I have been thinking so long to start doing ICO analysis for the public and from today I am going to start this. Lucky or not, “Accounting Blockchain” came to my attention at first when I was checking which ICO should I start with.
For the information part, I have been going through their whitepaper, one pager, etc. And the info I received have been divided into few sections.
Idea
By reading their whitepaper & onepager, I think the basic idea is to avoid data redundancy and errors in the invoice and/or accounting industry.
According to the video they have in their homepage, it says that for a product, let’s take ‘cake’, there is debt and credit since the beginning of the product, i.e. from ingredients of cake to the final product.
Integrating the Accounting Blockchain’s product, they say that they can:
reduce data refundancy
reduce errors
reduce the final cost of the product
The only problem I see in this is, the buyer and the seller have to integrate Accounting Blockchain as well as complete this learning curve to use it along with learning about the new system of Cryptocurrency, as AB token (the native token of Accounting Blockchain) is the one used in this product. Which according to me is a huge learning curve altogether, which according to their own video, they say, is more than disruptive for a 500 Year old system!
Also, if we check more deeply, in this system, one have to enter details and the other still have to verify the same. Also, the error factor still persists. Just by using blockchain won’t eradicate human error, rather that actually makes the work more, considering if one party makes error, due to blockchain’s immutable nature, the correction have to be approved by both parties.
Need for Blockchain
If we come to the next section, i.e. the need for Blockchain in this project. Yes, I can agree that in the invoice industry, you can definitely use blockchain for the same reason as Accounting Blockchain says, to reduce data redundancy.
But, have they selected the correct blockchain? Ethereum is one of the best blockchain out there, no doubt in that. But what they are trying to do, is to save data worth billions if not trillions in Ethereum. And without the scaling proposals becoming a reality in Ethereum, it won’t be a viable option.
Also, if we consider a global system, let’s say I am company A and I have dealings with company B. I don’t want to know the invoice details or would like to store details of invoices from other company unless it is rewarding in some way. So, rather than using the main blockchain for everyone, maybe they could have used side chains/channels for better scalability.
And for that, either they have to use some other blockchain or create their own custom blockchain with their own custom features depending on the needs. Because, they are not the only one company which are hoping to store data in the Ethereum blockchain.
Utility or Security
Based on the explanation they have given, though the AB Token is used for payment in the system, other than that, I don’t see any use of AB Token in their system.
Also, based on this video, they say they are integrating other cryptocurrency to their suite as well, making the use of AB Token minimal.
Use of AB Token other than on their own system according to me is NIL, unless they make some partnership which exclusively accepts only their Token.
Until that, I think AB Token is a security and to a high extent a means to raise funds for their product development and business expansion.
MVP
According to their description, they don’t have an MVP at the moment. An alpha or MVP would be available only by December 2018 according to their roadmap. And as I have a technical background, my instincts says at best they will be able to launch by next year only.
Why?
Technical things takes time and even though we think some particular timeline, at the main moment, hell breaks loose.
Team & their experiences
According to their Executive Summary, they have 10+ team members covering multiple areas of business.
Looking at the team’s position, it looks like a great team which can move forward with this business.
But if you give a closer look at the above line and the team, they seems to have more experience in the business and accounting sector. But if you check the development part, I don’t see a good number of developers.
Regarding experience, Nathaniel (Jamie) Borg, the CEO of Accounting Blockchain, seems to have fine experience in the Accounting Field according to the Linkedin Profile. Based on some research, Nathaniel is not linked to any other ICO’s yet as of writing this.
On further check, it seems that Nathaniel Borg is connected to a company called “Malta Bargains Limited”, and have been with the same company for past few years and he still is the Director of that company, though this is just our finding and not a complete proof that both these persons are same, though they both have some similarities like the county Malta.
Considering the next team member, Daniel Cutajar, COO of Accounting Blockchain, this is the second job he is working on after 18+ years in Dinos Motor, where he was the Director. From his facebook profile, he looks like a nice family guy. He is also not linked to any other ICO Projects.
Based on the experience written in Linkedin, it seems he have more experience in the Automobile industry than in Accounting. But as I believe that anyone can learn anything, I don’t want to discourage anyone with an interest to learn anything.
Advisors
Right now according to the names they have listed in ICOBench, there are only 2 Advisors listed, and they are Steve Tendon and Philipp Sauerborn
Steve is the Blockchain Strategy Advisor and Philipp is the Financial Advisor for Accounting Blockchain.
Steve looks equipped with all the required qualification in the industry and ready to help Accounting Blockchain with necessary help.
Funds Target, timeline & phases
According to their executive summary, the soft cap is at 4M while the hard cap is at 64M, which is about 16x times the soft cap.
I personally think that soft cap should cover the necessary development and only those which cannot be traded off. While the hard cap to contain some overhead along with other useful but not compulsory things. But 16x the soft cap seems a bit high. But I like their softcap limit of 4M, which is comparitively low, achievable, as well as have a lot of room to grow even after the token sale ends.
But the initial token price and the final token price (in the last phase) have a difference of 5x, which can result in a dump from the initial big whales (considering a minimum of $50K investors get 100% bonus).
Thus, at one point they may seem like giving a good offer, on the other they lose that appeal, atleast for me.
Regarding timeline, considering the private placements as well, the sale is spread across 4 months or 120 days, which is a bit high than the average. Thus, in some way, the 5x low price is justified in one way.
Regarding phases, according to the word they have used, it seems like they have “5/7 waves” of sale. An exact date was not available for each start and end of waves when we checked their website, at the time of writing this.
Funds Usage, Token Distribution & Valuation
The funds usage seems kind of normal except the human resource part, assuming that are related to hiring members to the team only. I can agree that for better talent, it costs money, but considering the soft cap and hard cap, it seems a bit high allocation.
I think it is now time that ICO’s consider a range in $ value rather than the % of fund raised for fund raised allocation. Example, considering this project reaches hard cap, 2% from 64M is for unknown reason (others).
Regarding token distribution around 41–46% is for public allocation (Token Sale, Bounty & Program Rollout) and 10% for HNIs (High Networth Individuals). So kind of 51% is on the public hand, which is a decent amount to be available in different hands to avoid the concept of dumping in the market when the project is exchange listed.
Whereas, the founders, Nathaniel and Daniel together holds 5% of the entire token supply, which I think is a bit steep than the average. Which if compared with the public sale amount is 1/8th of the total tokens which may be sold according to their will. The only relief is the vesting period, where they only have part of token accessible in every 6 months till 3 years.
Source: Executive Summary
One thing I liked is that they have specified that those tokens which are not sold in ICO, will be burned. Though time will tell if they do it or not.
Source: Executive Summary
But if they do, out of the 37%, if some or any tokens are left, they will be burned.
Regarding Valuation, considering 37% is used to raise till 64M, they are valuing themselves around 173M! I hope I don’t have to answer why this is a huge valuation at this stage.
Even at the soft cap valuation, considering they reach only soft cap, i.e. from the 10% seed investor tokens (according to their token distribution) raising 4M, then they are valuing themselves at 40M, which is also, I think is a bit high valuation considering their current phase and the asset they have along with the team.
Social Media Activity & Engagement
Just going through their social media link listed in their website, I saw that they already have 5K likes in Facebook. But on the posts in the FB Page, they have just 50–150 likes, i.e. roughly 0.01–0.03% are active.
In twitter, they have a whooping 26.4k Followers! But only 100–200 likes at max for each tweet. And at the time of writing this, less than 35 tweets. Which tells us that the growth may not be organic.
In youtube, they have 2K subscribers and a range with high variation for the views to the videos. Some video have been viewed around 58K times, while some have just less than 200 views.
So, overall, most of the social media engagement looks fake or just due to the bounty.
Smart Contract
There was no detail about the same while writing this in their website.
I would like to say that this was the first time I have done a complete analysis of an ICO for the public, so please let me know if you want to see more parameters to be added to my analysis or want to give me some tips or want to correct me on my findings or even want to share some secret regarding the companies I would be writing in time.
The above was just an analysis for those who want to spend less time on finding about any projects. But please don’t consider this as an investment advice.
The above article was not paid for. And Accounting Blockchain didn’t knew about the same.
More Info:
Website: https://www.theaccountingblockchain.io
Whitepaper: https://www.theaccountingblockchain.io/pdfs/whitepaper.pdf
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/accountingblockchain/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ABblockchain
Telegram: https://t.me/accountingblockchain
Author
Luthanhson