Upcoming & promising ICOs — #2 WePower (WPR) ICO: green energy trading platform on the blockchain
This is the second article of my new ICO review series, where I present ICOs that in my opinion, really stand out from the masses and have an innovative concept that justifies the use of blockchain technology.
The actual renewable energy investment market: a big cake with lots of imperfections
Investments into renewable energy reached $242 billion in 2016, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Although these are huge numbers, it’s a 23% drop over the previous year. This gradually confirming trend seems to be the consequence of the decrease of subsidies and of harder bank credit conditions. As it is a complicated and heavy investment to manage, final consumer is too often cut off from renewable energy investing, as shown in WePower’s White Paper:
WePower aims to bring a concrete, efficient and accessible solution to these problematics, for both consumer, investors, and producers, thanks to blockchain technology, that can ensure:
• Global access to capital for renewable energy projects;
• Global access to renewable energy investments and trading;
• Efficiency, security, speed and transparency.
WePower’s proposition
By using blockchain’s unique features (elimination of intermediaries, lower maintenance costs, immutability of data and innovative community interactions), WePower aims to disrupt renewable energy investment and trading. The platform allows renewable energy producers to tokenize their energy, with a ratio of 1 token per kWh, to be produced in a precise amount of time (usually 4 to 6 months).
Then, tokens can be sold thanks to an energy auction system. This creates a win-win relationship between producers and investors, by allowing:
- Producers to pre-sell their production in a global market, financing their growth and better planning their investments;
- Investors to have direct access to renewable energy projects, with lower costs and higher liquidity, regardless of their entry ticket and geographical position.
Then, the owner of energy tokens has 3 solutions:
- Using it directly;
- Selling the energy token on the platform to another WePower user before effective production;
- Selling the energy to the wholesale energy market once it is produced.
WePower’s roadmap is planned as follows:
How does WePower’s approach differentiates from competition?
3 main blockchain projects are already trying to disrupt the energy market: SunContract (SNC), Grid+ (GRID) and Power Ledger (PWR). But both projects have different approach and strategy.
WePower is a green energy trading platform where consumers can finance set up costs of renewable energy plants. Other projects focus on efficient private energy retailing (Grid+), energy trading platform for solar energy surplus (Power Ledger), and decentralized energy trading platform for both consumers and power producers (SunContract).
WePower can count on its extensive inside knowledge of energy grids as a solid competitive advantage regards to other projects; furthermore, the use-cases being proposed by competition require integrations and interdependencies with other systems, which can be an huge obstacle to their development, as energy sector requires critical infrastructure and heavy verification processes.
What are the conditions of the Token Distribution?
- When? Token sale will take place on 2018/02/01 – 2018/02/15. Be sure you register on WePower’s website (36,860 people already registered!).
- Distribution: Total token supply will be determined and
announced closer to the token sale date. 55% of them will be sold to tokens for public token sale, 20% (locked up) are reserved for the WePower team, 10% (locked up) for future stakeholders and 15% for community and user growth. Unsold tokens will be burned. - Caps: Soft cap: $ 5,000,000; hard cap: $ 35,000,000
- Token price: Until the soft cap: 1 ETH = 1150 WPR
After the soft cap: 1 ETH = 1000 WPR - Country: Quite an international team! Office in Lithuania and Gibraltar, engineering team in Estonia
How is token distribution going? Pre-ICO is sold out ($3,000,000).
My opinion: a solid and transparently exposed project, positioned in a huge market, backed by an experienced team, which is already gaining traction from the public. For more information, you can visit:
Website: https://wepower.network/
White Paper: https://goo.gl/3MjSQa
ANN thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2207367
Bitcointalk profile: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1053559
