Separating The Wheat From The Chaff: Four New ICOs That Transcend The Hype
In the midst of a volatile crypto bear-market, both short term trading and long term positions represent a unique challenge to the savvy investor. Knowing where and when to place one’s capital in this market is the difference between failure and success. Investors are looking for strong fundamentals, which include use cases, working product, tokenization, and a strong development team. Only a few ICOs out of the thousands that are entering to compete in this market can claim possession of each of these fundamental attributes. What follows are some rarefied projects that stand out from the pack:
Sharpay
The mission of Sharpay [link] is to provide both websites and users of
social media with the new, mutually beneficial, convenient, automated instrument for the promotion of content and goods. For the websites: to increase their content (information and goods) distribution conversions; and for the users: to get rewards (i.e. gaining digital tokens) by distributing the content using a simple multsharing button.
Sharpay is a share button for the next generation, which allows for one-click distribution of content on social media which targets and rewards click-through. As opposed to traditional analogues, Sharpay provides multisharing of information, i.e. — it makes it possible for users to one-click post content on multiple social media sites simultaneously. The convenience of sharing information becomes incentivized by token rewards that Sharpay distributes. Information posting becomes more convenient; moreover, after sharing each user gets blockchain-based tokens.
Sharpay is a new simple hi-tech blockchain-based SMM-tool for websites with an embedded economic model with built-in incentive. Sharpay button extends traditional digital marketing and gives new possibilities for promoting digital content, goods and services. Sharpay ensures effective promotion of content on the Internet with audience targeting, incentivized rewards with defined criteria and an anti-spam/cheat detection system.
Websites using Sharpay will significantly increase their site traffic and sales conversion. Users clicking Sharpay buttons and distributing website content will get a fair payment for being active on social media and for further click-throughs on the posted links by their subscribers. For example, the more subscribers and click-throughs — the higher the incentives for sharing the link. More information can be obtained on the group telegram here: sharpay_io “
Vectorspace
The Vectorspace AI [link]platform enables ‘Smart Basket’ (token baskets for traders, funds, ETFs) generation based on user-selected trends that exist in search, social media and news. Their ‘Smart Baskets’ are based on the ability for these baskets to determine for themselves whether or not to include additional cryptocurrencies or components from related baskets that may increase overall returns. Baskets that interact this way with one another will conduct these kinds of transactions between one another using the Vectorspace utility token VEC, which is also required to dynamically generate baskets.
Vectorspace looks to be designed to help you increase your profits with other cryptocurrencies by reducing risk and maximizing your gains. Their focus is on “Advanced Natural Language Processing (NLP) & Sentiment Analysis for Smart Cryptocurrency Basket Trading” and they have live products any crypto trader can use today. Their site updates every few minutes powered by their algorithms. It looks like they’re at the early stages of their pre-ICO but further along in terms of their product offerings released in addition to their patents referenced on their crowdsale page in collaboration with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Google.
According to their whitepaper: “A growing number of organizations offer the ability to trade a basket or group of cryptocurrencies with a single transaction. Similar to a traditional ETF (Exchange-Traded Fund), “token baskets” as they’re more commonly called, enable a fund or individual investor to spread their risk, diversify and lower volatility while maximizing gains with more safety and stability. This approach is valuable but incomplete. For example, taking the top 20 best performing cryptocurrencies and placing them in a basket or fund minimizes gains compared to enabling fine-grained custom creation of token baskets. Which groups of cryptocurrencies are beating the market? Why? What do they have in common? How strong are those relationships? Are those relationships well known and obvious or are they hidden relationships? Are the relationships numerical or nonnumerical, based on concepts, context and sentiment, or a combination of both?”
These are the questions Crypto Discover is designed to answer. Vectorspace AI’s Crypto Discover platform is an advanced cryptocurrency discovery engine that enables a user to automatically generate a token basket or “mini-index fund” made up of cryptocurrencies that are related to trends in news, global and local searches, concepts, context, keywords, hashtags, social media, URLs and other “dynamic content.”
Vectorspace is a pre-ICO company so it might be possible to position in early here. Join the Vectorspace Telegram group for more information on the project here.
BitNautic
BitNautic [bitnautic.io] is a decentralized marketplace/platform for commodities, where end-consumers, importers/exporters, and manufacturers/producers of goods can trade their products with more ease using the blockchain technology. The goal of the decentralized platform is to help everyone, from end-consumers to ship owners, shipping companies to agents/brokers, courier companies, manufacturers, producers (farmers), traders and investors around the world to facilitate their ventures and ease the trading practices by connecting all the continents in one unique platform.
It could be what Uber is to the Cab industry in terms of simple and transparent business model. Bitnautic is all set to increase profits to customers, traders, brokers/agents, ship owners, etc. by internally boosting these traditional businesses with the power of the blockchain. The blockchain transparency also affords greater safety against hacks, frauds or viruses. The distributed ledger cuts out the middleman and typical associated restrictions.
Shipment trading was never too easy where the whole shipping community is on the same platform and it is becoming easier with the concept of global cash where the user can convert their fiat money to the Bitnautic coins (BNTC) that will be available for use anywhere. BitNautic comes with distinctive features like real-time tracking, E-commerce platform, special deals and exclusive discounts that are compelling. In the first phase, the West African countries in which BitNautic aims to start its operations are Benin, Togo, Burkina Faso and later in Nigeria, Ghana and Ivory Coast with further global expansion in the future.
WTO’s world trade report shows that a drop in the barriers within international trade could grow worldwide GDP by almost 5 percent and total trade volume by 16 percent. Bitnautic is established to encourage an open market and free trade, increased international cooperation, public-private partnerships within the industry, knowledge sharing and bridging the gaps between government regulators and the shipping industry.
Increasing the trading network in a new way, Africa is going to be the next emerging economy and countries like Nigeria, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Angola, and Senegal are swiftly showing positive and promising results. Anticipating this, the first phase of the launch would cover the West African and South Asian markets.
BitNautic describes the concept of blockchain technology towards shipping and trading of commodities, as it has proved to be fast, effective and secure. By quality of blockchain, we will be able to implement a system that is secure to utilize, fast for earning cash back, and sufficiently liquid to use whenever it is needed.
BitNautic works on an open-source peer-to-peer platform which is completely decentralized and all the services regarding trading, shipping, and other facilities take place together on the network. We offer a system with the concept of ‘global cash’ so the coins you have earned can be converted into your local fiat money and will be available for use anywhere. The ICO token BTNT provided over BitNautic is an automatic platform which will act as a marketplace and a medium in order to help you to access the commodities trading opportunities in West Africa. Funds raised via pre-ICO and ICO will mainly be used for the research and development of the platform, in-house trading business and to purchase ships to be used for the transportations of goods in containers as well as bulk products such as agricultural goods (sugar, corn, rice etc.), minerals, and construction materials. With BitNautic we will be able to ensure faster transactions that will, in turn, draw consumer retention. Using BitNautic decentralized platform, users have the possibility to add their own products to the global market. The R&D team will conduct continuous market research in various countries as the Bitnautic team will operate from all the continents, to make suggestions on which items or commodities are needed in a specific region. This operation will further facilitate goods manufacturers, producers, traders, and investors to invest in more profitable fields.
BitNautic is also targeting the trade of commodities to further improve the quality of agricultural investments and to promote them. Which will be of great benefit for the small farmers of West Africa. Due to the high demand in the region, we have targeted West Africa as the center of investment opportunities and the extension of business. Our main focus is to make our customers lives simple and easy by offering the features that are easy to understand and to use the decentralized platform.
Neurochain
NeuroChain [link] project has started after a long reflection about the potential of Blockchain technology and the limits of actual existing Blockchains. This reflection is materialized by a first book edited in 2016, thanks to the help and dedication of the “ENI Editions2”. This was the first result of the intertwined reflection about the Blockchain technology, its current state (Bitcoin and Ethereum), limits but above anything else its amazing potential. The proposed project is a combination of different converging quantitative disciplines, particle physics, Machine Learning, distributed algorithmic and decision processes. Particle physics vision allowed a fitting description of intrinsic network characteristics. Machine Learning algorithms enhanced the analytical capabilities of the nodes (Bots). High performance consensus created by thermodynamic parameters, ingeniously distributed, could face the challenges of transaction volume and real time (speed). Quantitative finance allowed to consider a fairer distribution mechanism. This balanced aggregate of the different disciplines leads to the emergence of smart distributed system. NeuroChain was born.
Over the past decade, the advent of distributed systems and the success of Bitcoin, which based on Blockchain technology, demonstrate the potential and interest in this new mode of interaction and exchange. The elimination of intermediate parties and direct communication between stakeholders allow for an increase in trust through the replication of information and validation processes in a network. However, these decentralized technologies, in particular Bitcoin Blockchain, have a certain number of intrinsic disadvantages, which eliminate the universal or global characteristic of these platforms. In other words, each Blockchain has its own application because of its protocol and its operations (mainly cryptocurrency). The most famous and proven Blockchain is Bitcoin, which is a cryptocurrency platform, with a heterogeneous system of clearly separated roles: transaction issuers and transaction approvers. Bitcoin is based on a heavy protocol to ensure a high level of trust between parties, and is not suitable for other applications such as traceability, trusted social networks or commercial and intelligent applications. Traceability, which can be applied to different areas: food industry, commercial applications such as responsibility, human resources and commercial transactions, ensures transparency in value chains and processes. NeuroChain is developed to meet these challenges of transparency, certification and ethics, but it also offers great flexibility to support distributed smart applications. NeuroChain is a new Blockchain protocol consisting of a chain of Bots (contraction of robots) that communicate via a secure channel and coordinated via algorithms.
The protocol uses different communication channels that are adapted via algorithms. The use of this adaptive communication layer, coupled with fast and interactive consensus algorithms, will facilitate the adoption of NeuroChain, while maintaining all the guarantees of security, performance and consistency. The distributed protocol provides security and liveness properties by the default tolerance algorithm, comparable to the Paxos algorithm (Leslie Lamport, 2004) (Marshall Pease, 1980). The NeuroChain architecture [Appendix] ensures the transparency of transactions for different purposes: traceability process, crypto-value (crypto-troc), smart applications (smart cities, smart vehicues…), social networks (social bots) and distributed platforms (commercial applications,…). NeuroChain is natively designed to interact with other Blockchains such as Bitcoin or Ethereum to be integrated into its global environment.
With NeuroChain intelligent bots can evolve thanks to machine learning and benefit from the collective improvement made by other providers in the system. This new protocol, an open source language, can be deployed safely and benefit from the collective intelligence created by the network of contributors.