In the following article I am presenting you all the ICO reviews I have done so far on my Telegram channel. Those write-ups are complementary to my ICO sheet that can be found here (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14AObHSGXZ1OaE-hCRCXXhAq3rw3UoHYFnJKpVCNHjZA/edit#gid=0). Since they were created during the time of the ICO running, some of the points here might not be as valid as they were during that period. Enjoy!

Kryll — https://kryll.io/

Alright folks I present you one of the worst-graded ICOs so far — heavy shilled Kryll. I tried to stay as objective as I can although it was not easy (they got a freaking CryptoProfessor as their ambassador — dude is going to give signals based on depth charts I guess)

Pros:
• Legit company from France — no way this is a scam in any way. Worked together on different projects already.
• Team is not supreme — but I am giving grades accordingly to the project and this squad I believe can deliver the product. They’ve created similar smaller projects in the past and are in the industry for some time already. Worked together before and have the experience of trading among them.
• The idea itself is good — there is a need for an automated tool like this even tho I think the model they are currently proposing is too simple to cover their goal of becoming a main strategy building tool for traders.

Meh:
• Competition in this space is huge already and market, even if growing, is not that big to justify such a simple bot having huge valuation
• The hype and community is small outside of big profiles shilling it (thanks to ref-links or paid promotion)
• They are using retweeting bots on twitter, the numbers there are fake.
• They’ve listed Bittrex as the exchange they will be trying to get right after the Token sale. Many ICOs do this, it’s a cheap way of creating hype. Not a biggie, but worth noting.

Cons:
• This project does not need blockchain. I could finish just with that but let’s go further.
• Token has no real utility. Payments and rewards on the platform could’ve been bypassed with fiat money, and so they admit themselves that the token is used for crowdsale and trading on the exchanges. “Fuel” for the platform is not the utility if the platform could’ve been made without usage of blockchain.
• Their whitepaper is not detailed at all, there is no business side to it, more like overall explanation of the platform with ¾ of illustrations. Appealing to the eye but leaving a lot of unanswered questions. Technical part of it doesn’t exist, the “Business Plan” takes about 1/3 of a page.
• Roadmap not really detailed and shows really long development — full version in 2019 (!), alpha in summer of this year. Early prototype in March. Quite a lot of money they are getting for a not working, and honestly not that complex, platform.

Verdict: Not investing, not even touching it until I see the platform really developed and working. Don’t let the “Yeah I got paid for promoting but I also really like the project” comments from twitter guys fool you — there are way better ICOs out there currently. Off to the next one.

PolySwarm — https://polyswarm.io/

PolySwarm is a very unique project as it stands alone in its industry right now (Hacken has different targets). I feel confident in the team’s competence to deliver their product, although it should expand going forward, but I don’t feel like current ICO market and proposed conditions make this a good short-term investment.

Pros:
• They are not really competing with other antivirus companies — they are inviting them on their platform. Gives them a lot of potential and no real direct competition, the product is unique
• Huge growing market that is waiting to be disrupted and it’s especially good as it’s aiming skills shortage (one of the most burning problems going forward)
• The team have really strong background in their respective fields. Not gonna lie, very “geeky” squad from the overall feel but that’s was kinda expected. The core has been working together previously. Not a very big squad with hiring new people not a priority (as heard on their telegram), but competent enough at this point to deliver first versions of the product
• Advisors that can actually help, not only shine with their names

Meh:
• There were some concerns about them trying to have a token price controlled in some way to limit volatility but it seems that they won’t be doing anything that drastic (answer to the convo below, although at the last AMA the team was not set on their choice on how to deal with it)

Cons:
• Cap is big (50M) and hype is only so-so. The bonuses on presale were quite big (average 46%) so I’m pretty sure I will be able to snatch it later on the exchange for a good price especially with ICOs being a little bit cold right now
• Supply is yet unknown (depends on the ICO) but it’s projected around 2 Billion. Price is kind of good for that number tho.
• We will have to wait till the end of April for MVP. The code is transparent right now but it still feels like a long time for the amount of money they are trying to gather.
• If I’m not mistaken the system that is proposed will be very effective but not as fast as normal antiviruses — the time between sending the infected file to experts and receiving the feedback would be a lot longer than simply scanning it with antivirus. That’s a flaw regarding more dangerous files. I’ve asked that question to the telegram — as soon I get my answer I will update this.

Verdict:It’s a great project with a bright future in the industry that would benefit greatly from that kind of platform, but I don’t feel ICO at this moment would a good investment. The cap is big, MVP is still over 2 months away from now and the current ICO market just doesn’t encourage me to invest in every single sound project. I will be trying to catch this one on the exchange.

Friendz — https://friendz.io/

Friendz ICO is probably one of the better projects I’ve reviewed up to this moment. There are tons of marketing coins and ICOs out there, but Friendz got the best approach I’ve seen so far with very good understanding of the industry. They are targeting influencer marketing which will continue to gain importance with normal advertising not being that efficient anymore. My main background is in digital marketing and I could see this app become pretty massive actually.

Pros:
• Already working, successful company bringing revenue with an idea that works and has a high chance of going mainstream (if it’s not knocking on that door already)
• I can go understand comments that the team is young and not very experienced (at least most of them) but they deliver. They are well diversified, got developers, marketing, business operations — solid bunch that will continue to expand. This is first such big project for the core team but I like what I’m seeing from their interviews — they seem as competent as fun. Normally would be a 3 but since the point is not to create but to expand — I am judging on their current work.
• Best presentation I’ve seen in any ICO hands down. Great analysis on the market, very good understanding of it, full transparency.

Meh:
• Numbers say that the community is huge but that’s not really the case. A lot of people are using the app — not so many are getting into interaction with their socials. There is actually not much hype here for a highest rated ICO on ICO Bench.
• Road map is too simple, whitepaper says a lot about what they want to implement in the future but I would like to have that more detailed within the timeline
• I would like to see more significant partnerships
• The main advantage is from being the first mover — not because of the idea itself. But adoption in that market is a huge deal so I can go with it (that’s why idea is 4 and not 5)

Cons:
• I don’t see advisors helping them in any way outside of ICO creation
• Hard cap is big (50M)
• Big supply (1,5B) although unsold coins will be burned
• As Monk mentioned — it will be probably considered a security because of the buy-back program

Verdict: I will be investing a bit in Power Hour and depending on how many coins will get sold in there (the more the better) I might chip in a bit more in that 20% bonus phase. I like the project, or I should rather say the company. Long hold for me.

Sharder — http://sharder.org/

This next review went out a little differently then I wanted — and comparing to other twitter profiles shilling it, I am not that bullish on Sharder. Quick note before reading — I don’t speak Chinese so the research was done with everything that was available. Big thanks to @PittRio for helping me with Chinese technical paper and to @Bit_xan for providing me with all the resources. And stay off my ass cause I’m about to talk crap about your new 100x

The good:
• Idea sounds fresh and the project in theory provides more value than current competition can.
• The ICO conditions are simply great with 250M circulating and 500M total supply for 0,035$ token price and only 10000ETH cap. Possibly instant profit from the ICO
• Fine partnerships
• The alpha of Bean Cloud is supposed to come out this month with Sharder Chain’ beta coming out in April. Mining in closed beta.

The bad:
• No team members have their face behind sharder. Their LinkedIn profiles never mention Sharder, most of the people are still working at other companies or do not have any info at all.
https://medium.com/@GalaxyeSolution/ges-and-sharder-the-journey-and-the-fud-fa4acdab47f1 — this is the actually only time where I see some info and pics on the team ouside of whitepaper. And that’s coming from the dude from cooperating company, not from Sharder’s team (the same dude is answering questions for the team since they are unavailable for a week). :arrow_right: I mean wtf, I understand it’s a chinese project, these guys are “technical” and those are early stages but if you are raising 10M dollars globally for a piece of terrible website and still promises I demand every piece of available information on plate with full transparency. I’ve seen honest scams doing better job and these guys are planning to be a multi-million $ company. :arrow_left:
• Even if I would go only by the description in the whitepaper — the team is still not that strong as everyone says. Core is meh with no serious entrepreneurial successes in the past and the rest of the squad is as generic as it can get. For 5 marketing guys with “experience in various successful projects” they are doing pretty lousy job.
• Community is non-existent outside of few people shouting “When moon” and the team is not active either. Project is gaining more traction now tho so I would observe closely if anything changes.
• Although the end goal for the idea might be worth X00 millions, I am not really that confident in the team reaching it that quickly. By the words of my favorite FA guy @cryptic_monk -

Cryptic Monk, [16.02.18 13:46]
He launched this “Conch Chain” business blockchain project only a few months ago

Cryptic Monk, [16.02.18 13:46]
and now somehow tries to merge it into sharder

Cryptic Monk, [16.02.18 13:48]
I have very closely observed Storj, it took them years to implement what they have now (Kademlia based storage system with reward on blockchain), it’s at the very least unlikely that the Sharder team can build something like this, plus make it crosschain compatible, plus integrate ZKSnarks, plus integrate a Filecoin-type proof system etc. etc.

Cryptic Monk, [16.02.18 13:49]
all within one quarter

The “so what now?”:
• This is one of those small Chinese projects not giving a damn about, well, basically anything outside of slowly working on their stuff. Their communication and presentation is unacceptable, lack of transparency would be screaming for scam if this was any other project (I actually still have my concerns, I will be watching closely their change of approach before the ICO). The only thing saving it right now are stellar ICO conditions — if it manages to get more traction I might enter for a quick flip and decide on longer hold when I see some confidence in them delivering the product and finally starting to act like a normal business and not a high school project taking advantage of noobs in crypto.

TraDove — https://bbcoin.tradove.com/

TraDove — weak presentation with really lackluster whitepaper and pretty bad ICO conditions (52M cap, high token price of 0.16$ with 1 billion supply and sale going pretty slowly) overshadowed by really strong team and advisors. Product already working for a few years now and B2B platform idea also seems to have some realistic potential of working mainstream. Project’s roadmap and development points at longterm investment, that’s why I will be trying to catch it on the exchanges.

BlockEx — https://www.blockexmarkets.com/

BlockEx — Digital Assets Exchange that will be mainly focusing on ICOs, providing presale spots on the platform (overall hot topic recently). Success depends mainly on type of projects they will be able to get on board. Team is solid, everybody got good background in their specific areas, advisors are diversified — overall big, competent bunch that surely can deliver their product. The ICO conditions are meh, cap is pretty big and there is absolutely zero hype — sale is going on forever already, telegram has less than 2k users. Project is fine but I don’t see the need to rush into it in ICO.

GBX — https://gbx.gi/

Gibraltar Blockchain Exchange — world’s first licensed and regulated token sale platform and digital asset
exchange, operated by an European Union regulated stock exchange. They will be the first exchange to also embrace tokenized securities. Fiat deposits, ICO platform, regular stock exchange — all in one. Team is stellar, years of heavy experience both in blockchain and financials/stocks. Tons of high profile partners (EEA, QASH), exchange ready to launch after ICO. From the cons — big supply, small available ICO cap and clearly bought likes/retweets. Bullish as hell.

Faceter $FACE https://tokensale.faceter.io/

Pros:
• System for surveillance capable of detecting objects/faces and doing analysis of the surroundings. Very cool idea that works for business and individual clients increasing their security
• Already working MVP and it looks impressive, very high tech
• Aims at very rapidly growing market (projected to be worth over 70 Billion by 2022)
• Product already tested with few companies after receiving 1.2M backing and creating working version.
• Product has a real use case, AI involved — it’s very ambitious but could be huge if it manages to work and be affordable by regular customer
• They are working on a partnership program with Axis — global leader in surveillance hardware
• Very neat presentation, with complex whitepaper and video presentation. Communication on social channels very active
• Part of the tokens will be constantly burned
• Team already did have a successful project together and the core of it has a lot of experience in their respective areas. Wouldn’t depend my life on them but they deliver.

Cons:
• Big supply — 1 billion (although unsold tokens will be burned)
• There is 0 hype about this project yet and community is still very small — 3k telegram followers, 1k on twitter
• The project is REALLY ambitious — hard to tell how possible it is to adopt that technology in mainstream. Costs are really high and technology needs to be very accurate
• Only 1 advisor and no partnerships — this has to change if they planning to be as big as the idea itself seems
• Team lacks blockchain experience. It’s a very complex project, they probably will need more resources than this to deliver promises.

Meh:
• Price of the token — 0,1$ not terrible from investment psychology POV (owning big number of coins) but with that supply nothing to be excited about
• Quiet high max cap (40M), but the funds distribution justifies that number

Verdict: Although there are some concerns about team’s ability to deliver the tech to mass client adoption, its current position of already working product is really promising. I will be looking forward to their next developments and potential partnerships as the whole idea feels really fresh and potentially massive. I am in.

Legolas $LGO https://legolas.exchange/

Pros:
• A lot of hype for this one, exchanges are an overall bullish trend now + it’s one of the most popular ICOs on twitter rn. Nice community with over 11k people on telegram
• Hybrid exchange, allows trading directly from Ledger, high security features
• They allow both crypto and fiat deposits/withdrawals (Makor partnership) — they are aiming at institutional money
• LGO token supply will be decreasing over time with 25% of transaction fees will be destroyed. That will increase demand significantly in the long run
• Relatively small supply if they reach the cap — 174,214,285.71
• Team is very transparent and active, no red flags here. They are mature and have experience in their fields. Not an all-star squad but I would trust them more than Credits team for example.

Cons:
• Big discounts in the previous rounds
• Big twitter profiles shilling it with ref links. Wonder at which moment they are going to dump it on their followers. Project is close to being overhyped
• Roadmap is non-existent. Only Beta and Exchange date launches, nothing besides that.
• Team lacks blockchain experience — nice to have Lead Engineer of Stratis as an advisor but that’s not much

Meh:
• Token price around 50 cents right now
• Cap could’ve been a little bit lower (over 3500 BTC)

Verdict:The project fundamentally stands out from all the other exchanges, but I am little bit hesitant with all the shilling and project being supposedly traded on other DEXes almost instantly after the distribution (time to dump some cheap tokens and get profits while the market is stagnant). This is definitely a good token to hold for the future but I am not sure if the ICO is the best way to get it. It’s a toss-up for me between investing and grabbing some after it hits DEXes, will probably be a last minute decision.

$EXY Experty https://experty.io/en

Pros:
• Low maximum supply — 100M with token price around 1$
• Only 9M hard cap on pre-sale + ICO — very big plus
• Big community (19k telegram) and hype around it — I’m expecting it to sell out pretty quickly
• Very solid advisors — people from Bitfinex, ETH, Golem, Bitcoin Suesse + twitter famous Josh Olszewicz
• They do have a prototype
• Fundamentals look good — the idea is well thought, team is responsive to questions, whitepaper very easy to understand (although roadmap could’ve been more precise)
• Based on an already existing company ReactPoland, so no red flags about the foundation

Cons:
• Core of the team looks weak. Never managed something that big before. The applications that came from ReactPoland also never really did much of a noise.
• Only 33% percent of tokens for the public — tons of bonuses for the partners
• They have no partnerships. App won’t have a marketplace itself so it’s essential for them to get partnerships with other platforms to integrate there Experty

Meh:
• ICO model seems to bring a lot of problems to people, they are having hard time verifying (I admit it’s pretty rough)
• The idea is fine, I can see it working but it’s nothing mind-blowing. Looks good on paper but I am not really confident in it being really big in the future. If they cannot get a lot of good experts, there will be only few that won’t be able to answer all the calls

Verdict — I might chip in some bucks because of the hype and low ICO cap, but I do not feel confident in holding this coin long-term. It requires big partnerships and names to make it work outside of only couple of experts that decided to use to app right now. Until I see any of that happening I will probably just flip it short-term and decide on its future later.

$ADH AdHive https://adhive.tv/

Pros:
• Low ICO cap — 15 million. Exchanges planned right after ICO closes.
• Fine token price — around 0.20$ + small bonuses
• Total supply 450M, with unsold tokens being burned. Around 150M should be locked up till the 2 sale in Q3/Q4 2019. Distribution is planned the way that the tokens could steadily increase their value
• Already working alpha
• They put a lot of emphasis on the value of the token and its use cases. Good understanding not only of their market (media) but also general crypto ecosystem.
• Partnership with Wings, Bancor and Adex (those are also Advisors + IOTA co-founder)
• Video marketing is getting more important day by day, same with influencers. The idea is targeting industry at the perfect moment, just before it gets overall dominance above other marketing channels. AI is going to be a big trend in 2018. And it also approaches the growing problem of adblocking
• Overall good feel — long-term roadmap, active communication from the team, understandable whitepaper

Cons:
• Like with every other crypto marketing project (LBC) — until I see a really big name using it — I am skeptical about mainstream adoption. The problems they are trying to solve are real but not urgent enough imo to get real influencers encouraged to use different platforms yet.
• Team got experience in the industry but is not by any means great. Outside of co-founders which got some serious background in development and AI, the rest of the squad is mediocre. The idea is big, could be a game-changer for the industry but I don’t have enough confidence in them that they are the right people to bring blockchain + video/speech recognition marketing to life.

Meh:
• Almost absolutely nobody talks about it even tho they have ref links. Why there is no marketing?
• Telegram community only at 4k

Verdict — I probably will put in some money because of the low ICO cap. Comparing to other marketing projects out there this one would be really undervalued, especially with already working Alpha. Depending on how the development is going to look it’s more of a mid-term hold till it gets more recognition. Not really planning to hold it for my dear life unless I really see the platform being used by bigger audience.

$BIRD BirdChain https://www.birdchain.io/

Pros:
• Very clear use case, disruptive to A2P SMS market, aims to create basic passive income for all the users through selling unused SMS to companies
• Part of already established and successful company Vertex (clients like MasterCard, Western Union etc)
• They are targeting big market worth around 60 billion $
• Small soft and hard cap (1500 and 10500 ETH) + all unsold tokens will be burned
• Very cheap tokens (no specific price given, currently it’s around 60k for 1 ETH)
• Low circulating supply considering low token price (maximum 580,263,158 but with a high chance of being lower after the ICO)
• Good diversified team with experience in that field. No huge names there but an overall solid bunch. They make a very good impression on the speeches they’ve given already and on telegram where they are very active. Enough for what the project plans to deliver.

Cons:
• No product. First version to be ready in 6 months and “The official app presentation is planned at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in 2019”.
• No roadmap although they confirmed on telegram that they are working on it
• Their use case is very specific. If they fail at it one there are basically no other ways of bringing value to the token

Meh:
• They listed binance and bittrex in their whitepaper as the exchanges they want to get into — seems like a cheap trick to lure investors
• Pretty lackluster advisors
• Their SWOT analysis show almost no weaknesses or threats — lol

Verdict — I did invest in it mostly because of the really cheap price and very clear idea that simply makes sense. If they deliver it I could be even looking profit levels around x50 in mid/long-term once the project gets more recognition (doesn’t mean it will, stop drooling over that number). The risk is a bit higher because of the lack of product right now, but I am willing to trust the team on delivering. Worth a shot.

$MEDTOKEN MedicalChain https://medicalchain.com/en/

Pros:
• Possibly best health records storage tech in crypto (superior to $PTOY in every aspect)
• Great communication from the team and big community (21k on telegram) although it’s still quiet about it on twitter. Team is active on every social media channel there is out there
• Relatively small circulation token amount (around 200 million from maximum 500)
• Reasonable cap on ICO (24 million)
• Alpha already working, partnership with NHS
• As professional as ICO can get I guess, everything from whitepaper to the website and team approach is stellar. Roadmap also shows good longterm vision
• Cannot complain on a team — rich backgrounds, high positions, a lot of really good business experience. The project is ambitious but the team is capable of delivering

Cons:
• I am skeptical about blockchain usage in medical industry — with governments involved etc it makes it extremely difficult for the projects to get any level of tech adoption. Almost impossible IMO

Meh:
• I might be blind but the developers team is almost none existent?

Verdict: I have a hard time trusting medical projects in crypto because I simply do not believe they can work. Although this one is head and shoulders above current competition and looks stellar in almost every way so I will probably invest in it. Shout-out to @Cryptobargains for tipping us that one

$CS Credits https://credits.com/en/

Pros:
• Very good product. Smart contract platform with 1M transactions per second, very low fees, java language. If they would deliver — few billion dollar project. This summarizes it pretty good — https://credits.com/Content/Docs/PresentationENG.pdf
• Good team communication, growing community, constant updates
• Unsold tokens will be burned
• They got MVP
• Fine cap on ICO (20 million overall)
• No red flags

Cons:
• Team. Mostly consists of marketing background and “crypto enthusiasts”. Not a single person with a business background good enough to convince me it can be a few billion $ project. Quantity over quality.
• Advisors. Nitin Gaur is nice but other than that — meh. No big names there, mostly “skilled in Blockchain technologies” kind of help
• Big supply — 1 billion tokens

Meh:
• ICO token price (0.21 USD and almost no bonus)
• Where are some partnerships? Additional backing?
• Roadmap should be more detailed, this one is dissapointing and lacks long-term vision

Verdict — might invest a small amount for the speculation purposes. The product is really good but I am lacking more confidence that this team can manage a giant they are supposedly creating. Congrats to those who got in pre-sale, much better conditions than now

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