ICO Analysis: Digitize
Published on May 4, 2018
By noahsayresDigitize is an interesting project that looks to eliminate the use of change in any consumer transactions. Their solution involves an Acorns-style approach to change. According to the official whitepaper, “Digitize is an ecosystem which will provide users with a digital wallet, and allow them to save their loose change and cash digitally, at the point of a transaction.
TokenThe Digitize token is the entire foundation upon which the ecosystem rests. The utility of tokens are as follows:
Incentives For Businesses An innovative payment option.
Increased security as currency is kept on a digital platform and not physical.
Ability to accept multiple payment options for goods and services;
Reduced reliance on physical currency i.e. to keep coins to give as change.
Networking opportunities to interact with new businesses that will complement their own business.
Provide attractive promotion and loyalty rewards to acquire and retain consumers.
Get direct customer feedback.
Incentives For Consumers Being able to use Digitize tokens to purchase goods and services.
Carrying less physical currency.
Not losing money as it will all be digital in their own personal wallet.
Ability to exchange to Ethereum and invest in the Crypto-index.
Having new innovative rewards programs with retailers.
Ability to earn Digitize Tokens for referrals.
Token DistributionAccording to the white paper, Digitize will initially keep 10% of tokens in reserve to ensure liquidity and supply. Once the reserve is diminished, Digitize will purchase tokens regularly to ensure liquidity remains positive, by buying tokens at market price when token allocation is below 5% of total supply of Digitize holdings.
The total allocation of tokens will be 60% to sale to the public, 20% will be reserved for the team, 5% will be saved for advisers, 3% will be used to fund the bounty and airdrop programs, and 2% will be allocated for community managers. The remainder 10% will be used as a contingency for future reserves.
The whitepaper states that an airdrop will be scheduled three weeks after the ICO for individuals that refer a friend to Digitize, through their unique link.
The proceeds from the token sale are allocated as follows:
Research and Development Costs 65%
Sales and Marketing 23%
Admin and Operational 10%
Legal Costs 2%
Any tokens not sold in the token sale, will either be burnt or distributed equally to existing token holders.
TeamThe Team looks pretty legitimate and appears to be doing their best to follow ICO best practices, including getting their smart contract audited.
Their CEO has double bachelors in Engineering and Business Management from The University of Technology, Sydney. He has over 6 years of experience in the tech industry last working as a portfolio manager with IBM, where he managed the Westpac account, which is one of Australia’s leading banks.
Their head engineer is a blockchain engineer particularly interested in Ethereum and Smart Contracts. In the fiat world, he has over 10 years of international experience in Big Data and Machine Learning projects. He got his MSc in High-Performance Computing with distinction from the University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom.
Notably, he also helped create the backend for PlayStation 4. He is also a triple winner in two different international IBM Apache Spark competitions and a handful of other successful hackathons.
The rest of the team is fairly large with skills useful to this type of project. Their ICO advisers are also fantastic. For example: One of them is Lead ICO Adviser at MoonShot Asia and also the Senior Talent Acquisition Specialist at CryptoRecruit. Another is the founder of OpenInfluence, featured in Forbes 30 under 30 in the area of Marketing and Advertising. Another is currently a Director at Kapronasia, one of Asia’s leading financial technology research and consulting firms.
In short, this is a well-rounded team with good advisers.
VerdictBelow is a breakdown of the risks and opportunities associated with Digitize.
Risks When completed, the Digitize platform will be dependent on third parties to adopt, implement and to continue to develop, supply, and otherwise support the platform. There is no guarantee that those third parties will uphold their end of the bargain which will have an adverse effect on the Digitize platform. This is an example where relinquishing control could be problematic. -3.5
While the Digitize team does seem to focus heavily on marketing at the outset, it seems problematic that there won’t be a dedicated sales team to onboard retailers. This seems like a problem stemming from worshipping the decentralized ideology of the blockchain over actual business value. -2.5
Growth Potential
Low token supply is always a plus. This means it will not take a lot of capital to raise the price. +2
The team seems highly qualified and has gotten out of their way to legitimize the project. They did this by getting a trusted third party to audit their smart contract (it was cleared with flying colors) as well as by putting their own exhaustive list of risks in the whitepaper themselves. +4.5
Every use of the proceeds of the token sale is painstakingly mapped out in their roadmap. +3
DispositionWe arrive at a score of 5.5 out of 10 for Digitize. While this could be a worthy investment, the Achilles heel for long-term hodlers will be whether mass retailer adoption actually occurs.
Proof:
https://hacked.com/ico-analysis-digitize/
