ICX Station: ZenSports Overview and Investment Rationale

Hello from ICX Station,

Beginning with our first accelerator company out of the San Francisco Launchpad, ZenSports, we will be writing project overviews for companies that proceed through the ICX Station program. ICX Station assisted ZenSports with token economics design, white paper and pitch review, introductions to key service providers, and fundraising strategy.

ZenSports Overview

ZenSports is a peer-to-peer sports betting network powered by smart contracts on the ICON public blockchain. All bets will be created and settled using blockchain based payment rails and smart contracts. The network does not rely on oracles, but rather, a decentralized voting system with an incentive structure designed to reward honesty.

ZenSports allows users to be their own sports book. This is an innovation brought to the sports betting industry via the benefits of blockchain technology. Traditional sports books must be willing to take both sides of a bet, given that they are the only counter-party. This results in odds that always favor the sports book. ZenSports allows users to submit bets and set their own odds and conditions, thus empowering the individual.

Core Team

Mark Thomas, Co-Founder & CEO: Mark is the face of ZenSports and brings previous entrepreneurial experience from his real estate startup, Reesio. Mark had a successful exit of Reesio when he sold the company to Realtor.com back in 2015.

Etan Mizrahi, Co-Founder & CTO: While Mark handles the business side of ZenSports, he is well complemented by Etan on the technical side. Etan has experience as a Ruby and Node engineer and as a front-end Android Engineer.

Adil Sher, Chief Mobile Engineer: Adil manages all of ZenSports’ front-end iOS and Android engineering. He’s fluent in Swift, Firebase, Javscript, JSON, MySQL, SQLite, MongoDB, and Oracle.

ZenSports Business & Technology Development

Throughout the accelerator process the ZenSports team has been busy putting together an MVP (minimum viable product), raising money, and exploring the regulatory environments around the world.

Technology

Mark Thomas and the ZenSports team already have working iOS and Android mobile apps that allow users to place sports bets. ICON’s blockchain will later be integrated in the back-end to support the functionalities mentioned earlier.

Business

ZenSports is already compliant in most Asian, Latin American, and African countries. The team is prepared to file for licenses in the EU, United States, and several other geographies upon raising the necessary funds to cover licensing fees.

ZenSports Investment Rationale & Token Economy

Investment Rationale

A significant factor in moving forward with ZenSports was the industry vertical. When looking at popular Ethereum DApps (Etheroll, Dice2win, etc.), it’s clear that gaming is one of the more successful use cases. We concluded that adding a sports betting DApp to the ICON ecosystem would be a wise decision.

The flexibility afforded in the token economics, given that this is a security token offering, were also attractive to us. We were able to build intrinsic value into the token, as described in the following section, where token holders directly benefit from the success of the ZenSports network.

Token Economy & Ecosystem: SPORT Tokens

The ZenSports token economy is best understood by first breaking down the participants. There are three participants in the ZenSports ecosystem: Makers, Takers, and Voters.

Makers propose bets to the network and submit bet results. Takers will accept bets that were proposed to the network by Makers, while also having the right to dispute results reported by the Maker of their bet. Voters are all other SPORT token holders that have met the criteria outlined in the Appendix. There are 101 Voters selected per dispute, where 25 Voters will be selected from the top 100 SPORT holders, and the remaining 76 randomly selected from the pool of eligible voters.

The specific uses for SPORT tokens are as follows:

• SPORT token holders get a pro-rata share (amount of SPORT you own / total amount of SPORT) of the fees generated by the network
• A minimum amount of SPORT is required to be a Voter as detailed in the Appendix
• SPORT must be staked as collateral by the Maker upon proposing a bet to the network
• SPORT must be staked as collateral by the Taker if they raise a dispute
• SPORT can be used to purchase services from ZenSports as detailed in the Appendix

For additional information or questions about ZenSports please see links below to their social channels and detailed documentation.

Your Partner in Blockchain,

ICX Station

ZenSports Social Channels and Additional Information

Website
Whitepaper
Telegram
Twitter

Appendix

Voter Eligibility

• Is not a Maker or a Taker on the disputed bet
• Has been a Maker at least 2 times or a Taker at least 4 times in the last 30 days
• Has the lesser of $10,000 USD worth of SPORT at the time of the Vote or at least .01% of all SPORT in circulation
• Has not been on the losing side of a vote in the past 30 days and has not been on the losing side of a vote 3 or more times in the last year.

Dispute Process

• Maker doesn’t report the Taker as the winner within the 24 hour reporting period
• Taker raises a dispute and must submit collateral, in the form of SPORT tokens, equivalent to 5% of their bet into an escrow
• 101 Voters are selected and alerted. Voters have 1 hour to respond, otherwise another voter will be selected.
• Once a majority vote is reached on one side (51 votes or more), the vote is closed. The vote will not be closed until reaching a majority
• 50% of the escrow of the losing side (either Maker or Taker) will be disbursed equally to all Voters who vote along with the majority
• 50% of the escrow of the losing side will be disbursed to the winning side
• The winning side will receive a full refund of their escrow
• ZenSports will be eligible to participate in all disputes as a voter

ZenSports Value-Add Services Requiring SPORT Tokens

• Makers have the option of paying a flat 4% fee (in SPORT tokens) to ZenSports to allow ZenSports to report results on their behalf. Makers would no-longer be required to submit collateral to an escrow
• Takers have the option of paying a flat 8% fee (in SPORT tokens) to ZenSports to allow ZenSports to submit disputes on their behalf. Takers would no-longer be required to submit collateral to an escrow in the case of a dispute
• Makers and Takers have the option to place bets on Margin by borrowing SPORT tokens from ZenSports. The interest rate is .01% per 4 hours with a .01% minimum fee

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