[DarpalRating] What are some Quality ICOs to invest in March?

ICO Check list March 2018

13 min readMar 29, 2018

March 29th, 2018; by Darpal Rating team, Translated by Xu Guangqian & Tyler Garant

There is a staggering amount of new projects appearing on the market these days. Every week new tokens are listed on exchanges. It is increasingly difficult to stay well informed on the many projects entering this space, especially while also trying to keep track of the performance and progress of all those companies already solidified in the blockchain industry. It can all become a bit fatiguing! To help solve these issues we are happy to introduce our Quick ICO Rating list. In this list we have chosen a few projects (based on popularity) and dig in. We will have all the projects explained and a summary of all the rating scores is put at the end of the article, scroll down to the bottom to know which project gets the best rating.

Our evaluations are based on four dimensions: project, team, current progress, and community management. Two independent dimensions — risk and popularity — will also be considered in the future.

Evaluation Dimensions:

Project: The project itself serves as the most important factor as we evaluate projects. Our evaluations will be given based on two sub-dimensions: strategic positioning and project necessity.

Team: In this dimension we mostly investigate the previous jobs and accomplishments of team members i.e. what projects they have worked on and their technical backgrounds. The operational experience of team members, the industrial resources they enjoy, and the previous investment history of investors and clients will also be considered.

Progress: Judging projects by the metric of progress is an effective method for evaluating the quality of growing projects; of course, this enables quality projects to receive a high score and lowers the score of unpractical projects. There are 5 stages of project progress: PPT(White paper) stage; Demo stage; under development stage or small-scale test stage; public beta stage or small-scale commercialization stage; large-scale revenue stage or actual profit stage. We will make evaluations according to these different stages.

Community Management: blockchain projects are based on a community ecology comprised of countless token holders. The management and activity of blockchain communities are indispensable factors that must be considered when we evaluate these projects. We will evaluate community management from these dimensions: financing, budget disclosure, fund supervision, token revaluation logic and so on.

Mytoken

Overall evaluation：C+

Website：https://evermarkets.com/?lang=zh-han

Whitepaper：https://cdn.mytoken.org/whitepaper/mytoken-whitepaper-v1.0-cn.pdf

Project feature: MyToken APP, a Chinese blockchain information platform with 150000 daily active users, plans to explore in Dapp field. The token will be used under many circumstances including match deals (possibly accross different exchanges), decentralized alignment of demands, ICOs, market data service, decentralized application store etc. MyToken APP provides quality services for its users and now it enjoys some advantages in the vertical field. At present, this APP has more than 400000 users and more than 50 Wechat groups of core users. However, it has many competitors and its future plan in its white paper has few highlights. Its loyal users serve as its major advantage and its good services form its specialty. We believe that MyToken team can continue to provide better, wider and more professional services in Dapp sector. There is a high chance that MyToken may gain a place in blockchain field.

Current

Overall evaluation: C-

Website：https://current.us

Whitepaper：https://cdn.current.us/deck.pdf

Project feature: the white paper of Current is well-regulated. Currently, this project is in the vertical field of content distribution on streaming media. Current already has some competitors. However, this project is very popular in twitter and facebook with communities that are really active.

Current team was established in 2015. At its early stage, but back then it was no involved in blockchain. Prior to this transition to the blockchain field. However, the team has no successful experience on blockchain development as reference.

Evermarkets

Overall evaluation: C-

Website：https://evermarkets.com/?lang=zh-han

Whitepaper：https://evermarkets.com/whitepaper_CN.pdf

Project feature: Evermarkets is an up-level application on Ethereum. It aims to create a global derivative transaction market covering crude oil, gold, digital currency, stocks and bonds. With smart contracts, this project provides token holders with services including the acquisition of computing and technological resources. It claims that it will simplify trade process and cut trade cost. Besides, the project adopts call auction to replace continuous price fixing trade to make derivative transactions worldwide more standardized and more efficient, reduce the impact of speed on transactions and return to price competition. The CEO of thie project has worked for 9 years in Citigroup Inc and Graham Capital. Main team members of this project major in finance and internet science in Carnegie Mellon University. They are equipped with financial knowledge.

Note: this project introduces blockchain into derivative market. It aims to cover a large set of business. The success of this project lies in whether it can improve its liquidity through micro-innovation. At present, the best solution is to make this project Ethereum-based. However, there may be network congestion in the future. Besides, margin system strongly requires transactions to be in time. Once the price of digital asset fluctuates largely and the Ethereum internet congests at the same time, margin providers may suffer from great harm(they often are large investors that pursue steady yields and hate risks) and the project may go through adverse impacts in the long run .

Oneledger

Overall evaluation: C-

Website：https://oneledger.io/

Whitepaper：https://oneledger.io/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/oneledger-whitepaper-03.12.18.pdf

Project feature: OneLedger is a universal blockchain protocol enabling cross-ledger access through Business Modularization. By using role control with PKI, enterprises can also launch their own sidechains. Businesses will be able to define the precise role of node operators that participate on their sidechain. In addition, by utilizing OneLedger’s unified framework, companies can develop their distributed ledger technology application with a single codebase and simultaneously launch their product across multiple infrastructure networks of their choosing. OneLedger provides a scalable “off-chain” solution from any main chain and offloads the consensus to the corresponding OneLedger sidechain which inherits all of the properties of the OneLedger protocol.

Atonomi

Overall evaluation：C+

Website：https://atonomi.io/

White paper：https://atonomi.io/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Atonomi-Network-White-Paper-v0.9.1.3s.pdf

Project feature: Project feature: Atonomi is the security protocol for the Internet of Things. Under the leadership of CENTRI Technology, it ensures “security” through immutable device identity, reputation incentives and punishment, and the credibility of the third-party auditors. However, its extensible architecture has not been described in a detailed way in the White paper. Atonomi is innovative in more or less average ways. It utilizes similar logic to the majority of projects relating to the Internet of Things. The competitiveness of Atonomi depends on its teams and its background concerning the Internet of Things.

Cardstack

Overall evaluation：C+

Website：https://cardstack.com/

White paper：https://cardstack.com/White paper.pdf

Project feature: Cardstack is a full-stack blockchain application framework, an open-source framework, and a consensus protocol. It is also a decentralized software ecosystem.

Note: in essence： In essence, Cardstack works on the connection and management of various kinds of decentralized applications. It adopts Tally aggregation protocol to establish connections between Dapps. It aims to invoke data and transfer token cross blockchain applications.

Cryptopus

Overall evaluation：D+

Website：https://cryptopus.co/

White paper: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Q0vsQMCN2JngiXZ5MuTQGTY1WDNhc_8k/view

Project feature: Cryptopus is an IPFS-based, decentralized dealer market. It collects data provided by traders to do continuous algorithm ratings, verification and analysis. Cryptopus makes decisions according to algorithms and information provided by traders, aiming to establish an ecosystem to help investors gain profits with the help of meaningful data.

Note: The Cryptopus team comes from Russia. Though its definition is clearly stated in its whitepaper, Cryptopus actually focuses on smart investment trusts.

Effect

Overall evaluation：D+

Website：https://www.effect.ai/

White paper：https://www.effect.ai/download/effect_whitepaper.pdf

Project feature: Effect.ai is established on the NEO platform. It is a decentralized market working on algorithms, data and hashpower. There is no blueprint on its official website. At this time, it is not possible for us to know the progress of this project.

Endor

Overall evaluation：C+

Website：https://www.endor.com/

White paper：https://www.endor.com/#Crowdsale

Project feature: Endor makes accurate and democratic predictions on any problem. It comes up with an automated AI predictions system which is abstract and based on social physics. However, this system remains academic and we do not know whether is can improve the accuracy of predictions. Plenty of its team members are academics or have long worked on blockchain research. However, its team members do not have successful experiences in the actual development of blockchain projects.

Essentia

Overall evaluation：C+

Website：https://essentia.one/

White paper：https://essentia.one/White paper.pdf

Project feature: Essentia is a decentralized data management framework that is based on Essences. It provides decentralized and interoperable modules. All data and capital are fully owned by individuals, companies, or machines. Matteo, the CEO of Essentia, is a member of The Bitcoin Foundation.

Friendz

Overall evaluation：D+

Website：https://friendz.io/

White paper：https://friendz.io/white-paper.html

Project feature:Friendz is a digital marketing platform that takes advantage of point-to-point communication and internet word of mouth on social networks to conduct marketing activities.

Note: Friendz is average in every aspect. It is a pure application project with no distinctive features.

IOTEX

Overall evaluation: C+

Website: https://iotex.io/

White paper: https://iotex.io/white-paper

Project feature: Iotex aims to create a RDPOS public chain within the intensely competitive Internet of Things industry. Its child chains can be owned by individuals to protect their privacy.

Note: Iotex has started late, and the Internet of Things is a very competitive field. Iotex’s team has a good command of cryptography knowledge but lacks experience in the Internet of Things industry. It only has 6 full-time team members and its team strongly needs expanding.

Keep

Overall evaluation：C-

Website：https://keep.network/

White paper：https://keep.network/White paper

Project feature:Keep is a protocol on the privacy layer of Ethereum. James Prestwich, the founder of Storj, serves as Keep’s consultant.

Metronome

Overall evaluation：C-

Website：https://metronome.io/#start

White paper：https://www.metronome.io/pdf/owners_manual.pdf

Project Features: MTN is a type of cryptocurrency focused on self-management, credibility, and portability. It can be used for cross-chain decentralized data storage and high-level payments and settlements (batch payment, subscription). MTN adopts ERC20 token standards now but it may adopt ERC827 standards, the newest token standards on Ethereum and the upgraded version of ERC20. ERC827 standards are designed to simply and elegantly solve some existing flaws in ERC20 standards — especially the invocation of token transaction functions and token authorization functions.

On GitHub, only less than 100 lines of data are used to realize token transaction and authorization functions. ERC827 standards allow both token and data transactions. Such standards also support an authorized third party to directly use the tokens of users.

Note: there is no public sale of MTN. All auctions can be finished on-chain without registration on a whitelist. MTN is sold through Dutch auction. As time goes by, the price may decrease linearly until the auction ends or all MTN are sold out.

NEX

Overall evaluation：C+

Website：https://neonexchange.org/

White paper：https://neonexchange.org/pdfs/White paper_v1.1.pdf

Project feature: NEX is a platform for complex and decentralized trade, payment service creation, and cross-chain fund management. It comes up with verifiable off-chain matching engines and gives solutions to handle complex order types.

Note: The four co-founders of NEX also created City of Zion, a famous international community of open source fans. COZ is closely related to NEO, as they share a same founder — Luciano Engel(the founder of NEOScan). Both Da Hongfei, the creator of NEO and Erik Zhang, the chief technology officer serve as NEX’s advisor. NEX is less involved in cross-chain trade. In 2018, NEX’s Q4 cross-chain was launched to support trading of ETH and ETH tokens (trading of BTC and so on is not mentioned).

Orchid

Overall evaluation：C-

Website：https://orchidprotocol.com/

White paper：https://orchidprotocol.com/#White paper

Project Features: Orchid protocol has a wonderful plan that has a chance, with the help of blockchain technologies, to become a thorough solution to internet problems if such a protocol is realized. However, orchid protocol does not deliver a good performance in other aspects including team, community management and progress. Therefore, it gets a low score as a whole. According to its official statement, orchid protocol has no Facebook, Twitter, Telegraph group or Wechat group.

Note: According to previous reports, orchid laboratory members include Stephen Bell, Brian J.Fox, Jay Freeman (the developer of Cydia, a jailbreak app on iOS system), Gustav Simonsson (a member of Ethereum foundation) and Steven Waterhouse. Besides, Gavin Wood (a core developer of Ethereum), Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz and so on serve as orchid’s consultants and investors. It is an amazing team. However, we don’t know why the information above isn’t mentioned on orchid’s website.

Origin

Overall evaluation：C+

Website：https://www.originprotocol.com/zh_Hans

White paper：https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/originprotocol-assets/docs/White paper_v4.pdf

Project Features: Origin is a comprehensive project focused on a decentralized sharing economy. It empowers various kinds of developers and businesses to build decentralized marketplaces on the blockchain.

Policypal

Overall evaluation：C+

Website：https://www.policypal.network/

White paper：https://www.policypal.network/White paper_cn

Project feature: policypal is responsible for P2P insurance and digital asset insurance business based on Ethereum.

Note: As for the digital asset insurance part, Policypal only mentions that investors need to buy insurance for their digital assets because hackers may attack their wallet. However, its white paper doesn’t show how to make compensations and how to set compensation standards. One thing is certain: Policypal will try to find solutions. Owing to the fact that Policypal doesn’t officially reveal its crowdfunding hard cap, we give only average evaluations to its crowdfunding situation. Policypal has conducted a crowdsale and managed to collect 6000 ETH with a total value of 5.2 million dollars.

Republicprotocal

Overall evaluation：C+

Website：https://republicprotocol.com/

White paper：https://republicprotocol.github.io/White paper/republic-White paper.pdf

Project feature: republic protocol is a decentralized dark pool for a large amount of encryption currency trading of Ether, ERC20 tokens and Bitcoin pairs. At present, it is the only blockchain project that enjoys such decentralized technologies for encryption currency trading in a dark pool.

Seele

Overall evaluation：B-

Website：https://seele.pro/

White paper：https://s3.ap-northeast-2.amazonaws.com/wp.s3.seele.pro/Seele_tech_White paper_EN_v1.9.pdf

Project Features: Seele has created a new consensus algorithm — EDA — an asynchronous sequencing technology. It also puts forward HFN (Heterogeneous Forest Network), VTP (Value Transport Protocol), VHTTP (Value Internet Transmission Layer Protocol). Seele claims that it can solve many problems relating to blockchain projects.

Controversy about the project: According to the official telegram group, one Seele user named Admin collected money from other users in private and disappeared with 2 million dollars collected. Seele explained that someone falsely used a Seele user’s identity, gained official trust and committed fraud.

Squeezer

Overall evaluation：D+

Website：https://squeezer.io/token-sale/

White paper：https://squeezer.io/docs/token-sale/Squeezer.IO-White-Paper-Final.pdf

Project Features: Squeezer aims to help software developers make blockchain development more accessible. It wants to build a platform where applications can be made at low cost and without dealing with the whole blockchain infrastructure. Squeezer provides component tools for large corporations and organizations to build blockchain software. The automatic scaling API and server-less framework mentioned in Squeezer’s white paper are just in the conceptual phrase.

Switcheo

Overall evaluation：C-

Website：https://switcheo.network/

White paper：https://switcheo.network/switcheo_White paper_v1.0.pdf

Project feature: Switcheo is a new decentralized exchange on NEO internet. With so many competitors, it is difficult for Switcheo to stand out. The advantage of Switcheo is that it only collects 8.7 million dollars.

Tomocoin

Overall evaluation：C+

Website：https://www.tomocoin.io/

White paper：https://www.tomocoin.io/docs/White paper4.0CN-link.pdf。

Project Features: Tomocoin aims to build an efficient blockchain infrastructure for decentralized applications, token issuance, and integration. Based on PoA, Tomocoin supports all Ethereum smart contracts. Long Vulong (also the creator of NEM) created Tomocoin and holds the position of its CEO. TomoApp, the first application on the Tomo platform, focuses on developing a Q&A community to share information and knowledge.

Wowoo

Overall evaluation: C+

Website: http://wowoonet.com/

White paper: http://wowoonet.com/pdf/wp_wwb_e_v201.pdf

Wowoo is a virtual ecosystem that focuses on answering questions. Wowees (also known as wees) are participators in this ecosystem. They raise and answer questions on Wower platform. Wowoo is invested by OKWAVE, a Japanese platform like Quora. Wowoo was first launched on Ethereum blockchain and then later moved to NEO blockchain.

Project feature: it is promoted by Da Honfei and Roger Ver(“Bitcoin Jesus”).

Note: Wowoo plans to collect 270 million dollars. Only 25% of its tokens are given out. It is estimated that Wowoo is worth 1080 million dollars.

Summary:

Note: The above references an opinion and is for information purposes only. It is not intended to be investment advice. Seek a duly licensed professional for investment advice.