Liquidity Network ICO Review | Liquidity Network Blockchain Payments for Everyone

trando (45)in #crypto • 5 years ago (edited)

hey guys welcome back today we are going to be doing another project review with Ramon if you haven't seen our Solana video you can check that out right here today we're gonna be talking about liquidity dot network so let's let's jump right on in alright Ramon we're glad to have you back here how are you doing alright captain it's really good to be here with you I'm doing fantastic oh you I'm doing fantastic as well I'm ready to jump in yeah today we're going to be looking at a flick Whydah t network liquidity network is an interesting project it's a scaling solution prior to jumping into the the project I'd like to kind of give you our viewers an understanding of what exactly of change scaling is and what they're trying to achieve and then we can dive into the meat and bones of the project cool ok so let's start so what exactly is scaling as some of your your viewers would know scaling is a huge concern within the cryptocurrency community and multiple projects approaching the question of scaling from different angles essentially you know to cut it down to the bare bones scaling deals with the speed of transactions and the associated transaction fees so when I say to you liquidity Network aims to utilize off chain payment channels to scale aetherium and other block chains what do I really mean much you know as as you would know or and many of your viewers all about crypto transactions currently are on chain which essentially means that they're all recorded on the blockchain with every single transaction by every single individual using for example the etherium network being recorded on the blockchain this can cause bottlenecks within the etherium network I think the best example of this kind of issue would be looking at crypto kiddies a few months back you know when everyone was going absolutely crazy about their digital cats there was a surge in use on the etherium network which resulted in a bottleneck of transactions and a higher number of unconcern transactions and huge transaction fees essentially in periods of high usage the number of unconfirmed transactions you know they they increase exponentially and this poses huge problems for blockchain projects going forward without scaling solutions blockchain will not be available to the masses of small so what is the solution what is train scaling liquidity network is going to be attacking the scaling solution with with what they'd like to call off chain payment channels and essentially you know what is an off chain payment channel I'd love to give you an example of this so let's say you and I captain we go for dinner and you pay for dinner and I owe you five dollars we can establish an off chain payment channel whereby I didn't pay you your five dollars encrypter later on that evening we go for drinks and I buy the beers and you then subsequently owe me three dollars you can then send that three dollars to me off chain encrypter what that would mean is it's two transactions one for me to you for five dollars and one from you to me to me for three dollars what off chain payment channels try to do is they try to net these results whereby we will have an offer empowerment channel that has two transactions of five and three dollars but essentially the net result of that is that I've paid you two dollars extra so that will be the only transaction that is recorded on the blockchain and then it can change States from a frame to an chain correct in order to open and close payment channels that transaction will have to be on the chain but any into channel transactions don't necessarily need to be recorded if they're between two people only the net results so it would just be a lot faster because it's just between you or just keeping a record of it and then when we're finally gonna do the payment and close it we just throw it back onto the chain one hundred percent another way to look at it would be for example if you and I have a running friendship in a running tab we could have an open payment channel for months on end and essentially it would only be two transactions to open and close that channel and net the results that's pretty awesome so you know as I mentioned liquidity network is a scaling solution they will utilize them off chain structure to scale and it aims to be easily scalable and currently actually has an MVP available through their website you know but these scalability solutions are not new what makes liquidity different liquidity believes that they'll differentiate themselves from their competitors in the number of and I'd like to kind of detail some of those for you now okay so firstly liquidity says that it will require significantly less routing routing then scaling solutions such as radom or the Lightning Network for those of you that don't know Raiden is I would say one of the largest competitors in the space against liquidity they're both trying to achieve the same thing although I believe there's always going to be room for competitors to coexist in the space that's it liquidity feels that they differentiate themselves from Raiden because they will allow channels to be established off chain while current scaling solutions such as Raiden utilize unchained channel establishment and what do I mean by this in my example a little bit earlier we had two transactions to establish the off chain channel and to close the off chain channel liquidity Network is proposing that they won't need those Unchained transactions to establish off chain channels which is quite a big step within the scalability space I think it could add a lot of value but it remains to be seen so we're waiting for proof pretty much 100% another area where liquidity feels that they differentiate is that they state they will not require substantial locked funds or staked funds to establish payment channels thus the amount of collateral required to establish these channels should be significantly less I'll give you an example with Raiden whereby if you wanted to establish a channel you would need a certain amount of Raiden tokens to do so so for example you would need 100 red and tokens to stake to open the channel liquidity stairs that's you know their their collateral for these channels would be much less so do you think in the future we will be able to do larger transactions I do think that we will be able to do larger transactions what I've noticed within the space is generally the low-hanging fruits of the stages and micro transactions so a lot of scaling solutions have been looking to solve you know small transactions maybe eggs and milk or airtime or you know internet payments where you pay by the minutes as opposed to paying on a monthly basis so the low-hanging fruit is different definitely micro Tron's but I would think that the vision in the space would be such that you know in the fullness of time we'll be able to buy houses and cause using these channels that's crazy now that I know what the liquidity network is let's talk about the road map how are they doing and what's their progress looking like okay fantastic so you know with robots - the road map I just like to mention that liquidity network currently already have an MVP which for me is a huge value add because of my experience a lot of projects try to raise money without having any value offering you know generally there try raise huge amounts of money for an idea or a white paper so for me it really shows it adds a lot of value prior to the sale that they already had were working in VP coming back to the the roadmap the alpha version of liquidity network was developed in September of 2017 with early bird access and testing starting in March of this year as mentioned before their net hub MVP is currently available on the websites I encourage you guys to go check it out around now they said the second quarter of this year which is you know we're in the second quarter they aim to launch the official liquidity network version and they plan to also launch the off train exchange that they will be working on in the third quarter of this year so not only are they in a developing liquidity Network but they are also developing this off chain exchange as well and then throughout 2019 I think that they're going to just be looking to harden the liquidity Network and to strengthen the value offering okay so it seems like their roadmap they're pretty on track and in their progress let's jump into their team who do they have on their team and how do you feel about them so when I first looked at the team the thing that struck me the most is that a lot of the teams seem to be academics are obtaining their masters or with PhDs I usually like to see a mix of strong corporate experience to within teams because this shows that they have the acumen to make inroads within the community within the space within the ecosystem having said that you know this is a scaling solution it could be argued that they could build it and the users will come you know if you are building an effective scaling solution that will be utilized in the future you should have people lining up around the to be using your your sisters make sense make sense okay so are there any members that you have in particular that you like or that you've researched yeah so when I first spotted the project it was a few months ago they were actually only two team members listed on the website and that was dr. Arthur Gervase and Rami Khalil so I'll be focusing on them because I think that they are essentially the founders of liquidity Network so dr. Arthur Gervase he is a lecturer at Imperial College London and at the lucerne university and he has also co-authored many peer-reviewed scientific articles from this perspective I feel that he has a lot of academic pedigree he the other one is Rami Khalil he is currently completing his master's from EADS Uruk and he received first first prize at the ACM Arab collegiate programming contest in 2013 he definitely has you know programming abilities he's also interned at Facebook I don't necessarily see this a strong corporate experience as it was only an internship but it's definitely experience nonetheless it must be noted that the website doesn't necessarily specify the roles of each team member I like to know exactly what each team member will be doing because I like to collate that with the experience that they have in certain spaces other than this I think the team is pretty much well bolstered to take on the task but it's like I said I mean it remains to be seen surely because the team doesn't have pedigree and doesn't have a history within the space of working together so it's always a risk but on the surface I think that they are very very capable although I would have liked to have seen a little bit more connection to the corporate world I appreciate the honestly you know that's that's why we're here and here's another thing to piggyback off that I did look at their team and also looked at their investors their VC investors and ZK Capital one of the the main partners in the ZK capital are actually on their team so how do you feel about them investing in themselves or listing that as a you know venture capital this is who we got but then that's actually one of their team members investing in their own project so how do it necessarily have an issue with with VCS investing in projects and then still working with the project because ultimately if a VC takes like VK as EK capital if if they take a large stake in the project they have incentive to see it succeed so the fact that they are invested heavily in the project shows me and it actually comforts me that someone from zk capital will be on the team because he has direct incentive as his money is then also on the mind alright so thanks for telling me about the team let's jump into the white paper I've got some concerns I've got two so number one I feel like the it looks like a presentation deck I feel like the white paper is just made from PowerPoint and number two I feel like they're using comparative advertising which is name-calling and bashing their opponents showing you know their competitors why you know different tables on the slides why we're better they don't have this we're better they don't have this but what do they actually have and where is the proof you know I've always been the kind of person that I believe that substance is more important than form so it's happened where I've seen a lot of projects you know trying to add a little bit of a little splash of color to their white paper and it looks more of a pitch than it does why having said that I don't focus too much on on the JPEGs and I focus more on the substance I think that what they're trying to achieve they they explain quite quite thoroughly within the white paper but to address your your second question I completely agree with you in the sense that I feel that they've focused very much of their attention in the white paper on explaining the shortcomings of their competitors for me I have a bit of a problem with this because you know they they are basing themselves relative to the their perceived shortcomings of their competitors as opposed to letting the project stand on its own merits this analysis is very subjective but for me I don't really like to see projects bashing competitors and specifically when it comes to scaling I really believe that scaling is vital within the ecosystem and I don't think that there will be one competitor to rule them all and because of this I think that in essence scaling solutions should work together for the betterment of the ecosystem in the community as a whole I have a problem with this whole idea of singling out the shortcomings of your competitors when you know at this stage they don't necessarily have goodwill or pedigree within the markets they they haven't launched their ico yet bit open it's not listed yet it's very easy to throw stones you've just got to be aware if you live in a glass house I love it I really like that that thing and so so use you did mention that you spoke with the CEO how did that go yeah so I spoke with the CEO in the telegram group chat in their community I was actually asking him specifically with regards to some of the token metrics of the project you know why is it that he I wanted him ultimately to justify the valuation of the project and what I got back was every reason as to why their competitors were falling short when I was looking for an answers to wire the value offering of liquidity network or the value is justified all I got was why every other competitor is unjustified or wherever all other competitors were falling short and for me I like to term this as what about ISM almost like you know I can ask you a question and it's very easy for you to say well but what about em what about the shortcomings here what about that it doesn't lend itself to good world for me because I felt that they focused too much on the shortcomings of others and not enough on their own merits and standing on their own two feet right right and you did mention something about their github repository yes well you know I think if you look at some of the competitors in this space and I'm talking specifically now about rate and network their github repository has been up for it for a huge amount of time I mean it's extremely busy I think it was recently voted as one of the top 20 github Zinn - and in terms of activity so I find it very difficult to throw criticisms at a project that essentially is working their their hearts out and they have been doing so for the last three years in comparison you know liquidity networks github is pretty sparse and pretty bare so I think yeah look to your own affairs before you start pointing fingers all right so now we know that the ICO is running for the next month it said something about a Dutch auction I have no idea what that means what is a Dutch auction you know liquidity networks presale was also Dutch auction and the public sale is also following a Dutch auction model the interesting thing is that radom one of their competitors utilized the Dutch auction model for the RCO - so it's something that I've come across before many many people don't necessarily understand how this works ambassador shy away from investing in our SEOs that utilize this model which i think is a bit of a shame in a Dutch auction model essentially the project will set a certain timeframe in which the ICO will occur so let's take for example one month and at the beginning of the ico period or the auction period they start the the starting price is extremely high this very high starting price is then automatically lowered in very small increments over the life of the ICO so for example you could start at a price of $10 a token and then you know as time goes by it'll become $9 50 a token $9 a token $1 50 etcetera and essentially the Ben of a Dutch auction model is that it allows investors to invest at a price that they deem to be fair and the whole point of a Dutch auction model is to determine a price for the token that is determined by the market essentially so so one can be assured that it is a fair price you know the auction will either end in two ways either a they will sell out all of their tokens you know at which point the auction ends or the auction reaches the end date without having sold their full amount of tokens those are the only two options so like I said the neat thing about a Dutch auction is that all investors get the same price you know it's a complicated thing to explain so I'd love to kind of give you a running example if you if you'd love that too so essentially let's say for example that the auction starts at price of $10 a token and I decide that that's an extremely fair price per token and I buy one token at $10 and let's say the two weeks later you you know you gone to the website and now the price is $1 token and you think wow that's a really good price I'd like to buy nine tokens now let's just say for argument's sake that you and I are the only investors in the ico that means that a total of ten tokens have been sold one to me and ninety you so how we work out the final price for a Dutch auction is we wait these tokens by the volume and the related price or The Associated price at which this volume was bought so what do I mean by that if I bought one token at a price of $10 I have only 10% of the token supply because as we discussed if you and I do an investor's there's only going to be ten tokens and I've bought one which represents 10% your your nine tokens would then represents 90% of the total supply correct if we then multiply my percentage of the supply by the price of which I've bought and add that to your percentage of the supply multiplied by the price at which you bought we will get the volume weighted average price so for example I have 10% of the supply and I bought my token at $10 $10 times 10% is $1 you have 90% of the supply and you bought your tokens at $1 90% of $1 is 90 cents so if you add those two figures together you get a final volume weighted average price of one point nine dollars a token that is the price that every single person will receive regardless of at what Christ there but that is how a Dutch auction model works I really hope that scare it thank you for explaining that that's actually very clear yeah the remote what's the verdict well would you give the team I would give the team a solid six out of ten I think that they've got a lot of potential but it remains to be seen if they can convert their academic expertise into something workable and real yeah solid six all right and how many Rockets would you give the white paper the white paper although I feel that there's a lot of valuable information in there I feel that they diverge somewhat I'd like to see a little bit more focused on the on the benefits of the project holistically on the project's own own metrics you know standing on his own two feet and not necessarily comparing itself all the time to the shortcomings of competitors for that I will also give it a solid six all right and what about their road map the road map for me is one of the stronger points of liquidity network if they can achieve all of the target dates I always include in the road map scoring the fact that they currently do have a Minimum Viable Product so from me I would say a good seven and a half okay that's a good one and what about community intimacy and hype with regards to hype I think that the team has generated a large amount of organic heart which is something that I really appreciate I think a lot of projects in the space look to inflate expectations hype and sentiment for the short term but not necessarily in a sustainable manner I believe that liquidity network has developed their community quite sustainably an over long period of time so I would give general sentiment and hype 1/8 okay and so overall what would you give it if I take everything into consideration for this project specifically I think that they have a very strong proposition I think that the team is is capable my only issue with regards to the whole project was certain interactions that I had with the team showed me that they they just focused too much on the shortcomings of their competitors another issue that I have specifically as an investor is the fact that they are going to be transferring all of their ether interfere at the end of a cell so they will not be holding any aetherium and this for me as a concern because you know they stay to their explanation is that they would like to not necessarily stake the success of the project on the volatility in the ether price my counter-argument to that is you know if you don't necessarily want to hold ether it could be construed as not believing in the future value appreciation of uber or ether with all the technology and why should I hold your volatile coin you know lqd why should I hold your coin if you're not prepared to take that risk and hold ether and really you know for me that shows a slight lack of goodwill because it shows me that you know they've got their darts to liquidity network is going to be focusing initially on scaling aetherium so if the quiddity network is successful in their endeavors the price of ethereum should be affected as well and that's why I have a problem I like that and and we're very honest here and we don't she'll you know and that's very important for our audience to know and that's that's valuable information you know that's something that we feel like we have to tell everybody else I really do like the project I do have certain concerns those concerns are more in the subtle aspects not necessarily on the on the the hard facts but I would give this project 6.5 Rockets 6.5 Rockets the results are in art remote so just for clarity for our viewers are you an investor for this project I'm currently not invested in this project I'll be taking a look at the the Dutch auction ICO as it progresses to see exactly you know what what happens with the prices but as it stands I won't be investing alright Ramon thanks so much for having us and being on board again for the quiddity Network and we'll see you at the next one it's always a pleasure to speak with you captain and I'm glad to assist and you know if any of your community members have any questions I'd be happy to answer them in the comment section all right