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ICOrating AURORA (IDEX) Rating Review ( ......- Boreal – the network’s own price-stable...
Transcript of ICOrating AURORA (IDEX) Rating Review ( ......- Boreal – the network’s own price-stable...
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ICOrating
AURORA (IDEX) Rating Review (https://auroradao.com/)
ICO dates (11.12.2017 – 11.01.2018)
Web: icorating.com
Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @IcoRating
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The project
Name: AURORA (IDEX)
Ticker symbol: DVIP
Project type: Financial Services
Extended company description: Decentralized crypto bank and financial platform
Company: Aurora Labs S.A.
Website: https://auroradao.com/
White paper: https://auroradao.com/assets/Aurora-Labs-Whitepaper-V0.9.4.pdf
ICO details
Public ICO start date: 11.12.2017
Public ICO end date: 11.01.2018
Token sale duration (weeks): 4.428571428571429
Token type: ERC-20
Token emission: 2000
Tokens available (Pre-Sale + Public ICO): 1600
Investment goal:
- 70% - development (IDEX, Snowglobe protocol, and the Boreal and Aurora
network), launch of Aurora;
- 15% - operating expenses;
- 8% - marketing;
- 7% - legal expenses.
Price of 1 DVIP: 3000.000000 USD
Accepted payment: ETH
Token role: functional
Team
Team (number of people) 5
Advisors and partners (number of people) N/A
GitHub: https://github.com/AuroraDAO
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Social media
Twitter: Postings: 160, Subscribers: 2016
Telegram: Subscribers: 1745
Reddit: Subscribers: 41
Medium: Postings: 10, Subscribers: 91
LinkedIn: Subscribers: 22
Project description
The Aurora team implies a financial network that includes several components:
- IDEX – a crypto asset exchange.
- Decentralized Capital – a bank that provides loans in a price-stable cryptocurrency.
- Snowglobe – a protocol that allows decentralized exchanges to share one
orderbook.
- Boreal – the network’s own price-stable decentralized cryptocurrency, built on
Ethereum.
Aurora is planning to provide an advanced, open and stable financial network based
on its own Boreal currency, accessible to anyone regardless of geographic location
or status.
Aurora will provide several services such as:
- trade in crypto assets (IDEX exchange) - already functioning;
- provision of loans in Boreal (Decentralized Capital) - cryptocurrency.
Project advisors:
N/A
Project partners:
- Wings - Onboarding Wings ICOs to IDEX (http://www.globenewswire.com/news-
release/2017/12/30/1276771/0/en/WINGS-Foundation-Announces-Strategic-
Engagement-with-Aurora-Labs-to-Bring-Qualified-ICOs-to-its-Decentralized-
Exchange.html)
Attracted investments:
N/A
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Conclusion
The project is based on a crypto bank (Decentralized Capital) and a trading platform
(IDEX). Attention for the project is increasing. Currently there is the opportunity to
test the MVP of the trading platform.
Strengths of the project:
- the need for loans is constantly increasing, allowing the project to occupy a niche in
the market.
- the system will be able to support itself due to two independent sources of income.
- there is a working MVP trading platform.
Weaknesses of the project:
- there are risks associated with the lack of a marketing strategy which may result in
an insufficient number of users.
- the roadmap does not provide information on when the crypto bank will be ready for
operation, but it is a key component of the project according to the white paper.
- a lack of focus on a particular business model, which can lead to insolvency for the
project.
- the project indicates the presence of two tokens (Aura and DVIP).
Market and industry
According to a Morgan Stanley report, the lending market will reach $290 billion by
2020 with a CAGR of 51%, but this growth can basically be explained by the growing
interest in P2P lending. As can be seen from the report, the pace of bank lending will
slow down and peer lending will grow.
Regarding crypto operations, according to Juniper Research, the volume of daily
crypto transactions exceeds $2 billion; by the end of 2017 the volume of crypto
transactions may exceed 1 trillion. This is 15 times more than last year.
[https://bebeez.it/wp-
content/blogs.dir/5825/files/2015/06/GlobalMarketplaceLending.pdf],
[https://www.juniperresearch.com/researchstore/fintech-payments/blockchain]
Comments: The team does not have a marketing strategy. However, it should be
noted that the currently working IDEX exchange is gradually gaining popularity (+120
000 people for the last month). [https://www.similarweb.com/website/idex.market]
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Competitors
In the course of our research, we have identified the following competitors in the field
of stablecoins:
- Maker (makerdao.com) – A price-stable cryptocurrency, DAI, backed by
overcollateralized cryptocurrency deposits.
- Basecoin (http://www.getbasecoin.com/) - A price stable cryptocurrency backed by
central banking practices.
The following competitors can be identified among crypto exchanges:
- Etherdelta (https://etherdelta.com/) - A decentralized trading platform that allows
trading tokens based on Ethereum directly with other users.
- 0x (https://www.0xproject.com/) - An open conflict-free protocol that enables selling
ERC20 tokens on the Ethereum blockchain;
- Oasis (https://oasisdex.com/) - An online market for all kinds of token assets.
Summary: The main difference from competitors in the field of banking is the
presence of an additional source of income - IDEX, as well as the use of Boreal
currency.
As for crypto exchanges, the main advantage is the ability to make several
transactions simultaneously, as well as the ability to cancel an order without
Gas.
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Engineering features of the platform
The main components of Aurora are:
- A crypto bank (Decentralized Capital - bank that provides loans to customers in the
form of a new own stable coin Boreal);
- A financial exchange for crypto assets (IDEX exchange).
The platform allows issuing loans in a cryptocurrency (Boreal):
- To receive a loan, it will be necessary to apply to Decentralized Capital which
carries out checks for creditworthiness.
- Furthermore it is possible to use the received means for purchase of products and
services, or to sell them in the open market with the purpose of crypto conversion.
- The IDEX exchange, will be used as an additional source of income for the bank
(except for the exchange of crypto assets).
Later the team is planning to add the Snowglobe protocol, which will allow all
exchanges in the network to share liquidity in one book of orders while maintaining
their high-performance characteristics.
Snowglobe is a protocol for high-performance EVM-compatible decentralized
exchange chains. Snowglobe consists of two POS blocks. The upper is the parent,
which has the balance of each exchange stored in different smart contracts. The
lower consists of subsidiary chains used to manage assets and transactions of
individual exchange.
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Technical description
Aurora operates over a distributed computer network and uses a EVM-compatible
subsidiary chain to process transactions, decentralize the entire system and ensure
its autonomous operation.
Most of the infrastructure of Decentralized Capital will remain in the distributed
computer network; Aurora will use one of many options for this such as Golem, IEX,
Maidsafe or even its own separate network.
To determine credit ratings it will utilise Bloom, uPort, and RepSys as well as the
credit history of the borrower.
IDEX consists of a centralized trading mechanism and decentralized Ethereum smart
contracts. [https://bitnovosti.com/2017/04/06/17-blockchain-preditcions-for-2017/]
Comments: IDEX is already functioning. The team did not respond to a question
about when the crypto bank will be launched. [https://idex.market/eth/eos]
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Technical roadmap
In the future, with the development of technology and amount of data it is planned to
implement the following:
- October 2017 - IDEX launch on the mainnet. The semi-decentralized architecture
consists of Ethereum smart contracts plus a central trading engine and transaction
arbiter.
- October 2017 - API integration. Opening the platform via API access will enable the
development of trading bots, increasing the liquidity and improving te market
efficiency.
- Q2 2018 - Boreal goes live, with market making to stabilize the price.
- Q3 2018 – Deployment of Snowglobe subsidiary chain architecture, allowing IDEX
to increase transaction throughput.
- Q4 2018 - Decentralization of the orderbook and transaction arbiter. This completes
the transition of the current IDEX product to a decentralized subsidiary chain
exchange.
- Q1 2019 - Margin trading support. Including this functionality in the protocol will put
the UX on a par with the existing centralized exchanges.
- TBD – Launch of the Snowglobe MVP, allowing other exchanges to build on the
protocol. This is dependent on the development of scaling solutions such as
sharding.
- TBD – A fully decentralized Aurora MVP with Decentralized Capital Boreal loans
Comments: According to the roadmap, Only IDEX has plans for development
included; clear timings are not defined for the crypto bank and Snowglobe protocol.
The description of the technical aspect of Aurora is extensive, but there are doubts
about whether the experience of the existing technical experts is enough for the
implementation of such a diverse project.
The following active modules are available in open repository:
- idex-api-docs;
- idex;
- dcasset.
Repository screenshot:
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Comments:
- idex-api-docs: this module contains instructions on how to use IDEX API;
- idex - the module is dedicated to the interface;
- dcasset - the module contains the latest version of DCAsset contract system.
The repository belongs to the Aurora team. There is no activity being observed in the
modules, the latest updates are made about a month ago.
The contract can be found at the link below:
https://etherscan.io/address/0x2a0c0dbecc7e4d658f48e01e3fa353f44050c208#code
Summary: the project has many technical components; each of the
components has different technological directions. As a result, there are
doubts whether it is possible to implement this project in full.
Documentation
We have analyzed the AURORA website and documentation (IDEX) for sufficiency
and consistency for making an investment decision.
The documentation contains the white paper, Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.
The documentation is presented in English. In the white paper, all aspects of the
project as a whole are described in detail, but they are not connected to one system
so there are difficulties with the perception of information.
The website also provides information about the project, staging a public ICO,
describing the components of the system, frequently asked questions and the team.
The website is available in English. An additional advantage of the website is
detailed description of the project components.
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Summary: The documentation allows forming a comprehensive view of the
project. However, the relationship between the platform components is not
detailed, this gives an impression of a fragmented system.
ICO
Tokens available for sale, % N/A
Public ICO start date: December 11, 2017
Token type: ERC20
Accepted payment: ETH
1 DVIP price: 3000.000000 USD
Crowdsale duration: 4 weeks, until 11 January 2018
DVIP ownership entitles a participant to free trading on IDEX until 2021, as well as
50,000 AURA. AURA holders will earn a transaction reward for their role in securing
the network.
Token limitation: 2000
Advantages for token holders: Tokens offer opportunities to receive remuneration
and the right to free trades and/or higher market creating rewards on IDEX.
Dividends: No
Additional token emission: No
Escrow: No
Max goal: $4,800,000
Min goal: N/A
Bonus: No
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Token and capital distribution
Tokens and capital are distributed according to the following scheme:
Summary: Tokens do not affect the distribution of shares in the company.
Development plans
Roadmap of the project
Q2 2018 - stabilization of Boreal price.
Q3 2018 - deployment of the subsidiary architecture, which allows IDEX to increase
the bandwidth of transactions.
Q4 2018 - decentralization of the order and arbitration of transactions.
Q1 2019 - support of trade margin.
In the future, date TBA: launch of Snowglobe MVP.
Summary: There are no plans for scaling or market entry strategies.
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The team
The team consists of 5 people. Information about the main team members based on
LinkedIn is given below:
- Alex Wearn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexwearn/) - CEO. Worked at Amazon as
a senior product manager and at IBM as a senior PM, senior managing consultant,
and analyst for a long time.
- Phil Wearn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/philwearn/) - COO. Co-founder and
operational director at EtherEx for a year.
- Raymond Pulver (https://www.linkedin.com/in/raymond-pulver-iv-9504038a) -
Technical director. Previously, worked as a developer at the University of
Connecticut (1 year).
The team includes 2 other people.
Summary: In addition to the above-mentioned employees, the team also has a
marketing specialist and a developer (previously worked as a senior software
engineer at Jawbone).
However, we should note that the experience of the management team
presented in LinkedIn is limited, especially the technical and operational
directors.
Marketing
Information about the project is available on various popular media such as Twitter,
Telegram, Reddit, Medium, Linkedin, Github and Bitcointalk. The project has a
bounty program.
The project is active on social media. Twitter and Medium regularly have news
updated. The team communicates with its audience via Telegram.
The format of articles about the project shows that they are written mainly to the
project's order.
Comments: Interest in the project is gradually growing. The marketing campaign is
mainly being staged via Twitter.
Traffic analysis of the AURORA (IDEX) website based on Similarweb.com data
showed the following -
Traffic source:
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[https://www.similarweb.com/website/auroradao.com]
Comments: 52.46% - direct link, 41.34% - referrals, 3.22% - search.
Search traffic: 3.22%, 100%of which is "organic".
Referral links: 0.4143.
Traffic analysis of the AURORA (IDEX) website based on analysis data showed the
following:
- Traffic source: https://a.pr-cy.ru/auroradao.com [https://a.pr-cy.ru/auroradao.com]
- Site rating: 0.73.
- Attendance: visitors: 6 186, views: 24 750.
Summary: Based on the available data, it can be concluded that the project
has gained interest. The team is conducting an advertising campaign on social
media (Twitter, Medium) and communicates with users via Telegram.
Contacts
The developers may be contacted using the links below:
Website: https://auroradao.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/aurora_dao
Telegram: https://t.me/joinchat/FT1IVA8AWHiyUkU3adehxA
Medium: https://www.reddit.com/r/auroradao/
Slack: https://medium.com/aurora-dao
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/15090327/
Github: https://github.com/AuroraDAO
Bitcointalk: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2215360.0
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The information contained in the document is for informational purposes only. The views
expressed in this document are solely personal stance of the ICOrating Team, based on
data from open access and information that developers provided to the team through Skype,
email or other means of communication.
Our goal is to increase the transparency and reliability of the young ICO market and to
minimize the risk of fraud.
We appreciate feedback with constructive comments, suggestions and ideas on how to
make the analysis more comprehensive and informative.