Introduction
Before we dive into the Utrum ICO Review let’s have a general look at the crypto market and the problems it faces.
The cryptocurrency market has seen vast expansion in the last two years with continued increase in market capitalization and in the number of cryptocurrency coins and tokens (which collectively total more than 1,500). This is a result of media hype and media coverage of the crypto market, as well as its unregulated nature that has allowed vast participation by even the most uninformed of retail investors.
This is not surprising as the crypto market far outpaced other markets by staggering amounts. Some cryptocoins gained as much as 20,000% between 2016 and 2017.
The Problem
The lure of quick and supposedly easy money has not only caught the attention of genuine companies and investors in this space, but has also attracted nefarious entities who want to grab a share of this market. With no regulation to check what is coming into this market as an investment product, a lot of scams have taken over. This poses a real problem in the crypto market.
- We now have a situation where many scam crypto products are in the marketplace, and the majority of crypto investors are retail, unsophisticated investors without the knowledge of how to decipher the scam crypto investments from the real ones.
- Lack of regulation in the market has also created a situation where there is no trust entity to validate the thousands of new cryptocurrency-based products that are entering the marketplace on a daily basis.
- Trusted and accurate information channels that can serve as valid sources of informative and educational content for the unsophisticated, retail investors are lacking.
What is the end result? Many retail investors have lost and are still losing money in the crypto market.
The Solution
Utrum has been launched as a decentralized reward platform that will serve as a source of authentic and reliable information within the ecosystem. Utrum will provide a community for crypto problem solving by pooling developers and analysts, who will provide their skills, knowledge and experience on one hand, with the retail investors and crypto newcomers on the other hand. For their contribution, the providers of information, educational content and other forms of value in the ecosystem will be rewarded using the in-house cryptocurrency known as Utrum Token (OOT). The newcomers and investors will gain access to all informational and educational content such as ratings, reviews, technical analysis of assets, etc. Members of the Utrum ecosystem can also get OOT rewards for providing ratings on brokers, exchanges, ICOs, crypto hedge funds, etc. Members are rewarded OOT tokens for the ratings they provide.
But it does not stop there. Utrum has built-in mechanisms to ensure the integrity of every provided content and contribution on its platform. To this end, three mechanisms of checks and balances will be introduced:
- The so-called “trial by Jury”, which will use collective crowd opinion to evaluate answers using simple numerical and empirical results.
- An internal quality control mechanism that will provide information filtering through a ratings and voting system that will be used as a measure of trust in the informative and educational content being provided by contributors.
- Utrum will deploy an artificial intelligence algorithm trained with the ratings and engagement of community members to detect and prevent ratings manipulation.
Why the Blockchain Technology is Needed
The Utrum Project has opted to deploy this solution on blockchain because of some of the benefits that this technology offers. These benefits are centered on the following metrics:
- Security: Based on a secure blockchain platform that provides access to immutable and unalterable information and educational content.
- Transparency: Blockchain projects are transparent and cannot be manipulated by a single individual.
- Collective ownership, which prevents the ecosystem from being hijacked by a single individual and also provides the jury system of evaluation as mentioned earlier. The ecosystem is in the hands of all participants and is self-regulatory.
- Confidentiality: Information quality is protected, as well as the identity of information providers.
Pros
What are the pros of the Utrum Project project?
- Uses a machine learning algorithm to detect and filter out false ratings and reviews of crypto products.
- For any intending cryptocurrency investor with very little knowledge of the products out there and how they work, Utrum will serve as a trusted and secure source of information and educational content.
- Utrum will provide rewards for ratings providers and contributors.
- Clear the hype and the chaff from the real stuff in the crypto market.
- Get background information on any cryptocurrency investment before you put in your hard-earned funds.
Cons
There are some negatives that may crop up down the road with this project.
- The system’s survival and viability depends on user adoption as well as depth of contribution from skilled providers and developers. If this angle fails, the entire project could be in jeopardy.
- There are existing projects that provide the same service. Utrum will have to beat out the competition to gain traction in the market and become viable.
Token Economics
The currency of the Utrum Project is the OOT token; the exchange rate of 1 OOT is of $0.12 USD. Users can purchase OOT using Komodo, Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, Z-cash, Dash, Litecoin and 50 other currencies. A total of 216,000,000 OOT coins will be issued on the Utrum Asset Chain. A 5% referral bonus will be provided.
OOT purchases in the pre-sale got a 30% discount, while those purchasing in the ICO get a 15% discount. The ICO lasts from May 21 to July 4, 2018. So far, $1,147,250 worth of OOT have been sold in the ICO, which surpasses the $1m soft cap. Hard cap is set at $5m.
Proposed Allocations
The proposed allocation of the OOT tokens is as follows:
- Utrum platform contributors: 50%
- Platform developers: 15%
- ICO sale: 23%
- Operational reserves: 10%
- Bounty and referrals: 2%
Funds raised will be deployed into development (50%), marketing (30%), operations (15%) and professional services (5%).
Future Plans
So what is the plan for the Utrum Project going forward? This project will be rolled out over a three year period (2017 – 2019). Key points in the rollout plan include the following:
2017:
- Concept
- Assembly of team
- Project announcement
2018
- Whitepaper
- ICO presale and main sale
- Exchange listing
- Launch of alpha version
2019
- Launch of beta version (review module, market prediction module etc)
For more information, or to view the company’s whitepaper, visit www.utrum.io or visit the following links:
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/utrumdotio
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/utrumdotio
- Github: https://www.github.com/utrum
