You want to analyse the crypto market? Then Santiment will provide data and tools for it. On top of our review, you can listen to an interview podcast of the CEO of Santiment on Soundcloud, the first podcast we recorded!
FYI: a French version of this article about Santiment is available on our French steemit account (IPA News FR).
Overview & Opinion
- Pros:
- A product well on its way (beta out soon), a strong team that expanded since the ICO. Only one competitor targeting the exact same fields as Santiment (Enigma), and even then, Enigma has a much broader long term target. A target market that is constantly growing & a very high demand since there isn’t any company filling the targeted needs yet. A very successful ICO that was extremely fair (no bonuses). Good image by trying to make the crypto field more transparent.
- Cons:
- Quite a few competitors in the field of data marketplace & prediction markets. No advisors yet, although some are supposed to be announced soon.
- Conclusion:
- A project with a bright future ahead. Any crypto investor should know about it, even if not investing in the token, since the data & tools provided might be a game changer in the industry if things go as planned.
Methodology used when creating this report
- Every article published using this "5min read" format is answering a very specific list of questions.
- The list of questions does evolve slightly from one article to another, but stays 90% the same to allow easier read and comparison between projects.
- If the answer regarding a given question isn't available on the project's publications (website, white paper, blog, etc) and isn't answered by the team when asked on its Telegram Group Chat (i.e. the team ignores the question or avoids the question asked by answering on an unrelated topic), it is communicated in this report:
- some answers will be written as "not disclosed/available"
- a comment may be added in the "Overall Communication" section regarding the team's attitude
Getting started
- Official Website
- https://santiment.net
- https://sanbase-low.santiment.net (SANbase application)
- ICO page
- ICO ended in July 2017
- White paper
- Short paper
- Fields
- Prediction market platforms - for crypto markets
- Data Marketplace - for crypto-related data
- Token economy analysis
- Crypto market research
- Big Data
- Goal
- Bring clarity to crypto trading and investing
- Provide verifiable info about the crypto market for business and academic research
- Provide insight into crypto market dynamics and crowd sentiment/ behavior/ psychology
- Become the equivalent of Bloomberg and Thomson Reuters, but for crypto finance
- Products status
- Public free version is already available on https://sanbase-low.santiment.net
- Key insights include ETH spent by ERC-20 ICOs, github activity of all projects (not only ERC-20)
- In April 2018, Santiment has launched the closed beta with on-chain, sentiment data.
- The team did some massive progress since August (once the ICO was over), the data feeds and the tools to make this data more digestible are well in progress.
- Market size
- "The size of the mainstream financial data market — which is an unknown hundreds of billions of dollars — is born from this desire."
- "By conservative estimates, there are now 1,000,000 active crypto-traders in the West alone."
- "If Santiment can provide just 50,000 traders with content streams at $20.00 per subscriber per month, we will generate a monthly revenue of $1,000,000 per month. [...] Assuming half (25,000) of subscribed traders purchase datafeeds at an additional $50.00 per month, that adds up to an additional $1,250,000 per month."
- Competition
- Summary: a lot of competitions in the field of “Prediction market platforms for crypto markets”, and also a lot of competition in the field of “Data Marketplace”. However, for the last field, most the marketplaces are not dedicated to crypto market data.
- Field: Prediction market platforms for crypto markets
- Catalyst (of Enigma)
- Cindicator
- Ignite ratings
- CoinFi
- Decryptz
- Cryptto.io
- Field: Data Marketplace
- Enigma (crypto markets data)
- IOTA
- RepuX
- Streamr
- Datum
- Ocean Protocol
- Description
- “Santiment is a platform for accessing, creating and sharing crypto market data and insights. We’re building smart tools and a vibrant community aimed at developing a better understanding of crypto market activity, and bringing clarity to crypto market research, trading and investing.”
- Offers datafeeds, signals and content streams (including community insights and newswires) alongside a regularly updated database of cryptocurrency projects.
- Long term goal: become the market data infrastructure and insights platform for cryptocurrency and the blockchain economy.
- The first platform for datafeeds and insights in the space, providing cryptocurrency-related datafeeds, exclusive content streams (insights), and a regularly updated database of cryptocurrency projects for reference
- Provide access to datafeeds via mobile, web terminals & integration with 3rd party services (i.e. exchanges)
- Create market standards for cryptocurrency market data, best practices, and project transparency, all available in one place
- It should be noted that the core subscriptions are denominated in either fiat, BTC, or ETH, and not SAN. SAN is used primarily to create network effects via holding and for accessing extremely exclusive information. It will also be used to incentivize crowdsourced feeds.
- Target customers:
- Professional crypto-traders and investors (hedge funds and whales)
Newcomer crypto-traders and investors - Data vendor middlemen (Exchanges and Asset Management Platforms)
- Business and academic researchers, developers, and data scientists
- Professional crypto-traders and investors (hedge funds and whales)
- Curated crypto-asset data:
- Crypto-content streams, insights and newswires, curated by experts
- A curated database of blockchain projects and analyses
- Crypto-market datafeeds and signals: Sentiment, blockchain (monitoring), & Crowdsourced datafeeds
ICO Details
- Token Sale FAQ
https://docs.google.com/document/d/12-iKSVn-m_agZ6bfdZuXuAdW3g14ifDAjGCRM-I_WIY/edit - Hard cap
- 45,000 ETH max cap was reached
- During the month of July 2017, the price of Ethereum varied between 133 and 320 USD
- For private pre-sale, public pre-sale and ICO
- Dates
- Pre-sale: February 2017
- Public sale: July 4, 2017
- July 4: stage 1: Santiment Community Whitelist only
- July 5: stage 2: Cofound.it whitelist only
- July 6: stage 3: anyone can contribute
- Bonuses
- No bonuses, except for some of those who took part in the first ICO in February 2017
- Token amounts
- Token amount was dynamic: for each ETH contributed, 1000 SAN tokens were created.
- 45 million SAN tokens were created, because the 45’000 ETH hard cap was reached.
- Dates
- Token allocation
- 18% - team
- 4% - advisors and partners
- 6% - reward pool
- 18% - presale
- 54% - public sale
- Banned countries
- US
Token trading & usage
- Token trading
- Date tokens get distributed
- 7 days after end of ICO
- Date tokens hit exchanges
- Token now listed on exchanges
- Exchanges planned to list the token
- Token now available on Ethfinex, Liqui, HitBTC and OKEx
- Date tokens get distributed
- Token usage
- SAN is a coupon issued in Switzerland according to FINMA regulation.
By staking SAN, users and exchanges get access to free streams of information and feeds. - SAN token is also the sole means of purchasing exclusive datafeeds and content (mostly sentiment-related) available via auctions.
- SAN tokens are required for use in Santiment auctions (selling highly valuable raw datasets, crowd sentiment datafeeds, and exclusive content)
SAN tokens are required for certain actions to protect the health of the network, as well as guarantee further development of the network.
- SAN is a coupon issued in Switzerland according to FINMA regulation.
Team
- Summary: strong team, mostly technical. Note that at the time of writing, the team has grown a lot (the website isn’t up to date) so the list below is not exhaustive.
- Maksim Balashevich, Founder & CEO
- Summary: 20+ years experience in IT, experience in fintech, 10+ years experience in trading (using sentiment, Elliott Waves analysis, mass psychology, and more)
- Co Founder @ greenYvest
- Qa Manager, then Scrum Master, then Quality Product Manager @ United Signals GmbH (FinTech, social trading platform)
- Spiritual Student, Yoga teacher and later Supporter @ Yoga Vidya Frankfurt
- Co Founder @ HSP Extmedia (Belarussian hosting provider)
- Team Lead @ KEOS Software Service GmbH
- Developer, then Lead Software Developer @ IBA Group
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/maksim-balashevich-640a8948
- https://twitter.com/balance_ra
- http://maksimbala.com
- https://ethavest.com - Maksim Balashevich trading trading blog
- Valentin Mihov, CTO
- Summary: very strong tech profile, 10+ years experience in IT, specialises in Computer Science and Algorithms, Data Structures, Machine Learning, Ruby on Rails, Python, Elixir, Databases, Scalability.
- Founder and tech lead @ Atokan (software house & consulting)
- Co Founder @ Treehouse Lab (coworking space)
- Co-founder and maintainer @ Maycamp (portal for training computer science students)
- Software Engineer @ AirHelp
- Principal Software Engineer And Partner @ SEC Live (FinTech, Big Data)
- Software Engineer @ DreamBox Learning
- Senior Software Engineer @ Motorola
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/valentinmihov
- https://twitter.com/valentinmihov
- https://github.com/valo
- Dorjee Sun, COO
- Summary: advisor, investors, mentor to cryptocurrency projects and various startups. Has a wide range of interests and his past reflects this. Named as one of TIME Magazine's Heroes of the Environment and winner of African Rainforest Conservancy's Earth Day Species Award
- Social entrepreneur who has co-founded 17 companies in the areas of biotech, education, conservation, agriculture, philanthropy, technology and financial innovation
- Director @ Home Group
- Young Global Leader @ World Economic Forum
- Mentor and Teacher for Entrepreneurship to PhD and advanced students @ UNSW (Australia)
- Director Global Business Development @ Doculife (secure doc management platform)
- Director @ Carbon Conservation (carbon finance to conserve tropical rainforests)
- Director @ Who Gives (donation field)
- Director @ Carbon Agro (green project)
- Asia 21 Fellow @ Asia Society (Asia-US relations)
- New Generation Leaders @ Asialink (Asia-Australi relations)
- Director @ Asiagroove (social network)
- Director @ cvMail Services
- https://sg.linkedin.com/in/dorjee
- Dmitry Palchun, Ethereum Scientist
- Summary: 20+ years of experience in IT, smart contract developer, leads the Hamburg Ethereum community
- CEO @ Crystal Reality Media GmbH (http://crystalreality.de and http://www.crystal.tv)
- https://www.xing.com/profile/Dmitry_Palchun/cv
- https://twitter.com/ethernian
- Tzanko Matev, Developer / Mathematician
- Summary: very strong technical profile
- Junior meditation teacher & Chomtong Insight meditation center
- Software Developer @ Darkium Group
- Teaching assistant @ University of Bayreuth
- PhD in Mathematics Grade earned "with great honor” @ University of Bayreuth
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/tzanko-matev-2328425/
- Kim Carson, Designer (freelancer)
- Summary: visual/interactive designer specializing in enterprise apps for web and mobile, 20 years experience in the field of design and IT.
- Designer (Freelance) - Tablet Apps @ Securus Technologies
- Designer (Freelance) - Web, UI/UX, Branding, Marketing @ Azuga
- More positions...
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/kimcarson
- Feng Jiahong, Graphic Illustrator
- Summary: experience design and illustration. Speaks Chinese, English, Japanese and Russian.
- Freelance Translator, Consultant, Designer @ United Signals GmbH (FinTech)
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/jiahong-feng-903a8187/
- Kelvin “Wilhelm” Lee, Community Manager
- Summary: specializes in internal and external project communication
- Core team @ Cryptocopia (crypto’s largest slack)
- Community Development Specialist @ Adelphoi (incubator)
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/whoiskelvinlee/
- https://twitter.com/claptrapxl
- Garry Kabankin - Project Manager
- Summary: experience in content creation (written and multimedia) & project management
- Project Manager @ Mail.Ru Group
- Content Coordinator @ Mail.Ru Group
- Content Editor @ utinet.ru
- Multimedia Director @ Moskovsky Komsomolets
- Photo Director @ Moskovsky Komsomolets
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/kabankin
- Milan Rusev, Developer
- Summary: strong tech profile, 13+ years experience in IT, likes CS, Mathematics, AI, Machine Learning
- Freelance Software Developer
- Software Architect
- Software Engineer, Database & Business Intelligence Consultant @ Abilitics
- Lecturer @ Hack Bulgaria
- Applied Mathematician, Software Engineer @ Institute of Mathematics and Informatics, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences
- Teaching Assistant and Lecturer @ Sofia University
- Software and Database Engineer @ TechnoLogica
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/milanrusev
- https://github.com/MilanRusev
- Yura Zatsepin, Developer
- Summary: full stack developer, experience leading development of various projects, won awards in hackathons & special prize from Evernote.
- Creator @ Speakingcamps.com (language education service)
- Creator @ Totallicks.com (guitar education service)
- Developer @ JSC BANK "SNGS"
- Developer @ indie game companies
- https://zatsepin.surge.sh
- https://github.com/Partysun
- https://twitter.com/yurazatsepin
- https://medium.com/@zacepin
- Ivan Aleksandrov, Developer
- Summary: skills in Elixir, C++
- C++ Developer @ Opencode Systems (Telecommunications)
- Teaching Assistant @ Sofia University
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/ivan-aleksandrov-63b8668a/
- Liudmil Lesinski, Full Stack Developer
- Summary: full stack developer
- Full Stack Developer @ Tabl
- Full Stack Developer @ AirHelp
- Design Engineer @ Ed. Züblin AG
- Engineer @ EQE Bulgaria
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/liudmil-lesinski-078b6927/
- Serena Tan, Partnerships Development
- Summary: experience in administration, client relations & operations
- Project Lead @ Unswot
- Operations @ Fair Employment Agency
- Client Relations @ Fair Employment Agency
- Project Development @ Singapore Committee for UN Women
- Admin (Aquatic Centre) @ PLC Sydney
- https://linkedin.com/in/tanserena
Advisors
- No advisors yet - but some updates coming soon
Partners & Investors
- Investors
- ICONOMI - early investor
- KPMG - early investor
- Partners
- Cofound.it
- The Blockchain Research Lab
- Researchers at the University of Hamburg & Concordia University Montreal
Online Presence
- Media coverage - niche & mainstream
- Summary: no mainstream coverage so far. All the coverage to be found is by crypto website
- https://cryptosis.io/enigma-catalyst-vs-santiment-vs-cindicator-vs-coinfi/
- https://steemit.com/santiment/@steewrit/santiment-what-why-who-when-how-where
- https://stocksgazette.com/2018/02/16/where-santiment-network-token-san-will-go-from-here/
- https://www.softwaredaily.com/post/5aaa526d9524d000043b04f0/Crypto-Bloomberg-with-Valentin-Mihov
- Social media attention
- Telegram
- 1.1K members - https://t.me/santiment_network
- Discord
- very active
- https://discordapp.com/invite/6fMxk82
- Twitter
- 8.6K followers - https://twitter.com/santimentfeed
- Reddit
- 590 readers - https://www.reddit.com/r/santiment
- Medium
- 125 followers - https://medium.com/santiment
- Bitcointalk
- Telegram
Transparency
- Organization registration & jurisdiction
- https://www.linkedin.com/company/santiment
- Registered in Switzerland, registration number CHE-424.007.779
- https://www.uid-register.com/schweiz/uid.cfm?nummer=CHE-424.007.779&unternehmen=Santiment_Sagl&ort=Chiasso
- Open source or not
- santiment/sanbase2 is licensed under the MIT License
- https://github.com/santiment
- Code audited or not
- Smart contract audited before ICO by Bok Khoo a.k.a. "Bokky Poobah" https://github.com/bokkypoobah and Yoichi Hirai https://yoichihirai.com
- The platform was not audited.
- Overall communication
- Transparency is a strong value at Santiment. They even have a page dedicated to funds and costs (https://santiment.net/project). The progress done is communicated via various channels (blog posts, website, discord) and one can look at the activity on Github but this could be improved, most projects have this problem though.
- https://medium.com/santiment/development-update-jan-29-2018-8fd6d6e769b8
- https://sanbase-low.santiment.net/roadmap
- Special note
- Santiment co-founded project transparency (projecttransparency.org): a voluntary disclosure standard which aims to bring self governance and greater transparency for investors and the community
3rd party reviews
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- Article written by Adrien Berthou - founder of ICO Points Analysis