I invested a little on the very first day as a speculative bet, but over time and having kept an eye on the development during the ICO as well as watching the Hangout Videos, learning about the Myselium integration etc, I am going to be investing a lot more befor the ICO ends.
Here is my reasoning, The year of the blockchain is 2016, we are seeing banks and other financial institutions as well as the population as a whole coming round to what blockchain / BTC/ crypto (Mostly BTC) really is and I believe it is being taken more and more seriously, hell!, I even bought Silver at provident metals online, and to say the transaction was easy is an understatement.
Seeing the benefits BTC as well as other crypto can offer and seeing the adoption curve really ramping up soon, I see the need for such a platform such as Waves, where Fiat meets Crypto effortlessly and making this process easy for the masses with something as simple as a Lite Client Version that even my mother could install.
But where I see this platform coming into it's own, and the value really becoming apparent is with Remittances.
Remittance is expensive, whatever way you look at it, it's not cheap. If I can send money through the waves platform in the form of BTC to someone to receive US dollar, Euros, whatever, and send it by paying a fee of 10 cents or 1-2 dollars, I would use it, not only for the cost but for the convenience also. This is where the token will have values, at least in the remittance aspect. I dont know about $10 dollars like some have said, but 1-2 dollars would be reasonable.
I see Western Union, Moneygram as the Blockbuster Video sort of company, on the verge of being disrupted, completely. And I believe that Sasha has the platform, the vision and the perseverance to actually get this done, or at least have a very good shot at it. He's explained exactly what he aims to do and has been open to take questions via an interview for a full 2 hours, and all questions were answered in a satisfactory way, at least in my opinion.
I did not see this with Max from Lisk, no offence to Max at all, but as a comparison, Sasha has been completely open and from what I can tell, honest about what his intentions are and about his plan giving realistic timelines. This alone enabled me to put some trust in him and his project.
Compared to something like Lisk and other projects, it will be years before any of the Dapps etc get any traction and have the possibility of mass adoption.The difference I see with Waves is that it is a tool which is for the here and now and will be able help facilitate the growing crypto adoption by making it accessible to all as well as make it easier and cheaper to send money around with a clean, user-friendly, functional interface.
I think the world is ready for such a platform and I believe that Waves could just be it.
I'd be interested to hear other peoples views about where they see the potential strengths in Waves.
Wishing you all the best Sasha & Co. I'm sure this will be a success.