Greetings everyone and welcome to the first thread of analyzing ICO's, I will be analyzing different ICO's with great potential of succeeding and I am not talking about Pumpin-&-Dumping, I am talking about real investment, I will try to share thoughts regarding different ICO's whitepapers and potential plans, I will also point out different ICO's which can be potential scams. Lets start, This week I will be analyzing everything regarding the CELSIUS-ICO or most known as (CEL), I will try to answer the most fundamental questions needed when analyzing an ICO (my personal opinion), dont forget to share some love, and if you do not agreed with something please let me know and I will be more than happy to make amendments. Let's begin.
What does it do?
Celsius is the only crypto wallet designed with features that allow members/users to use their crypto-currency coins as a collateral to get a loan in USD dollars and to earn interest while lending your crypto-currencies. Celsius goal is very interesting and good in many ways, there is also a big gap in the market for something like Celsius, it will be interesting to see crypto-holders gain interest just for holding their crypto-currency on the Celsius-wallet, it will not only be beneficial for lenders but also for borrowers to be able to borrow money whenever is needed.
Does it really need a blockchain?
Indeed, According to what I have read in their whitepaper "they not only need a blockchain but a ledger technology, it requires consensus and global footprint of coin holders in order to really gain traction", is it really necessary?, the answer is yes, all the loans which Celsius-Wallet will issue will be gathered from thousands of individual coin holders, that could be switched at any time, only a smart contract capable of tracking and paying in micropayments can handle this kind of complexity.
The open Ledger: Whenever a credit is issued or members borrow coins to others, the system will employ the consensus to issue and track loans from funds given by members/investors.
Consensus: Whenever credit is issued or members borrow coins from others the Celsius-wallet will employ the consensus given to Celsius by members/investors.
Global Footprint: Celsius is building a global decentralized marketplace which allows lenders from all over the world to earn interest regardless of their base currency or local laws which they operate under.
Can the team execute?
Yes, they can, the reason I believe this is because of the Founder and CEO Alex Mashinsky. I have read the numerous projects which he was able to succeed on (he was able to found seven New York City-based startups and two of New York Citys top 10 venture-backed exits), he has a wide knowledge of building business from the ground as well as the experience and contacts in the industry,
What is the money being used for? and how will the token allocation be distributed?
When analyzing an ICO I always like to see how will they spend the investor's money or in what things it will be used on, in Celsius case, they will split it this way:
The Money Allocation;
Loan Reserves: $54,840,625
Research + Development: $10,062,500
Lender's Insurance Pool: $10,062,500
Operations + Management: $7,546,875
Legal + Regulatory: $6,540,625
General + administrative: $6,540,625
Sales + Marketing: $5,031,250
The Token Allocation:
Presale: 40%
Crowdsale: 10%
Treasury: 27%
Team: 19%
Partners: 2%
Advisors: 2%
I will point out something special about each allocation, I can tell you straight away that their "Money" allocation is nearly perfect, even though many people might believe that Sales+Marketing is one of the most important things in every company, the Research + development and Lender's insurance Pool, in this case, takes the top priority, the fact they have invested a good bunch of money on Research and development tells you straight that the idea behind this project is not something that was brought from one day to another, but it shows you a strong process of meditation and research they have done in order to adapt the Celsius-wallet to the needs of the customers/users.
Regarding the "Token" Allocation, I couldn't stop noticing the fact that they didn't go for "Bounty Campaign" or "Marketing pyramid scheme" this tells quite a lot of good things about the Celsius Project because bounty programs are very very bad news when promoting an ICO, bounty campaigns indirectly pay bounty hunters to drive investments through artificial hype as well as wasting big part of the tokens on paying bounty hunters.
Celsius Advertising and Status:
Celsius advertising is not poor but its not massive, I have made the time to scan/crawl google for Celsius, and their advertising is average, to me personally the fact that they are not shoving ads on my face about their ICO in popular crypto-website is something good, since its clear to see that their product doesn't really need any type of Crazy and Spammy advertising, their ICObench rating looks very high compared to advertised ICOs, they have also passed their KYC which is good, since the process of Knowing your Customers its one of the most important parts when starting an ICO, you dont want any type of hacker-thief to invest their stolen crypto-currencies on your ICO.
Other Important information about the ICO:
Symbol: CEL
Category: Finance
Platform: ERC20
Crowdsale: March 15th, 2018
Total Token Supply: 1,000,000,000
Total Tokens for Sale: 500,000,000
Accepted Currencies: ETH, BTC & USD
Presale token Price: $0.20
Crowdsale Token Price: $0.30
Soft Cap: $15,000,000
Target Cap: $100,000,000
Links I have used for this research.
Website: https://[Suspicious link removed]/VMM18E
Whitepaper: https://[Suspicious link removed]/qMNPE9
Telegram: https://[Suspicious link removed]/vk5d1J
Reddit: https://[Suspicious link removed]/5ozSmf
Medium/Blog: https://[Suspicious link removed]/5ozSmf
Linkedin: https://[Suspicious link removed]/HZojzE
Bitcointalk ANN thread: https://[Suspicious link removed]/CPTqkV
I do not endorse Celsius in any way nor I participate with them in any way, I would always recommend you to do your own research before investing in an ICO, If you have an ICO which you might be interested on and would like me to analyze give me a shout (since I need new material to analyze.)
