Tolar ICO Review: A lower hardcap version of Hashgraph?

What makes it different from other scalability projects?

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ICO of KOREA

6 min readAug 22, 2018

It has been a while since I wrote about any sort of ICOs. Was I lazy? I do not think so, but maybe this is simply an excuse. As most people have noticed, the market has been terrible over the past few weeks. Yes, this is not new, but this time we also saw some promising projects such as DxChain and Airbloc Protocol getting smashed as soon as they got listed. With this in mind, it was really hard for me to find a worthy project to have a look at. Then I came across Tolar, and had the opportunity to conduct an AMA with the team. In a market like this I do not see myself investing in any projects. Regardless you should always be watching out for new projects because after all, ICOs are not the lowest entry point. So what is Tolar? Let us have a look.

“The following review is a combination of AMA material with Tolar team and independent research. Unfortunately I was not able to conduct a video call due to connectivity issues. If you would like to know more about the AMA, please join my telegram.”

What is Tolar?

Before a brief introduction of the project, here is the team’s answer when asked to summarize Tolar in one sentence.

“Where others bark, we bite”

Tolar is the well known name, but Tolar is actually the cryptocurrency and the blockchain is HashNET. It is scalable, fast, fair, and secure. These features are usually in bold, but the market has passed a point in which these keywords do not create any sort of awe. Tolar is powered by COTRUGLI Business school, which have more than 2,000 MBA Alumni and 20,000+ clients across different industries (Tolar’s founder Drazen Kapusta, is the school’s principal as well). The school has been deeply interested in blockchain, and it has launched some initiatives (mostly focused in SE Europe) such as Blockchain Adria , Blockchain EMBA Program, and Program for Certified Blockchain Developers. Here is the background of the Tolar, or in context, the “bark”. Then where does Tolar “bite”?

A quick look on the Blockchain Adria conference

First Bite: Working prototype with 150,000TPS

On June 28 Tolar HashNET demonstrated a prototype that achieved 150,000TPS using 11 masternodes. In a market where false & ridiculous TPS claims exist (I won’t name the projects), a prototype does bring credibility. How does this work? Tolar HashNET mainly adopts redundancy reduced gossip and virtual voting for consensus.

Redundancy Reduced Gossip: The basis of this technology is the gossip protocol. This became well-known with Hedera Hashgraph. The gossip protocol is basically like an epidemic, but in terms of network communication. An epidemic spreads very quickly, and soon you know an epidemic has occurred because there are sick people everywhere. In a gossip protocol, a transaction is quickly disseminated across the network, and soon you know that a certain transaction happened. This is the basic scenario, but Tolar HashNET does not require the number of nodes to be known and fixed. Therefore, the number of messages is reduced (thus traffic), which leads to improved speed. The Tolar team also states that Tolar is up to 24% more efficient than Hedera.
Virtual voting: Each node is already aware of what the other node knows. Therefore, you do not do the actual voting, but the results are as if a virtual vote has been conducted already.

These two features overall are the basis of consensus on Tolar HashNET. As stated from the team:

“Tolar HashNET thus combines the advantages of a DAG-based asynchronous consensus mechanism with those of a synchronous blockchain-like data structure of finalized transactions — but a structure that is much smaller than a full blockchain and can even be stored on a mobile phone.”

“DAG-based”, “asynchronous consensus”, “blockchain-like data structure” are still concepts that are not new to the community. There are projects like Vite, which have similar features and relatively better partners & investors. Regardless, there is a working TPS of 150,000 on the HashNET (check here for details). TPS itself is quite vague because there is no standard control environment for testing. There is, however, something working on the HashNET. This is something we do not see often in this industry. Especially with this speed achieved, Tolar will implement EVM smart contract support so that dApps can migrate to Tolar to enjoy higher speeds and lower transaction costs.

Second Bite: Masternodes and Mobile phone nodes

Masternodes are not new, but mobile phone nodes are relatively new. Let’s first go on the masternodes. To setup a masternode, you need to have 500,000 TOL. Tolar HashNET will guarantee a ROI of at least 10%. Even if you the rewards from transaction fee do not reach 10%, the remaining profit will be supplied by the Tolar reserve fund. You can check the details here. Tolar states that nodes can also be run on mobile. This is another area of blockchain where there are many claims, but not many realized ones. As with Tolar the details have not been released yet. Running nodes on mobile, regardless, is interesting and definitely worth watching for.

DASH is an example of a project using masternodes

Third Bite: Token metrics?

Full hardcap announcement and token metrics can be found here. Assuming ETH is around $300, the hardcap is 45,000ETH, which is $13.5m. As the team states, this is a low hardcap, and there is plenty of room for growth. All the team tokens are locked for 24 months, and then vesting over another 36 months. If all tokens unlock and start trading, the market cap would be around $41m, so there is potential for growth. Tolar’s low hardcap alone may not stand out. Meanwhile Tolar’s competitor Hedera Hashgraph has a hardcap of $120m. Maybe it does stand out now.

Buybacks are usually popular among exchanges

In addition, the HashNET company will be buying back tokens on exchanges with 30% of its company revenue, at 30% higher than market prices and burn them. The company will be generating revenue by working for governments and corporations on implementing private blockchains. In many cases token holders do not benefit from revenues of the companies behind the tokens. Tolar, however, is doing this differently.

Fourth Bite: Partnerships and COTRUGLI Business School

As mentioned above, Tolar is powered by the COTRUGLI Business school. The numerous alumni of the school will make valuable contributions to the HashNET blockchain. Many talented people will build start-ups, ICOs, corporate projects, government projects, etc. Tolar’s newly appointed Slovenian Director is Tadej Slapnik, formal state secretary of Slovenia. With this in mind, there are some strong promotions to be done for the adoption of Tolar’s technology in Europe. Recently Tolar announced its partnership with the Kingdom of Bahrain Information & eGovernment Authority. Partnerships regarding government projects are necessary for blockchain adoption, and Tolar has done that.

Final Remarks

There are the “bites” that Tolar has mentioned in response to the AMA. The “bites” were chosen personally, and there are always other value propositions. To some Tolar HashNET can be another scalability ICO with claims/features that are overused while some may find great potential for Tolar HashNET’s growth in Europe. Either way, it is always helpful to look at different projects and the values they offer so you can follow the market and its trends. Perhaps a question readers can ask is:

“Was Tolar HashNET able to “bite” me?”

Tolar HashNET definitely is an interesting project. Yet the project itself is not the only aspect to consider in the crypto market. If you would like to know more on my thoughts, visit my telegram.