Soma — ICO review

CryptoRated
Aug 8, 2017 · 3 min read

Soma is a decentralized, blockchain-based social marketplace wherein users can securely and reliably trade with one another and are rewarded for interactions and engagement using Soma Community Tokens (SCT). Soma utilizes well-known social media behavior (such as liking, following, and sharing) along with token-based incentives for community members to cooperate and help each other and the platform as a whole. For example, users can gain SCT by promoting items listed on the platform (either within Soma or on other social platforms), or by acting as arbiters or trusted escrow agents in others’ transactions. There is also a system for rating and providing feedback to sellers and arbiters.

Within the Soma platform, every physical item is represented by an Interactive Item Card (IIC), which includes information about the item’s ownership, condition, genuineness, and price history. The patent-pending IIC, which is Soma’s principle innovation, makes it possible to preserve an item’s ownership and condition history in the blockchain; this is especially useful for vintage, art, and valuable goods markets. The IIC is designed to accumulate ‘social value’ via user interactions (likes, follows, etc.), thus incentivizing users to create high-quality content on the platform. Changing the ownership of the physical item also changes the corresponding ownership of the item’s IIC. The IIC also provides a reselling feature which allows sellers to offer commissions or discounts to resellers, enabling them to create an efficient sales network in a decentralized community.

With its decentralized marketplace and IICs, Soma establishes a free market and makes it possible to track real price chains in everyday trade. In the future, Soma plans to enable the community to monitor the price development of items for market analysis purposes.

Soma says that it offers users various payment methods, including fiat currency, Bitcoin, and few major altcoins, and that the use of SCT for payment is incentivized by freeing it of transaction costs. Apparently, users can deposit money into their Soma accounts via any of the usual channels, such as credit/debit card, Paypal, wire transfer etc. The whitepaper states also, however, that only cryptocurrencies are used for payment inside the platform, and that withdrawal in cryptocurrencies is recommended as it can be made free of charge.

Soma is launching 60,000,000 SCT, of which 54,000,000 will be sold in the ICO. The remaining 6,000,000 SCT units will be used for growth (marketing and rewards, including presale bonuses). Funds raised in the ICO will be used for marketing and area launches (35%), product and technology development (20%), patents and legal issues (20%), operations (15%), and community rewards (10%). The current presale is limited to 8,000 ETH and 4 weeks, while the ICO will be limited to a minimum of 8,000 ETH and a maximum of 120,000 ETH. Every 1,500 ETH raised in the ICO will be used to expand the Soma marketplace to a new region or state.

*Disclosure — At the time of writing, coins.best staff owned no Soma tokens.

Read the full review here.

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