Monaco — Token Review
Token: MNC (09/10/2017)
Total: 16.5 / 25
0 Market Information 3/5
- MarketCap 1D: $95M
- MarketCap Last 30 D: $20M — $250M
- Exchanges listed: Bittrex, Liqui, Binance
- Tradable Share of Token: 9.8M / 32M = 29%
1 Competition (Name, MarketCap, Any relevant information) 1/1
- TenX ($297M): Beta already released and distributed to 1500 customers
- TokenCard ($31M): First ICO led for this type of product
- Revolut (400M): No cryptocurrency but is serving the same purpose as they recently added BTC, ETH & LTC to the portfolio of currencies supported by their card that supports exchanges of different fiat currencies at the best exchange rate
2 Technology 3/5
Tl;Dr:
Pros:
- 1% fee on transaction is paid by the merchant, not the user
- Redeem&Burn operations guarantee appreciation of the token over time (same as TKN Cash & Burn)
- Card can be loaded with Cryptos but also with fiat currencies
- Planned integration with Apple Pay & Android Pay
Cons:
- Needs to top-up money on your Monaco Card Account (same as mass consumption product Revolut) — not sure this is an actual blocker given Revolut current success
- WhitePaper is VERY similar to TokenCard — sometimes using the exact same words but less detailed. Looks like a 9MP more than OKRs…
- Mass adoption requires to let people buy Cryptos from the TKN App which has a lot of legal constraint
- Very few tech brick built internally except the P2P money transfer and the app itself
Monaco consists of a card, an app, a smart contract and a wallet controled by the Monaco App (a wallet where you don’t own the private key). They add one same use case to TokenCard project as they emphasize on always getting the best interbank exchange rate when paying with your Monaco Card even if you’re not using cryptocurrencies and simply sending money back home (ie: Transferwise use case).
They claim a lot of opportunities for the users to get cash back (up to 10%) according to them and want to be able to support both the debit and credit card use cases. However, it is not clear how their 1% fee will be able to sustainably support all their advantages for the users and it is very likely that they’re going to finance their customer acquisition by heavy marketing offers and huge deficit.
3 Existing Partnerships 4/5
They say they have a partnership with a card issuer listed in Frankfort with a full-banking licence in Germany but they cannot provide the name.
Payment processing platform is supposedly based in UAE, but again no official name.
They claim they have a partnership with Visa.
However, they still plan on releasing their card end of September and have started the pre-registration, meaning that even if we don’t have the names, these partners above seems to be real otherwise they couldn’t move forward.
4 Team 1.5/4
Except Gary Or, they all come from a company Ensogo that was one of the most promising deals marketplace in SEA until they collapsed in 2016 because they never managed to find profitability. In their advisors list, only Ransu Salovaara seems valuable as he is the CEO of TokenMarket and has a good overview of the ICO market.
Kris Marszalek — Co-founder & CEO
Former CEO of BEECRAZY (Coupon platform) that got acquired then killed by Ensogo. Knows how to capture a mass market by fueling growth with financial losses but may not be able to create a sustainable business.
Rafael Melo — Co-founder & CFO
No presence in the crypto-industry world but worked for Mastercard Incubator
Gary Or — Co-founder & CTO
No presence in the crypto-industry world
Bobby Bao — Co-founder & Managing Director
No presence in the crypto-industry world
5 Community, Communication & Agenda 4/5
a) Community
Twitter: 18400 followers
b) Communication
They are very good at Marketing. This is their main strength and explains why they’re currently blowing up TokenCard.
c) Agenda
- 09/30: Sending the first Monaco Card to Asian Customers (10k pre-order)
- Q4 2017: Deploying cards in Europe
- Q1 2018: Deploying cards in the US
6 Verdict
Same as Visa, Mastercard and AmEX, I believe there is enough space for several card providers in the cryptocurrency world. Monaco project is very similar to TokenCard BUT they have a much better marketing and seem to have a better capacity of execution.
However, some pieces remain extremely shady, starting with the company structure where Monaco Technology Gmbh is related to Fortis Limited which belongs to Fortis Holdings Limited which belongs to MKCG Holdings — a Seychelles based company (https://www.thegazette.co.uk/company/10532190/filing-history/MzE2NDcwNTc4NWFkaXF6a2N4). Additionally, their undisclosed partnerships, doesn’t inspire trust in the company’s future.
Also, their market value is already really high with close to $100M which is already way too high in comparison with the total value of the tokens hold by the asset, even according to their forecast (see below):
=> Negative
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