I thought I would take it upon myself to try and perform an unbiased review of DeepOnion. For full disclosure, if you have read my other articles on the matter you will know that I am positive on DeepOnion, but I will try to set that aside and look at it from all sides. I will take into account the viewpoints of both those that are shouting "DeepOnion Scam" and also the others that are saying "It's the best cryptocurrency ever". Personally I don't fully believe either, but always try to keep an open mind and listen to all opinions.
What is DeepOnion?
DeepOnion is a small cap coin and with that comes the normal risks of higher volatility but also larger possible gains. It has been received both good and bad reviews and even though some say "any publicity is good publicity" not all reviews are good and should be taken into account. Back to the fundamental technology behind DeepOnion; it is a crypto currency that is integrated into the TOR network and ensures anonymity of the users by hiding their IP address to the other nodes. It is a combined PoW and PoS coin with most of the coins being "pre-mined" and distributed through AirDrops and Bounty campaigns. It also has an extra feature in the DeepVault which is basically a "file hash storage" on the Blockchain for file verification. The transaction speed beats out Litecoin at 62.5 tx/sec. I figure I won't go into detail on the specifics in the features themselves but leave that for other posts/articles. This is just meant as an intro for those that haven't heard about DeepOnion before. Feel free to search more or your own or look at my other articles on the matter.
Why are not everyone sold on DeepOnion?
There are some topics that are common to those that are opposed to DeepOnion together with some of my own concerns:
- The development team is anonymous
- The technology isn't unique (taken from other coins)
- There is no whitepaper
Anonymous development team
I understand this is a worry for some, at least it was for me. A strong team is something I look for before investing in a crypto currency. In this case, since it is a crypto that is focusing on anonymity, I can kinda see why they want to stay anonymous and I try to respect that. But how to validate their work? Well I look for other signs of a good team:
- How is the marketing handled?
- How well does the coin adhere to the roadmap?
- What is the status of the features that are already launched?
In the case of DeepOnion I think the marketing has been really good. It has not been perfect since there has been a lot of DeepOnion spamming with bad english comments, but overall they have managed to get the word out there and built a strong community support. Currently they seem to be focusing on changing quantity to quality which I think is a good choice. As for the roadmap they have followed it very well, launching DeepVault (almost finished but still in development), desktop wallet with PoS staking. Some things in the roadmap have been moved, such as DeepSend to 2018 Q2, to focus on development of the Android Wallet and the Whitepaper development. This is something that can happen during a project but it is important to be aware of to make sure that development is indeed continuing and not stopping.
DeepOnion has recently added members to the development team and seem to be ready for some releases (Android Wallet, Whitepaper, DeepOnion Store) so I am still very hopeful and positive but also keeping a close watch on the progress.
DeepVault feature was launched and is still under development but the fundamental technology was sound and seemed to be working properly. Another point people are quick to point out is that the source code for DeepVault is still not open to the public and it is a good point. Personally I believe/hope this will be released in the near future, after the developers has had time to put the finishing touches to it. But it is something I would recommend to take into consideration before chosing to invest.
The technology isn't unique
This argument I barely understand but I notice a lot of people using this, not only about DeepOnion but about many coins that they don't like. My answer to this is, why redo something that is already working and showing good results?! "Is not the whole greater than the sum of it's parts?!" The question shouldn't be if some parts have been put together from other sources, many technologies work that way. The question should be regarding the coin as a whole, does it provide something unique that seperates it from other coins? And as a whole I like what DeepOnion is trying to offer: Something more than a privacy coin with PoS Staking, DeepVault and Vote Central. If you agree that is up for you to decide but don't forget to look at the whole and not just the individual parts.
There is no whitepaper
This is something that was bothering me about DeepOnion from the beginning, since I want to be able to read the whitepaper, understand the technology and see if has future applications and a sound user basis. Since there was no ICO in the case of DeepOnion but most of the coins was premined for community AirDrops, Development costs and Bounty campaigns I almost understand the lack of a whitepaper. Since no community funding was performed there was no need for a whitepaper early in the project. I can gladly report that the whitepaper has been promised to be released in the coming days and I for one am looking forward to reading it. If you want to wait until then to invest I fully understand your viewpoint and might have done the same in your situation.
Final words
I am sorry for such a long article but I felt it important to try and cover as many different viewpoints as possible. And to meet them with my views on the matter and that is hard to do in something shorter than this. I know it shines through that I am positive on DeepOnion and sadly that can't be helped since it is this reasoning why I have chosen to invest in the coin. Since I knew this was going to be unavoidable I instead tried to lift the points regarding DeepOnion that people are unsure on and hopefully you could form your own opinion. If you are unconvinced by my arguments, I am far from angry, rather I am delighted and hope to hear your views on the matter. You are very welcome to do your own research and share your counter-arguments on the matter.