Helium ICO Review — Slick ICO Review
Disclaimer:
This is not in any way professional advice, and is solely based on our own opinion resulting from the resources we have researched from, and hence, should not be relied upon as an advice to invest, or not invest in the network.
Slick ICO Review — Analysis Explained
Below are the components of the analysis, explained:
1) Concept/including the whitepaper: The score for concept ranges from a maximum of 3 for an excellent concept to a score of zero for a poor concept.
2) Whether the company has a Minimum Viable Product (MVP)? On MVP a score of 2 for the ICO having an MVP, 1 for a Beta and zero for no MVP.
3) What is the sentiment like on social mentions, this is not the hype, but we analyze the strength of comments if any; across all their social media platforms, positive sentiments, and negative sentiments. Passion of the comments and the reach of social mentions. This is carried out using google algorithm. For social mentions a maximum of 1 point with lowest of zero.
4) The team: On the team, an excellent team gets a score of 3, a good team gets a score of 1, and poor team gets a score of zero.
5) The road map: An excellent and achievable road map gets a score of 1; a good road map gets a score of 0.5; and a poor road map gets a score of zero.
6) Token economics: Finally, the score of token economics ranges from 1 for an excellent; to zero for a poor token economics.
The maximum score that any ICO could receive is 10; whilst the lowest is zero.
Please note that we are no experts (in the ICO space by any means) and the scoring matrix is just our opinion. Kindly do your own research before contributing to any ICO.
In our opinion a project that scores 7 and above is worth analyzing a bit more; if we feel we are interested in contributing to it. A score between 4 and 6 would require a lot more convincing; for us to invest; and a score below 4 is an easy pass.
Helium is a decentralized, wireless machine network, making use of radio waves instead of powerful computations.
1. Concept
Helium wants to build an open source wireless network for Internet of Thing devices. It is a blockchain based, decentralized machine network built on a wireless protocol, WHIP (Wireless High speed Internet Protocol). Machines that have a radio chip, and are WHIP compatible, are used to spend tokens, sending them to miners who send data to and from the internet. The private key are stored in key-storage hardware, and the public keys on the blockchain.
Miners and Routers, decide on the prices they are willing to accept and pay for the data, and the Proof-of-Location services that the miner delivers to the specified routers, respectively, after verifying that the data has been sent to the router. Proof-of-Location is used to achieve cryptographic proof of a miner’s location and time consensus between miners, based on Proof-of-Coverage and Proof-of-Serialization. Proof-of-Coverage is a protocol used on the blockchain network by miners to verify and audit, while Proof-of-Serialization is used to ascertain that miners are accurately representing their time, and to provide cryptographic proof of any malicious behaviors. Miners can also be elected in a separate Byzantine Fault Tolerant Consensus Group, which allows them to create blocks.
It is a great concept which can really cut down on costs and power consumption, and allow everyone to participate. However generally we are not to keen on IoT projects and for that reason , Helium gets a score of 2 for the concept.
2. Minimum Viable Product (MVP)
For MVP, Helium offers a commercial product, the Helium Gateway which are available for pre-order, we would therefore think that they have a prototype but not a working MVP at the moment. For that, they get a score of 1.
3. Social Mentions
Google algorithm was used for social mentions, according to which Helium gets a low score of 0.1. The protocol has a low hype, despite the fact that they come with a major breakthrough of eliminating expenses associated with mining.
4. Team
Shawn Fanning, Co-founder of Helium, developed one of the first peer-to-peer, file sharing network, Napster, at the age of 19 only. The network turned out to be successful and gained immense popularity. Later, he also founded Snocap, and Rupture, and has 30+ years of experience. Amir Haleem, Chairman, CEO & Founder, also has an extensive experience of 18+
years, and was also a Co-Founder and CTO at Diversion,Inc. The Head of Product Marketing and Planning, Dal Gemmell, also has plenty of experience and has been associated with viable projects. The rest of the team members at Helium are also immensely skilled and experienced, making the project look promising. For the team, Helium gets a score of 3.
5. Road-map
Even though, the project is already running now, Helium could have outlined a roadmap, which they have failed to do so. For the roadmap, Helium receives a score of 0.
6. Token Economics
Miners are incentivized to provide wireless internet coverage, or internet application, as they get a chance to earn tokens through it. The miners who are part of the consensus group, also get rewarded for creating blocks. The greater the quality of the wireless internet coverage provided by the miners, the greater their chances of being elected in the consensus group and earning tokens from it. For the token economics, Helium gets a score of 0.5.
Conclusion:
Helium has managed to get a good score of 6.6. However, it is because of their highly skilled team, and excellent concept, which aren’t the only things necessary for making a project viable. It is to be seen if Helium would turn out to be a successful project in the future.
Since, we are not the experts in the field, it is advisable for investors, or any other participants in the network to do their own research.
