The Healthcare Coin? A Review of Clinicoin’s ICO
Greetings!
Dowd and Ozmund here; we are the two brothers that comprise the Crypto Brothers team. We’ve just finished reviewing the ICO for Clinicoin, and can share with you what we’ve learned, as well as what our own rating is for this ICO opportunity.
Introduction to Clinicoin
Do you own a Garmin or Fitbit?
They are almost ubiquitous on the wrists of our friends and family at this point; the smart watches are at war with each other, and each one is trying to pack as much computing power into a watch-size container as possible.
Yes, I’m one of those people. Well before I’d ever heard of Clinicoin, I was a Fitbit user. For those readers who don’t know what “Fitbit” is, it’s essentially a very impressive smart watch which can detect telemetry about your activity throughout a day, including your location in some cases, along with your elevation and movements. It counts the number of steps you perform each day, and can convert any activity into this “step count” to determine how many calories you’ve burned.
In addition, a Fitbit (or a Garmin) will track your heart rate throughout the day, storing this medical information in its proprietary databases. You can then log into your account via a smartphone or computer to see the statistics compiled.
Cool, huh?
Well, a company named Mosio wants to get in on the concept of rewarding you for exercising… and more. While other ICO’s have sprung up around this same concept, none are as wide-ranging as the concept Mosio came up with for Clinicoin; the cryptographic network they’re planning on creating can do much more than just incentivize jumping jacks.
Clinicoin can be used to motivate people to do anything a Provider may want to reward. This could be keeping appointments with a physician, or for participation in a survey. Or it could be for activities related to medical research.
In addition, the Clinicoin network will have a concept of a distributed marketplace for those token owners to spend some of that crypto-money.
The idea is a great one, and has potential to really help healthcare get to the next level in prevention, which was why we chose this ICO to review first. Without further ado, here is our first ICO review.
Review of the Clinicoin Initial Coin Offering
We are bullish on Clinicoin.
Will I end up buying some tokens during the ICO? Probably, yes. Even with the competition in the ‘exercise coin’ space, Clinicoin is more flexible in its scope, and can support future growth of its network. Marketing of its services and apps will be key in my estimation. Below is our detailed review for each of the rated categories above.
Product
Dowd: The product is impressive. Originally, Mosio — the company that is behind Clinicoin — built a mobile application that providers or researchers can use to keep in contact with patients. From what I’ve read, that is an impressive application in its own right. It’s good to know that this company is not starting from scratch; having an existing product that forms the basis of your idea says a lot of good things, including the fact that the team has worked together previously.
The Clinicoin application has a lot of potential to supercharge engagement of patients and research trial volunteers.
In addition, the market for integration with smart watches and exercise “wearables” seems to be what Clinicoin is hinting at in their whitepaper. I visualize something akin to a health insurance provider rewarding their policy-holders with coins for keeping up with a regular fitness regimen.
In addition to this core concept is the way that the Clinicoin team has architect-ed the network to encompass other developers’ creations as well, providing a route for coders to create their own applications that can integrate with Clinicoin — either within the app itself, or as an external application that can utilize the network.
Ozmund: For those of us looking to improve our overall physical condition, having a health product like the Clinicoin platform as an option will only benefit us in coupling current (and future) tech with our health improvement goals.
In fact, I find calling this a ‘health product’ to be an understatement. The Clinicoin concept is a part of what could be, an entire health management system, powered by blockchain. Participation = Rewards in your well-being. (…and in Clinicoin currency!)
Business Innovation
Dowd: While I think the “rewarding people to exercise” idea has been visited before, Clinicoin’s concept of focusing on patient engagement from an overall health perspective might be an advantage. In other words, Clinicoin doesn’t just focus on exercise.
Who are Clinicoin’s competitors? Because it’s not singularly an exercise token, it is indirectly competing with the likes of Sweatcoin and Fitcoin. Fitcoin will turn your mobile device into a cryptocurrency mining rig for a short amount of time as a reward for exercising. The Sweatcoin application rewards people directly with tokens as they exercise, and counts steps, similar in concept to a FitBit.
But again: Clinicoin’s aim is to improve patient engagement as well, which means arriving at appointments, or taking surveys. This is much more of a business tool for providers, and expands Clinicoin’s role to much more than just an exercise token.
Ozmund: Clinicoin’s potential for breaking new ground in a fresh frontier of blockchain adoption is massive.
In a medical field begging for decentralization for the sake of the patient, blockchain data sharing and storage could bring higher quality healthcare in the years to come by way of more accurate and faster diagnosis, treatment selection, decreased cost overall.
Clinicoin stands ready to become one of the first pioneers who want to embrace and contribute to this process, by developing some of the first applications that major healthcare providers could potentially learn from and implement themselves.
Technical Innovation
Ozmund: Clinicoin aims to use blockchain not only within their own applications, but cooperatively with other health apps and devices. This could lead to more inter-operability between participants, providers of services, care, and research/data platforms. Again, the technological improvements that are waiting to be made in not only medical and health research, but healthcare also, will only benefit from a project like Clinicoin.
Dowd: Creating a new network based on Ethereum, and then supporting the withdrawal of those tokens to the Ethereum network for general use has become a more common theme to ICOs in recent time, but the technical know-how to build that network and make it happens requires a team that is skilled in blockchain technology.
In addition, if you read the four-phase roll-out of the Clinicoin application, you realize that it’s much more than just creating a new cryptocurrency. The team is creating an application that runs on the new network, and has plans to incrementally add more and more impressive functionality, including a distributed marketplace.
Compliance
Dowd: The team already has a lawyer on staff; that part impressed me, and it also indicated that the team was cognizant of the fact that the application might eventually interact with patient data. Healthcare data is covered by some fairly stern laws here in the United States, and the team seems cognizant of the potential risks.
In addition, keep in mind that the team has already constructed a mobile application in the healthcare space and should be keenly aware of these issues already.
The only doubt I had was the decentralized, open nature of the Clinicoin network — has the team thought about the laws in all possible countries where this application could be used? There is no evidence to the contrary, but this thought certainly occurred to me.
Ozmund: Using blockchain to store and share personal health data can also help to evolve current HIPAA and other medical privacy laws around adoption by other platforms.
ICO Sale
Dowd: Since this is my first ICO review, I was trying to ascertain exactly the nature of the coin creation. There is no mining involved, evidently, so all of the coins are created “at genesis” of the network.
The ICO sale gets high marks in absence of any experienced frame of reference for myself, but I was disappointed that I had to construct this matrix myself; I think an ICO should be a bit more straight-forward, but I guess in an effort to amp up excitement, sometimes a simple accounting of tokens is not provided. Other than this nit-picky point, I’d say that it seems fairly standard from what I’ve seen in a couple other ICOs that I’ve looked at.
Ozmund: Clinicoin’s initial coin offering sale begins Wednesday, February 21st at 9am Pacific, and lasts 27 days ending on Tuesday March 20th. The Soft Cap is $2M, and the Hard Cap is $26M. 3 billion Clinicoin Tokens will be created at Genesis, and 1 Clinicoin will equal $.03, before bonuses. Additionally everyone has access to the same bonuses, which creates a very level playing field for buyers of all levels.
600M tokens will be reserved in a rewards pool for member activity and contributions.
An interesting part of the ICO Hard Cap, is that once it is met, Clinicoin will release 200M additional tokens to be sold at $.03 each, and every dollar of this sale will be donated to global children’s health charities, which will be voted for by token sale participants after its completion! On top of this humanitarian aspect, they will also match what is sold, and redistribute that amount to all token sale participants. It doesn’t get any more win-win.
Use of Decentralized Technology
Ozmund: The Marketplace will start off centralized with the goal of becoming decentralized. A decentralized marketplace can give the community a broader set of choices when accessing the products and services this platform can provide, especially in the long term if more and more businesses inevitably jump on the blockchain bandwagon and join forces with well charted platforms like Clinicoin.
Dowd: This is the category where I purposefully ask the question: “Was a blockchain really needed?”
And I think the answer for me is “maybe not.” If I visualize a centralized, issuing authority for the tokens, for example, the entire concept seems to work just fine. In fact, in some cases, as a Provider who is trusting this network, it would be more comforting to know that there was a business responsible — and liable — for keeping my patient data private.
And you don’t really need a decentralized network to give “tokens”, right?
This is where you have to look at other aspects like a decentralized marketplace. Also, if you want other developers — 3rd parties — to develop applications, perhaps they need something like a ledger? But there again, I keep coming up with strategies that other companies have used to encourage development and integration.
But I guess the benefit is the difference between a “trusted” token for a Provider to use as a reward and a “trustless” token. A trustless token is probably much more preferred from a customer point of view, because they can spend them anywhere, not just in a centralized store. So I guess I can see how certain portions of the Clinicoin Solution would benefit from a decentralized network rather than a centralized database.
Whitepaper
Dowd: I really liked the whitepaper. The whitepaper methodically detailed the business concept underpinning Clinicoin, and dove into details — both business and technical. While the later parts of the document are really catering to the developers who may have blockchain experience with Ethereum, most of it was detailing the business purpose and problem that Clinicoin solves.
The use case was well-described, and the four-part roll-out of functionality was clearly delineated.
Ozmund: I couldn’t say it better! A very crisp and polished document for potential buyers to assimilate.
Business Plan
Ozmund: From what I’ve read, Clinicoin has a clear long-term vision in place to grow and expand into what could be the adoption of blockchain in the healthcare and wellness field, where the progress they make today could be used to better overall healthcare for years to come.
Dowd: I struggled with the business plan portion just a small bit before I understood the model. Clinicoin (the legacy Mosio team) will make money in a variety of ways: ICO, selling CLIN tokens, and selling services and software for their mobile application. I think it seems solid, but I had to deduce this for myself, as the whitepaper didn’t clearly outline each of these parts, but implied it in certain ways.
It seems like a viable business plan to me, even if the tokens don’t dramatically increase in value.
Organization
Dowd: Having a legacy company that is transforming into the company behind Clinicoin is a strong point in my book. It takes some know-how to take an idea like Mosio’s mobile application and then market it successfully to two separate audiences — Healthcare Providers and Researchers — but that’s exactly what it seems Mosio did. They are not starting from scratch here. They’ve already shown their capabilities when it comes to constructing a cutting-edge mobile application that is trusted by Healthcare professionals.
Now they have to broaden their skill set and become a crypto company as well.
Ozmund: …and they stand ready to do just that with the team they have in place, from experienced tech and software engineers, to a blockchain department that looks to have a clear understanding of cryptography.
An Advisory Board comprised of some very skilled industry experts also sits ready to assist the Clinicoin project in achieving success in their endeavors.
Future Potential
Ozmund: I can see the eventual integration of blockchain into healthcare as an inevitability. A project like Clinicoin can lay out the foundations for such integration, and be invaluable in helping to better the future of health and wellness worldwide. As my brother also states, the potential for expanding into other fields and applications is readily apparent.
Dowd: I see a lot of future potential for the coin and the concept. Just the basic idea of rewarding somebody with blockchain tokens for engagement in healthy activities created some light bulb moments for myself as I read through the whitepaper.
For example, if Mosio can successfully do this with Clinicoin for Healthcare, what’s to stop them from creating other mobile applications that utilize tokens for engagement in other activities such as occupational activities?
Reference:
https://www.google.com/search?q=Mosio&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b-1
Warning: Crypto Brothers are not professionals, and we are not qualified to provide investment advice in any form to any individual. We are also not tax professionals or personal investment advisors. We urge anybody considering an investment in crypto or ICOs to consult a professional financial planner prior to making an investment. We urge all people to invest in crypto only what they are comfortable losing.
