At the time I am writing this article there are more than 60 ICOs active and running, a lot of them are shiny and glamorous projects pumped by massive quantity of marketing.
The majority of the ICOs are in effect facing 3 kinds of problems:
- Lack of any substantial idea.
- The idea is virtually good but unrealizable by the team with the time/money/knowledge they have.
- The idea is good and realizable but it would be better developed without the use of the blockchain.
You can easily understand that the first case is the worst but probably the most widely diffused: most of the ICOs out there are only big (in some cases, not even big) marketing/social operation that are trying to ride the big wave of the ICOs, some of them (acting) in bad faith. By the way, as I mentioned in point 2, the majority of projects are in good faith but their teams are simply not prepared for the project, that is they not only show a consistent lack of knowledge but also underestimate the development time and the amount of money the project requires, or they simply turn out to be “not business ready”. Finally, the 3rd big, huge, enormous problem of the actual ICOs: “Why the hell are you using a blockchain if you don’t need it?”. In a way the answer is very simple and clear: no blockchain means no ICO, so if you want to join the big blockchain party you have to use a blockchain, even if you will force this.
Now come to us. Do we have an idea behind THRIVE? Probably we can easily say that THRIVE itself is the idea, we are talking about a system that would improve dramatically the condition of every actor on the actually advertising system, publishers get more money from their content, advertisers pay less for their campaigns and, for the first time ever, users get paid for their behavioral data. And I have not even mentioned the improvement to the websites, the “smart contract guaranteed” payments, the transparency of the data, etc. It’s not a simple idea, it’s a revolution.
“OK, the idea is revolutionary but can you do it?” I begin this saying that we are a real team and you will think: why is this special? If you think this Then please, have a look at the team of the 99% of the ICOs out there.. one member lives in San Fran and the other in Seoul you say? Never worked together, really? They lack programmers? All of them are “advisors”? What they advise? Now you can better understand why I said we are a real team, not a common thing nowadays.
What about blockchain, do you really need it? I will be short on it: transparency and immutability of the data, rewarding system for the users, smart contract backed payments, yes, we really need it!
This is why we will THRIVE where others simply don’t.
Blockchain is a little bit like teenage sex: everyone talks about it, nobody really knows how to do it, everyone thinks everyone else is doing it, so everyone claims they are doing it …
… so we are probably doing an orgy ;)
Cataldo Franzone, Chief Technology Officer @ Thrive Labs LTD
