ICO ICO Analysis: AION Published 7 months ago on October 3, 2017 By Aakash Kawale The Early Internet The current state of blockchain and its adoption can be compared to the early days of internet. The early internet analogy of blockchain can be useful while looking at the potential of blockchain and cryptocurrencies. Before its mass adoption in the 1990s, the internet was dispersed in many local networks called intranets. The real breakthrough only came when different intranet networks realized that they could use a unifying Internetwork protocol to communicate among each other, thereby extending reach by compatibility even more. The invention of TCP/IP made it possible for any intranet to connect to the internet, leading to its mass adoption and present form. // -- Discuss and ask questions in our community on Workplace. Interoperability In Blockchains Since Bitcoin introduced the concept of blockchain in 2009, there are hundreds of public and private blockchains in existence today. There is no connectivity between these blockchains and each of them serves a different purpose. It is widely believed that in the future, mainstream blockchain adoption will be achieved by the development of a network which will integrate and connect all the blockchains to each other, similar to what TCP/IP did to the internet. Understanding AION Aion provides the middleware for blockchains to communicate with each other, and the ability to pass messages between them. The Aion blockchain network is like a computer network that makes it possible for dissimilar systems to communicate. The Aion network will pass logic and value among participating blockchains as freely as liquid assets, where every transaction occurs without centralized intermediaries. The Aion network will be centered on a public, purpose-built third-generation blockchain called Aion-1. Designed to connect other blockchains and manage its own robust applications, Aion-1 also provides the crypto-economic system that incentivizes interoperability in the ecosystem. The transactions and communication between different public and private blockchains is done through Connecting Networks. They act as intermediaries and provide an interface for developers and users to route messages between blockchains. The participating networks communicate with each other using a bridge, which is a communication protocol that facilitates communication. There are 3rd party validators on the bridges which approve the transactions upon consensus based on BFT based algorithm. The bridge validators are rewarded from the interchain transaction fees. Aion is creating a new type of verification algorithm based on concepts used in modern neural networks called proof of intelligence. // -- Become a yearly Platinum Member and save 69 USD and get access to our secret group on Workplace. Click here to change your current membership -- // Sounds good, right? But have a look at the competition Aion is entering an already crowded space with many competitors in the market. Ark, Cosmos, Wanchain are some of the other projects working on similar ideas. Ark is the oldest of the lot and is based on Delegated proof of stake consensus mechanism. We have already covered Cosmos, you can check it out here. China based Wanchain have delayed their 15th September ICO over the Chinese regulatory concerns. Aion differentiates itself in the sense that it is more focused towards enterprise level of implementation. The blockchains on the Aion network will be enterprise level Fortune 500 companies which will be blockchenized and connected to the Ethereum network. The core premise of Connecting different blockchains and enabling widespread adoption is similar across all these projects. The Team Aion has got a strong 20 member team, which includes engineers, business developers, marketing people etc. Before conceptualizing Aion, the same team has worked on Nuco since 2016. Nuco is a blockchain enabler wherein it helps businesses build applications on top of blockchains. Nuco is already into its Beta with a working Testnet version. This gives a high credibility to the team. Along with Aion, Nuco is working on The Enterprise Ethereum Alliance which connects Fortune 500 enterprises, startups, academics, and technology vendors with Ethereum subject matter experts. CEO Mathew Spoke has been working with blockchain based technologies since 2012. One thing that we noticed about him is that he seems like someone who truly believes in the disruptive potential of blockchain and wants to see its mainstream adoption. Although there are no advisors listed for Aion, the team has worked closely with a strong advisory team with NUCO which includes Vitalik Buterin. Aions experienced and competent team gives it some advantage over other similar projects. Crowdraise The AION token will power the Aion network. The network powered blockchains will pay the validators in terms of AION tokens to initiate any inter blockchain transactions. AION tokens are the fuel used to create new blockchains, monetize inter-chain bridges, and secure the overall network. The crowdraise is a tad complex and is planned in 3 phases of private sale, public presale, and public sale. The public presale phase will launch on 3rd October and will be done in 5 tranches of different pricing levels for an estimated 40,000,000 AION token. 1 AION token is priced at 0.75 USD in the first tranche. The soft cap is as high as 15MM USD and the presale will go on 4 hours after the soft cap is reached with no hard cap! To give you a perspective, similar project Cosmos had a cap of 17 MM USD in its entire crowdraise, while AION is aiming to raise 15 million USD in the presale itself. We wonder why Aion needs as many funds as it intends to raise. Verdict The author believes that the widespread adoption of blockchain will come across 2 fronts. It would either happen through a platform like Block.One which hides all the aspects of the underneath blockchain, providing a seamless experience without the users even realizing that they are using blockchain or connecting platforms like Aion. Although there is a huge potential in the technology, there are too many platforms working on the same thing without any clear differentiation. Risks The biggest concern as mentioned a couple of times above is the number of platforms working on the similar idea. -3 The raise structure is complicated and looks somewhat greedy. 15 MM USD softcap for the presale itself! There is also no clarity on the funds usage. -2 Aion is planning to connect its affiliate blockchains to only Ethereum and not other significant blockchains like Bitcoin. Competitors have promised to provide a connection between all major blockchains. -2 Growth Potential After successfully working on Nuco and its associated projects we believe the management is capable enough to implement a project of this scale. +3 Aion is designed for enterprise level blockchains to get connected to each other. Nuco has created Enterprise Ethereum Alliance, which had advisors like Vitalik Buterin and Alex Tapscott. Aion is like an extension of Enterprise Ethereum Alliance. +7 Aion is creating its own consensus algorithm for verification which is a combination of proof of stake and proof of intelligence, which removes some inefficiencies from the existing platforms. +2 Desposition We arrive at a score of 5 for Aion which is a tad higher than Cosmos. Some small amount can be kept aside for moonshots like these considering the potential if they scale. Investment Details The presale starts on 3rd October 2017. You can contribute funds here. Important: Never invest (trade with) money you can't afford to comfortably lose. Always do your own research and due diligence before placing a trade. Read our Terms & Conditions here. Trade recommendations and analysis are written by our analysts which might have different opinions. Read my 6 Golden Steps to Financial Freedom here. Best regards, Jonas Borchgrevink. Rate this post: Important for improving the service. Please add a comment in the comment field below explaining what you rated and why you gave it that rate. Failed Trade Recommendations should not be rated as that is considered a failure either way. (0 votes, average: 0.00 out of 5)You need to be a registered member to rate this. Loading... Aakash Kawale 4.5 stars on average, based on 15 rated postsAakash Kawale is a financial analyst based out of Mumbai, India. He is the lead analyst at a Singapore based organization and has extensive experience of analyzing US and Indian equities. Aakash is a strong advocate of the Blockchain technology and has been analyzing cryptocurrencies since 2015. Follow @HackedCom Feedback or Requests? Related Topics:AIONAion ICOico analysis Up Next ICO Analysis: AirToken Don't Miss ICO Analysis: Gizer You may like ICO Analysis: Hyperion ICO Analysis: Skraps ICO Analysis: Dock.io ICO Analysis: Gizer ICO Analysis: DOVU ICO Analysis: Snip 1 Comment 1 Comment jagrmeister October 7, 2017 at 6:45 pm AION could backfire for pre-sale investors because the public sale is a Dutch Auction and the volume they are trying to raise is massive. I explain this in my review (https://slimwiki.com/ico-collaboration/aion). Essentially, they are raising upto $150M in the public sale; its a Dutch Auction so if supply > demand, the price keeps dropping and dropping. Bad for pre-sale buyers but may be good if you catch the tail end of the public sale. Log in to Reply You must be logged in to post a comment Login Leave a Reply Cancel replyYou must be logged in to post a comment. ICO ICO Analysis: Ambit Mining Published 14 hours ago on April 21, 2018 By Ross Peili By 2017, cryptocurrencies reached their mainstreampeak, where people like Alan Greenspan and Microsofts Bill Gates were talking about the possible value in this new digital asset class. // -- Discuss and ask questions in our community on Workplace. The current state of blockchain technology has already proven itself more than just worthy, improving the lives of many people and legal entities in various ways. However, blockchain-powered platforms require an enormous amount of computing power to run smoothly. One of the most important gears of the current blockchain-factory is the concept of mining cryptocurrencies, or in a nutshell, lending your computing power and resources in order to provide the blockchain the power it needs to perform the transactions set within the network, in exchange for a portion of the transaction. While mining is necessary for most of the current blockchain systems, it is also a pain in the ass for various reasons, including // -- Become a yearly Platinum Member and save 69 USD and get access to our secret group on Workplace. Click here to change your current membership -- // Mining has extremely high-energy costs The noiseand heat generated by the machinery could be really disturbing Requires a lot of physical space Requires expensive hi-tech ventilation/air-conditioning systems Requires 24/7 personnel to monitor the plant That is why, over time, mining ended up being extremely difficult and concentrated in a few hands. Most mining companies disappearedor merged with similar companies and those who take mining seriously even started to move to countries with low taxes and low electricity fees. For some countries, mining feels are very low. Take Georgia, for example, where the average rental price per a square meter is not more than a couple dollars. The price per KWhis not more than $0.05, in opposition to the average European KWh price that is currently around $0.20. Ambit Mining is a Georgian-based start-up that has been taking advantage of these features for some time now. The company operates its own mining plant, powered by major industrial titans like Schneider Electrics, AMD, NVidia, Cisco and Kingston. Ambit Mining is constantly evolving and are now launching their own ICO to power an ecosystem of investors and developers under the Ambit Mining roof. The Georgian company not only is one of the most promising, according to their latest transparency release, but they have ties to governmental institutions in Georgia, understanding both local and international markets with a solid and modern business plan. Unlike most mining plants with a business model, that rent you specific hash power, Ambit Mining gives you the opportunity to be part of the business model by releasing 85% of their total token supply to the public. Ambit Mining uses both ASICs and GPUs to diversify risks. They have a modern plant and they keep expanding. Ambit Mining unites mining, cloud, and hosting services into one decentralized platform, guided by the community shareholders. The company is part of the economic free zone of Tbilisi, capital of Georgia and they have an interesting and transparent history when it comes to mining. Their latest project achieved 100% ROI in just five months. Token The AMBT token is Ambit Mining ecosystems native currency. It can be used to purchase mining contracts, computing power, or even cloud space. Each token has a value that can be translated as a vote on significant community events and updates. At the same time, naturally, you can swap your AMBT for ETH, or any other major cryptocurrency and find shelter in fiat or other altcoins. The total token supply is set to 104,000,000 AMBT, 85% of which (88,000,000) will be accessible during the public sales. Ambit Mining, unlike most ICOs, will require only 3% to be reserved for the company, while 9% is distributed to team and advisers, and the final 3% will be given to bounty participants. The starting price of an AMBT token is approximately set around $0.5 per unit, which is ultra cheap, if you consider that projects with a similar total supply cost between $10 and $200 at the moment, with Ethereum (~99 million total supply) being the most expensive per unit at $585 US dollars. Team Beka Vashakidze (Founder & CEO) is the CEO of BF group holding Company operating on mining in Georgia. He is involved in numerous different industries including Fintech, Digital Media, oil and gas among others. Giorgi Inashvili (Chief Operational Officer) is behind numerous projects around marketing, sales, and logistics areas. He is talented in business planning and project management. George Khmaladze (Chief Financial Officer) is currently a professor and lecturer at Georgian Technical University. He is an important figure in Georgia, having served director and chairman in various organizations in his country. In the board of advisers, we can find Karan Khemani, CEO of Spectre, Miguel Palencia, Chief Information Officer at Qtum Foundation and Andri Matiukhin, Chief Technical Director at Hacken among others. Overall, the Ambit team consists of professionals with years of experience in the mining scene. A big portion of the initial team is native Georgian, acknowledging the benefits of the grounds they live in. Verdict Mining is a crucial part of most blockchain-based technology companies. The more companies adopting distributed ledger technology, the more mining will be required. Ambit offers its services as a solution to this problem, with specified facilities and reduced mining costs. Indeed, Ambit has favorable synergies that could be very beneficial for someone looking at mining seriously. Within its years of operation, Ambit has managed already to create a 1 MW diversified mining facility in Tbilisi where its based. This facility has managed to achieve 100% ROI in five months. This indicates that the operation is up and running, proving it can grow, provided that the terminals are put into place and running. Having the whole of the investment concentrated on one spot means that the service team will be able to respond very fast in case something goes wrong. Ambit plans to grow its operation to 20 MW through this project, having mining enthusiasts on their side and the support of the high-end technology manufacturers affiliatedwith the company. While mining is very important for most blockchain-platforms, there is a new wave of decentralized distributed ledgers that have a pre-established number of tokens, pre-mined and they use variations of the PoW protocol, eliminating the need for miners. Risks From an investors perspective, the following facts are important to consider when weighing Ambit Mining: While Georgia may be friendly to mining at the moment, it still is a very expensive and energy-consuming sport that might be changed or even faded away in the future. -1.5 Mining nowadays is not as easy and profiting as it was during the golden days of the blockchain. Major mining companies have already established plants that work for years, having a standard client database. Ambit Mining will have to work hard to attract new investors into their network. Even with the lowest prices of the market, that is a challenge. -2 In general, mining facilities are extremely vulnerable to natural disasters, and that does not exclude Ambit Mining from the list. For an example, an earthquake can be devastating for the company itself as the whole operation is relying on a single geo-location. -1 Ambit Minings native token, AMBT, does not offer anything out of the box, as there are infinite options already doing what AMBT is created to do. -2.5 Growth Opportunity On the other hand, if considered seriously and programmed with technical craftsmanship, mining can be still one of the most profiting sub-sectors of blockchain technology. Ambit Mining seems to understand the specific market well with a series of transparency reports backing this fact. +2.5 Finding cheap operational fees in the sector is not a walk in the park. Whether Ambit Mining has chosen Georgia as their base due to the fact that it is their home country or the fact that it has cheap taxes, and electricity fees, it is one of their best key points for the moment. +3 Unlike most mining plants that are decentrally centralized, keeping almost half of the total token supply for the company, Ambit Mining is in position to share 85% of the total token supply with the community. +4 $0.5 per AMBT or any other token with a logical total token supply is more than just fair and it could bring an easy x4 to x5 just after the token enters the mainstream markets. +2.5 Disposition Ambit Mining could be a profitable model for ICO investors or even blockchain investors, but we should consider the fact that mining will have to eventually upscale its model into a less consuming, energy-efficient platform. The company, as well as the team, look really promising and wise on the sector, although relying your whole business plan on a single country, on a single location could lead to unpleasant surprises in the future. A score of5out of 10is reserved for Ambit Mining, based on present facts. Investment Details Type: Crowdsale Symbol: AMBT Platform: Ethereum Pre-Sale: Apr. 20, 2018 Public Sale: May 10, 2018 PaymentsAccepted:ETH, BTC (KYC Required) Official Website White Paper Disclaimer: The writer has no position in Ambit Mining at the time of writing. Featured image courtesy of Shutterstock. Important: Never invest (trade with) money you can't afford to comfortably lose. Always do your own research and due diligence before placing a trade. Read our Terms & Conditions here. Trade recommendations and analysis are written by our analysts which might have different opinions. Read my 6 Golden Steps to Financial Freedom here. Best regards, Jonas Borchgrevink. Rate this post: Important for improving the service. Please add a comment in the comment field below explaining what you rated and why you gave it that rate. Failed Trade Recommendations should not be rated as that is considered a failure either way. (0 votes, average: 0.00 out of 5)You need to be a registered member to rate this. Loading... Ross Peili 3.1 stars on average, based on 7 rated posts Follow @HackedCom Feedback or Requests? Continue Reading ICO ICO Analysis: CoinJanitor Published 23 hours ago on April 21, 2018 By noahsayres There are more than 4,500 crypto assets of some sort in circulation. // -- Discuss and ask questions in our community on Workplace. Yet many of them are functionally dead. This is problematic for both the owners of these dead tokens and the cryptocurrency markets at large. For the owners of the dead coins, the issue is that they cannot recover the value locked in either a token and/or network that doesnt allow them to trade for anything else. Meanwhile, cryptocurrency markets themselves suffer from the dilution of capital, resources and reputation issues due to the sheer number of unusable coins. // -- Become a yearly Platinum Member and save 69 USD and get access to our secret group on Workplace. Click here to change your current membership -- // CoinJanitor aims to solve these issues by taking over failed projects and exchanging the associated failed tokens with that of its native Janitor token (JAN). Their plan is to burn all failed project tokens they receive. Through this approach, they posit that value will be restored to individual users who can then sell or trade their CoinJanitor tokens for other cryptocurrencies. An additional benefit will also come to the community via the recycling of codebases and project assets. The project is premised on the belief that by reducing resource dilution in the overall cryptocurrency market, CoinJanitor will contribute to the network effect of truly functional coins, more effectively leverage fragmented communities, and implement mechanisms for the recycling of spent resources back into future projects. As a result of this valuable market service, CoinJanitor proposes that it will also benefit from its own network effect and create a highly engaged, loyal community of coin holders working towards the improvement of utility and value in the crypto economy. Token According to their own whitepaper, CoinJanitor tokens will be a deflationary asset with an increasing community and reach, which should push prices up and give us more comfortable terms to buy out subsequent failed projects. Therefore, users of the first projects that we buy out will enjoy a double benefit. They will receive relatively more CoinJanitor tokens for their locked value, and as CoinJanitor proceeds to buy out the next projects, the value and the price of the CoinJanitor tokens they hold, should increase accordingly. The hope for CoinJanitor is that this economic incentive will create enough interest to speed up the achievement of their stated goal of buying out 3 dead or failed coins within the first 2 months of operations. From that point forward, they believe the pace should accelerate since they would be able to prove the viability of the project, gather more users under the CoinJanitor umbrella, and generate more demand from dead or failed coin holders. In theory this is a coin whose very business model and inherent token economics should lead to exponential growth for long-term holders if implemented correctly. There will be a total of 100,000,000 JAN tokens generated in the ICO.Token distribution is as follows: 50% of all tokens will be sold in the open market to fund the project and all operations. 30% of the coins will be held by the CoinJanitor project to buy out dead or failed coins. According to the whitepaper, CoinJanitor will only use the tokens it issued to buy dead coin holders out. 5% CoinJanitor Partners 5% Bounty Program 10% Founders, Team and Future Employees Their whitepaper states that all CoinJanitor tokens not sold during the public sale will be airdropped proportionally to contributors. This airdrop will importantly EXCLUDE CoinJanitor team members and the CoinJanitor reserve. Team This appears to be a highly qualified team. CEO: Marc Kenigsberg Marc has been involved in Bitcoin since 2013 and has 18 years experience in online marketing. He was one of the worlds largest cryptocurrency affiliates and the founder of BlockSmarter and Bitcoin Chaser. Marc is one