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Current ICO And CRNC Token Analysis
Current ICO Overview The Current ICO and CRNC Token offer an evolution in media consumption. The web services we all use and take for granted have been built on the personal data and time of the consumers, without acknowledgement or reward for the value that they provide. The Current ICO is an opportunity to recognize the value contributions provided by consumers and redefine the structure of value exchange between all participants in the market.
Current ICO Value Proposition Current is developing an aggregated digital media ecosystem that rewards all participants from creator to consumer for their role in the media consumption cycle. The project is comprised of three pillars: the platform, the protocol and the token.
The Platform provides users with a universal media search and discovery interface by aggregating disparate content sources from sites such as YouTube, Spotify and Soundcloud. As users consume media, the underlying proprietary recommendation algorithm develops a preference and identity profile based on their data.
The goal of the Current platform is to create the most comprehensive profile of an individual’s media consumption preferences possible. The platform would therefore generate higher-quality recommendations than any single media source alone, adding value to both the individual user experience and underlying data for use by third-parties.
The Protocol rewards people for their time streaming, ad impressions and personal data collected on the app. The protocol records transactions on the blockchain that reflect a user’s contribution to the network through consumption, curation or creation of content. Additionally, a smart contract distributes rewards in response to these contributions. Launching initially on the Current platform, the protocol will be open for developers and third-party providers to help expand the ecosystem.
The Current Utility Token, CRNC (pronounced “currency”), serves as a multi-function ERC-20 utility token built to incentivize growth of the Current ecosystem. Current’s blockchain attribution protocol accurately and transparently compensates contributions to the recommendation algorithm and overall growth of the Current ecosystem by rewarding a portion of each token mined to all stakeholders (consumer, creator, curator, growth pool).
Current proposes democratization of the value created in the media consumption cycle by rewarding the people playing, creating, and curating media. Current ICO CRNC Token DistributionCRNC has a number of proposed use cases within the Current Platform. Users can redeem tokens to reduce or eliminate premium subscription costs with streaming services like Spotify, access other in-app services and trade on exchanges.
The CRNC token will also be used by advertisers and other third-party players to access user identity profiles to promote campaigns and create more targeted content within the app.
Current ICO Team Dan Novaes is Co-founder and CEO of Current. His entrepreneurial experience dates back to 2012 and includes two acquisitions of digital media and mobile app startups that he founded. In addition to his successes in tech, his status as a social media influencer with 1.1 million followers on Facebook is certainly an advantage in bringing attention to the project.
Nick McEvily is CPO and also a Co-founder. He is a graduate of Cornell and served as VP of Product at MobileX Labs, one of the startups founded by Dan Novaes before they moved on to Current. He has launched previous apps that reached an active user base in the hundreds of thousands.
Kiran Panesar serves as CTO and the third Co-founder. Several of his apps have reached the top 10 in the App Store, with two having reached number 1. He co-founded Native Mobile along with Dan Novaes and was responsible for scaling the server infrastructure to handle millions of pageviews before they were acquired.
On the advisory end of the team, none other than Mark Cuban is lending support to the Current ICO. Mark Cuban has provided investment in some of CEO Dan Novaes’ previous startups and has assumed an advisory role for the Current ICO. Other advisors include CEO of Couchsurfing Daniel Hoffer and Bancor Foundation Co-founder Galia Benartzi.
Current ICO Strengths and Opportunities The challenges posed by developing and scaling digital products are enormous. People who have already succeeded in overcoming that challenge are more likely to succeed again than those who have not. The team behind Current are an experienced group of entrepreneurs from the tech world with string of successes behind them.
CEO Dan Novaes has founded previous startups with both Nick McEvily and Kiran Panesar and launched a number of digital products together. They are one of the more more seasoned teams in the space at the moment.
Current launched their app in 2017 as a strategy to attract an early user base. At this phase in product development, the Current app is offchain and solely sourcing content from third-party networks like YouTube, Spotify and Soundcloud. According to the whitepaper, 200,000 users have already engaged with the platform, though these numbers are not available for independent verification. With an app out in the market, the team have reached a product development milestone that evidences both their commitment to the project and ability to deliver.
Current ICO Weaknesses and Threats The roadmap to converting and retaining users raises several issues. Websites like YouTube and Soundcloud aren’t simply for streaming music, but allow users to interact and form communities. This layer of engagement is a huge dimension of the user experience and holds immense value. The design of the Current platform lacks this feature, precluding the possibility for user-to-user interactions.
Scaling Current rests on the assumption that users will trade user-to-user interaction for tokenized rewards and an aggregated interface, and we don’t see the market research that backs this up.
The Current whitepaper states some of the media integrations on their platform are the result of direct partnerships, though no specific details are provided as to what that means exactly. The prospect of accessing aggregated user data of course holds immense value for media sites and would presumably help Current in forging partnerships with such players. In whatever shape or form these partnerships may exist, it’s unclear how Current plans to leverage them to add value to the ecosystem.
CRNC would hold more appreciable value, and in theory attract more users, if any media sites or third-party players announce a partnership and interest in using CRNC for accessing user data via the platform.
The Verdict on Current ICO It’s important to remember that the goal of Current is not just launch an app, but to build and scale an ecosystem. When an investor purchases CRNC, they are placing a bet on the future of that ecosystem.
The Current ICO’s proposed model for democratizing the value of media consumption is appealing and innovative, but will only function if enough participants adopt the platform.
Our questions on Telegram were answered professionally and immediately, but the answers were directly copied and pasted from the whitepaper and left some doubt in our mind as to how many of their core platform content providers were actual partners, and how many were not. In fact, one answer strongly suggested that other networks such as the media giants mentioned previously (YouTube etc.) would benefit from Current’s business model, and would therefore hop on board as a matter of pure self-interest. We haven’t always seen this happen.
While we acknowledge that challenge, we also see a team leading the project who are fit for the task ahead. We’re going to place a small bet on the Current ICO.