A fundamental analysis on Haven Protocol

Privacy coins in the cryptocurrency world have arisen because people’s private life is continuously threatened. The first to have emerged within the space were Monero which forked from Bytecoin ( created in 2012 ) and Dash which was previously named Darkcoin and was created in 2014. Ever since, the anonymity sector in cryptos has never stopped to develop; we saw cryptos such as ZenCash appear which offers a private messaging network and a dapp platform and also very new privacy coins like Haven Protocol which proposes a new type of protocol to make your transactions non-linkable to you by using smart-contracts.
Haven Protocol answers the problems of taxation theft and robbery by governments towards people having opposite political opinions, for instance late last year an « anti-corruption » operation was led by the government of Mohammed Bin Salman leading to the arrest of princes, businessmen and other government officials who sought for a change in the Kingdom and were robbed. Let's see now what Haven Protocol has to offer as an investment opportunity and thus see if it will have a chance to make a difference in the future.

Before we begin some here is some vocabulary to acquire in order to understand what we are talking about :

Vocabulary needed :

  • 1st gen stablecoins : need to be backed by FIAT currency and is centralized as it's a central entity that issues the money to stabilize the price. High risk of exit scam. Tether is one of them.

  • 2nd gen stablecoins : Digital collateral, stored on the blockchain, no more centralization but not more effective. Failed harshly ( The DAO ).

  • 3rd gen stablecoins : No need to be backed by anything, functions on the regulation of its own supply via an algo or a smart-contract system, it’s done automatically.

By the way, for this fundamental analysis, I will rate parts of the project following a method employed by VCs which can seem counterintuitive sometimes ( don't worry I will make this understandable ).

PRODUCT

Category1 (Low)2 (Medium)3 (High)
WhitepaperClear and concise
CompetitorsUSDT, USDX Protocol, Basis, TrueUSD, DigixDAO, Maker, Havven
Block validation time2 minutes
Blockchain valueAbsolutely needed

Whitepaper :

Clear and concise. A few pages that explain how the mechanism works. Easily understandable by the average person.

Competitors :

=> Details :

Tether ( pegged and backed by dollars, 1st gen stablecoin ) WEAK competitor

USDX ( pegged and backed by dollars but has an algo that regulates its supply without the intervention of third party, a mix of 1st gen and 3rd stablecoin ) WEAK, 2/5 on ICObench.com, noted by a bot.

Basis : MEDIUM BUT QUITE SHADY

I will be focusing a lot on this one compared to the others. Precedently named Basecoin.

3rd gen stablecoin

Seemed to be the only real contender to Haven Protocol but here’s the catch :

Price modified by the supply, it can be based on any asset traded on the markets ( commodities, precious metals, FIAT currencies, indices etc.).

). It has an algorithm that increases supply when the currency is overvalued and destroys supply when undervalued.

Funded by ex-Google Venture and other Silicon Valley big names

Not-so-perfect solution: Seems to be weakened if markets start to expect a long-term decline in demand for coins.

( jump at the conclusion of this article )

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/04/why-investors-pumped-133-million-into-stablecoin-basis/

Shady strategy, raises a huge ton of money, they’re searching for about 21 profiles and let's say they need 2 of each and are getting paid annually an average of $120K, it reaches only $5.04 Million. Usually, it’s the staff that is the most costly in business so this sum of money is definitely not justified even considering further investments.

https://jobs.lever.co/intangiblelabs/

Moreover, the privately led funding shows that they won’t disclose financial information even if legally they’re not obligated to as they’re not listed on public stock markets.

TrueUSD ( Bittrex's USDT alternative, backed by a cash vault, 1st gen stablecoin ) WEAK COMPETITOR

DigixDAO, DGX ( pegged on gold, 2nd gen stablecoin ) WEAK COMPETITOR

Maker, 2nd generation stablecoin, WEAK COMPETITOR

Havven, 2nd generation stablecoin, WEAK COMPETITOR

Haven Protocol has a clear comparative advantage here, as the money is stored with smart contracts into vaults that allow offshore banking there’s no need for collateral. Not only it protects your money from the governments but it keeps it safe from volatility by placing in it in a place that is not affected by price fluctuations. Now that you know what’s the idea behind XHV, here’s a detailed description of how smart-contracts will help against volatility in details, I got this from Haven Protocol’s Discord. You will be able to send XHV offshore to your own or someone else’s wallet. Doing so converts from XHV into XHVD. XHVD ensures you always retain the current USD value of the XHV you sent offshore at the current market price. When you want to convert your XHVD back into XHV you send ‘onshore’ and the amount of XHV you receive is equal to the current market value of the XHVD you have converted.

Block validation time :

2 minutes. There’s no need to be faster. The users targeted here are people seeking security, not performance peak.

Value of Blockchain :

It’s probably one of the markets that need blockchain the most. In fact, using blockchain helps to lessen the risk of exit scams and helps your money not being tracked by governments. So blockchain adds a lot of value here.

PRODUCT RATING :

10/12

COMMUNITY PART

Category1 (Low)2 (Medium)3 (High)
Online forums*$4794 indidual marketcap
Communication Channels*$4536 individual marketcap
AdvisorsNone
Influencer sentimentGlobally positive

*Online forums : $2 953 294/616 readers = $4794 individual marketcap
The calculation here is the actual marketcap divided by the number of r/HavenProtocol
*Communication channel : $2 953 294/651 readers = $4536 individual marketcap
Calculation : Marketcap/Number of people on the Telegram group

Influencer sentiment: Global positive sentiment from influencers and some of the devs went full-time leaving their ordinary job

COMMUNITY RATING :

10/12

CODE PART

Category1 (Low)2 (Medium)3 (High)
Developer backgrounds2 anon devs
Developer engagement - All time79 commits and 3 contributors
Developer engagement - One month ( June 2018 )30 commits and 17:1 ratio*
Developer concentrationTop developer contributed for 88,7% of commits

Developer engagement - one month : 17:1 ratio is the ratio giving the number of closed issues on the opened issue

Developer backgrounds: 2 anonymous devs. Better stay in the dark when you're fighting with governments.

According to @notsofast on Twitter ( Crypto influencer following $XHV ) offshore mechanism code has not been yet presented to the public due to strategy which would seem logical to me.

CODE RATING :

5/12

TRACTION PART

Category1 (Low)2 (Medium)3 (High)
Product statusNot live but code is public
Transaction tractionNo smart-contracts yet
Partnership tractionNone

Product status: not live, public code. Haven Protocol is quite recent, seems to have started off in Q1 2018 according to the roadmap. Android wallet is out since the end of June and iOS soon to come.

Transaction traction: Unknown number. This system makes it hard to follow how much transactions have been made.

Partnership traction: none. Even if its supposed to be anonymous, partnerships are still relevant as it can be done with other blockchain projects to enhance the performance but there’s none for the moment.

TRACTION RATING :

4/9

TRADING PART

Category1 (Low)2 (Medium)3 (High)
One month return-57,2%*
One year return-80.4%
Ease of buy/sellListed on a few and tiny exchanges

One month return : $(0.867 - $2.03)/$2.03 = -57.2% ( data from July 8th )
-57.2%* : why is it good and gives 3 points on this part ? Simply because it represents how good of an opportunity you actually have there to acquire the coins.

Ease of buy/sell : No yet present in the top 5 exchanges. Best exchange it’s available on is Nanex.co on almost non-existent volume ( $71 ( ... ) while the other has $21K) than the biggest one it’s actually trading on ( TradeOgre ) it’s way more secure, you don’t have a risk of exit scam and way less risk of being hacked. By the way, the harder it is to find the coin, the more potential it has. It just made me remember of Nano while it was still named RaiBlocks on shady exchanges moving under the radar and then boom, marketcap went from $26 Million to $4.6 Billion in just one month, that’s a 176x increase,.That’s after that Nano got on Binance. So you better find the gems before they get listed on big exchanges. Don’t forget to send your coins to your personal wallet, never store it on exchanges!

TRADING RATING :

9/9

NETWORK PART

Category1 (Low)2 (Medium)3 (High)
Number of Twitter mentions ( last 30 days )231
Number of news mentions ( last 30 days )0
Google Trends score0
Social following630 subscribers on Reddit and 3345 followers on Twitter

Haven Protocol seems to be still very discreet in the cryptocurrency world, a few know about its existence. No media mentioned it, Google Trends score also non-existent.

NETWORK RATING :

4/12

FINAL NOTE :

7,64/12

SPECULATIONS

To get an average size of offshore banking we are just going to take the 10% of the $80 Trillion add it to the $30 Trillion and divide the sum by 2 :

$ 38 Trillion / 2 = $ 19 Trillion average size market, let’s say the money poured in the project helps to capture 1% of the market share ( which doesn’t mean that 1$ poured in = 1$ added in marketcap ). The speculated marketcap would attain $190 Billion which gives us ( if we assume that the coin in circulation would have at least tripled ) a coin priced at $17 737 per unit and with an actual price of 0.87 $ it would make a 2 038 735% increase nearing bitcoin record ROI. I'm sure you find it absolutely unreal but I assure you, this very may be achievable knowing the full potential cryptos can achieve in terms of global market capitalization, take a look at some statements made by some important personalities Pantera CEO , another statement made by senator Mark Warner. Simply think long-term investment.

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD

https://www.noelshack.com/2018-19-4-1525976006-capture-d-ecran-2018-05-10-a-20-13-11.png
https://twitter.com/iamjosephyoung/status/994281746228166656

CONCLUSION

Considering the product part, XHV is a real contender and is probably the only serious one in the domain that has the ability to deliver a relevant solution to address the tax theft and volatility hitting investors and citizens. Down by 80.4% from ATH we actually have a very good entry and won’t last for long knowing that every day the market removes a barrier making the bull market closer with regulation, certain actors entering the market and the list goes on.
Finally, it may not be not as appealing as a top-tier cryptocurrency which has solid foundations but don’t forget we’re making a bet on the future, it has a leverage effect that is a thousand times more powerful if successful and moreover it will build momentum once offshore storage smart-contracts will be released, we will then see global media and communities putting the project in front of every spotlight.

Sort:  

Great idea behind the project. Waiting for the offshore testnet and iOS wallet.

@stealthyrick, I gave you an upvote on your post! Please give me a follow and I will give you a follow in return and possible future votes!

Thank you in advance!

Data prices are from July the 8th by the way in case you were wondering !

Just another thing, there seems to be a little confusion on Twitter my account is indeed @TheTyrant011

Congratulations @stealthyrick! You received a personal award!

Happy Birthday! - You are on the Steem blockchain for 1 year!

You can view your badges on your Steem Board and compare to others on the Steem Ranking

Vote for @Steemitboard as a witness to get one more award and increased upvotes!

Coin Marketplace

STEEM 0.30
TRX 0.12
JST 0.033
BTC 64386.10
ETH 3142.17
USDT 1.00
SBD 3.98