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The ClearPoll ICO
Industry: Digital Polling
ICO Start Date: 26 September 2017
ICO End Date: 26 October 2017
URL: https://clearpoll.io/
Rate: 1 ETH = 2300 POLL
(as of writing - consult website for further details)
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As some-one who is practically spending every minute of his waking life right now reading white-papers, writing up on ICOs and being wrapped up in all the other dramas - and they usually are dramas - in Crypto-land, there is one thing above all else that gets my goat in regard to the glut of opportunistic, Blockchain band-wagon ICOs popping up right now.
It is the recurrence of a specific formula, and the formula goes something like this:
"X ICO: Blockchain Y!"
X, of course, is the name of the ICO and Y represents the field that X is claiming to conquer.
So, for example, you might see:
- BetaBlockers: Blockchain Pharmaceuticals!
- BitWine: a Blockchain-managed vineyard start-up!
- Parcel Farce: The Blockchain Does Parcel Delivery!
That last one is for our British readers, maybe. These descriptions are, of course, made up - but other ICO aficionados out there like me will know that there are real-life examples that I could have cited that are altogether more, well, ludicrous.
There is a very simple reason for these quick conclusions, of course. The Blockchain's inherent qualities can be summed up in two terms:
- Intamperable Process Transparency
- Data Immutability
So, when I see ICOs presented with descriptions like those above, I instinctively know that the project is highly likely to be an opportunistic one that is simply trying to ride on the Blockchain wave that we are all surfing on right now.
It is simply too often the case now that we see ICO proposals which have no relevance to the two magic Blockchain qualities cited above. Going by the ever-trustworthy Pareto principal and judging from personal experience, my guess is that roughly 80% of ICOs fall into this bracket.
But you hang in there because you know that in ICO-land, if you look hard enough, you are going to find that little nugget. And when I came across ClearPoll, I knew immediately that this project was a perfect fit for the Blockchain.
ClearPoll, as it happens, is also a relatively small outfit - they don't have armies of engineers and marketers at their disposal, and they are going to need our help to bring to market an extremely valuable service. So read on...
The ClearPoll Concept
- Problem 1: Opinion polls are managed by specialised, closed institutions whose methods and data are rarely given over to public scrutiny.
- Problem 2: These polling institutions are getting it wrong just a little bit too often - the recent examples of Brexit, Trump and the last British General Election are all text-book cases in point.
- Problem 3: When's the last time you got to participate in one of these opinion polls that we keep seeing on the news?
- Problem 4: Polling institutions are very often paid - and are prone to massaging the data when necessary to keep their paying clients happy.
It is time, then, for some reform - polling integrity is paramount for democracy and just as critical for industry. And given the two magic properties of the Blockchain that we cited above, all we need is for someone to come along and code up a better approach. That, in a nutshell, is the ClearPoll proposition. And that's also why you might also catch a guarded personality like Vitalik Buterin doing something like this:
:
So How Does It Work In Practice?
If you're still reading at this point, that probably means that you're interested. And if so, a good starting point is the white-paper. If you don't fancy setting aside the twenty minutes or so it would need to go through what is otherwise a very accessible paper, then here's a summary:
- ClearPoll App will be made available for iPhone and Android
- Users create and participate in polls through the app only
- Creation of and participation in polls is free for everyone - no polls are promoted or advertised. Users vote for polls as well as within polls
- Advanced analytical services are provided through what will be known as the ClearPoll Plus subscription package - which are paid for through the POLL token
There is, of course, a lot more detail and you may want to a transcript of our interview with ClearPoll which you can access here.
I don't want to sound too philosophical here but I do think the world needs something like this. Imagine, though, all of us interacting in real-time, participating in the major questions of the day, all at once, all together in a manner that no-one can censor, that no-one can manipulate and that no-one can monopolise. Because WE create the polls, and we ALL get to participate.
The Blockchain, as we know, is going to revolutionise and disrupt politics, industry and everything else that we can think of - and then some. And when we see projects like this, we know this is the reason that we are dedicating ourselves to the Blockchain
phenomenon.
