ICO Review Series #4: Santiment - Bloomberg of the Cryptoverse?

In my post about the lessons learned from DigiByte debacle, I had pointed out that crypto world in its infancy is very susceptible to news and sentiment.

So much so that a fake troll can drive the prices of coins even before people realize that the news is either old or made up.

Recent example includes, the death hoax of Vitalik Buterin that wiped 4 billion from ETH market cap in hours. That is billion with a B.

In a world of such volatility, it would be nice to gather data that is reliable so that you can circumvent the hype and fluff and take decisions based on reliable information.

Enter Santiment, which aims at “delivering clarity, with market sentiment content and datafeeds that can’t be found anywhere else.” Their ICO is opening on June 30th (12 noon, UTC) and is our #4 in our ICO Review Series.

Before we get on with the review, here is some basic information you need to know about this review (if you have read my previous ICO reviews, the rules are same and you can skip to the review).

The decision I come to will be based on a 100 point scoring system. Anything above 70 may be a good bet for my risk tolerance. Anything below 70, I would personally not invest in. Again, this is based on my research, opinion and the risk tolerance. These factors may not suit your investment criteria.

Points Allocation

The points will be distributed based on the following aspects:

1. Disruption, solution, innovation, novelty to an existing solution (I will highlight what the project under review brings) that the project promises to bring forth will have maximum of 40 points.
2. Development team and future plan will carry a maximum of 20 points.
3. Active presence in the market will carry a maximum of 15 points.
4. Number of payment choices offered for ICO participation will carry 5 points.
5. Discretionary Author’s bias, naivety, ignorance or otherwise lack of predicting future will carry 20 points.

Verdict will be declared as i)I am in, which means I would invest in the ICO, where possible or ii) I am iffy, which means I would go in if I have spare $$s or iii) I am outta here, which means, I have decided that this ICO is not for me, this does NOT mean the ICO project itself is not good, it’s just not something I feel comfortable investing in.

ICO Review Series #4: Santiment

1) Solution: Santiment’s website describes that it is “building world’s largest library of datafeeds, specifically for cryptocurrencies and blockchain assets.”

Santiment’s Whitepaper goes into detail, however, there is a one pager which summarizes what Santiment is as “Santiment will be the financial market data and content platform of choice for cryptocurrency and blockchain space, filling the role that Bloomberg and Thomson Reuters serve in traditional financial markets.”

Santiment has a working mobile app which consists of historical price feed and charts.

Santiment aspires to target “wealth and hedge fund managers, new crypto-traders and data vending channels.”

As I said earlier, Crypto world is at its infancy and there are lot of groups playing speculative games to lure gullible investors into investing into a definite scam. Santiment hopes to convert the noise to see valuable data so that its customers can make sensible and timely decisions.

Santiment is a timely offering and there will be lot of takers for this much needed tool, even if it falls short of what it promises. For this alone, this idea gets 30 points.

2) Team: Maksim Balashevich is the CEO who is not only leading the Santiment efforts, he is also listed as veteran trader. He has even his own website that gives insight into his current projects..

Dmitry Palchum is an Ethereum Developer and Eugene Tartakovsky a fullstack developer who is involved in the app development.

Tzanko Matev is a Mathematician and Backend Developer who brings the PhD specialty to the table. In addition, Mitchelle Louriero leads marketing efforts, Kim Carson is the designer and copywriter while Feng Jiahong leads the designing aspect.

Well rounded team working toward providing a platform to act as the solution to the ever-growing need for reliable information for traders and newbies alike. I am assigning 15 points.

3) Active presence in the Market: While their github is active, twitter and bitcointalk seem to be mellow. However, their medium page is very active and has quality articles with plethora of great information.

The whitepapers layout their existing achievements (working app) and future plans, how they expect to stabilize the SAN ecosystem by encouraging the SAN holders to stake to access certain features on Santiment.

Buzz on the market is, there is need and even a fraction of market share is all it takes for Santiment to shoot to the moon and I am assigning 10 points.

4) Acceptable cryptocurrencies to participate in the ICO: Only ETH is accepted as payment and 1 ETH will buy you 1000 SANs with a maximum cap of 45000 ETH (resulting in 45 million) SANs.

Sale will be conducted in stages with Santiment community taking the priority seat on July 4th then Cofound.it Priority Pass Holders take the next bite on July 5th and the public can get on action on July 6th. While the intentions behind this phase system is clearly to encourage the loyal supporters, it does impede with the opportunity for others.

For the lack of choice of payment options, I am assigning 0 points.

5) Author’s Bias: This project is definitely a timely offering. Even if it captures the fraction of Crypo market cap and the hungry speculators who are looking for a tool to leverage their bets, it will be a massive success.

Those that have been trading in the crypto-world for the past 6 months or more may have spare stash that they might want to invest into Santiment kind of tool to increase the ROI.

Not only that, the SAN token holders can stake their token to access some features of the Santiment tool.

For the timing and the need of the market alone, I am assigning 15 points

Verdict: I am iffy.

Personally, even though I know this will be a good project to invest in, I may not be looking to take part in this because of the entry barrier during the ICO and I also expect, just like the eSport and Gaming ICOs, that there will be more offerings in this space in the coming months/years.

More importantly, I am not actively trading due to my day job and this ICO will give you a good ROI when you look to trade your SANs or even when you decide to stake your SANs to access the features on Santiment tool.

For serious investors (and day traders in particular) this may be a worthy endeavor to get on board.

Go through Santiment Whitepaper and their site, before deciding.

If you would like for me to review an ICO that you are looking into, drop a note in the comments. I cannot promise that I will be able to review all requests but I will try to if my schedule permits. Your comments will also help keep me in the know about the ICOs that I may have missed.

Consider following to read my next ICO review.

*Disclaimer: Opinion. Not an advice. The verdict in the article is according to me and for me. It may not suit you. Please read the article as an opinion and conduct your own research before deciding to invest. E&OE.

All pictures and clips used belong to respective owners, except where noted otherwise.

Read my earlier reviews in this ICO Review Series:

ICO Review Series #1: Hive Project
ICO Review Series #2: Tezos: Why I am on the sidelines on this ICO?
ICO Review Series #3: Monster Byte, am I betting on this ICO?