem has an impressive academic track record studying computer hardware- and software engineering and eventually getting his PhD in Computer Science specified on Distributed Data systems & Data Quality Management. After this, he worked for companies such as Microsoft, Amazon and prior to founding Ferrum, Bloomberg.
The COO and co-founder is Ian Friend, Doctor of Law after graduating cum laude for both Behavioral Science and Business Law. Ian then went on a journey through a variety of the large law firms across the United States ending up co-founding Wilson Elser’s Blockchain and Digital Assets practice team. Throughout this journey, he fell in love with Blockchain, the technology and the opportunities it has to offer. Not long after, Ian and Naiem met and joined forces to found Ferrum Network. Ian is extremely active on social media and doesn’t hesitate to answer each and every question. We have spoken to him on several occasions, and are truly amazed by his energy and positivity, something many founders of Blockchain startups should take an example of.
The other team members consist of seasoned financial strategists, Data scientists and software engineers. The thing that’s interesting though is the fact that this is only the core team of the Ferrum Network. An answer given by Ian Friend on the question how many people there are working on Ferrum, the answer was simple; ‘Many due to the fact there is also a team in Nigeria working full time on Kudi Exchange, one of the products running on top of our network’. With more products scheduled to launch on the network, it’s safe to say this is only the beginning and the team will evolve and grow over time.
Advisors
The advisory board exists out of some industry veterans such as the co-founders of TLG Ventures, responsible for investing in projects such as Pundi X &Origin Trail. On the software side, there are Hamed Ahmadi, Senior Engineer and Jing Cheng, working as a Senior Software Engineer for Google.
Strategic Partners
The partnerships are well thought of and impressive in this stage of the roadmap. As Ferrum is developing several products that will run on the network, it’s crucial to involve the right players. For their Kudi Exchange, based on the African market, they have partnered up with Gemini aiming to bring the first, US Dollar pegged, stablecoin to Africa. The partnership with Revitz will be responsible for bringing military grade security to their Unifyre wallet. Then there’s Fusion that will help with the acceleration of the interoperability network and finally there are Vectorblocks that’s assisting on the strategic level and maintaining the long term vision of the project.
Roadmap
The horizon for Ferrum is filled with a lot of products and a lot of big plans. We’ve all seen a fair share of projects promising a lot and eventually not delivering anything. The Ferrum Network proves it’s possible to do this in a different manner, with one of their products already being live prior to publicly raising funds. When looking at their roadmap it stretches from the start of 2018 until the end of 2020, a realistic overview that’s getting close to the public sale scheduled for Q3 this year.
There is a prototype of the testnet developed, the team has secured a finalist spot in the pitch competition at Consensus 2018, The UniFyre Wallet has released its beta version, the MVP is finished and to conclude all that has already happened, the Kudi exchange is live as we speak.
The goals and objectives of the roadmap are well thought off and complex in detail. The upcoming months/quarters are filled with the public sale, the launch of the test-net and the launch of all their other products and eventually launching their Infinity DEX and payment platform. They are in an advanced stage in regards of listing with several top tiered exchanges and will be going on a large campaign in Asia to create adoption for their Ferrum token. The Token Generation Event is planned to launch in the midst of July, with the launch on the chosen exchange followed a few days after.
The FRM Token
The FRM token is considered as gas for the entire network. Their whitepaper quotes;
‘The network is powered by the native Ferrum Network utility token or FRM. Each transaction requires a nominal of FRM be spent and burned to attach proof to the transaction and as an anti-spamming measure.’
The beauty of this system is the number of products that will eventually run on the Ferrum Network combined with the fact that each transaction will burn tokens; Spending FRM burns FRM. This innovative system will eventually create a scarcity of the FRM token after more products will be launched on the network. Recently, the team has released a new system around the token and the companies’ reserves. The Reserve Model allows them to drastically reduce the hard cap and initial circulating supply, allow themselves more room for unpredicted spending and it’s putting more pressure on their team. The reserve model will permit entrance to these reserves after achieving pre-defined traction milestones and over a set period of time. The model is created with their belief that;
‘low token sales with a very low hard cap and solid fundamentals will shine in this market’.
Ferrum released a great article regarding their vision on ICO’s and IEO’s and how they dare to challenge the way blockchain startups have been raising funds lately. The article goes in depth about the innovative metrics and low hardcap that go against pretty much all projects nowadays. They want to be the example that there is no need for tens of millions in the bank in order to be successful, sustainable and still strive for adaption.
Ticker: FRM
Type: ERC-20 — Migration to the main net scheduled for Q4 2019
Token Metrics They just released their metrics with a total hardcap of $1.12 Million.
They will have a total supply of approx 330M tokens, of which 40% is sold in ICO and put in reserve to support the ecosystem and further developments, like the cross chain DEX.
Further details are:
Token price: $0.016
Seed 40% bonus sold $120K and presale 15% bonus sold $700K with 40% unlocked at TGE
TGE: 0% bonus and no lockup total sold $300K
Company tokens are locked for 2 years and the exosystem and business development for 1 year.
Opportunities
The fact that coins are burned after each transaction is extremely interesting considering the number of transactions that will take place once all the products on the network are launched. This in combination with the innovative Reserve Model holds a strong long term vision, especially for the team as the lock-up of their allocated tokens are based on traction milestones and time no shorter than one year.
Question marks
The Interoperability DEX is highly anticipated within the industry but will be difficult to develop. Nevertheless, it might not be needed in order for the Ferrum Network as a company to be successful in the short- to mid-term with all their other products launching the coming year. Still, it’s definitely something to look forward to, as more and more people want to move away from centralized exchanges. The set metrics are outstanding for investors perspective, but the question here is, whether it will be sufficient to go mainstream and reach their targets. Especially in comparison to the large capped projects. To contradict and answer this question, the article above, Utility Tokens Aren’t Dead, is a perfect solution to these concerns.
To wrap things up
The team behind Ferrum is well diversified in terms of specialization and especially when it comes to their global position with some of their products creating a global solution, the Kudi exchange is solving a more local problem within West-Africa. The team has earned their stripes both in experience as in their academic careers which they are now combining and bringing to practice. Their presence on social media is an example to many, it’s direct, active and professional. One could question if Ian Friend ever sleeps as he is always there to answer someone’s concerns. With their innovative metrics and low hardcap, they show that they are eager and not afraid to go against the mass. The roadmap is simple by the looks, although it could be hard to grasp and bring into reality, especially the Interoperability DEX. At this stage they have succeeded in reaching their milestones, so no reason to believe otherwise with the future milestones. It will be exciting to see the Ferrum Network develop the coming months. We’ll keep a close look at the developments and inform our community accordingly. To conclude, we have gathered the information above, discussed based on our experience and collaboratively came up with a rating for the project.
Rating
We are always scraping the market in search for that precious diamond, that gem. We can quote Ian Friend here:
‘We at Ferrum network are in the process of creating the gem investors are looking for.’
This in combination with all the mentioned qualities, the professionality and background of the team, the innovative metrics and few concerns we could find it would be an understatement to say we are bullish about FRM.
CryptoCaBital score to Ferrum Network:
Score: 6.9/10
Short term potential: Good
We at CryptoCaBital are a group of people looking for innovative and quality projects to research, advise and invest in. Nothing in this article should be considered investment advice. Readers should always do their own research prior to investing.
Project Details
Website: https://ferrum.network/
Onepager: http://onepager.ferrum.network/
Whitepaper: http://whitepaper.ferrum.network/
Telegram: http://telegram.ferrum.network/
Kudi Exchange: https://kudi.exchange/
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