Investment through Private and Public Sales - Crypto Academy / S4W6 - Homework Post for @fredquantum

aneukpineung78 (69)in SteemitCryptoAcademy • 3 years ago

This is my homework post for Steemit Crypto Academy Season 4 Week 6 of Professor @fredquantum’s class of Investment through Private and Public Sales.

Note : I performed this task on Windows 10 PC, Google Chrome.

Task 1 - About Crypto Investment

1.1. My Understanding on Crypto Investment

Internet technology has changed the world tremendously. Digital life that was previously at the level of ideas was so difficult to be accepted by the logic, has now become a new reality. The Internet has been changing the way people interact and work, change ways of life, and offering many new possibilities.

And, before things get cold, we are suddenly faced with the next level: blockchain technology. The changes that are brought into life are becoming more and more distant. The possibilities are becoming more and more varied.

One of the revolutionary aspects of blockchain is the emergence of a decentralized economy. And with it the use of digital currency. Digital currency or cryptocurrency has now become one of the popular trading and investment assets.

There are many stories about people who made a big fortune from cryptocurrency technology. We can also see how the value (price) of cryptocurrencies fluctuates from time to time. And what was most astonishing of all, maybe, was how the value of the first cryptocurrency, Bitcoin (BTC), crept up to be very expensive, according to CoinGecko it has ever been reaching as high as USD64,804.72 on Apr 14^th 2021.

^{The logo of Bitcoin as seen here. Bitcoin is the very first blockchain ever implemented to live. It has the native token of the same name symbolized by BTC.}

Cryptocurrencies may have become the new idol of investment, especially among millennials. But even though there have been many success stories of cryptocurrency investors, it does not mean that everyone can simply put their money in a digital currency with no risk at all. The digital currency market is a highly volatile market. New players should first learn a few relevant things about the world of cryptocurrencies before deciding which digital money to invest in.

^{The TABOO/IDR price movement chart in this 1h timeframe can represent an overview of cryptocurrency price fluctuations in general. The image is a screenshot of CoinMarketCap page.}

Basically, investing in digital currencies is not much different from investing in stocks. The difference is that the stock market is a physical market (in the sense that stocks represent physical objects traded by companies), while digital currencies, as the name implies, are digital. But the laws of investment remain the same for both, therefore the relevant knowledge of stock trading and investing is also relevant to be applied to digital currency investments.

Today, there are countless digital currencies available to own as an investment or trading asset. Learning more about the preferred digital currency will be more profitable for potential investors than completely trusting the advice or recommendations of others.

1.2. Utilizing the Investment Tools

One of the relevant knowledges that can help someone make a good investment and minimize potential losses is to take advantages of investment tools. The most popular tools that are known in the investment world are divided in to Technical Analysis and Fundamental Analysis.

1.2.1. Technical Analysis

Basically, technical analysis is an activity of observing charts to identify trends and patterns^[Source]. In trading activities, technical analysts collect price movement and volume data. With that, trading opportunities can be identified^[Source]. Technical analysis discipline treats past trading activity and prices as aspects that have an important influence on future price movements.

It must be accepted as a fact that no technical analysis tool is perfect and always correct. Therefore, experienced traders advise combining several indicators at once. Thus, confirmation of the signals will be more acceptable.

Technical analysis tools are divided into these indicators:

Chart patterns
Oscillators
Moving Averages (MA)
Price trends
Support and Resistance levels
Volume and momentum indicators

^{Example of implementation of technical analyzing on TRX/USDT chart on 4h timeframe. The technical analysis indicators used were two Exponential Moving Averages (EMAs) and Williams Percent Range (WPR). The image is a screenshot from TradingView.}

1.2.2. Fundamental Analysis

Fundamental analysis has a striking difference with technical analysis. Rather than observing historical price patterns or stock trends, fundamental analysis focuses on a company's financials^[Source]. In fundamental analysis, securities are evaluated. This is done by trying to measure the intrinsic value of an asset or stock. All fundamental things related to an asset or stock are considered important to learn, including the financial condition and management of the company. Things like earnings, expenses, assets, and liabilities are important in fundamental analysis^[Source]. By understanding these things, fundamental analysts draw conclusions and determine their position on an asset or stock.

Both tools help investors and potential investors understand what is going on and predict what is going to happen in the market. Tools can help provide information that will allow investors and potential investors to understand the current money movements and when to enter the market or exit it.

1.2.3. Related Information: Important Supports

In addition to the two main tools, investors or potential investors will also benefit more if they get additional information that is relevant to what is happening in the market. Information is no less important in the investment world. It has an important role in helping traders understand the market further. Not once have we heard the statements of certain people that caused a catastrophic correction in the value of digital currencies. For example, the price of Bitcoin soared after Tesla CEO, Elon Musk on February 8^th, 2021 stated that Tesla would accept Bitcoin as legal tender.

^{The price chart of BTC as seen on CoinGecko shows the price was significantly corrected as a reaction to Elon Musk’s statement.}

Task 2 – Private / Pre / Public Sale

2.1. Private Sale

2.1.1. The Meaning

Private sale in business terms means direct sales without intermediaries, for example developers offering their property directly to potential buyers, without going through a bank or other intermediary institution. In the world of cryptocurrency, the meaning is no different from that, it's just that the assets are in the form of digital currency, namely the offering of tokens or coins by the issuer directly to potential investors. Private sale is an effort to raise funds in the early stage. Thus, it is hoped that early investors can be attracted to participate in funding the project from the token issuer.

2.1.2. The Benefits

The advantages offered by private sales are:

for coin issuers: can raise the necessary funds to ensure the continuity of their project,
for investors:
- an opportunity to get a number of tokens or coins at a very low price,
- big bonuses and discounts which make a very cheap price when compared to the expected future price,
- when token comes to live, the private-sold investors can make a quick profit taking,

2.1.3. The Risks

In this case, the risk is only faced by the investors, namely:

Possible scam, there have been several examples of coin or token offerings that turned out to be scams,
There is no certain time when the project will run, so at this stage investors cannot predict when they can withdraw profits,
The project might fail and the investors will end up loosing money instead of making profit,
at this stage, token liquidity is very low to non-existence since it is still far from public release.

2.2. Presale

2.2.1. The Meaning

Presale is the process of selling or offering tokens before an ICO (Initial Coin Offering). In the presale, tokens are sold to interested investors at a special price. The purpose of conducting a presale is more or less the same as a private sale: so that the developer can get the funds needed to take the project further. In addition, the presale can also be used by developers to create a "buzz" in the hope that the price of the coin will increase during the ICO.

2.2.2. The Benefits

For developer (coin issuer): a way to raise the needed funds, and an opportunity to increase the coin value.
For investor:
- an opportunity to purchase the tokens at a lower price than the expected price when it goes public (on ICO or crowd-sale),
- opportunity to buy more tokens,
- a quick profit taking can be made when the token is going public (on ICO or crowd-sale)

2.2.3. The Risks

On investors side:
- If the project fails, investors will find themselves holding worthless tokens, impossible to make profit,
- still a low token liquidity since it is still waiting for trading,
- no guarantee that the ICO will be successful,
On developers’ side: the presold token holders might sell their tokens to make profit shortly after the public launch, it could drop the price.

2.3. Public Sale

2.3.1. The Meaning

Public sale is also called crowdsale or crowd sale. It is said as the most important stage in an ICO. At this stage, the tokens are available on sale and everyone can participate. In the public sale, tokens are usually traded at a higher price than the previous stages.

2.3.2. The Benefits

At this stage, the risk has been reduced since the project has been more developed,
compared to presale and private sale, investor can purchase at a lower amount of tokens,
it has greater liquidity now since it is nearing the trading,

2.3.3. The Risks

if tokens are sold out during the presale, then public sale can be canceled,
there could be token dumping conducted by previous stage investors,

Task 3 - The Mediums Used for Private/Pre/Public Sales in Cryptocurrency

3.1. Project Website

Websites are an important means of reporting details regarding token or coin offerings. Websites are usually useful in public sale stages. Project owners (coin issuers) can list coin offerings on various possible platforms, and there they need to provide related information, including websites, so that interested potential investors can get more information.

On the official website, the implementation procedure is explained, both the requirements and other related matters. For example, the website https://antex.org/ of AntEx which is currently conducting an ICO and will end on October 17th. On this website, potential investors can get information about AntEx and the ICO being implemented, and this will help potential investors determine their position on the ICO.

^{The screenshot image of AntEx website. AntEx is a decentralized financial infrastructure which is currently holding an ICO.}

3.2. Crypto Launchpad

Crypto Launchpads are the crypto platforms that provide information on crypto projects which are still in early stage of their development. It helps investors find the new potential crypto project to invest on. Among the popular crypto launchpads are:

All of these Launchpads have different interfaces and how they work but with one common function, which investors can take advantage of in seeing the opportunities in the crypto world.

^{Polkastarter is a launchpad built with Polkadot technology but supports scanning from various ecosystems including Binance Smart Chain, Ethereum, Kusama, Polygon, even Solana.}

3.3. Social Medias

Social media is also a platform that developers can use to reach more people. Dissemination of information is also very effective through social media. Among the popular social media today are Twitter and Facebook. In addition, Telegram and Discord are also popular for use by various institutions to reach more people. And no less popular is the medium.com blogging platform.

All of these platforms are different and have their own utility advantages. For example, Medium is a blogger platform that can be used to write articles without character restrictions, while Twitter is useful for reporting something in limited paragraphs and can be used to embed links to longer posts from medium.com, for example.

Meanwhile, direct contact can be realized, for example, via email, Discord channel, and Telegram groups/channels.

Token purchases may not be possible directly via social media, at least until now, the function of social media here is to connect potential investors with developers (token issuers).

Task 4 – Recently Successful ICO / IEO: Revest Finance ICO

4.1. Recent Successful ICOs

Based on a search using the Google search engine, I found several sites that provide ICO listings. For this task I decided to use information from https://www.icohotlist.com/. The following image is a screenshot of the homepage of the site which by default shows a list of active ICOs.

^{The homepage of https://www.icohotlist.com/.}

The user can press one of the 4 buttons available in the horizontal menu called "ICO List Filters", as indicated by the number (1) in the image above. The four buttons are named Active ICOs, Upcoming ICOs, Past ICOs, and Trading. To see a list of past ICOs, click the [Past ICOs] button (in the image above it is marked with a number (2)).

The following image is a screenshot showing the past ICOs page of the website.

^{The past ICOs page of the website.}

The past ICOs page shows the ICO organizers (ICO names), brief description of the projects, ICOs start date, ICOs end date, and links to the website and social media accounts of the ICO organizers. The image above shows a list of ten ICOs out of the rest of the list. For this task, I chose to review the first (top) ICO seen on the list, namely Revest Finance.

4.2. Revest Finance Recent Successful ICO

^{Revest Finance logo as seen on its official Twitter account, https://twitter.com/revestfinance.}

In an article entitled Revest Finance Announces Details on 9/21–9/24 Reservation Event which was uploaded to its official medium account on September 19^th, Revest Finance stated that 33 million units of Revest Finance coins (RVST) will be launched in a 3-day ICO from September 21^st to 24^th, 2021. According to CoinGecko and icodrops, the Revest Finance coin total supply is 100,000,000 tokens. That means that the 3-day ICO released 33% of its total supply. While, at the time of writing, there was no total supply data of this token on CoinMarketCap. The ICO was launched on its official website, https://revest.finance/.

According to a Twitter status on its official account, the ICO (or they preferred it be called “the Reservation Event”) has successfully raised a total of 1,661.87 ETH. At the time of writing, according to CoinGecko, 1 ETH is equal to USD3,820.65. That means that the ICO has successfully raise a total of about USD6.35 Million.

^{An official Tweet announced the successful 3-day ICO.}

Just three days after the successful ICO, CoinGecko announced the coin's RVST listing on their platform via a tweet on Twitter.

^{CoinGecko listing tweet.}

Previously, on September 17^th, an official article on medium entitled Revest Finance Raises $2.1M Seed Round Ahead of Public Launch announced the successful seed round (the term they used for Private Sale) and raised USD2.1 Million from investors such as NewField Fund, Kronos, Zion Capital, Deltahub Capital, Chainflow Capital, and a number of anonymous investors.

4.3. What is Revest Finance?

Revest Finance is a token launched on top of the Ethereum ecosystem and built on the ERC-20 standard. ERC-20 is the standard for creating fungible tokens. With Revest Finance, holders of ERC-20 tokens (non-fungible tokens) can tokenize these tokens and treat them as non-fungible tokens (NFTs). In the process, Revest Finance leverages the ERC-1155 non-fungible tokens standard. The aim is for ease of access and trade universality (or interoperability).

Revest Finance technology introduces a new protocol that enables the creation of NFTs backed by fungible tokens (ERC-20 tokens). A more detailed way of working can be seen here.

The ticker for Revest Finance token is RVST. Below is the price and market statistics of the token at time of writing, as seen on CoinGecko.

Item	Value
Current Price	USD0.208791
Market Capitalization	No data
Market Capitalization Dominance	0.00%
Market Capitalization Rank	No data
Total Supply	100,000,000 RVST
Maximum Supply	100,000,000 RVST
Circulating Supply	No data
24 Hour Trading Volume	USD301,684
All-Time High	USD0.394826 (Sep 27^th, 2021)
All-Time Low	USD0.159651 (Oct 07^th, 2021)

^{The RVST price and market statistics table of data as collected on CoinGecko.}

4.3. Where To Trade Revest Finance?

Revest Finance is currently available on trade on these markets (data was collected from https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/revest-finance/markets/):

No.	Market Name	Pairs	Price (USD)	Volume (USD)
1	Uniswap (v2)	RVST/WETH	0.2097	232,090
2	LBank	RVST/USDT	0.2054	69,338
3	1inch Exchange	OHM/RVST	0.2086	10,774
4	1inch Exchange	RVST/OHM	0.1621	6,663
5	ZT	RVST/USDT	0.2071	5,083,173

^{The table of Revest Finance markets as seen on CoinMarketCap.}

4.4. Website, Social Media, Contact Info

Item	Value
Website	https://revest.finance/
Medium	https://revestfinance.medium.com/
Explorers	Etherscan
	Ethplorer
Smart Contract	0x120a3879da835a5af037bb2d1456bebd6b54d4ba
Twitter	https://twitter.com/RevestFinance
Telegram	https://t.me/revestfinance
Discord	https://discord.gg/TdJSzW9H4G

^{Data was gathered from CoinGecko.}

Task 5 – Imaginary Token: arTeem Token

5.1. The Project Name

I will name my imaginary token aRteem with ticker ARTEEM. I will create this coin with ERC-1155 standard. ERC-1155 is a standard coin from the Ethereum ecosystem that can be used to create fungible tokens as well as non-fungible tokens even semi-fungible tokens. arTeem token itself will be a semi-fungible token.

^{The imaginary arTeem token logo and slogan.}

5.2. Use Case

arTeem Token will function as a project to facilitate NFT owners to get liquidity for their digital arts collection and earn profit from time to time. If so far, NFTs are likely to become "dead" assets in the owner's wallet, then with the arTeem protocol, the digital arts collection will continue to potentially benefit the owners, it will be liquid. The trick is to collateralized the NFTs to the custodian institution and in return the owner will be loaned some amount of arTeem tokens equivalent to the price of the collateralized NFT.

5.3. Total Supply

arTeem total supply is 10,000,000 ARTEEM.

5.4. ICOs

After passing the initial stage of platform development, immediate funds are needed to support further development, including the need for hardware (servers and others), software, as well as manpower (engineers who are competent in their respective fields).

Based on calculations, it takes about USD 10 Million to solve this problem in about six or seven month period. Management then decided to hold an ICO with the following stages: 3-stages Private Sale, 1-stage Presale, and 1-stage Public Sale. So it was gonna be a 5-stages ICO.

Below is the 5-stages ICO schedule that arTeem will run from early June to late August 2022.

^{The ICO timeline.}

The ICO is carried out with the following details:

5.4.1. Private Sales

5.4.1.1. Private Sale – Stage 1

Item	Value
Time	Jan 1-7, 2022
Offered Price	USD 0.25
Token Supply	1,000,000 ARTEEM
Raised Fun	USD 250,000.00

5.4.1.2. Private Sale – Stage 2

Item	Value
Time	Feb 11-17, 2022
Offered Price	USD 0.50
Token Supply	1,000,000 ARTEEM
Raised Fun	USD 500,000.00

5.4.1.3. Private Sale – Stage 3

Item	Value
Time	Mar 21-27, 2022
Offered Price	USD 1
Token Supply	1,000,000 ARTEEM
Raised Fun	USD 1,000,000.00

5.4.2. Presale

Item	Value
Time	Apr 11-17, 2022
Offered Price	USD 2
Token Supply	3,000,000 ARTEEM
Raised Fun	USD 6,000,000.00

5.4.3. Public Sale

Item	Value
Time	Jun 21-30, 2022
Offered Price	USD 2.50
Token Supply	4,000,000 ARTEEM
Raised Fun	USD 10,000,000.00

Below is the table of fund-raising detail.

^{The fundraising detail table.}

Task 6 – Asset Listing

6.1. CoinMarketCap Coin Listing Criteria

CoinMarketCap has uploaded this article about coin listing on the platform including the required criteria for a coin to be listed in the CoinMarketCap database.

The article explained steps to take to get a coin listed on its platform database:

requesting by filling in this online from, this is the only way to request a new addition, be it coin or market or ICO calendar and another relevant topics, Among the things that must be considered when filling out this online form are:
- requests must contain complete and well-structured information;
- must submit a request in the correct criteria, for example for coin listings do not submit to exchange listings;
- include evidence from credible and independent sources that are able to support the point or argument or claim;
- is expected to complete progress with concrete and specific examples;
- do not manipulate data;
tracked listing, for a coin to be considered for a tracked listing, among guidelines to meet are:
- must have functional website and block explorer(s),
- must be traded publicly,
- must be actively traded, in at least one market that has tracked listing status on CoinMarketCap,
- Leverage cryptography, consensus algorithms or distributed ledgers, peer-to-peer technology and/or smart contracts to function as a store of value, medium of exchange, unit of account, or decentralized application.
- Provide a representative from the project with whom CoinMarketCap can establish open lines of communication for any clarifications.
evaluation phase, CoinMarketCap team will evaluate this things to consider whether a coin fits a listing on its platform:
- Trading Volume & Market Pairs;
- Community Interest & Engagement;
- Traction/Progress;
- Team;
- Product/Market Fit;
- Impact & Practicality;
- Uniqueness & Innovation;
- Project Longevity & Activity.

And there is a set of rules (called House Rules) that should not be broken.

6.2. Asset Listing Criteria on a Centralized Exchange

6.2.1. Crypto Centralized Exchanges

Among the examples of crypto centralized exchanges are: Coinbase, KuCoin, Kraken, Gemini, dan UPbit.

Each of these exchanges may have a different method of carrying out the listing process but basically all follow this flow:

the applicant fills out an online form (the form can be in the form of Google Docs or other form of questionnaire) or submits project details to a specific email,
the review stage is carried out by the exchange,
listings accepted or rejected,

6.2.2. Listing Procedure on Some Crypto Centralized Exchanges

KuCoin. To do a listing on KuCoin, no complicated criteria are needed, applicants only need to fill out an online form in the form of Google Docs and can be accessed at this address: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSf4tlSwIgZ5-QQJpKoi3-WnmwOVtpxFq4V8vv4CwZccizHuYg/viewform.
^{KuCoin utilizes Google Docs to collect information.}
Kraken. To request a listing on Kraken, as stated in this official article entyitled New Coin Listing Requests, one can email the project details to [email protected] with “as much information as possible about the project”.
^{How to submit a listing request on Kraken exchange.}
UPbit. To be listed on UPbit, submit a request for Pre-Review on this page.
^{Click the blue button to proceed to Pre-Review request on UPbit.}
Below is the screenshot image of the online form to fill. The information requested is divided into three segmentations: 1) Project information, 2) Token and Token Sale, and 3) Community and Social Media.
^{Fill in the information and click [Submit] button.}