DigiPulse is a B2C (Business to Customer) subscription service that allows to encrypt and automatically pass on digital assets stored in crypto wallets to the rightful inheritors. In other words, if something happened to you, DigiPulse will hand down your Bitcoins and other digital currencies stored in your wallets to your descendants.
What pain is DigiPulse solving?
DigiPulse is a service that solves a real global and every day issue with losing all your crypto assets in case of your death. With this service you can make sure that no matter what happens to you, your inheritors will be handed out your crypto assets. While the heritage law automatically covers the inheritance rules for your digital currencies as well as other assets, there is no simple and effective way of passing on the details and credentials needed to actually be able to claim those assets.
Does this service need to be on the blockchain?
Absolutely.
The essential part of the service is encrypting and storing utterly sensitive information (like account credentials, private keys, recovery phrases, etc.) and making sure that only the predestined individuals at the predestined time get access to this data. Due to human predisposition for misconduct, failure and fraud (just think about the consequences of the Equifax colossal fiasco) it does not seem safe to hand these valuable information to a centralized service.
This is why the usage of blockchain plays such a huge role.
How does DigiPulse solve this issue?
The blockchain decentralization makes it possible to encrypt, split and store information on multiple devices across the world thus ensuring that the service provider does not have access to the information the user wishes to encrypt whereas mitigating the threat of internal risks coming from human resources.
DigiPulse uses the Ethereum smart contract to provide a service keeping the stored assets safe while making them inheritable. The solution utilizes "activity tracking" to deal with the inheritance access send out in an automated way while requiring only a one time set-up of the service. The inheritable "Vault" only needs to be updated if additional data is added.
The DigiPulse token DGPT is needed for the user to prolong the asset release timestamp for the smart contract.
How does the service work?
Simplified it goes like this:
User signs up for the service, creates a Smart Vault, places the desired data into the Vault, defines the beneficiary, defines how his activity has to be tracked and sets an "expiration date" for the Vault. If for whatever reason this expiration date is reached the Vault sends out the data to the beneficiary (inheritor).
In detail:
User can sign-up for the service by providing their public wallet address and contact email. Every user gets assigned his 1GB "Smart Vault" with which he can interact through the DigiPulse dashboard (PC & smartphone applications are mentioned). In the dashboard the user can define:
- what files should be stored in the dashboard (the whitepaper states "any type of files" which I would actually limit to make sure no malicious executables can be stored there, if something like that is possible)
- inheritor access information
- inactivity period from 1 day to 18 months
- integrated 3rd party services (like coinbase, facebook, twitter, gmail, etc.) to track user's activity (the pre-condition for DigiPulse is an open API of the 3rd party service to make activity tracking possible)
- to stay anonymous by only providing your public wallet address in the signup for the service
The user can create as many Vaults as needed, for example to assign to different inheritors or to store more than 1GB of data. But with every Vault the inactivity-timestamp will have to be regularly reset which will in turn cost more DGPT. This is an equivalent of a SaaS-instances, the more instances in use, the more costly the service.
How does the DigiPulse ecosystem work?
The DigiPulse service is designed as a SaaS (Software as a Service) per single transaction. A transaction occurs when the asset release timestamp (the send-out switch for the smart contract) is reset. The transactions are paid with the DigiPulse tokens (DGPT). To use the DigiPulse service the user will need to purchase DGPT tokens.
What tokens does DigiPulse use?
There are two types of tokens:
- DGPT is the tradeable usage / utility token that can be used to pay for using the service. This token will be also used for storage provider rewards and profit sharing.
- DGPS is a non-treadable token with the sole purpose for the smart contract identify participants eligible for profit sharing.
DigiPulse will allow participants to become storage space provider and get rewarded for it. The storage space provider will receive 50% of the DGPT accumulated by DigiPulse from users for using the service. However it is not disclosed what are the pre-conditions to become a storage space provider and how does the reward distribution between providers is calculated depending on the amount of storage space a participant provides.
Another opportunity for the users to make money will be the Profit Sharing scheme. 10k+ DGPT holders will be eligible to transfer their existing tokens to DGPS, that will grant 75% of the 50% of DGPT accumulated from users of the service to be paid out in ETH.
In other words, as a storage provider for DigiPulse you will be regularly awarded a share of the earned tokens adding to your DGPT balance. You can keep those or sell them on exchanges. If you decide to keep the tokens, once you have 10.000 DGPT you can transfer those into DGPS and get a pay out in ETH.
These are the incentives for the public to actively participate in the DigiPulse network.
What technology does DigiPulse utilize?
The DigiPulse blockchain is based on the open source distributed cloud storage code of Storj. The Smart Vaults are stored on the Ethereum blockchain via an ERC20 compliant smart contract. The OpenSSL standard AES-256 is used for ISO-level security compliance while utilizing CBC (Cipher Block Chaining) for en- and decryption of the data. You can read more on tech and security details in the DigiPulse Whitepaper.
What is the state of the project?
The team is currently working on a private testnet version of the project. The complete Alpha Version should be ready by Oct 1st 2017 and the Public Beta by Dec 15th 2017.
What are the ICO token sale details?
- ICO Start: 01.10.2017
- ICO End: 31.10.2017
- Total supply of tokens: 20.483.871
- ICO generated and distributed tokens: 12.700.000 DGPT
- Minimum Cap: 500 ETH (100% escrow refunds if not reached)
- Hard Cap: 44.650 ETH
Price: 1 ETH = 250 DGPT (+ bonuses)
As of this moment: 1 DGPT would cost you $1,15. Relatively high since we don't know the service pricing yet.
Token Distribution
ICO token sale rewards
What will be the raised funds used for?
According to the whitepaper the hard cap of 44.650 ETH ($12.788.653 as of the moment of writing this post) is the team estimate to cover 5 years of development, infrastructure and operation of the company and service.
The Company & The Team
DigiPulse was launched by APNIKA LLC in Riga Latvia in 2016. The concept came from the co-founder Dmitry Dementyev-Dedelis, the CTO of the company Funderful.
There are 6 team members who together account for following professional experience: bank analyst, project manager, fundraising company CTO, pension funds legal advisor, security auditor, bloackchain developer, PR and communications expert, business incubator coordinator.
The Senior Advisor is a notable serial entrepreneur running Startup Wise Guys - one of Europe's leading startup accelerators.
Roadmap
Issues & Concerns
- The first unsuccessful ICO in August (Minimum goal was 8.000 ETH. They raised 1.925 from 687 contributors.)
- Relatively small team, there are 6 team members and 1 advisor (while there are plans to hire new members after the ICO)
- The roadmap only going until the public launch of the service
- Quite high ICO token price (but depends on the service pricing - how much service user gets for 1 DGPT)
- The idea can be relatively easily copied in the current form by an established blockchain project in the privacy, wallet or exchange space
Potential & Opportunites
- An existing very real global everyday need
- Service mass adoption hand-in-hand with crypto adoption
- No direct competitors at the moment
- First mover advantage
- B2B potential
- Open and honest analysis of the unsuccessful first ICO, learnings done
My conclusion
The pain DigiPulse is trying to solve is very real and urgent. The importance of this solution will grow exponentially with growing crypto adoption. I have no doubts this use-case has to be covered asap and DigiPulse has the First Mover Advantage. The vision is clear and I like their focus on the one main use-case in the first place.
This issue concern every one of us. You need to act on this before it's too late.
Post series: All you need to know about Inheritance of Digital Assets
This is the second part of my journey along the simple question with huge consequences: What happens with your digital assets when you die?
In my previous post I have explained the existing issue with digital assets inheritance and the need for a service covering this problem. In this post I am reviewing the most promising start-up in this area - DigiPulse and in my upcoming posts I will explore the essential for a Digital Inheritance Service to be successful and I will review if MyWillPlatform (MyWish) is a serious competitor in the Digital Inheritance arena.
Here is all you need to know about inheritance of digital assets:
- What happens with your Bitcoins when you die? You need to act on this issue right now.
- DigiPulse ICO Review - The Digital Inheritance Service to make sure your Bitcoins are not lost when you die
- Essential Features for a Digital Inheritance Service like DigiPulse to be successful
- MyWillPlatform ICO Review - Is MyWillPlatform (MyWish) a serious DigiPulse competitor for a Digital Inheritance Service?
Thank you for reading!
Stay safe & stay tuned!
Disclaimer:
I have invested a lot of time into researching and writing this review. If you want to honor this effort please upvote this post and / or use my referral link to subscribe for DigiPulse. Thank you! If not, it's fine. In that case just use the regular link.
And always remember - my views outlined in this or any other post do not constitute a financial advise whatsoever. DYOR.