Detailed review on the project
Introduction
The Polymath platform is designed to lower the barriers for
businesses and issuers of financial products to launch security
tokens on the blockchain. By introducing the tools for a simple
marketplace for securities issuances and secondary trading,
the Polymath platform can help bridge the gap between
traditional securities and blockchain-based asset ownership and
investment opportunities.
Polymath presents an open protocol for issuers, intermediaries,
and participants to issue and trade security tokens, and could
ultimately help usher a complex, global, regulatory landscape
onto the Ethereum blockchain. If this technology can lower
the barrier to entry, it could help spur economic growth and
opportunities to more people and in more places than ever
before.
With the multi-trillion dollar securities industry coming to the
blockchain, the Polymath platform provides technological
tools for individuals and companies to participate in valuable
blockchain-based asset ownership and investment opportunities.
Technology
Technological aspect of Polymath project is quite weak. Low
number (11) of contributors on github and not that much activity
overall. Out of 11 contributors 1 is multiacc (SatyamSB is main,
satyamakgec is sub), and almost all of the core’s code is written
by 2 developers, which is quite strange. It is understandable,
that this project makes much bigger emphasis on legal aspect,
not technical aspect, but such low activity and small number of
active developers is a sore point if you look at the size of the
management team.
Small whitepaper with long introduction to “history?” of
blockchain, but short “on topic” part. It has an issue, it has
proposals on that issue, it has some technological basis, some
algorithms description (though not in detail), it doesn’t have info
on consensus or future mainnet, but quite a few examples of how
different entities are supposed to communicate with each other.
Polymath team
1. Trevor Koverko — Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer.
Trevor Koverko is prominent blockchain founder, investor and speaker.
After launching his career at the convergence of Wall Street and Silicon
Valley, Trevor became a very early leader in the blockchain community.
Trevor has keynoted major blockchain events like The North American
Bitcoin Conference and seeded foundation projects like Ethereum,
Aion, QTum, Hive, EOS and Shapeshift. Also Trevor is an advisor to
OneLedger.
In 2017, after predicting the mega-trend of financial securities
migrating to the blockchain, Trevor cofounded Polymath — the world’s
largest securities token network. Trevor graduated from Canada’s
leading business school, Ivey, was an NHL draft pick of the New York
Rangers and is a 4x attendee of Satoshi Roundtable.
2. Chris Housser — Co-Founder & Chief Operations Officer.
The University of Western Ontario (Juris Doctor, J.D., Law Degree).
University of Victoria (Bachelor of Arts, BA, History).
3. Pablo Ruiz — VP of Engineering.
Universidad Nacional de La Matanza (Computer engineer,
Programming, Management).
4. Tracy Leparulo — Chief Events Officer.
Ryerson University (Bachelor’s Degree, Marketing, Entrepreneurship)
Untraceable Founder & Chief Executive Officer.
5. Graeme Moore — VP of Marketing.
Queen’s University (BAH, Economics)
6. Igor Denisov — M&A and Strategic Partnerships.
University of Toronto (B.A.Sc, Engineering science — Infrastructure,
Finance)
7. Kalman Gabriel — Managing Director
Slate Entertainment Group Inc. — Board Advisor
University of Pennsylvania — The Wharton School (MBA)NYU Stern School of Business (Bachelor of Science, Finance)
8. Adam Dossa — Senior Solidity Developer
Columbia University in the City of New York (Master’s degree,
Computer Science (Machine Learning), 4.0 GPA
University of Oxford (Bachelor of Arts (BA), Mathematics and
Computation, 1st Class Honours)
Enclaves — Founder
9. Boris Shevchenko — Lead Dapps Architect.
City Business School (MBA, MBA General in IT Management)
10. Satyam Agrawal — Solidity Developer.
Ajay Kumar Garg Engineering College , Ghaziabad (B. Tech, Information
Technology)
CEO, Co-Founder at SecureBlocks
11. Shannon Clarke — Developer.
University of West Indies, St. Augustine Campus (BSc Upper 2nd Class
Honours, Electrical and Computer Engeneering)
12. Thom Malone — Lead Designer.
Bliss Flights — Co-Founder and CEO
Global University (BA IN Teology/Theological Studies)
13. Ryan Keller — Sr. Project Manager.
Cornell Johnson Graduate School of Management (MBA)
14. Lauren Hulvey — Executive Assistant Operations.
15. Matthew Woo — Product Advisor.
16. Stan Timofeev — Designer.
17. Thomas Borrel — Chief Product Officer.
GitHub — 9 people:
1. Adam Dossa @adamdossa — Repositories — 28. Stars — 6.
2. Boris Shevchenko @bshevchenko — Repositories — 10. Stars — 20.
3. Charles Plant St.Louis @CPSTL — Repositories — 11. Stars — 23.
4. Graeme Moore @graememoore — Repositories — 0. Stars — 0.
5. Chris Housser @housemobile — Repositories — 0. Stars — 9.
6. Pablo Ruiz @pabloruiz55 — Repositories — 25. Stars — 5.
7. Satyam Agrawal @satyamakgec — Repositories — 35. Stars — 9.
8. Thomas Malone @thomasmalone — Repositories — 6. Stars — 5.
9. Digital Strategies @strategiclimited — Repositories — 5. Stars — 0.
Advisors
Robby Dermody — Principal at Stoic Capital, Co-founder Counterparty.
Michael Terpin — Founder and CEO — Transform Group (75+ ICOs),
CoinAgenda, Alphabit Fund, BitAngels, Marketwired.
Simon Dixon — CEO & Co-Founder BnkToTheFuture.com, FinTech Angel
Investor, Author «Bank To The Future».
Brad Mills — Partner at Xsquared Ventures, Analyst at Alphabit.
Steve Dakh — CTO at Smartwallet.
Erik Voorhees — CEO and Founder ShapeShift.io
David Johnston — Chairman of the Board at Factom, Inc.
Anthony Di Iorio — CEO & Founder of Jaxx & Decentral, Founder of Ethereum.
Steven Nerayoff — CEO & Founder at Alchemist. Prolific serial entrepreneur, attorney and inventor of 20 international patents. Steven is a blockchain pioneer with his involvement in top projects including: Ethereum, Lisk, Bancor, tZERO, ZenCash, ZCash, Ripio, Aion and Storm. Steven is also the Chairman of the publicly listed company Global Blockchain Technologies and the Founder & CEO of Maple Ventures. Also he is the Founder & Executive Chairman of CloudParc. Previously founded: Freedom Eldercare, iOffer.com,
Fleetwood Owen, eWanted.com, Inside/Out City Guides.
Patrick Byrne — CEO at Overstock.com. Having gained familiarity with blockchain technology at the heart of digital currencies such as Bitcoin, Byrne created Medici Ventures, a subsidiary within Overstock.com building blockchain-based financial technology solutions. In 2015, Byrne used Medici’s t0.com securities trading platform to become the first person to purchase a digital bond entirely on the bitcoin blockchain. In Dec 2016, when Overstock.com issued the first shares ever traded on an alternative trading system (ATS) utilizing distributed ledger technology.
Stan Miroshnik — CEO & Managing Director at The Element Group.
Experienced capital markets, corporate finance, private equity, and
operations executive in the blockchain and financial technology space.
Expertise in digital assets, crypto-equity, and asset tokenization and
directly with Ethereum, Bitcoin, Zcash, Cordia, and other side-chains
and alt-forks. Management of blockchain focused product deployment
and cryptocurrency applications over Bitcoin, Ethereum, alt and
colored coins and other DTL driven innovation.
Anthony Di Iorio — The former Chief Digital Officer of the TMX Group and
Toronto Stock Exchange, founder and CEO of Decentral and founder
and CEO of Jaxx. In 2013, Di Iorio funded, and along with Vitalik
Buterin and 3 others founded the smart contract platform Ethereum. In
2014, his project Ethereum raised $18 million, becoming the largest,
completed crowdfunded project of its time.He is involved in Deloitte’s
Exponentials.xyz initiative, is a member of the Bitcoin Speakers Bureau
for the Bitcoin Foundation, a member of the Satoshi Roundtable.
Matt Roszak — Co-founder and Chairman of Bloq. Founding partner of
Tally Capital, a private investment firm focused on cryptocurrencies and
blockchain-enabled technology with a portfolio of over 40 investments,
including Block.One, Blockstream, Civic, Doc.ai, Factom, Genaro,
Orchid, Rivetz, Token Report and Qtum.Matt Roszak serves as chairman
of the Chamber of Digital Commerce, serves on the board of BitGive, a non-profit foundation targeting public health and the environment.
Roszak is also the founder of the Chicago Blockchain Center. Roszak
was a producer of the industry’s first ever documentary, The Rise and
Rise of Bitcoin.
Gary Rubinoff — Founder and Managing Partner at The WIN Fund, Founder
and Managing Partner at Summerhill Venture Partners.
Gary brings over 25 years of venture investing experience. For the 9
years prior to joining Summerhill Venture Partners, Gary was a partner
at J.L. Albright Venture Partners LP and Jefferson Partners LP, both
Wireless and IT focused VC funds based in Toronto. Past investments
include Jumptap, Intellon, Sandbridge, BridgePort, Service Soft,
Isolation Systems, I-star Internet, and Wescam Inc.
Michael Perklin — Chief Information Security Officer at ShapeShift.io.
Michael serves on the boards of CryptoCurrency Certification
Consortium (C4) and The Bitcoin Foundation, and he has testified
about Bitcoin at the Canadian Senate’s Committee on Banking, Trade,
and Commerce. Michael has been qualified as an Expert Witness in
the courts of Canada and the United Arab Emirates. Michael is the
president of C4, a non-profit standards organization dedicated to
developing and maintaining standards that assist organizations in using
blockchain technology such as Bitcoin.
Bruce Fenton — Blockchain Economic Advisor. Advised the Bill & Melinda
Gates Foundation. Hosted the Satoshi Roundtable private retreat.
Chairman and founder of the Dubai Bitcoin Conference.
- angel investor in SpeechWorks (now publicly traded Nuance with
$5bn market cap)
- angel investor in Bitcoin companies such as ShapeShift
- advisor to Factom, BTCS and other companies.
June 1
Reddit — about Polymath Team:
u/ddant10: “I just looked at Polymaths Team and in case I missed
something, they only have 4 developers on board. Their engineer
headcount seems pretty small to me for what they’re trying to achieve”.
u/LiskFTW: “Ivan on Tech basically said that the code is the easy part of
this project. It’s building the network and working with the KYC/AML
specialists, the Legal experts, the accredited investor pools, and the
regulators that is the challenge”.
Partnerships
18th July 2018 — Polymath Partners with Shyft to Accelerate Global
Financial Ecosystem Growth through Blockchain. Polymath has signed a
Letter of Understanding with Shyft, a global blockchain-based network
that facilitates secure sharing of attested and compliant data. As part
of this partnership, Polymath would become an active ecosystem
participant and data provider for the Shyft Network, acting as both a
Trust Anchor and decentralized application (dApp) developer on the
network.
19th June 2018 — MintHealth and Polymath Partner to Create the First
Healthcare Security Token. Polymath, a highly automated and scalable
platform that makes it easy to raise capital and create security tokens,
and MintHealthTM, a healthcare blockchain company combatting the
worldwide epidemic of chronic disease through patient empowerment,
improved clinical outcomes, and lower healthcare costs, have
partnered to create the MintHealth Security Token (MHST).
7th June 2018 — Pegasus Fintech and Polymath Partner to Create Real
Fan Token and Block Development Token on the Polymath Platform.
Pegasus Fintech, a Blockchain and Token Accelerator that focuses on
supporting innovative solutions in the Financial Services, Technology,
Blockchain and Cryptocurrency communities is proud to announce it is
advising two new projects set to create their security token offerings
using the Polymath security token platform.
5th June 2018 — Polymath Partners With Security Token Trading Platform
OpenFinance Network. Polymath has entered into an agreement to list
Polymath-powered security tokens on OpenFinance Network (OFN), the
trading platform for alternative assets, including tokenized securities.
25th April 2018 — Polymath Partners with CrowdfundX to Deliver AI-
powered Investor Marketing for Security Token Issuers. Polymath and CrowdfundX, a company focused on AI-powered digital marketing,
have agreed to pursue a collaboration to offer CrowdfundX’s digital
marketing services to security token issuers on the Polymath platform.
19th April 2018 — Polymath and Trustroot Partner on Verification
Service for Security Token Offerings. This partnership will allow
companies who launch securities on Polymath’s platform to seamlessly
have access to Trustroot security and reputation services. Trustroot will
verify issuers, their escrow services, and accounts as they look to have
investors contribute funds to their projects.
26th March 2018 — Polymath Partners With Crowd Machine to boost
adoption of Security Tokens. Polymath has announced a partnership
with Blockchain startup Crowd Machine. This partnership will enable
companies and developers to build blockchain-agnostic applications
and smart contracts without needing to know how to code, enabling
them to easily and safely interact with security tokens powered by
Polymath.
7th March 2018 — Polymath Partners with Corl Financial Technologies
on their Security Token. Our partnership with Corl Financial Technologies
(Corl), a blockchain startup that is making financing and investing in
companies simpler and more intuitive, sees Polymath further its work of
discovering ways to help companies raise capital while complying with
securities laws.
6th March 2018 — Katipult and Polymath named among industry giants as finalists for “Most Promising Partnership” Award. The Katipult-
Polymath partnership will be competing against some of the world’s finance and fintech giants including partnerships involving Goldman
Sachs (NYSE: GS), Macquarie Group (ASX: MQG), Swedbank (STO:
SWED-A), and Lending Club (NYSE: LC).
11th January 2018 — Security initial coin offering (ICO) specialists
Polymath has announced a partnership with tZero. The Overstock
subsidiary is currently hosting its ICO on SaftLaunch enlisting
institutional investors for its security offer. Polymath has already
provided advice to tZERO on the design, economic model, and
distribution of tZERO’s security token, which will be issued under Reg D
506c — thus only accepting accredited investors in the US.
Use cases
The Polymath platform’s main use case is that it will allow financial
companies to create and issue their own tokenized assets (st20 tokens).
Main features of the Polymath project, presented in their whitepaper is
listed below:
• Provides a decentralized protocol for trading security tokens.
• Enables individuals and institutions to authenticate their identity,
residency, and accreditation status to participate in a wide range of
security token offerings (STOs).
• Allows legal delegates to bid on new issuances to represent issuers
on offerings to be done in a regulatory compliant manner.
• Matches issuers with developers who can translate issuers’ Security
Offering parameters into secure code that generates ERC20
compatible tokens.
Social metrics
Markets and volumes
Polymath exchanges
Competitors
Harbor is building a decentralized compliance protocol to standardize
the way crypto-securities are issued and traded on blockchains.
The first project is R-Token, an open-source standard that defines a
mechanism in which crypto-securities can be compliantly transferred
on blockchains. It requires issuing a permissioned ERC-20 token on
the Ethereum blockchain that checks an on-chain Regulator Service
for trade approval. The Regulator Service can be configured to meet
relevant securities regulations, Know Your Customer (KYC) policies,
Anti-Money Laundering (AML) requirements, tax laws, and more. The
R-Token Standard enables ERC-20 tokens to become compliant crypto-
securities that can be traded across any ERC-20 compatible platform.
Amount Raised: $28M
Management: David Sacks, CEO, General Partner @ Craft Ventures,
previously COO of Paypal, Founder of Yammer, CEO of Zenefits
Bob Remeika, CTO, VP Zenefits, Engineer at Yammer
Arisa Amano, CPO, VP Zenefits, Marketing at Yammer
Securitize is a regulatory compliant cloud service solution for the
tokenization of securities, enabling tokenization of funds, companies,
or other entities. The company provides several services including
establishing the legal and regulatory readiness of the issuers and their
legal team, streamlining investor registration in compliance with KYC/
AML accreditation or other legal requirements, customizing smart
contracts to match issuers’ unique requirements and security token
data throughout the lifetime of the security. Spun out of SPiCE VC, the
platform has secured commitments from companies running ICOs in
aggregate of $500 million, including offerings from CryptoOracle, Kairos.
com, Lottery.com and 22X Fund.
Management: Carlos Domingo, CEO and Chairman, Managing partner at
Spice VC, Former CEO at Telefonica R&D.
Jamie Finn, President, Former EVP Business Development Aki, AT&T,
Kontera, Telefonica.
Shay Finkelstein, CTO, CTO at SPiCE VC.
Templum is an innovative financial technology company focusing on
creating a regulatory compliant marketplace for the primary issuance
and secondary trading of digital assets through security tokens.
Templum Markets LLC, broker-dealer and alternative trading system
(“ATS”) registered with the SEC and FINRA, will offer issuers a platform
for the initial sale of their tokenized securities and both issuers and
investors a centralized platform for secondary trading. Like many other
solutions, Templum will integrate AML and KYC as part of the platform
to comply with regulatory requirements.
Amount Raised: $12.7M.
Management: Christopher Pallotta, CEO, MD at Raptor Capital
Management.
Josef Schaible, COO, Former Director at Salt Lending.
Securrency was founded in 2015 by national security experts and US
military veterans. Today, it is comprised of a team of 80+ full-time
professionals, with offices in Arlington, Virginia, Abu Dhabi, UAE, and
footprints in London, Dubai, New York and Los Angeles.
The US-headquartered firm offers high-speed KYC/AML in 160+
countries, embedded distribution controls, market-making liquidity
capabilities with bespoke tokenizing systems, interoperability with
multiple DLT/legacy protocols, and an interlinked solution fostering
unparalleled global liquidity. All products are available separately or as
a comprehensive solution.
Management: Dan Doney, CEO, previously Chief Innovation Officer,
Defense Intelligence Agency.
Ron Poe, Compliance Officer, Captain U.S. Marines.
John Hensel, COO, Retired U.S. Navy Captain, managed aerospace
portfolios valued in excess of $15B.
OpenFinance Network, the leading trading platform in the $7.7T
alternative asset market, has developed a framework to transform
the trading, clearing & settlement process in the industry, leveraging
distributed ledger technology to bring efficiency, transparency, and
interoperability to a fragmented market. The framework contains a
uniform protocol to provide standardization of assets and data within
the industry. Moreover, this interoperability also applies between
“traditional” alternative assets and the emerging “crypto” alternative
asset class, creating a mechanism of tokenized trading to bridge the
gap between off-chain and on-chain capital markets.
Management: Juan M. Hernandez, CEO, Founder of PeerRealty, and the
Pop Stock Exchange.
Ian Shipman, Head of R&D.
Roadmap
Polymath doesn’t have a detailed roadmap at this stage. They want to
remain nimble and able to pivot on a dime if anything changes. Next
milestone/goal is issuing first security token.
Token sale: 13 JAN 2018
First exchange listing: 2 FEB 2018
Testnet released — 4th June 2018. They have a testcase setup at Kovan testnet, on which you can actually try out the Polymath smart contracts and their whole ecosystem (nothing ‘for real’, yet, just beta testing, but it gives a really great impression on what can be done, and what they’ve already implemented).
Polymath announced at their official twitter page that the mainnet
will be launched “weeks, not months” after the test net: “You
can create your own security token using Polymath right now on
Ethereum Test Net. Main Net launch will hopefully be soon (weeks,
not months)”.
Token mechanics
Polymath Tokens (POLY)
In order to power this new platform for the issuance and trading of
regulatory compliant securities on the Ethereum blockchain, an ERC20
standard Polymath (POLY) token will be created and distributed to
network participants. One billion POLY tokens will be minted and no
additional POLY tokens will ever be minted after that. POLY tokens are
the underlying economic unit of the Polymath marketplace.
POLY token allows value created in the system to be captured by the
system itself. Just as almost all countries have their own currency,
requiring these transactions to be in POLY sets up incentives to remain
in the system. If all transactions were in ether (the native currency of
Ethereum), then participants wouldn’t be storing value in the Polymath
platform.
By requiring that people hold (and transact) in POLY, participants
become subject to the same forces of incentivization that have helped
ecosystems like Ethereum (and many so called “alt-coins”) explode
into active and diverse communities so that their products can remain
viable and useful. Meanwhile, systems without their own native coin
or with a “pegged” coin (e.g. Mastercoin) have struggled to develop
growing or even sustainable communities or all-important network
effects.
In the following sections, we describe how POLY tokens are used
throughout the platform.
Issuers
Issuers are able to post bounties in POLY tokens, in order to encourage
legal delegates and developers to bid on providing services towards
the issuance. The size of bounty posted is at the discretion of the
issuer. Highly complex securities offerings will likely require a greater
amount of POLY. Factors that will determine the complexity include
issuer jurisdiction, investor jurisdiction(s), accreditation requirements,
and token transferability limits. The higher a bounty the issuer places,
the more likely it is they will receive a wider variety of bids
from legal delegates and developers. Fees will generally be payable
after a security token issuance and also upon enumerated events of
payment. It is possible that, over time, efficiencies could make issuance
less expensive.
Developers
Developers will earn POLY for creating STO contracts. In order to
incentivize developers to create security token contracts, they will be
required to have these POLY fees locked up for a minimum of 3 months
after the end date of the security token offering. Fees will generally
be payable after a security token issuance and also upon enumerated
events of payment.
KYC Providers
KYC providers pay a POLY fee to join the network. This fee is to identify
legitimate KYC providers who can make this back in fees earned
over time from investor verifications, potentially even after a single
successful issuance.
Furthermore, they can specify a fee to be paid by each investor
requesting verifications (i.e. a set amount of POLY).
Investors
Investors seeking to purchase security tokens will be required to pay a
POLY fee to KYC providers for verification. Verified investors are then
eligible to trade security tokens, subject to any additional requirements
imposed by their broker, by issuer, or by exchanges. Additionally,
where not prohibited by law, investors’ payment for security tokens
may be required to use POLY, but this is at the issuer’s discretion.
Legal Delegates
Legal delegates are able to earn POLY tokens by (i) proposing bids on
security token issuances and (ii) being selected by the issuer to take
responsibility for the issuance. Along with their bids, they can specify
how long they are willing to lock up their bounty.
Token metrics
Circulating Supply: 276,420,107.00 POLY
Total Supply: 1,000,000,000.00 POLY
Market Cap: $106,656,145.00
24hr Volume: $2,292,590.00
Summary
Team: small development team, strong management team.
Idea: Really good one, but not original. Polymath has quite a number
of competitors so it is interesting how they will try to achieve network
effect.
Development stage: testnet.
Whitepaper: Short, too much water, 7.8/10
Roadmap: Let’s be honest, there is no roadmap at all.
Now let’s sum things up. Idea — good, there will be a huge wave of
STO’s, even bigger than that of ICO’s. So projects like Polymath will
get a huge market, but the question is how they compete for bigger
market share. It looks to me, that marketing is pretty much their only
competitive advantage. This project has a lot of hype. But there are
some weak aspects of this project as well:
1) Outsourcing.
a) KYC providers are only part of the ecosystem, not part of the
company. For what reason would they want to be part of this project if
they will be paid in POLY? Most of the competitors will provide KYC by
themselves.
b) Polymath won’t become a broker-dealer, while some of
the competitors take on this regulatory risk. And that is a solid
disadvantage for them, in terms of completeness and user-friendliness.
c) Legal delegates are questionable entity as well. If they are good,
they walk toe-to-toe with technology, then why will the enter POLY
ecosystem? They will be working with any other project as part of the
team, demand on such lawyers is really high. And if they are not as
good, as POLY plans them to be, than why let them enter ecosystem at
all.
2) Bad communication with community. No roadmap, no precise
dates on anything, no feedback, no answers to the questions.
Overall this project will probably be very successful, cryptospace acknowledges this project for ideas and good marketing. Despite non-
existent admin activity in chat, most of the posting activity is positive. Most of the ICO’s and cryptoreviewes are positive as well.
