ICO Analysis: Varyon
Published on May 30, 2018
By Fredrik VoldTeamSince the Varyon ICO is launched by the already established company Blue Frontiers, the team appears pretty strong, particularly when it comes to the concept of seasteading, special economic zones, legal, and administration.
The company was originally spun off of the non-profit The Seasteading Institute, and therefore shares many of the same employees. The key members of the management team consist of:
Randy Hencken, Director at The Seasteading Institute, leader of The Floating City Project, and early cryptocurrency adopter.
Joe Quirk, President of The Seasteading Institute and co-author of the book Seasteading: How Floating Nations Will Restore the Environment, Enrich the Poor, Cure the Sick, and Liberate Humanity from Politicians.
Marc Collins, serial entrepreneur and former Minister of Tourism of French Polynesia.
Nicolas Germineau, entrepreneur, software developer, and Ambassador of The Seasteading Institute since 2011.
Egor Ryjikov, Belarusian inventor, investor, and entrepreneur. Ambassador of The Seasteading Institute since 2009.
Other than the names listed above, Blue Frontiers also has a long list of advisors that are associated with the company. This includes specialists in fields such as Special Economic Zones, tourism, engineering, journalism, and other areas relevant to the project.
The only thing we can see lacking from the list of team members is more people with relevant blockchain experience. There are a few blockchain developers on the team, but in reality there are very few of these people compared to other blockchain projects we have reviewed.
One could argue that an ICO of this type doesn’t need a lot of blockchain professionals to carry out their project, but I would still argue that having at least some people who have experience with ICOs would be an advantage. It would probably also help with carrying out the ICO in a more professional manner, and avoiding issues like launching the pre-sale without having a complete white paper, which is what the company is currently doing.
VerdictAlthough The Seasteading Institute has signed an MoU with the French Polynesian government about the construction of a floating island in its territorial waters, it appears that strong opposition to the project exists both within the government and in the Polynesian population, as reported by Radio New Zealand in February. To be fair though, it is believed that with the elections in French Polynesia being over, politicians there will now have more flexibility in terms of moving forward with projects of this type that may be unpopular among some people.
Another potential problem we see here is that The Seasteading Insitute has already been around for quite a long time and has failed in past attempts at setting up real-world seasteads. The most notable of these was a planned prototype seastead that was to be set up by The Seasteading Institute in the San Francisco Bay by 2010, according to Wikipedia. Despite an investment by Peter Thiel totaling $1.7 million, this has never happened.
Investors in Varyon need to be aware that in order for this investment to pay off in any way at all, it is essential that an actual real-world seastead is built and deployed on the ocean. Unfortunately, the track record of past attempts of doing this does not look very promising, but we certainly hope that this time will be different.
Growth potential Smart contract code has been audited by an independent third party. +1
Rising sea-levels is a risk that is threatening inhabitants in places like French Polynesia. Raising awareness about this and proposing new solutions is something that will probably help boost public support in the host nations of seasteads, which is critical in order for the project to be brought to life. +3
Lots of people are excited about this project and support the idea of creating floating islands with independent governance, and some of these people are also likely to invest and buy property on these islands. +2
Because of the strong support for the project and the amount of media attention the project has received, it is likely that some people will contribute more out of ideological reasons rather than expecting a huge return on their investment. Those who are solely looking to maximize returns will likely look to other ICOs. +1
The backers of the ICO and the team is strong and has extensive experience in the area of special economic zones, engineering, and seasteads. +3
Risks It remains somewhat unclear if the funds raised from the token sale will be used for the construction of an actual seastead, or if it will mainly go towards developing plans, blueprints, and research about the legal framework for “SeaZones.” The company should make it more clear that the funds raised will be spent to build a real-world seastead in French Polynesia. -2
The white paper published on the Varyon website is just a draft and not a final version. Several important details are left out of the white paper, including information about the lock-up for the team’s tokens. -1
The Seasteading Institute’s (separate from Blue Frontiers, which is issuing this token) past record in putting their ideas to life is questionable, although the team argues that as a think-tank, construction of real-world seasteads has never been their objective -1
DispositionIn conclusion, we admit that we feel excited about the possibility of building real-world seasteads, and we certainly hope that Blue Frontiers will succeed so that this becomes a reality one day.
The main question about this ICO is if the company will succeed in putting a real-world floating island on the sea off the coast of French Polynesia. There is really no way of knowing this with certainty, and since the long-term value of the Varyon token would entirely depend on this, it should be clear to everyone that this is a very risky investment.
However, you may choose to view this as more of an idealistic fundraising for a cause you believe in. If you are exited about the idea of floating islands and want to help make it a reality, then Varyon is by all means a great way to contribute! The team is strong and they are probably the most experienced people in the world working on seasteading projects for the time being.
Overall, we arrive at a score of
6 out of 10 for the Varyon ICO.
Proof: https://hacked.com/ico-analysis-varyon/This is very good result.
Yes, I agree this is a very good assessment. The criticisms are legit as those are certainly risks for token holders.
I will clear up a few things though.
Peter Thiel only donated $500k toward the initial formation of the Seasteading Institute. That money was long gone before anyone who works for Blue Frontiers came on board. I believe the $1.7 million number might be a total from the 10 years the institute has been around.
We only put 2 names on the list of advisors from the blockchain team but there are at least a dozen of us participating, we just don't have as big names as people like Daniel Nagy and Robert Viglione. We had Ross Kenyon advising early on, he was in charge of marketing for Tezos which raised over $100 million. We had a conference call with Vitalik who chimed in on his suggestions for possible blockchain solutions on the seastead. We spoke with more experts in the industry than can be named and would have had this up and running back in August if it was a straight forward utility token. But once you start looking at this thing from a legal perspective, it gets complicated very quickly. The team did well to get their ducks in a row before doing the ICO. We actually started earlier than we wanted to but knew we needed to get this going.
Which is the reason the White Paper is still in draft form. I'm not sure how public knowledge this is but they should be bringing something up this week. We have been in the process of moving from being based in Singapore to a more crypto friendly country. The white paper cannot be in its final form until the team of lawyers in that country get through with it and make sure it complies with their laws.
The team lock up amounts are close to being determined. It is a bit complicated because the "team" consists of mostly staff while the founders are a very small percentage of that. Talk I have heard was there will be a large amount locked up for a year. You can see the smart contract already reserves a space for locked coins so it is definitely planned.
Of course the biggest factor is certainly whether or not Blue Frontiers will build a seastead and I definitely agree, this is the biggest question. The money raised during the ICO will certainly not go toward any research into SeaZones. That has already been well established and we submitted our legislative package to French Polynesia back in September with our requests for what we will need. There is no more money needed on that front. Money will definitely be going toward engineering. The initial designs are already pretty far along, that has been paid for as well. But the designs need to go through prototyping and get the final logistics set up for determining the path forward for getting these seasteads to the SeaZone (how much to build on site, whether to build off site then assemble on site, etc.).
As a seed investor who has been involved in seasteading for 10 years I made sure to meet up with the team to look them in the eyes to see if they had the conviction to actually build seasteads. That has also been my biggest frustration with seasteading for the past 10 years...seeing projects that went nowhere. After all of this time I believe that this is right team to get this done. I have been nothing but impressed by all of the very smart people involved in this project.
To ensure that they do actually get these things built I retired back in November and moved to Tahiti. I am living with one of the founders, Marc Collins (along with a few other housemates) and have been kept up to date on everything as we move forward. I plan on going out to the various sites on my own dime, surveying the sites as much as I can on my own to contribute what I can to this project. I even got SCUBA certified a few months ago and bought some underwater equipment so I can do what I can to assist in mapping out the location underwater while also buying a drone to do some aerial shots. I should be heading out next month to get started on checking a few of the sites.
This is going to happen. It's beyond the point where it will be just science fiction or fantasy. We are shovel ready and once that SeaZone legislation passes we'll be on the ground within days getting things started. Even with the money raised already we could probably get to the point where we just pay for each platform with pre-sales (worst case scenario, if funding dries up...but it seems to be picking up lately). It is no longer about "I hope it happens"...it's happening people. Start preparing.
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