SyncFab is not exactly the hottest ICO at the moment, but it certainly hasn't passed unnoticed. The token sale is currently live and doing quite well.
Simply put, the company promises to revolutionize the way things are done in the manufacturing industry by means of a B2B platform that connects buyers and manufacturing companies.
But can it live up to the hype?
Innovation
"SyncFab wants to make the process of outsourcing manufacturing simple and accessible to everyone by connecting buyers directly to hardware manufacturers and offering effortless production tracking, guaranteeing payments through smart contracts. [..] Manufacturers list their machining capabilities straight to our platform and Hardware buyers can send part orders directly to them. Smart contracts guarantee production standards, protect Intellectual Property and guarantee payments. Blockchain makes the supply chain more efficient and cost-effective.This will all be powered by our MFG Utility Token.” source
Basically, it's a fancy Alibaba for the US market with its own token economy. That is, of course, an oversimplification. SyncFab promises to bring "paradigm-shifting" technologies to the supply chain management field, such as the integration of smart contracts and IOT for real-time monitoring of the manufacturing process.
The whitepaper could easily be condensed into a 15-page document, but it goes on for 64 pages full of filler, blank spaces, and buzzwords. It tries to explain how the platform will work, describing the workflow of the transactions in the dAPP, but it never touches on the technical aspects of how this will be accomplished.
It clearly wasn't proofread by someone who gets the technical side. Neither by someone with a little common sense. See if you can find anything odd with the financial goals of the crowdsale:
- Minimum Goal: 500K ETH (500 USD). This is our minimum goal. If the amount is not reached, we will refund all ETH contributed in the crowdsale.
- Soft Cap: 15K ETH (15M USD)
- Hard Cap: 33K ETH (30M USD). This is the maximum amount of MFG Tokens we’re looking to sell in the crowdsale.source
I think we can both agree that they probably meant 500 ETH or 500K USD as their minimum goal. But I've seen the "500K ETH / 500 USD" figure in three different instances. That is three too many.
Market
SyncFab's potential market covers all of the manufacturing sectors in the US, but their main goal is to serve small to medium-sized business that outsource their manufacturing.
“SyncFab revolutionizes manufacturing by connecting buyers directly to hardware manufacturers. Through the Smart Manufacturing Blockchain, purchasers and manufacturers will be able to streamline the procurement and supply chain processes, protect intellectual properties, source, and track parts production in real time and on-demand.”source
The one page dedicated to competitive analysis in the whitepaper is full of platitudes and doesn't really go into detail about the competitors in the market it's looking to get into. It mentions GE and IBM use cases of blockchain technology and how Google is oppressing small business.
"In 2014 exported goods within the United States were estimated at 1.4 trillion, and there is a worldwide expected growth of 15 trillion by 2030. Additionally, companies within the United States are investing heavily in IIoT technologies, with spending estimated to be around 20 billion in 2012 and an approximate projection of 500 billion by 2020. These investments are expected to yield a return on investment to the global GDP as high as 10-15 trillion by 2030. For every dollar spent on manufacturing within the United States alone, $1.81 is expected to be added to the economy."source
That "2030" figure is mentioned several times in the whitepaper. The number comes from a 2013 article by David Floyer published on Wikibon.org. I find it odd that they're projecting that far ahead when their listed milestones only go as far as 2019.
Tokenomics
SyncFab will issue a total supply of 1 billion MFG tokens. I think that a billion is on the verge of being too many, but still acceptable. I'm not saying that scarcity attracts money in and of itself. But it kind of does.
The token distribution is detailed below:
- 30% (300,000,000 MFG) will be offered to the general public during the ICO.
- 30% will be given to the Strategic Partnership Adoption Pool (manufacturing companies who will adopt and implement the SyncFab blockchain in their operations). Basically, they'll get free tokens to get the ball rolling and incentivize the use of SyncFab's app.
- 15% will remain with SyncFab to fund research, engineering, deployment, business development, and marketing with a standard 2-year lock-up.
- 10% will go to the Founding Team, Advisors and Early Contributors.
- 15% will stay with Smart MFG Tech LTD (the token division of SyncFab) for long-term ecosystem promotional budget, and network governance.
If we eliminate the distinctions between management, development, research, and advisors, 40% of all the tokens will remain with the people behind SyncFab. That seems like an awful lot to me.
The Team
Let's take a look at who's behind all this.
Jeremy Goodwin - Chief Executive Officer
Jeremy’s highest career achievement was between 2010 and 2011, when he served as CEO for China Advanced Materials Company.
The average tenure for directors of the company is 7.6 years. The reason for Jeremy’s short mandate is not specified anywhere.
Andy Le Tong – Chief Strategy Officer
Self-proclaimed “serial entrepreneur, investor and powerlifter”, Andy is divided between 5 different endeavors at the moment - not including SyncFab, mind you. I don’t know how he can do all this and still finds time to hit the gym.
The joint interview him and Goodwin gave to Dollar Vigilante didn't do anything to ease me into SyncFab's aspirations.
They don’t seem to really know where this is going or what they want to achieve with the ICO. Their business doesn’t really need a blockchain to operate. If we filter all the buzzwords they throw around, they made a very poor job of explaining why they’re doing this.
Jay Ligda – Chief Technology Officer
The only relevant experience Jay lists on his resume is his time at SteadyServe.net - the company he created 18 years ago and where he worked by himself, apparently. The website is a real homage to the 90’s, if you want to check it out.
SteadyServe offered “many tools or programs to enhance the usability of customer's websites including an event calendar, shopping cart, knowledgebase, content management, articles, photo gallery and many more!”. He’s also the owner of Online Wellness Network, which seeks to “foster a community of Alternative Medicine enthusiast” and“provide a resource for Holistic Health information”.
I’m not entirely sure how that experience will translate into bringing a revolutionary integration between blockchain technology and supply chain micro-coordination to life.
Hikaru Yuki - Executive Director of Smart MFG Tech
Hikaru is presented on SyncFab’s whitepaper as an “International Supply Chain Professional with almost a decade of experience at Fuji Xerox Global Supply Chain Department.” That sounds appropriate for someone heading a very significant aspect of this project, but her LinkedIn profile raises some red flags.
The 8 years she spent at Fuji Xerox were mostly divided between sales and low-level management positions. She left the company in 2013, and since then, has not been involved with anything related to supply chains.
She took a language tutoring position from 2014 to 2016. There is an unexplained gap between May 2016 and May 2017, when she began working as a“Senior Independent Consultant” at Ambit Energy.
Looking further into Ambit’s business and their Independent Consulting program, I found out it is advertised as a residual income, multilevel marketing franchise whose only requirements to join are an upfront payment of USD 75 and a monthly subscription of USD 25.
From one of Ambit’s YouTube video descriptions:
“This simple, proven formula has already helped thousands of Ambit Energy Consultants earn residual income just by helping others save money on their energy bills.”
That doesn't seem appropriate to someone responsible for such a vital part of this project.
Ali Zain, Yasir Iqbal and Ali Rizvi - The Blockchain Developers
All three of SyncFab’s developers have one thing in common – they live far away from the company’s office in California but are very close to each other. The trio works for Ideofuzion, a Pakistan-based “team of entrepreneurs and IT professionals who design, develop and manage end to end solutions.”
Their primary services include:
- Mobile App Design and Development for Windows Phone, iOS, and Android
- Website Design and Development
They don't mention anything blockchain-related in the company’s description. Unless they’re working on something top secret, all they’ve done so far is design SyncFab’s ICO website and maybe the smart contract for the token distribution.
Academic Relationships and Partners
Contrary to other popular infrastructure and blockchain ICOs, SyncFab doesn’t have a strong academic backing or involvement.
Not that I think it’s fundamental to have scholars working on every blockchain project, but it would be nice to see some academic backing for a self-proclaimed "paradigm-shifting technology”.
As far as partnerships go, the keywords “public-private” are mentioned six times throughout the Whitepaper. SyncFab seems quite comfortable in getting government money to sponsor their activities.
Other than a very generic agreement with the San Francisco mayor’s office, SyncFab doesn’t have any concrete or developing partnerships at the moment.
Final Thoughts
At first sight, the project seemed really interesting to me. Especially when considering that infrastructure ICOs are the new hottest thing in crypto. But now, the more I look at it, the more red flags pop up.
Here's a recap of what's wrong with SyncFab:
- Apparent lack of expertise of the team.
- The absence of long-term milestones, which makes it hard to perceive the long-term appeal of the project.
- Unclear dispute resolution mechanism. Even though they plan to implement smart contracts to regulate most of the transactions, SyncFab doesn't delve much into how it will mediate conflicts between manufacturers and buyers.
- The economics of its blockchain, where basically 40% of all tokens remain under the control of the company.
- The flowery whitepaper that doesn't directly address the technical difficulties of the project.
With all that said, I'll not be putting my money into it. The public sale ends in 9 days and it already sold half of the tokens available. It may very well do O.K. if all you want is to make a quick buck, but I don't believe in the long-term sustainability of the project.
Do you think I'm being reasonable? Are my expectations too high? Let me know in the comments what you think of SyncFab.
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