Token Report Newsletter: Pollen Advisory
Crypto in every pocket and an ASIC in every garage
It looks like May might end with a bang, at least in terms of total ICO crowdsale announcements. Here’s a peek at the pipeline for crypto projects with a crowdsale opening in the weeks ahead:
ICOs opening before the end of this month include:
- Verasity (5/21): a video sharing platform ($46.8 million hard cap)
- Kasko2Go (5/25): an auto insurance app ($41.3 million hard cap)
- RightMesh (5/30): a mesh network platform ($30 million hard cap)
Haven’t heard of a “mesh network platform” before? Neither had we. Assigning (or defining) a category for ICOs like these above is an interesting subject — our researchers Seline Jung and Alex Behrens wrote about our new category structure earlier this month.
1 Short Read: Think Decentrally
Is the Information Age waning, to be replaced by the Decentralized Age? Steve Wozniak might think so. Industrial epochs seem to change over 50-year cycles and some signals point to a recurrence of the pattern. Others…do not. Everyone says it’s “early days,” and they’re right — but how early?
Crypto Climate: 🌸Pollen Advisory🌻
Spring is in the air, and for many people that means constant hacking of…a different sort than what is concerning to cryptocurrency investors. During this time of year, many plants are attempting to “pollinate,” a process of growth that is similar to the stage that blockchain technology adoption is currently in. Just think of different cryptocurrencies and ICO platforms as families (or species) of plants, and the spread of “pollen” as exposure to new users and integration service providers.
For instance, for the total market value of a cryptocurrency like ZCash (ZEC) to grow, more people need to start using it. How are those people going to be reached? Passively; as in, information about the cryptocurrency only reaches new users when they are searching for it; like letting seeds blow in the wind?
Or, are there going to be active participants to spread the information, perhaps with an incentive (such as a referral reward); kind of like hummingbirds helping to pollinate flowers while eating their nectar…
The different “species” of cryptocurrencies, i.e. Ethereum and VeChain, are going to grow differently according to what methods their communities deploy to help itself grow. Some cryptocurrencies have more centralized entities with an interest in rapid growth, such as Ripple’s XRP and their “Xpring” incubator. Some ICO platforms have larger bounties and other incentives for dApp developers, such as NEO. When evaluating cryptocurrency platforms as investments, it’s important to understand the the mechanisms and environmental needs for the currency to flourish.
In the above metaphor, though, it’s important to remember that no matter what “pollination” method is used, there will always be people who have an immediate negative reaction to the “pollen”…also, some methods for disseminating pollen may become less effective over time. Sometimes, unfortunately, there’s just no rain.
Last Week’s FOMO and FUD
You don’t have to believe any of it, but here’s what the Internet was saying about people and projects in crypto last week.
FOMO:
Messari published the whitepaper for their “Decentralized EDGAR for crypto” project, which they hope will improve token economy data standards by using a Token-Curated Registry — Twitter
VeChain announced the first ICO to be launched on the VeChainThor Blockchain. Plair, a rewards-based gaming social media platform, “intends to hold VET throughout the project’s development and operational stage, and only utilize VET for funding in the event all other financial resources are exhausted.” — Medium
The Floating Pacific Island Project is, well, exactly what it sounds like. They plan on building offshore housing communities which rely on their own cryptocurrency, and its founder envisions “hundreds of new countries floating on the ocean” — CNBC
FUD:
The Wall Street Journal issued a (late) early distant warning to investors eager to participate in the ICO boom; in a study of 1,450 ICOs conducted by the paper, they found “271 with red flags that include plagiarized investor documents, promises of guaranteed returns and missing or fake teams.”
Bing has decided to join Google and Facebook in banning cryptocurrency-related advertisements, with the policy coming into effect this June — Microsoft
The SEC says the very promising travel industry-focused ICO “HoweyCoins” is actually a fake, despite it being clearly stated on their website that “HoweyCoins is officially registered with the US government” — Coin Desk
Who to Follow:
Our researcher Yi Zu, as well as Carlos Lovera, Cristina Gravel, Raymond Chavez, and Nicholas Murray, won a Microsoft-sponsored Hackathon event at Consensus last week.
Learn about their idea, plus the smart contract they wrote using Microsoft Azure Workbench, in VeriFood at 2018 Consensus Hackathon.
Contact us:
✉️ galen@tokenreport.com / kyle@tokenreport.com
