Dear Steem friends, I've been writing about promising projects that are about to launch, such as Synereo AMP (beta expected for this month) and EOS (which is probably going to be the biggest project this year). Now it is time to talk a little bit about openANX, which seems to be a medium-sized project with room for a boom during the second half of 2017.
What do you need to know?
To start off, I will try to summarize the basics of this project, its main economic aspects and token sale information. As usual, I will go deep only into some economic issues, but not into technical IT stuff, okay?
Let's not lose time!
What is openANX about?
OpenANX takes the best of both centralized and decentralized exchanges to create something new in this industry. So, besides being a decentralized and open source exchange, it will also provide an off-chain, legally enforceable dispute resolution system to provide much needed consumer protection. By addressing the evolving needs of exchanges, openANX shall attract many participants. The end user will have access to a single, seamless order book and will not need to rely on the centralized company who runs the exchange.
For instance, MtGox was great, and suddenly all their users suffered heavy losses. It is still unclear the reason why it happened. Were the company owners the ones behind the crime? Did some employees betray the company? Or was the MtGox a true victim of hackers? Regardless of the reason, the real question is: how far do you trust your exchange? OpenANX will try to make all those questions useless, whereas the good qualities of centralized exchanges will be preserved.
As a side note, I read the entire SEC rejection on the ETF filed by the Winklevoss brothers, and part of the rationale behind the rejection is the fact that bitcoin is traded far from the US, where exchanges are not very reliable and are susceptible to manipulation. Maybe openANX can solve part of this equation.
Main strenghts of openANX
It is clear to me that the team members of openANX are not only focused in the blockchain technology, but also in a comprehensive view of the product. In my opinion, most projects lack this vision and will end up being a failure. As an example, the first BTC worldwide p2p loan platform (BTCJam) was amazing in terms of technology, but failed to acknowledge that lending money is much more than a platform that connects people. The real world is complex, there are people out there who default in their obligations (sometimes on purpose, sometimes not). As a result, BTCJam announced in the end of May a total shutdown of their website. OpenANX, on the other hand, states that disputes can be escalated beyond the asset gateway. An impartial dispute resolution mechanism exists through a third party. This comprehensive view is utterly important and may be the difference between shutting down or becoming a mainstream product.
This is a rapid evolving market where exchanges are more and more demanded. For example, Poloniex hasn't been able to cope with so many transactions per second and has been experiencing some delays. There is much room for growth in this industry, especially for a new product with qualities such as openANX's. And let's be direct: cryptocurrencies are all about decentralization, so it is quite odd to see cryptocurrencies being traded in centralized exchanges, isn 't it?
Token sale
The first token sale will start at 1 PM GMT, 22 June 2017 and will last exactly 30 days, until 1 PM GMT, 22 July 2017. There will be a maximum 30 million tokens (OAX) for sale. This amount can be diminished to 13 million OAX or something in between at the sole discretion of the team behind the project. Each OAX will be sold for USD 0.75 worth of ETH. It means the amount to be raised in the first token sale will not exceed $22.5 million.
Source: https://www.openanx.org/en/assets/documents/openANX_Token_Sale_Summary_Sheet_ENU.pdf
There will be a second crowdsale on the release of a successful prototype. The total amount of OAX will be 100 million (30 million for the 2nd crowdsale, 20 million allocated to the team and 20 million retained by the foundation as treasury for multiple purposes)
Source: https://www.openanx.org/en/assets/whitepaper/openANX_White_Paper_ENU.pdf
Release date
The prototype is scheduled to be released in the second quarter of 2018 (by June 2018, in other words). This is a tight schedule, but it is feasible. If we take Decent as an example, which is also a complex project, their devs had its ICO starting in September 2016 and they have been successful in delivering its mainnet by June 2017, so I am confident this roadmap is achievable by a strong team as openANX's.
Conclusion
This is probably going to be a successful product, considering economic aspects and general technical characteristics. As I lack the skills to fully analyze the technical IT issues of this project, this article is not going deep into it. Therefore, I recommend a full read of the technical white paper for a comprehensive understanding of the technical aspects of the product: https://www.openanx.org/en/assets/whitepaper/openANX_Technical_White_Paper_ENU.pdf