Hi everyone!
ICO WILL BE OPEN TO GENERAL PUBLIC AT 9AM PT TIME NOV.30
https://hellobloom.io/?mwr=6025-0ca64e19
Doing a deep dive on the Bloom ICO! First post ever on Steemit! I Caught the crypto bug just over the past summer! As a business student from a traditionally conservative finance and investment background, the volatile crypto markets have mixed the thrill of tantalizing returns alongside heart stopping moments.
As an investor in crypto with a long-term time horizon, I focus foremost on the fundamentals of a crypto project. The long-term use and demand is what will drive the price up long term. Not speculation. In my humble opinion, price swings are too erratic and unpredictable in the short term to be of use, unless you are a whale involved in a pump and dump, or using bots. Short term speculation should be avoided for amateur investors.
So what are the benefits of investing in the long-term analyzing the fundamentals of a coin? Well, the markets are so emotional that prices are driven more by news than fundamentals resulting in drastically overvalued and undervalued coins. “Hot” or or “trending” coins can have huge market caps and continue to grow even while the fundamentals are weak and future is dubious. On the other hand, coins with great fundamentals and teams that have exceptional executional abilities may be overlooked simply because they aren’t the most promotional or receive the most attention. This creates “value” opportunities where great projects with high potential demand in the long term can be purchased cheaply relative.
Some of the coins that I believe are undervalued with real use cases, revenue generating models, and good management teams are Binance, Everex, and Neo. While I have been keeping my eyes on several others, I am rather conservative in my outlook and will need to conduct more due diligence.
In terms of the general ICO scene, there are way too many projects that simply attach a “coin” to their name when blockchain technology or the coin itself adds no real value economically. The biggest value proposition of blockchain technology lays in industries where the benefits of security, transparency, cost, speed etc. can be leveraged to create a huge competitive advantage over existing services.
Furthermore, there are many ICOs with sketchy management, dubious whitepapers, questionable revenue models. Consequently, I have avoided most ICOs. (I do not mean to offend anyone. I am sure there are ones I have missed, or ones where there is a dearth of info, so I was not able to conduct due diligence.)
That is until now.
This past month, I have been conducting extensive due diligence on Bloom - a “decentralized credit score powered by Ethereum.”
How it works:
More details of the underlaying technology can be found in the Bloom whitepaper on their website.
https://hellobloom.io/?mwr=6025-0ca64e19
There are many benefits to utilizing Bloom over existing credit scoring systems. To keep this post easy to understand and simple, I will highlight what I believe are their 3 main selling points.
1.Banking the Unbanked
Why is there a need for credit scores? Because there are over 3 billion people, mainly from developing countries, whom do not have access to banking or personal credit scores. The clear majority of them are not jobless nor poverty stricken individuals but rather hardworking and fiscally responsible middle-class families in developing countries whom are making roughly $200-400 a month. Unfortunately, the traditional credit and banking industry is reluctant to extend their services into developing markets simply because the vast majority of citizens do not have a personal credit scores. But if they don’t have banks in the first place, how will they ever build a credit score??? It’s the class chicken and egg problem.
Banking and credit can play important economic roles in developing countries whether its helping finance food, shelter, healthcare, education, or tools to start a business. The current lack of credit scores and thus banking system forces millions of people to rely on family and friends to meet cash short falls whom are often short of cash themselves, or to fall prey to loan sharks for bigger needs. By exploiting this opportunity, investors are enabling cheaper, easier, and safer access to credit making the lives of millions, and potentially billions better.
2.Security:
Yes, there is a desperate need for Bloom in the developing world, but why would anyone use Bloom in developed countries like the USA, UK, Germany, when the majority of population has access to credit and the banking system? Because EVERYONE’S data is vulnerable.
The Equifax hack has brought major attention to the risk of having all credit scores regulated and monitored by a single company. Credit scores databases don’t just contain their credit history, but also their corresponding Social Security Number, address, date of birth, and a treasure trove of personal data that hackers can exploit to create fake identities to commit fraud with. Who pays for the frauds? The victims. We do. Last year, “credit losses due to identity theft exceed $21 billion!” However, traditional databases are extremely vulnerable to hacks as we’ve seen with Target, Anthem, Yahoo… and now Uber. And neither are companies interested in sacrificing the bottom line to protect your private security! Therefore, we must do our best to regain control of our personal data and to protect ourselves from credit fraud!
Now for the first time, we can take our own measures to protect our own identity – through Bloom. The consensus among the scientific and tech community is that blockchain technology is impossible to hack. As a result, all your personal information can be stored on Bloom ID, Bloom’s own database network of all your personal info except it’s stored on blockchain ledger. In the future, whenever an organization or business needs to verify your identity, you can simply provide your Bloom ID, instead of exposing your personal data to vulnerabilities.
3.Management:
This one cannot be overemphasized. A start-up, no matter how great the idea, will forever be an idea unless its vision is realized. So what percent of start-ups that successfully raise money will realize their true visions and provide financial returns to investors? 90%? Nope, those are the ones whom primarily fail or for a few whom break even. Another 10% will make enough progress towards their vision to justify a several fold return. That means a whole lot LESS THAN <1% start-ups end up becoming the mythical unicorn, the real money maker. Everyone hears about the success stories, but few hear of the failures, which vastly outnumbers the success.
So how do great ideas become unicorn? There are many factors, but the biggest and single most deciding factor is management.
The reason many start-ups with good ideas can’t realize their visions is because of a poor execution. Poor execution doesn’t mean founders are sitting on their asses and not giving a sh*t. Many are some of the most hard working people you will ever meet. Poor execution simply means the founding team does not have all the skills or traits required to overcome the infinite obstacles between them and their vision. If great idea + hard work = success then there would be 100x more successful start-ups and we’d all be living in a different world. But start-ups take skills and traits. A large variety of them that few founders have enough of.
So how good is Bloom’s management?
Well, let’s just say this management team is as stacked as one can possibly hope for in an ICO.
Jesse Leimgruber: Jesse studied computer science at Stanford University. Jesse is an advisor to The Alchemist Accelerator, a Thiel Fellow, and a mentor at the European Innovation Academy. He’s served as a guest lecturer at Stanford University, The University of Southern California, DePaul, among others. Prior to Bloom Jesse founded enterprise analytics software, NeoReach. NeoReach provides analytics for Fortune 500 brands including Microsoft, Citrix, Walmart, among others.
Ryan Faber: Ryan Faber developed a behavioral recognition methodology designed to leverage online psychographic data for user acquisition. Using his research, Ryan launched Flatiron Collective. Flatiron now manages over $100M annually in digital marketing spend. His developments in user acquisition have allowed him to become a 3x Webby Award winner and his methodology has been attributed to the exponential growth of numerous billion dollar brands.
Alain Meier: Alain Meier studied computer science at Stanford University and served as a research scientist for Stanford Bitcoin Group. Founded by 21 CEO, Balaji S. Srinivasan, The Stanford Bitcoin Group is Stanford University’s blockchain research organization. Alain developed a number of open source cryptography projects including CryptoNote.me, an open-source service allowing users to send encrypted, single-view messages in seconds. Following his work at Stanford, Alain is serving as the CEO of compliance and identity verification company, Cognito (formerly BlockScore).
John Backus: John is a founding research scientist at Stanford Bitcoin Group and studied computer science at Stanford University. He is a Thiel Fellow and cofounder and CTO of identity verification company, Cognito. John is an expert at identity infrastructure, previously engineering data preprocessing algorithms for large-scale entity extraction for deterministic and probabilistic record linkage. This is currently implemented into Cognito’s core identity resolution and record linkage infrastructure, now processing identity and compliance for tens of millions of cryptocurrency users globally.
Secondly, statistics have shown second time founders are much more likely to succeed, let alone whizz kid wonders from Stanford with proven track records pooling their brains and skills together! See the link below!
https://www.inc.com/elizabeth-macbride/why-repeat-entrepreneurs-succeed.html
ADOPTION. ADOPTION. ADOPTION.
So will this be successful with a great product, vision, and management? Of all the coins out there, I think this one has the highest likelihood of success. Bloom will certainly thrive simply because of ADOPTION. It’s all about ADOPTION. The faster the adoption of Bloom credit services, the higher the growth rate and thus the valuation of the coin.
As Paul Graham, founder of Y-Combinator, famously said “we often say that a small group of customers who love you is better than a large group that kinda likes you.” What this means is, is there a real desperate need for this product? Is it a 10x game changer? Or simply another incremental improvement? Many coins and ICOS offer only incremental improvements, which is why marginally better ideas often fail or lack the high growth rate to justify a high valuation.
For Bloom, the supporting case goes back to the first point of servicing the unbanked. For many desperate middle-class citizens in third world and developing countries, access to credit is unavailable forcing them to resort to unappealing methods. Credit for many is a need, a necessity to life when the country is too poor to offer them any form of social securities. Therefore, there is a higher need for credit in developing countries than anywhere else, yet they are the ones most deprived of it!
I am confident that adoption of Bloom token and its credit application will be quickly embraced and loved by millions around the world desperately in need of credit.
RISKS
Yes, ALL crypto projects and start-ups are inherently risky. It is a form of angel investing/venture capital at best. Therefore, invest only what you can afford to lose financially and EMOTIONALLY. However, if you are the type who gets excited by the prospect of an ICO, then Bloom is probably the best opportunity out there right now!
YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE TODAY!
Bloom will be raising money via their ICO on November 30th. However, initial investors must be on Bloom’s Whitelist before it’s opened up to the general public. Like many other ICOs, there are benefits to contributing early as most coins will offer discounts. If you are interested, you can sign up to be one of the first here! Signing up does not mean you have to commit anything, it’s merely an expression of interest and is free to join! MAKE SURE TO CONFIRM THE E-MAIL YOU RECEIVE AFTER OTHERWISE YOU WON’T BE INCLUDED ON THE WHITE-LIST.
LESS THAN 48 HOURS LEFT FOR WHITELIST COMING OUT AFTER NOV.25th!
https://hellobloom.io/?mwr=6025-0ca64e19
If you didn't get a chance to make the whitelist! Don't worry, ICO opens on Nov.30th. Those who are not on the whitelist may invest after everyone on the whitelist has done so. But as you can see, there is a lot of long term potential in this project!!
Conclusion:
Once again, I am relatively new to the crypto scene. I look forward to your feedback and corrections that I may have made. I hope this post can foster a meaningful discussion that could raise awareness, insight, and ideas regarding Bloom. Best of luck everyone!
I intend to participate in the ICO. Early sales spots are limited so sign up soon! The link above is my personal referral link. If you have benefited or enjoyed this article, readers can sign up for the early spots through the link above, which will help me climb up the whitelist rankings to help me win a prize.
Best of luck with your crypto adventures!
Know your limit, play within it!
Citations: Some figures and statistics come from Bloom Whitepaper, which can be found at https://hellobloom.io/