This is my entry for the sponsored writing contest organised by 
No one can argue about the success the cryptocurrency market enjoyed last year, with BTC reaching an all-time high of 20k, and other coins doing as high as 100X in growth. Coins backed by different projects were sprouting from every nuke and cranny of the blockchain last year. There were a total 370 ICOs in 2017, from different market segments like finance, trading and infrastructure, and the funds raised was in excess of $6.2B according to coinschedule
Sadly, by the first quarter (Q1) of 2018, 46% of all the 370 ICOs of 2017 was no longer existent, meaning all the brilliant ideas and the projects failed. There are about 113 ICOs that are en route the decentralized graveyard of broken promises, and they are classified as semi-failed and this is due to the lack of communication on their social media channels among other things. Adding this category takes the statistics to 59% of the ICOs of 2017 are either complete failures or failures in the making.
A decentralized ICO graveyard filled with broken promises.
This statistics makes investing in promising coins at the early stage a foolhardy venture, and as we all know, it led to popular social media platforms placing a ban of ICOs because, at the time, they looked like a scam. But we all know the enormous opportunity the blockchain technology holds, we have seen bitcoin go from a few cents to $20k within 10 years. Not to mention how we can leverage the blockchain technology as an alternative to faster and safer ways of transferring funds, building dApps, and creating contracts between two parties.
How can we have a safe platform where investors can review promising projects, projects that have been vetted by a group of professionals, seasoned crypto experts where investors can invest their resources without the fear of losing their investment.
Ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce you to Vertex
Question: What is Vertex?
If I were to use come up with an elevator pitch for Vertex, it will be “The Uber for ICOs” because I see Vertex as a platform that matches investors with the right ICOs just before they are listed on exchanges. So, Vertex creates the perfect marriage between promising ICOs that are legit and have been vetted with investors that are ready to invest in projects with more than average chance of success, that they are hopeful will give them the right return on investment (ROI) in the foreseeable future. Vertex is the very first of its kind, it is a consortium that houses both investors and pool of ICOs, with an active community of crypto enthusiasts.
According to CNBC the cryptocurrency market is valued at $1trillion, and the entry point to this industry is via ICOs, and in the light of recent events, ICOs have been heavily criticized because of the increasing number of individuals with nefarious intentions, that come up with bogus projections that their projects will attain, only for them amounts to nothing. Vertex has strategically positioned itself at the fore of solving the problem of vetting the right initial coin offerings that are both valid and are working on a realistic project and got the right team behind it. And they are doing this by giving the reins to the investors by creating a fair-value-based tokenization, as well as trading and the typical venture capital affair. By creating an over the counter (OTC) system where users will first get the opportunity to acquire certain coins at better prices before those coins become available to the public.
The VTEX Tokens
There are three pillars on which the Vertex ecosystem is built on, which are; the ICO vetting process, the VTEX token and the platform itself. These are what the Vertex economy is built on, now on the platform, when a project has been successfully vetted by the team of experts that work with Vertex, the project gets investment from Vertex, then Vertex sells the token it acquires from the project on the Vertex platforms to investors at a lower price before it gets listed on exchanges. The process of carrying out this transaction will be facilitated with the use of the VTEX token. Members of the Vertex community will have to acquire the VTEX tokens in order for them to be a part of the presale of the ICOs which will come at a preferential price. Other future transactions will be done with the token as well.
There are in-house team and partners who work with Vertex in order to fully ascertain if a project is valuable or not. Vertex carries out due diligence in getting the nitty-gritty of the project, understand the use case of the token, and evaluate if it will bring investors good ROI. The members of the vetting team are seasoned experts in the cryptocurrency space, and they understand how ICOs and blockchain works. So, by carrying out this in-depth research, it saves investors the headache of duplicating the effort of trying to ascertain if the project is good or not. Besides, the member of the Vertex team, have more experience in this field, as it is what they do for a living.
With this vetting framework in place, anyone can be an investor, as Vertex will be there just like a map, to point you in the right direction as to with baskets to put your eggs in because they have studied the baskets, and the team managing those baskets. The future of cryptocurrency looks really bright with this project, as it will provide a bit of regulation as to the quality of ICOs come into the crypto market. Sooner or later, Vertex will become the standard all ICOs must meet before being listed on exchanges, or taken seriously by certain key investors.
Benefits for all
Vertex business model is designed to benefit everyone, it is designed to benefit those that intend to participate in the Initial coin offerings ICOs, and the teams behind the ICOs and the entire cryptocurrency market too. Also, the ICOs that Vertex vest and invests in, this information will be made available to all the users on the platform. Here are some more detailed benefits members of the Vertex community are sure they can benefit from once they join the bandwagon.
Investors
Investors benefit immensely from the from the opportunity Vertex provides, which is offering an array of vetted, promising ICOs that has gone through the lenses of investment experts that understand the ins and out of investing and cryptocurrency. Information, otherwise that will be deemed difficult to come by. Investors won’t be burden with the task of repetitively providing their details for the KYC procedure. So, investors will have access to a pool of ICOs before they go public because they can all be found in one place, unlike the conventional way of slugging through various websites in search of ICOs that a majority of them will amount to nothing in the end.
So, thanks to Vertex, investors have a platform where they have access to a single token through which they can have access to various ICOs that have been vetted for by a team of savvy experts. Investors will have the opportunity to invest in closed ICOs, at exclusive prices.
Image - White Paper
Project Roadmap
For the ICOs
ICOs that successfully got through the Vertex evaluation procedure will have their ICOs place on the platform as one of the vetted ICOs, and it will be on display for wealthy investors to invest in their project. On the Vertex platform, they will get good exposure not only to investors, they also stand the chance of getting talent that might be interested in the project and wants to be a part of it. Lastly, by getting vetted on the platform, it serves as a reputational boost to the ICOs as it gets the Vertex Seal of Approval, which will make the project seem very legit both in the eyes of investors and also in the eyes of all the members of the community.
Being part of the vetted ICOs on the Vertex platform, ICOs have access to consultation services that Vertex offers as a way of supporting the ICOs, for a duration when their ICOs are being sold on the platform, up until it gets listed on exchanges.
The Cryptocurrency Ecosystem
The value Vertex adds to the cryptocurrency ecosystem cannot be overstated as it is one that the community will benefit from immensely. As I mentioned at the beginning of the post, ICOs have gotten a bit of a bad reputation, and with the advent of Vertex, much of that negativity will be addressed with a system vets projects with a more than average possibility of success in the foreseeable future; hereby creating ROI in the process. Whilst Vertex repairing the damaged image of ICOs, this will attract institutional resources (Fiat) back to the cryptocurrency market, which in turn will increase the liquidity of crypto markets.
The Vertex Platform
Among the three pillars of the Vertex ecosystem, the platform is the heartbeat of it all. Users both investors and ICOs will be able to interact with the platform with the use of their Vertex tokens VTEX. Investors will be able to purchase ICOs with the use of this token, while users will have wallets with which they can store funds or transfer it to other users wallet. Coins owned by participating ICOs will be secured in multi-signature and cold storage wallets. Data and accounts of users will be stored cryptographically that users will be required to activate 2FA features in order to access their accounts.
The platform will enable users to create profiles, and go through the KYC procedure only one time.
Feature available on the platform
ICOs listing
Ranking and commenting on ICOs by Private investors and Vertex team of analyst
Criteria that was used in evaluating an ICO, as well as the steps that were taking in making a decision will be disclosed
Buy functionality, which will enable you to purchase the VTEX tokens
VTEX tokens can be bought for the purpose of investing in other ICOs
Notification of new ICO launch
Preview upcoming ICOs that will be launched, that Vertex has invested in
Interacting with the Vertex Marketplace
To use the Vertex platform, one must create an account, and also go through the KYC procedure which will be approved within 48 hours. A registered user can now surf the platform in a bid to identify prospective investment opportunities when they find a project that piques their interest, they can go further to learn more about the project in details. For items that are on sale, an account holder can simply click the buy tokens button. Afterwards, an Ethereum wallet address will be made available, where the account holder can send the VTEX tokens for the ICO they hope to invest in.
Due to the uniqueness of these addresses, they are only valid for one transaction. The sending address needs to be registered, as a security measure to mitigate abuse; also there are penalties for inappropriate behaviour on the platform, before purchasing an ICO, the intent must be stated and over-stating an intent to purchase more than three times without actually making the purchase is punishable by a ban.
There is a bear-minimum an investor can invest, which is in the region $500,000, this is in order for the investor to be treated with an undue advantage, also they are encouraged to invest in other ICOs before they are disclosed to the mass market. The Vertex platform supports utility and security tokens, except tokens that are alcohol, tobacco and gambling categories are not allowed.
Image - White Paper
Core Team of the Vertex Project
Project Video
