Evaluating Blockchain Crowdfunding Projects

This is an intermediate level talk about blockchain crowdfunding, on the topic of evaluating blockchain projects from technology point of view, including but not limited to ICOs.

Transcript

1. Copyright 2017 Aaron Li (aaron@qokka.ai) Copyright 2017 Aaron Li (aaron@qokka.ai) Evaluating Blockchain Crowdfunding Projects from technology point-of-view (not just ICOs) Aaron Li aaron@qokka.ai Dec 5, 2017 https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaronqli/ Topics: - Interesting blockchain crowdfunding projects? - What are the tech elements to look at? - How to evaluate a whitepaper? - How to spot scam projects from whitepaper? - Be like a VC!
2. Copyright 2017 Aaron Li (aaron@qokka.ai) Copyright 2017 Aaron Li (aaron@qokka.ai) Interesting blockchain crowdfunding projects? What are the tech elements to look at? How to evaluate a whitepaper?
3. Copyright 2017 Aaron Li (aaron@qokka.ai) Copyright 2017 Aaron Li (aaron@qokka.ai) Interesting blockchain crowdfunding projects? Improve cryptocurrency usability, accessibility, and privacy Organise and track complex information better at scale Automated coordination between buyers, sellers, producers Better infrastructure for blockchain ecosystem
4. Copyright 2017 Aaron Li (aaron@qokka.ai) Copyright 2017 Aaron Li (aaron@qokka.ai) Interesting blockchain crowdfunding projects? Dash (~$6B market cap): faster confirmation, pseudo-privacy (need trusted nodes) - Self-funding: a treasury funded by 10% of all block reward - Self-governed: nodes vote to choose projects to fund - In 2017: approximately $500k - $5M per month income Improve cryptocurrency usability, accessibility, and privacy
5. Copyright 2017 Aaron Li (aaron@qokka.ai) Copyright 2017 Aaron Li (aaron@qokka.ai) Neither launched with ICO! Monero (~$4B market cap): total privacy (algorithmic), secure - Forum Funding System: post dev projects to forum, get funded by others - 10 - 10000 XMRs per project (1 XMR ~= $250 USD today) Improve cryptocurrency usability, accessibility, and privacy Interesting blockchain crowdfunding projects?
6. Copyright 2017 Aaron Li (aaron@qokka.ai) Copyright 2017 Aaron Li (aaron@qokka.ai) Filecoin (raised $257M): store files in decentralised network - ICO to accredited investors only, with proper risk disclosure - SAFT: Simple Agreement for Future Tokens (SEC compliance) - IPFS: Inter-Planetary File System, a strong technical white paper Organise and track complex information better at scale Interesting blockchain crowdfunding projects?
7. Copyright 2017 Aaron Li (aaron@qokka.ai) Copyright 2017 Aaron Li (aaron@qokka.ai) Automated coordination between buyers, sellers, producers Basic Attention Token (raised $35M): buy/sell ads without tracking users - ICO: Raised $35M within 30 seconds. Pre-product. - Brave Browser: A browser that targets & pays users when they view ads - Led by creator of Javascript and co-founder of Mozilla & Firefox Interesting blockchain crowdfunding projects?
8. Copyright 2017 Aaron Li (aaron@qokka.ai) Copyright 2017 Aaron Li (aaron@qokka.ai) Better infrastructure for blockchain ecosystem EOS (raised $185M): “Operating system” support for smart contracts (DApps) - Addresses many pressing technical issues with Ethereum: authentication, databases, async communication, scheduling… - millions of transaction per sec, eliminate user fees, faster deployment Interesting blockchain crowdfunding projects?
9. Copyright 2017 Aaron Li (aaron@qokka.ai) Copyright 2017 Aaron Li (aaron@qokka.ai) Interesting blockchain crowdfunding projects? What are the tech elements to look at? How to evaluate a white paper?
10. Copyright 2017 Aaron Li (aaron@qokka.ai) Copyright 2017 Aaron Li (aaron@qokka.ai) What are the tech elements to look at? Some core skills of the team Distributed Computing Cryptography; Security High Performance Computing more (domain specific)… Open source project influence & adoption White paper technical merits & peer review
11. Copyright 2017 Aaron Li (aaron@qokka.ai) Copyright 2017 Aaron Li (aaron@qokka.ai) What are the tech elements to look at? Distributed Computing Cryptography; Security High Performance Computing more (domain specific)… D is a crypto theoretician. His recent math includes …... Previously he ran a MMO game that hosted millions of users with his own distributed systems S is one of the world's most talented engineer of high performance cryptography libraries. He has interests in pairing implementations, x86/x64 optimization and machine learning. A has been a system engineer at Google for over a decade. He led infrastructure projects which now virtually powers all Google’s systems, including web search Some core skills of the team Example: a blockchain infrastructure framework project:
12. Copyright 2017 Aaron Li (aaron@qokka.ai) Copyright 2017 Aaron Li (aaron@qokka.ai) What are the tech elements to look at? Open source project influence & adoption Great Err… what do tech people think?
13. Copyright 2017 Aaron Li (aaron@qokka.ai) Copyright 2017 Aaron Li (aaron@qokka.ai) What are the tech elements to look at? How to evaluate a white paper? Good blockchain crowdfunding projects?
14. Copyright 2017 Aaron Li (aaron@qokka.ai) Copyright 2017 Aaron Li (aaron@qokka.ai) How to evaluate a white paper? 1. technical problem relevant to marketing buzz ? Bad example: Some data scientist competition tool marketed as “blockchain hedge fund AI project”
15. Copyright 2017 Aaron Li (aaron@qokka.ai) Copyright 2017 Aaron Li (aaron@qokka.ai) How to evaluate a white paper? 2. original, practical, simple, scalable solution? Good example: Bitcoin “whitepaper” [Nakamoto 08] - 9 pages short, absurdly innovative - sophomore student level computer science - any entry level software engineer can contribute - scales from a few nodes to millions of nodes
16. Copyright 2017 Aaron Li (aaron@qokka.ai) Copyright 2017 Aaron Li (aaron@qokka.ai) How to evaluate a white paper? 3. Adversarial analysis? - Does the math make sense? - Incentives not to cheat? - Proof-of-work / proof-of-stake ? Good example: Bitcoin “whitepaper”, section 11 Calculation: z: number of blocks attacker is behind p: prob. attacker finds next block q: prob. honest node finds next block
17. Copyright 2017 Aaron Li (aaron@qokka.ai) Copyright 2017 Aaron Li (aaron@qokka.ai) PlexCoin: $15M Scam No original tech; No math No adversarial analysis Too many marketing jargons Not even mentioning a technical problem !!! How to spot a scam? Read their whitepaper!
18. Copyright 2017 Aaron Li (aaron@qokka.ai) Copyright 2017 Aaron Li (aaron@qokka.ai) Contact Email: aaron@qokka.ai LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaronqli/ LinkedIn QR: