BMJ Score: 2.3
Market
Transparency
Team
Token
Adoption
Quick Summary
283 crypto investors read thisCommentary
BitValve is a peer-to-peer exchange platform that differentiates by leveraging the benefits of decentralized exchanges, while at the same time eliminating their current drawbacks. Some of the advantages include 50 percent less fees, multi-cryptocurrency support, ability to securely trade crypto to crypto, and an official mobile app for an enhanced trading experience. The platform is targeted to both professional traders and casual users who just want to exchange their coins for fiat or other cryptos in a quick, cheap, and efficient way. The platform will be based on the Ethereum platform, and the official launch is scheduled for May 2019. BitValve’s website is pretty bare bones, and while the project claims to have differentiators, there are several decentralized exchanges that also feature benefits of 24/7 support and mobile apps. Another concern we have is the small size of the team, which is only made up of five people. The exchange is set to launch in Q1 of 2019, and the team does not indicate any information on how many users will leverage the platform. Our big concerns here are that this is an extremely competitive market and BitValve does not do much to differentiate. Additionally, the team is very small, and without partnerships or a working MVP, we are not confident that the project will be able to capture users.
Investment Information:
- How to invest: Interested investors can join the BitValve whitelist at the following link. As of writing, BitValve has 118 investors on the list.
- Discount: 40% bonus throughout the presale
- Eligibility: Residents of the United States and China are not eligible to participate.
- Token Price: 1 BTV = $0.20 USD
- Jurisdiction: Cyprus
- Minimum purchase: $20 USD, Maximum purchase: $20,000 USD.
- Accepted Currencies: BTC, ETH, BCH, DASH, LTC
Market: 1.5
- Problem addressed/solved: Many of the existing decentralized cryptocurrency exchanges have significant drawbacks such as relatively high fees, support of only a limited number of cryptocurrencies, lack of crypto-to-crypto trading, bare bones UX design and UI design, lack of support for iPhone and Android apps, and weak information security, just to name a few. BitValve overemphasizes a few of these problems in the whitepaper. It’s important to take the statements with a grain of salt, as not all exchanges suffer from all these issues.
- Target customers/customer/ segments/verticals: BitValve will target professional traders and casual users who just want to exchange their coins for fiat or for other cryptos in a quick, cheap, and efficient way.
- Value creation: BitValve wants to create an enhanced version of the existing decentralized exchanges. A few of the features it plans to implement include better security, official mobile apps, simplistic UX and UI designs, crypto to crypto trading, and 24/7 Support and Dispute Resolution.
- Competition: BitValve will have an excess of competition in this space. It will be competing with the likes of Binance, Coinbase, and Gemini for a sliver of market share. The project will encounter additional competition from the multitude of blockchain startups seeking to create their own exchanges as well. This might be the most competitive sector of blockchain in the world today.
- Market size/potential: Every day, exchanges acquire more investors on their platforms. The issue is that cryptocurrency has taken a severe tumble in 2018, so newcomers are less likely to pursue investing even if the quality of the exchange is through the roof. BitValve is heavily reliant on the general acceptance of cryptos.
- Regulatory risks: Biggest risks are around the state of cryptocurrencies. Without passing regulatory mandates, the exchange will not come to fruition.
Transparency: 2.5
- Investor value: The BTV token has very limited use on the platform and, therefore, will have a tough time increasing in value. Investors will only see their initial investment go up if the exchange gains thousands of users and generates serious notoriety. Thus, the demand for the platform and token will drive the value of BTV higher.
- Disclosures: BitValve has a bare bones website that fails to deliver much beyond the obvious. The whitepaper is only 35 pages and although it has well-organized information that’s relevant to investors, it doesn’t go beyond the call of duty with additional information like market dynamics, revenue model, etc. Lastly, BitValve has yet to produce an MVP, but it expects to start development in January of 2019.
- Token distribution: 70% ICO, 15% BitValve team, 12% risk, 2% bounty, and 1% advisors.
- Use of proceeds: 45% marketing, 40% development, and 15% legal.
- Caps: Soft cap: BitValve does not have a soft cap; Hard cap: $2.8 million USD.
Team: 3.5
- Track record: BitValve has a core team consisting of five employees and an additional four advisors. Founder and CEO Konstantinos Berios has a background in backend development and has worked on a few different blockchain projects prior to founding BitValve. Most members come from a technical background in software development, engineering, or blockchain development. What’s clearly lacking for the BitValve team is someone who has a business/finance focus. A group of engineers and developers can do incredible things, but it often requires a few business-savvy minds to really drive the project forward. The advisors won’t help in that department, as most are focused on the ICO part of the project’s life.
- Integrity: Very few members of the BitValve team have any sort of LinkedIn presence, and although they don’t give us an explicit reason not to trust them, the BitValve team could stand to make a real effort in the full transparency of their project. Since the team does not have proven successes in former ventures, they must make up for it in transparency and active community engagement via their social media channels or convention meet ups.
Token Mechanics: 2
- MVP: BitValve does not have an operational MVP nor will the team even begin to develop it until Q1 of 2019.
- Token use case: BitValve plans to implement a standard ERC-20 utility token. The BTV tokens will be blockchain assets with value that can be received and sent to any person with a valid wallet address.If a user would like to pay platform’s exchange fees by using BTV tokens, the average market value of the BTV tokens will be applied for payment purposes.
- Value-added: It’s unclear where the real value of this token comes from as it’s a utility token that isn’t necessary to use on the platform. Users can obviously also function with major currencies on the exchange and do not require the BTV token. Unless the project takes off and people really want the discounted fees, the BTV token will have a difficult time achieving exceptional value.
- Decentralization: BitValve will create a decentralized exchange that attempts to solve the lingering issues of current exchanges.
- Token Supply: Max supply of 23,148,214 BTV.
User Adoption: 1.5
- Technical difficulty/investment expertise needed: BitValve certainly does not introduce many new ideas or difficult concepts, so any investor should be able to understand the project. The project simply wants to tweak the current exchange model, adding new features that it believes investors and traders will appreciate.
- Halo effect: As of writing, BitValve has not listed any partners on the website or whitepaper.
- Buzz: BitValve has an extremely low 400 followers combined on the Facebook and Twitter accounts. Having said that, it gets incredible traction from what can only be described as its dedicated audience. Each Facebook post gets around 50 shares while each Twitter post hits about 60 shares and 75 favorites. Even though the sheer number isn’t there, BitValve makes up for it in engagement. Other than social media, BitValve has been featured on a few run-of-the-mill ICO review sites.
