Legolas (LGO) ICO Analysis: New Decentralized Cryptocurrency Exchange Platform

Executive Summary

Project Description

Current cryptocurrency exchange platforms suffer from some fundamental problems. Firstly, centralized exchanges are prone to attacks from hackers, and users regularly lose sizable amounts of their crypto assets. Secondly, most exchanges do not allow fiat transactions, meaning that buyers would have to move money around considerably before being able to purchase crypto assets; this is somewhat complicated and very inconvenient for the buyers. Thirdly, most exchanges are not transparent and they shield their practices not only from the authorities, but also from the investing public. This propagates a general feeling of distrust amongst the public, and governmental organisations are already discussing how to regulate cryptocurrency trading as a result. Lastly, some exchanges are accused of manipulating the market, adding to the general feeling of distrust mentioned above.

These problems are quite notable, but Legolas exchange provides some much needed solution. They want to create a fair and conducive environment for investors (both old and new) to invest in and manage their crypto assets. They aim to accomplish this by providing a hybrid of centralized and decentralized exchanges on the same platform. In doing so, they would be able to combine the security and immutability that can be found in the decentralized blockchain protocol with the transparency that a centralized system brings. Additionally, Legolas aims to create a fiat gateway, making it easy for traditional investors to get involved in cryptocurrency trading.

Legolas’ token, LGO, will be used on the platform as a payment option for all the different available services. Unlike other exchanges where commission is paid for every cryptocurrency exchange transaction, Legolas uses LGO exclusively during all transactions, obviating the need to pay a fee say when exchanging BTC for XRP. Some exchanges actually offer this option, but none of them runs it exclusively like Legolas does.

Another important point to note is that since the LGO tokens that are used to pay for transaction fees on the platform are being destroyed by 25% of the overall transaction fee value, the supply of LGO will decrease and consequently, the demand for LGO will increase with time.

Hard Cap and Valuation

The Legolas team aims to raise 3504 BTC (approx. $42 million) for 60% of their token total. 43% of this amount (1504 BTC) is earmarked for their private sale and the remaining 57% (2000 BTC) is for sale to the investing public. The remaining 40% is shared thus: 15% goes to the team, 20% is kept in the company’s reserves, and the final 5% is for their advisors. The team tokens are locked for the entirety of the first year, and bit parts of it are released every month of the second year.

Price Per Token

Private sale: 0.000035 BTC per LGO

Public sale: 0.00005 BTC per LGO

Furthermore, private sale investors received a discount of 30% on their investment compared to public sale investors.

Important Dates

LGO private sale is over and the pre-sale hard cap of 1504 BTC was met successfully. The public sale is billed to start by 12.00 p.m. GMT on the 1st of February, 2018. Prospective investors will also be interested to know that the beta release of the product is scheduled for the 1st quarter of 2018.

Marketing Power

As at the time this post was published, Legolas had 470+ Telegram users, over 2,300 followers on Twitter, over 140 subscribers on Facebook, 160+ Reddit readers, and 80 followers on Medium.

Prominent Advisors

Pierre Marrek

• Head of Equity at Exane for almost 12 years (ongoing).
• Advisor at Crypterium for 3 months (ongoing).
• Advisor at Project Shivom for 3 months (ongoing).
• Advisor at Opporty for 3 months (ongoing).
• Advisor at Protos Cryptocurrency Asset Management for 3 months (ongoing).

Jeremy Bokobza

• Founder of Volto.
• Founder of StaySafeOnline.
• Lead Engineer and Blockchain developer at Stratis Platform for almost 2 years (ongoing).

Vidal Chriqui

• Chief of Innovation & Head of Blockchain Offer at SII Group for 7 years.
• Senior Blockchain Advisor at Irene Energy for 2 months (ongoing).
• Technical Advisor at Tokenza for 3 months (ongoing).

Howey’s Test

According to Howey’s Test conducted by Research Center analysts, it is unlikely that LGO will be considered a security.

Team Members’ Areas of Expertise

Business experts

Frédéric Montagnon, Co-Founder

• Co-Founder & Chairman of Secret Media Inc. for 4 years (ongoing).
• Co-Founder & CEO of Overblock for almost 10 years.

Julien Romanetto, Co-Founder

• Advisor at the Gimli Project for a year.
• COO of Secret Media Inc. for almost 4 years (ongoing).
• Founding member of Teads.tv.

Target market experts

Ouziel Slama, Co-founder and CTO

• His development experience at Symbiont corresponds with Legolas’ target market.

Marketing experts

Hugo Finkelstein, CMO

• Founder & CEO at Olé! for 3 years.

Legal experts

No team member with notable legal expertise.

Software engineering experts

Ouziel Slama, Co-Founder and CTO

• CTO at Indépendant for almost 5 years.
• CTO at CEM for over 2 years.

Yaacov Akiba Slama, Principal Architect

• Software Developer at Safelynet Ltd. for 16 years.
• Software Engineer at IBM for 4 years.

Frédéric Martin, Security Architect

• System & Security Architect at NEOWAVE for 9 years.

Abdelmajid Oulfakir, Lead Developer

• Full-stack Developer at OPT1MIZE for a year.
• CTO at Bookclic LTD for a year.
• Lead Developer at Web Pick for almost 2 years.

Roei Erez, Lead Mobile Developer

• VP Engineering at Codebashing for a year.
• Software Architect, Team lead and R&D Manager at harmon.ie for 10 years.

Blockchain development experts

Ouziel Slama, Co-founder and CTO

• Product development at Counterparty for a year.
• Principal Software Engineer at Symbiont for over 2 years.

Frédéric Martin, Security Architect

• Co-founder of PRISMICIDE.

Token economics experts

No team member with notable expertise in token economics. However, they have advisors that have worked (and are working) with blockchain projects. These advisors will definitely have some pertinent experience with token economics.

Token sale structure experts

Same as above.

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Disclaimers:

• Nothing written in this article is a legal or an investment advice.
• Information is provided on a best-effort basis and is subject to change without prior notice. Be sure to verify everything you read with a project team.

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The analysis was produced by Research Center team members: Alexander Bugaj, Mark Jedd, and Eugene Tartakovsky.

We are constantly working on improving our work and welcome all constructive feedback. Let us know what you think.

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