Alright ladies and gents, I’m calling my shot for 2018.
VeChain is a wildly ambitious project, with a huge, underrated team, charismatic marketing-savvy CEO, a ravenously loyal core following, and a great collection of partnerships. I believe the risk/reward on this one makes it a great play for a potential 2018 home run.
It is currently 15th in overall market cap, and I believe it has the potential to be a top 10 coin by the end of 2018.
What is VeChain?
VeChain aims to deliver a new level of trust-free accountability to consumers and suppliers about the entire product cycle, using blockchain technology and a network of nodes. They are currently on ERC20 platform, but will be moving to their own blockchain in Q2 2018.
What does all that mean exactly?
To the best of my understanding…
They use blockchain technology to track every part of the supply chain process, and give the owner of an asset access to EVERY piece of information that went into the creation of a product.
Say you buy a car (say a Renault, with who they already have a partnership)… and imagine having a complete knowledge of every detail that went on in making the car… every detail about it’s manufacturing process… and the entire history of the vehicle since then. Think a CarFax report on steroids.
Or say you buy a bottle of wine… and know the exact vineyard and exact day it was made… the exact temperature it was stored at… the exact alcohol volume and chemical content… and this has all been verified by the blockchain.
VeChain solves the problem of counterfeiting, by providing a trust-free blockchain verification system for everything that goes into creating a product. And since it's a Chinese coin, this is obviously a big deal... because counterfeiting is a huge problem there. (NOTE: it's not ONLY a Chinese Coin... it also has a major presence in Europe, Singapore, and Japan). This technology, if realized, improves the trust between both the consumer and manufacturer, creating a better buying experience, and ultimately a better project.
So now, I’d like to tell you somethings that I love about this project. Keep in mind, that I come from a marketing background, not a coding or technical background. I don’t fully understand the technology behind this… so I am analyzing it from a hype/potential standpoint for 2018. Maybe this type of analysis is not ideal, but I don’t plan on learning how to code anytime soon… so it’s the best I can do. Please feel free to correct the inevitable mistakes I make here…
What I Like About This Project
Their Team... 40+ KILLER developers (compare that to Neo’s team of coders and it's laughable). I'm going to put some links to articles about the team in the comment section.
CEO / face of the brand: Sunny Lu is a BOSS. He’s everything LTC-Hodlers wished Charlie Lee was. He is articulate, smart, and knows how to market the hell out of his company. He's either a brilliant marketer or a brilliant scam artist. My money is the on the former (and even if he is the latter... well, that didn't stop Verge). I just watched the 40 minute AMA he put out today, and he has an uncanny ability to hint at partnerships, in a way that doesn't reek of BS... which leads me to...
Partnerships. The value of this coin has not caught up with the quality of their partnerships. I'm talking about CONFIRMED partnerships with companies like Microsoft, Renault, DNV GL (a huge advisory company in Norway with over 25 billion in revenue), oh… and the Chinese Government (they are testing the use of this technology, as part of their Smart-City development plan. If it goes as planned, they will roll it out to all of China) and many many more... Not only that, they allegedly have many many more partnerships, that are protected by NDAs that will be coming to light in Q1 + Q2 of 2018... which leads me to...
Announcements. Holy shit. Their list of potential announcements in early to mid 2018 is going to put them in the crypto headlines a lot. From partnership announcements, to exchange announcements, to a completely new rebranding from "VeChain" to "Thor" (and an airdrop or similar crediting of tokens when that happens). All this is going to bring more and more awareness to a project with very, very solid fundamentals... And we all know that they hype machine gets rolling, it's hard to stop...
A great mix between a centralized and decentralized project. Crypto-Purists beware. This project relies on voters and nodes... but it ALSO has a board of directors that weigh into the equation. So it is not a pure, decentralized project. And that is by design. They want to make themselves as attractive as possible big companies and governments.
Incentives to Hodl. The way I understand it, they have a master node system, that incentivizes hodling. The more you own on a wallet, the higher your rewards are. Sort of similar to GAS and NEO. This cuts off a certain amount of supply from the market, and further inflate the price...
Massive amounts of market manipulation / accumulation. When this first hit binance, my untrained eye saw the most obvious example of market manipulation I’ve ever seen. Basically, whales kept the price artificially lower, and accumulated huge amounts of this. I like to follow the smart money, and the whales have bet big on VeChain.
Cons
I am in that euphoric, "I've found a gem", "this coin shits gold and there's nothing wrong with it" phase, so it's hard for me to find cons... so be warned that I may be slightly delusional ATM.
However, let me do my best to layout the major risks:
Their CEO may just be a master marketer. There is a lot of promise, and allusions to partnerships in the AMA, that aren't said because of the NDAs. He didn't set off my BS radar... but you never know. There are also a lot of solidified, real partnerships that don't seem overhyped though.
One of the things I'm most excited about is the amount of announcements set to happen in Q1 and Q2 2018, that I think will bring more and more awareness to this coin. However, we all know that delays can and will happen... and that teams sometimes overestimate how long it takes to get something done.
Late to the game? This coin is on a serious uptrend the past few weeks. It would have been a lot nicer to get in early December. That being said, it's still only #15 in overall market cap... and it has the potential to be a top 10 project by the end of the year IMO... which would mean 10-15x growth, at least.
Not fully decentralized. I mentioned this before. Some crypto-purists will not like this. I didn't love it when Randall Crowder first called Ripple, back in my crypto-purity phase. But then I realized I loved money more than I loved any crypto-extremist philosophy.
As always, DYOR… this is all for informational purposes only, and should not be construed as advice. And for full disclosure, I first purchased some a few weeks back, and increased my position by 7-fold today. Despite an increase in price. It's currently trading at around the same price I purchased at today.
To me, this looks like a low-risk, high, high reward play. An amazing team is in place. The CEO looks to be the real deal. And this team has a widely ambitious goal to solve a huge, huge problem... and the partnerships in place to start making it work. If you want to see some resources to start your research, I'll put some in the comment section.
I’m excited to hear what other people think of this project (and to correct any errors I may have made in my hasty research!)
Thanks / please follow and upvote!