I’m monitoring the markets this morning and working out of a coffee shop in Barcelona before heading to the 2018 Mobile World Congress to do some general networking. I'll also be meeting a few selective teams/individuals attempting to revolutionize the mobile industry using blockchain technology.
Simultaneously, I’ve had a few inbound enquiries on social media asking me for a few ‘hot crypto picks to take a gamble on’. For those of you that know me, you know the hours I put into my investment research, and although investing in cryptos might seem like gambling to many, for the few, digital asset investment research is a science similar to investment research in any traditional asset class.
With the sole purpose of adding some value to my friends and readers who are interested in crypto, I’ve created the following acronym to help you break down a project. I.N.V.E.S.T before making investment decisions in this space. Answer the following questions: (as an example, I will simultaneously answer some of these questions for a project on my current watchlist; Clearpoll (Poll).
Incentive. Network. Vision. Experience. Supply. Technology.
Vision: What is the product/concept trying to solve? Is it solving a pain point? Is it a realistic/ achievable product? Does the team provide a detailed roadmap? Is the team negotiating with new exchanges for new listings?
POLL: Clearpoll is a secure polling/voting platform that utilises blockchain technology. In the recent past, polls have been extremely misleading and potentially manipulated. From U.S presidential elections to pre-Brexit polling, our current polling system is outdated and Clearpoll solves a HUGE pain point.
Additionally, the Clearpoll team also created and launched Clearify. Clearify is a crypto address verification system that has partnered with www.icoalert.com to verify ICO wallet addresses. Clearify is also powered by POLL and each ICO partner is charged circa 500 USD worth of POLL to use the Clearify platform. Half of these tokens are then locked up forever, thus recuding the total supply of poll tokens over time.
Incentive: How does the team reward early/late adopters? Does the protocol/concept offer staking/mining/ harvesting opportunities? Will the team burn unsold tokens or buy back tokens? (and when?) Does the token have fundamental utility in the proposed ecosystem?
POLL: Clearpoll’s ICO offered decent discounts for early investors. Clearpoll already burned 1 million tokens after the ICO. When the app is launched in May, individuals who create successful polls will get rewarded in poll tokens. Both Clearify and clearpoll are powered by POLL tokens. (POLL is the main medium of exchange in the Clearpoll ecosystem)
POLL tokens can also be exchanged for additional services on the ClearPoll network. Those services include a range of great market research and promotional possibilities. Sponsored polls for market research, access to advanced data metrics on historical polls, live media polls, advertising and more.
Experience: Does the team/advisors have appropriate experience needed to launch an MVP? Any big names involved? (all stars or partnerships) After product launch, does the team have experience needed for continued development and market penetration? (successful market penetration?)
POLL: No big names involved (as far as I’m aware). However the team is really experienced in app development and have built, launched and sold multiple mobile applications. Check out the team on www.clearpoll.io
Network: Does the company have an existing community? How big is their telegram/ facebook following? How interactive is the team on social media? Does the team have a community manager? Have they presented at many conferences/roadshows? Is the team doing any marketing campaigns?
POLL: Clearpoll has a community of circa 2300 followers on telegram. The group continues to grow month on month. Clearpoll also has a full time community manager (Dale-admin) who is very helpful and responsive. Clearpoll’s marketing team have done a good job curating quality content such as the poster seen below. They are already experimenting with different marketing strategies and the official product release isn’t until May.
Technology: What blockchain platform is the company building on? (ERC20?) Is Ethereum good enough? Does the company have an existing product or client base? If the product in an app, does the company have an MVP or ‘alpha’ available on IOS or Android? (this is a requirement, in my opinion)
POLL is an ERC20 token, which means that it was built on the Ethereum blockchain. Ethereum has a hard-coded limit on computation per block and thus only supports circa 15 transactions per second. (compared to visa that supports 45,000 per second). That being said, in my opinion, 15 transactions per second is more than enough for POLL’s ecosystem to run efficiently.
Supply: What is the total supply vs. circulating supply? What percentage of the total supply does the team own? When can the team sell these tokens? How much capital is the team looking to raise? What is the ppt or ‘price per token’? Does the team have select milestones to reach before tranches of capital is realised? (i.e corporate governance structure?)
POLL: Total Supply - 8,999,992 vs Circulating Supply - 6,999,991. The Clearpoll team owns 28% of total supply. It seems as though the Clearpoll team raised somewhere between 1-2 million USD in their ICO and token price was roughly 0.15 cents (I can’t find the exact data here). 1-2 million USD is a realistic budget for this start up.
Conclusion - At this point, it's up to you to analyze your new data and decide whether or not POLL is an undervalued or overvalued project. I personally believe poll is undervalued.
This is not investment advice. Use the above as guidance and make your own judgements. Please reach out to me should you have any questions. This is a good opportunity to mention that Digital Asset Management Ltd is a fully operational Gibraltar company, currently onboarding clients, building and managing cryptocurrency portfolios and securely storing cryptocurrency offline in our crypto vault. Minimum Investment is 5000 GBP and if you have any questions about DAM’s services or any of the content above, feel free to reach out to me at sam@dam.gi
Disclaimer: Digital Asset Management Limited ("DAM") is not a licensed Investment Manager and does not advise or assist with the acquisition or management of financial instruments under the Financial Services (Markets in Financial Instruments) Act 2006 or instruments representing Collective Investment Schemes under Gibraltar Law. Investing in cryptocurrencies and tokens ("Digital Assets") is a high risk activity with risks not typically associated with conventional assets. DAM is presently seeking regulatory authorisation in relation to being custodian of and managing Digital Assets and reviews its regulatory obligations regularly.