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The Soma ICO
Industry: Digital Retail
ICO Start Date: 26 September 2017
ICO End Date: 26 October 2017
URL:https://soma.co/
Rate: 1 ETH : 450 SCT
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If you have heard of the Soma ICO already, then you will likely have come across the description according to which it is simply looking to establish itself as the Blockchain eBay.
A Blockchain eBay by itself, however, brings no added value. All eBay offers is a platform from which to buy, sell and swap pre-owned goods. What exactly would be the added-value of a migration onto the Blockchain of an eBay-type business model?
For that reason, this kind of terse synopsis of the Soma ICO project feels a little bit unfair. Soma are seeking to bring two new elements to the concept of ownership that correspond to the two most important inherent properties of the Blockchain: data immutability and transparency.
The driving force behind this added-value is the currently-pending IIC (Iterative Item Card) patent, and it works something like this:
- Take a physical good and create its corresponding digital representation on the Blockchain
- Each time this good undergoes any kind of change of state, this will be recorded against the same digital representation - e.g. change of ownership, a physical modification, a change of location etc
The implications are profound. Ownership and property rights become immutably embedded in the Blockchain. No more messy divorces (well, not quite as messy). But where the real value comes into play is in transfer of ownership - think of all those art works and antiques, the vintage motor cars and family heirlooms.
If Soma goes mass adoption, the kind of legal wrangling over worldly goods that has torn friends and families apart is set to disappear (or, at the very least, diminish) because the immutable, unhackable Blockchain will have the final word. Valuable goods can now be transferred in a manner that is transparent and immutable - exactly the kind of scenario for which the Blockchain was conceived.
The model, however, now extends to goods in general - you could sell your X-Box, for example, and the buyer, by virtue of purchasing on the Soma platform as opposed to eBay, can now cut out what are frankly exorbitant commissions because now you are only paying a fractional fee to a Soma-platformed escrow service.
That fee, as it happens, can either be paid in fiat or in Soma or indeed other common cryptos thanks to Soma's recently announced partnership with UTRUST (you can read our previous UTRUST review here).
UTRUST adds a layer of confidence to the transaction - since those who prefer to transact (sell) in fiat will nonetheless be able to sell to those who only want to pay in crypto - because UTRUST offers a back-end hedging mechanism to provide stable crypto-to-fiat exchange rates (and vice-versa) over the life-cycle of the transaction.
The Soma white-papers, however, do not end there. Incidentally, there are two white-papers, one describing the business outline, another describing the technical implementation - there is perhaps a lesson in there for prospective, future ICOs.
Firstly, the concept of transparency will be extended through the provision of an API that taps into the Soma network's treasure of product data.
Maybe you're a retailer that wants to compare the price of your own products to those out that are being transacted out in the real world? Or maybe you're a consumer and you want to know if you are over-paying for a certain type of good within your own geographical boundaries?
The Soma API is conceived to allow for the creation and provision of a whole host of market-transaction and ownership-transparency services that makes the current free-market resemble the bound-and-gagged hostage that it currently is.
And with a marketing budget of 35% (at 