Coreto: A Smarter Way of Leveraging the Wisdom of Crowd
Note: This is a sponsored article written in consideration for a bounty reward. We are tasked to write an honest and insightful reflection on the struggles when searching relevant information about potential investments based on our own experience and how Coreto will be able to help us on this undertaking
The Problem
It has been a common notion to many crypto investors that investing in cryptocurrencies might be their ticket to finally hit it big and attain financial freedom. While there is some truth to that as lucky early investors in the space reaped the rewards of risking a substantial amount of money in crypto early on, it must be noted that investment opportunity like that seldom presents itself, and it is primarily the responsibility of the investor to seek out crypto investments that will let them achieve their financial goals.
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However retail investors like me usually do not have the investment sophistication and resources to effectively choose which of the projects are legitimate or which one will give the highest possible returns if any at all. With limited options I turned to famous online crypto personalities who seem to be or at least behave like crypto financial experts. I am always at awe whenever they show off their trading gains and returns from their recent crypto investments which I tried to emulate with limited success.
How can this be I ask myself. Despite following the financial opinions of these experts to the letter I keep on losing on my trades and most of their recommended projects turn up dead investments months later. It all turns out that these supposed crypto and blockchain experts whose only credentials are massive followers are either paid content creators, marketers, ambassadors or frauds that do not fully disclose the true nature of their relationship with the investment project they share and do not show the actual results of their actual trades and investments.
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Who to blame?
We cannot really blame them as they usually mention a disclaimer that states that what they are sharing should not be taken as financial advice but financial opinions and are shared for educational purposes only. But stubborn crypto investors like me always forget this little detail, more so when fear of missing out (FOMO) start to sets in. As I have said earlier the lure of hitting it big and becoming an instant “cryptonaire” is strong. We just love chasing that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
It is no secret that I have failed in many of my crypto investment endeavors before many of these investments were just too good to pass up. Who could forget the billion dollar ponzi scheme Bitconnect which was able to scam hundreds of thousands of unsuspecting investors including myself. I believe that scams like this thrives due to the lack of knowledge of people participating in this type of investment scheme and this can only be remedied if the right and timely information is readily available to prospective investors. It would also help immensely if retail investors have access to reputable crypto experts that not only shares valuable, accurate and insightful information but has a good performance track record to back their claims.
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The importance of having the right and timely information could spell the difference between a life changing investment that could lead to a lifetime of wealth and abundance and utter financial ruin like the ponzi scheme Bitconnect which has destroyed lives. Scams like this does not seat well with authorities and main stream media which are both quick to generalize that fault of one crypto project as the fault of crypto space with the latter seem to always focus on the negatives and portray the emerging new asset a simply a tool that criminals and terrorize use.
Yet all the information to evaluate a certain investment or trade is readily available online. The problem is it is all over the internet and with so much information available online it is too difficult to determine which information is timely, legitimate, relevant and most important of all trustworthy. To make things worst some of blockchain projects hire marketing teams or create bots in order to shill their project and spread overly positive information about their project diluting credible information.
What can be done?
One person trying to research on a particular crypto project can be a daunting task given the scarcity of legitimate, timely, relevant and transparent source not tainted with marketing materials from the project itself. Knowing that two heads is better than one, retail investors often times turn to crypto communities to ask the community members’ insights about investment which often times turns out be a useless endeavor. People they ask know no better than them or worse they accidentally interact with the exact people they should be avoiding, paid marketers of the company or the paid FUDsters, the former seeking to market the project they support the latter trying to besmirch the project to lessen investor interest which are usually from a competing project. One popular crypto forum that I used to frequent has turned into a warzone of shillers or those who try to hype the crypto projects they support and FUDsters those who try to spread fear uncertainty and doubt.
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Nevertheless I still believe that we can get valuable insight from the wisdom of the crowd and if done correctly can pay massive dividends in our decision making. We just have to extract the useful, meaningful and truthful information from the crowd and remove any the unnecessary noise that does not add value to it. I wish there is a platform where investors, influencers and blockchain projects could interact transparently, reliably and effectively to help me make a better informed investment decisions and thus help us attain a better chance of reaching my financial goals, with Coreto I think I have finally found the perfect platform that would address this pressing need. A feature rich platform where one can safely and confidently do their own research (DYOR). A place where retails investors can get valuable and timely guidance from reputable resource persons.
The Coreto Platform
According to the pitch deck of Coreto its primary purpose is to “educate the world about the transformative power of blockchain by connecting all the participants in the ecosystem.” This is made possible by creating a venue, a single platform, where cumulative opinions of experienced influencers can be accessed by prospective investors to get a better understanding of blockchain projects and enable them to make a more informed decision.
The Coreto team believes that most retail investors make investments by either guessing or using their gut. This method exposes them to risk as they forego due diligence and in essence is no different from gambling. The Coreto team adds that they, the retail investors, can either be lucky or outright wrong which may cause dire consequences for them.
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To address this problem the Coreto team is building a reputation-based social platform which leverages the immutability and transparency properties of the blockchain technology. This platform will be designed to bridge the trust gap between blockchain investors, influencers, and project teams.
In short Coreto will be based on the most valuable asset a user can have: TRUST.
Participants in the Coreto Platform
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There are three primary groups in the Coreto Ecosystem. The first group is the investors who can be considered the primary consumers in the platform. Most of them are retail investors and traders that lack experience and market education. They generally have low level of financial literacy and have a hard time identifying reliable information sources despite spending a lot of time on research. They can be considered the secondary content creators in the platform as they provide important feedback to contents shared by the influencers. Their participation is an important part of the Stacking of Opinion Pool (SOOP) which is used to establish thrust within the Coreto platform.
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The second group is the influencers who are considered the primary content creators of the platform. Most of them have a hard time to provide a clear statistical picture of their performance without subscribing to different data analytics tools that often times need additional interpretation and software in order to present it in a manner understandable by their audience. In an industry that is predominantly measured by the number of subscribers too much time and energy is wasted trying to get subscribers that is scattered across multiple social media channels, wasted resources that otherwise could have been spent producing better content. In Coreto the number of followers will not be the sole metric to measure overall score but will also consider a combination of trust and performance scores.
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The last group is the Blockchain Project Teams which can be considered the products of the platform. In a sense they can also be considered the secondary consumers of the platform as they can get valuable insight about crowd sentiment on their project. They can use this information to improve their project or make the timely and necessary strategic adjustment to attract more positive reviews and reputable influencers which ultimately leads to more investment inflow. The platform can also be a valuable resource in finding quality advisors that will help them develop a better project.
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Key Features of the Coreto Platform
One of the key features of Coreto and perhaps the most unique one at that is the Stacking of Opinion Pool (SOOP). This is where the wisdom of the crowd comes into play as the data collected will provide the general sentiment of the crowd on a particular project. Lustina Faraon, CEO and co-founder of Coreto was kind enough to explain how this exactly works when I was in their telegram group channel.
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Let's take the example of a trader. He constantly posts trading charts and ideas, sometimes even gives out signals. All of these actions will be stored on the blockchain for future proof and transparency. The outcome of his opinions will translate into a "Performance" Score. His followers can also join in his Opinion Pool and share the risks and rewards. Based on the percentage of followers that join his Opinion Pool, his "Trust" meter will be influenced. The combination of Trust and Performance will result in his overall score. This is how they build their Reputation. The "beauty" of Coreto is that other trader/influencer can link their own opinion pools for the same trade. If the majority disputes the original opinion and the real outcome of that trade will also show that it was wrong, the Performance score of the trader will be influenced. When they participate in SOOPs (stacking of opinion pools), backing their opinions with COR (Coreto Tokens which will be discussed later) will have a higher weight versus if they don't add COR. It's like: Putting your tokens where your mouth is..... The same applies to ICOs and IEOs. (But these will take a bit longer to reflect in his overall score) Let's say Influencer 1 does an ICO review, and ends it by opening a SOOP about the ROI that ICO will make in a given time. Other 3 or 5 Influencers adhere to its SOOP but have a different opinion ... before the actual ROI is revealed ….. that SOOP is marked as "uncertain," giving investors something to think about before following Influencer 1. In time, these "bad calls" or "fraudulent" reviews … will have a huge impact on the trustworthiness of Influencer 1 and he will not be able to create a good reputation.
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The next feature is the integration of Machine Learning (ML) technology into the platform. Powerful ML algorithms will be implemented to provide valuable insights on investor interest, trends, trust and segment statistics on all relevant metrics as well as provide predictions about the subject matter. ML is one of the most important emerging technologies of our time. It has been cited as one of the cornerstones of the 5th industrial revolution together with Artificial Intelligence, Internet-of-things and Blockchain Technology among others.
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Another feature is Gamification of the Coreto platform. The main aim of this feature is to give additional incentives to content creators to always give their best. This is done by providing the right incentives and task that will unlock new features and gain additional rewards. The healthy competition among content creator helps the platform to always provide its consumers the very latest, most relevant, timely and ultimately trust worthy content. Competition within the platform ensures to bring out the best of everyone.
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The fourth key is the ability to book one-on-one sessions with influencers whom we trust and follow. This provides users and blockchain projects team direct access to blockchain experts as well as enabling these experts/influencers to monetize their time. The value of having a direct access to blockchain experts could never be under stated. The wealth and depth of their knowledge could help you identify profitable investments, avoid fraudulent or weak projects and perhaps help make that all important buy or sell call.
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Rumors stack is another key feature that adds significant value into Coreto’s platform. Fake news has been a global problem ever since the internet opened the floodgates of unfiltered and democratized information. Fake news commonly takes the form of rumors which if left unchecked could lead unsuspecting investors to bad investment decisions. To address this problem all rumors are evaluated and filtered to minimize fake news within the platform. I can imagine that he Rumors stack will be a special designated section of the platform where unverified and unsubstantiated information are shared.
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The last two features include streaming data feeds for instant updates and high level of security. According to the Coreto team users do not need to refresh the page to see data updates. This will provide timely information delivery which is an important feature to the crypto capital markets that is widely considered as one of, if not, the most volatile and fastest moving asset class in the world. The platform also provides powerful data encryption, privacy and blockchain based data accuracy. This is another important feature as the platform builds its business around thrust, which requires robust security to protect the integrity of its data. The blockchain guarantees this all important feature.
Coreto Tokens and Coreto Initial Coin Offering
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Center to the Coreto ecosystem is the use of Coreto Tokens (COR). According to Vlad Faraon, CBO and co-founder of Coreto, in one of his Telegram messages state that:
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COR tokens are utility tokens. They will be used to participate in Stacking of Opinion Pools … subscribe to premium content from influencers, upvoting/downvoting projects and influencers, auctioning for 1-on-1 mentoring sessions with them (influencers)… Those who register as influencers or win the trust of the community and level up to influencer status, will use them for stacking, as it will give them a boost in the weight of “trust” they will have. But this is temporary, as they will have to “perform” in order to keep their place. Projects will pay with COR to claim their pages and other services we’ll provide for them.
As we can see COR is essentially the currency that will be used within the Coreto platform. Users will use them to pay for subscription based content, payments for mentoring sessions and use as a “stake” in participation in Stacking of Opinion Pools (SOOP). Conversely content creators (influencers) will accept COR as payments for their subscription based contents as well as payments if they mentor users. Like users they will use this to start Stacking of Opinion Pools. Blockchain projects will use COR as fees to claim their page in the Coreto platform, Pay for Airdrop campaigns and for random influencer reviewing campaigns.
Currently the Project is conducting their presale of their Initial Coin Offering (ICO) which started May 15, 2019 and will run through July 16, 2019. Coreto is holding its presale in an Daicore, an ICO investment management Plaform which allows investors to make informed decisions about when to join or withdraw from an ICO. The presale gives prospective investors a whopping 60% discounts on the tokens which are usually only seen in private sales. This made me wonder why they have opted to conduct a public-presale instead of a private sale. According to Vlad:
We decided NOT to hold a private sale, as it doesn't quite align with our core principle. In this case, being close to the community we're planning to build around Coreto. Normally, as I'm sure you are all aware, private investors receive very good deals based on the amount they invest. We decided to pass those advantages to our early community members.
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11 Million Coreto Coins are available for sale during the pre-sale with the target of around $300,000 USD. The target goal of the team is to raise 9.8 million USD (Hard cap) with a soft cap of around 2.5 million USD when the main sale is commenced.. Funds raised during this phase will be used mostly for the development of its Most Viable Product which is set to launch in the last quarter of this year. This will account for 45% of the amount raised. 30% of the funds generated by the pre-sale will be used for marketing to gain more traction of the project; 20% for personnel hires and 5% for Legal and administration.
Total supply distributions are as follows:
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My honest thoughts about the project
As you can see I always put an effort to all the bounty programs I join. Since I don’t have the luxury of time I always try to participate on bounties that have high potential and would benefit the wider crypto community. This project seeks to address the prevalent problem of retail investors being suckered into bad investments by giving them access to timely, relevant and trustworthy resources that will empower them to decide effectively. I honestly believe that this is one of those projects that is worth spending my time on and participate on its development in whatever capacity I can offer as an investor, community member or bounty hunter.
One glaring characteristic when I am looking into this project is how polished everything seems to be. From their simple but effective website down to how they explain details about their project. This already gives me an idea of what to expect from their Most Viable Product which is planned to be launched later this year. The goal of the project resonates well with me as I have in the past been a victim of bad investments of my own doing and been a gullible consumer of endorsements of so called crypto influencers that have not been totally honest with what they share.
I also had the pleasure of interacting directly with the founders of this project and somehow felt how passionate they are about their project but not to the point of projecting false hopes of massive gains or inculcate false notion of hitting it big. However, I got the impression initially that their financial projections and targets are too conservative. But one of the founders quell my concerns stating that their business model and expenses are well calculated. He also revealed that they are not like many projects that chose to throw a lot of money on events that don’t bring any ROI or pay double for services that they could easily find for less.
They have been consistent in stressing the importance of community and building a platform of trust. In fact Lustina the CEO of Coreto.io wants to stay in close contact with the Coreto community, perhaps this is the reason why she was one of the people manning the telegram channel and this was made more apparent when Vlad stated above that one of the reasons they decided to conduct a public sale is to stay close with the community and afford them the opportunity that is usually reserved to big investors.
It is apparent that founding members of the project is here for the long haul. My experience from past projects reminds me that it is still a long road ahead for this project, however if you have leaders like this who have unwavering fidelity to their core values it is more likely to succeed. In other words I highly recommend you check out the project and consider supporting the project in whatever capacity you would like to offer. In my case I have already decided to be part of this community and participate in their bounty program and I am positively leaning towards participating in their pre-sales and just awaiting the release of their whitepaper to finalize my decision to decide how much I am willing to risk on the project.
There you go that is my honest opinion about the Coreto project. I hope you have gained valuable insight about the project and please do not hesitate to call my attention on the comments section if you have inquiries about Coreto.
For more information you might want to the social media links of the project below.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Coretoio
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/coretoio/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/coreto.io
Medium: https://medium.com/coreto
Web: https://coreto.io
Telegram: https://t.me/Coreto
ICO Platform: https://projects.daicore.io/Coreto