Origin Trail (TRAC) Review 2/12/18

Origin Trail (TRAC) Review 2/12/18

OriginTrail - Building Transparency in Supply Chains
(Vimeo.com via ICOdrops.com)

The Facts:

Current price is about $0.18 -

Total supply for TRAC is 500 million tokens -

This is a great number in that it is not so large that it makes price growth difficult when the coin has total supply in circulation.

Circulating supply is currently 254,507,606 -

This allows for a potential faster rise in price than coins with a higher circulating supply. For example, it would take a very lager amount of investors/volume for a coin like Cardano (ADA) to even achieve a price of $10 or higher because it has a circulating supply of nearly 26 billion coins. It would essentially be more than 26 times easier for TRAC to achieve $10 or more based on solely on the circulating supply.

Market cap is currently at $45,700,913 USD -

At roughly $0.18, if TRAC went to $1.80 (10x), it would have a market cap of roughly $458,000,000. This would put roughly just inside the top 50 list of cryptocurrencies on Coinmarketcap according to market cap. (Ranked highest to lowest marketcap). This is with the current total cryptocurrency market cap of about $430 billion. If we have another market-wide bull run, it would likely not be in the top 50 list at $458 million. All in all, this is not unreasonable growth to expect from this token in my opinion.

24 Hour Volume is 321,857 -

This is not a whole lot of volume, but is not too bad, considering the overall current market conditions.

ATH was roughly $0.47 -

Great opportunity currently to get into a position. But then again, most crypto-assets are during this correction/consolidation phase.

Exchanges -

Only trading on Etherdelta, Idex, HitBTC, and CoinFalcon at the moment. This is actually a bonus. When tokens get added to larger exchanges, such as Binance, they usually go through large price increases very rapidly.

Image From: Coinmarketcap.com

(Above stats from Coinmarketcap.com)

ICO:

ICO token sale was from JAN 15 - JAN 17 2018

Whitelist from NOV 14 2017 – JAN 14 2018

ICO price was $0.10 per 1 TRAC.

ICO fundraising goal of 14,600,000 USD was met.

11 team members.

Team from Slovenia.

(Above stats from icodrops.com)

Image From: vmware.com

The product/technology:

The Origin Tail project seeks to bring a blockchain solution to supply chain -

Supply chain refers to the many processes that are involved in producing goods and bringing them to the point of sale. This can be as seemingly simple as farmers growing and shipping their crops to middle men, and then grocery stores... or as complex as all the different parts that need to be created, added together to build a car, and subsequently, end with that car being bought by a consumer at a dealership.

As seen through the above example, supply chain can get quite detailed and confusing. One can imagine that it might be difficult to track all aspects of supply chain. Origin Trail provides a solution to this system.

Image From: LinkedIn.com(Nicholas Nishesh)

They aim to provide transparency of information with regards to supply chain -

One can imagine that there may be varying amounts of deception when it comes to knowing exactly where the products you are buying are coming from, and the resulting quality of those products.

Origin Trail pilot protocol is already being tested in Europe and China.

Origin Trail has also taken many necessary steps to mesh seamlessly with the current system of supply chain. “By supporting global standards for data exchange (GS1, IoT, compliance standards), OriginTrail assures compatibility with existing ERP systems, making implementation process quick and efficient. Finally, it is fully decentralized. It removes the possibility of collusions and introduces full accountability for the data provided” (OriginTrail Whitepaper p. 4)

“OriginTrail is not a company, it is an ecosystem. It’s based on token economy with direct relations between users and network nodes free of arbitrary fees. Contribution to OriginTrail ecosystem is a pledge towards more transparent, collaborative, fair and trusted supply chains” (OriginTrail Whitepaper p. 3).

Current problems within the existing supply chain system are caused, in part, by the lack of incentive to share accurate and detailed information -

The supply chain involves many businesses working with each other and sending information and or products to each other. If company B buys a product from company A, in order to finish a product started by company C, it can get confusing and subsequently lead to loss of information. This leads to the end consumer having a lack of detailed information about the origin and formulation of the finished product.

“As a result, end-buyers of products have no economical way of authenticating what they are purchasing, which creates ideal conditions for moral hazard and fraudulent behaviour” (OriginTrail Whitepaper p. 4).

This can lead to a host of problems such as counterfeit/fake products on the market being sold as the real thing, issues of safety, etc. There are many reasons why improvement in this area would be beneficial.

Image From: Ricksbell.com

Origin Trail outlines 2 main problems with the current system-

1: Fragmented Data – Collaboration between businesses can often be difficult.

2: No suitable decentralized solution for supply chain data – “There are no solutions that can provide the needed level of performance, scalability and trust for interconnected data in supply chains while at the same time are cost-effective. Current blockchain and decentralized solutions are prohibitively costly, do not provide advanced data relational functionalities, and also have scaling issues” (OriginTrail Whitepaper p. 4).

There are many problems to the current system of supply chain, which make the Origin Trail project very appealing. Put simply, with regards to current supply chain information, there is not really any easy way to safely share needed info from one business to the next, due mainly to the centralization of current systems.

With regards to current attempts at blockchain solutions to the supply chain -

“none of the current solutions provides high performant functionalities of storing, processing and interacting with highly interconnected data that is inherent to supply chains...Ethereum, IOTA, Hyperledger Fabric and similar solutions are not designed for such data storage and manipulation either, and are comparatively more expensive to operate than traditional centralised database solutions ” (OriginTrail Whitepaper p. 6).

Image From: Dreamstime.com

There are many applications to Origin Trails technology and system including -

• Product authentication
• Product journey visibility
• Product freshness for perishables
• Inventory management
• Etc.

Using the Origin Trail protocol, information is verified by different involved parties so that data is accurate with no discrepancies -

Step 1:

“Each stakeholder has to be approved by the previous and the following supply chain stakeholder, creating a chain of accountability” (OriginTrail Whitepaper p. 11).

Step 2:

“Matching of dynamic batch information is verified, including the critical information of batch identifiers, appropriate timestamps and transactional data” (Origin Trail Whitepaper p. 11)

This step involves private information and therefore with employ the use of a “Zero Knowledge Proof Mechanism”. Put simply, this provides a way to check that the information contained matches, without revealing the included private information.

Step 3:

“As an additional layer of credibility, auditing and compliance organisations can validate data by supplying their confirmations” (OriginTrail Whitepaper p. 11).

Image From: thebitcoin.pub

TRAC Token Purpose:

The Trace or TRAC (crypto ticker) tokens are used as a way to compensate supply chain data producers/data consumers, as well as Origin Trail node holders.

*For more details/deeper understanding of the technology involved, you may wish to consult the Origin Trail white paper, in that there is a lot of information involved.

Whitepaper link: https://origintrail.io/storage/documents/OriginTrail-White-Paper.pdf-

Image From: ICOdrops.com

Team:

• CEO has been working towards supply chain transparency since 2011, as well as other tech project management.

• Other members have experience in various fields such as financial auditing, software development, teaching, engineering, web/mobile development, digital marketing, etc.

After giving a look at the team for Origin Trail, it does not give me the same sense of strength that I got from looking at the team for a project such as Titanium (BAR) for example. This can be seen negatively as they may not have as many established connections or experiences from working with/owning large companies previously, in my opinion. However, I would not at all personally write off the whole project because of this. The cryptocurrency and blockchain space are filled with innovators who are highly competent and skilled, while sometimes not having a large list of credentials from the traditional business world.

Team info from: https://origintrail.io/#team

Image From: Williamthewizard.co.uk

Positives:

1. Terrific use case

2. Token is close to ICO price (not currently 2x ICO price, due to recent crash)

3. Solves a pain point that can be relevant to the every day consumer

4. Not yet on a large exchange such as Binance or Bittrex

5. Already testing the protocol in certain areas (China and Europe)

6. Solid total token supply for possible price increase

7. Newer project (Just off ICO on exchanges in JAN 2018) /hype factor/relevancy

8. Seemingly strong whitepaper

9. Active on social media

Negatives –

1. No info on team in whitepaper.

2. Team may not be as strong as other large projects. (Remains to be seen. Only a possible negative)

3. Currently built on Ethereum blockchain (Speed of system could be at the mercy of the speed of Ethereum at the time/scalability at the time)

4. Could be a difficult undertaking to change the current status quo of the supply chain space.

5. Vechain, among others, could possibly be considered competing projects in the supply chain space.

6. Above mentioned possible competitors are already established in the cryptocurrency space, with some having strong partnerships as well (although the solution Origin Trail is providing seems very strong indeed).

Image From: clipart-library.com

Thoughts:

Origin Trail seems to be tackling a massive real world pain point with regards to the current supply chain system. There are obviously many problems with the current system. I love the idea that Origin Trail is proposing and the way they are going about solving the problem. I think that their system could be very effective and could positively change the current system for the better. From their whitepaper, it also appears as though they are taking the proper steps to achieve strong security as well, which is very positive.

It is positive to note that the ICO did achieve its fundraising goal. There seems to be a good amount of hype surrounding the project as well. As per their ICO overview video, Origin Trail sates that they built their system to be able to run on top of virtually any IT system a business is running. This provides ease of use for the users, which is of the utmost importance.

An unknown for me however, is that there are already established blockchain projects that are involved in the supply chain space. This could possibly make it difficult for Origin Trail to become the go-to solution. Although, in my opinion from my research, it appears as though Origin Trail is delving deeper into the supply chain niche so to speak, while at the same time, they seem to be looking to provide solution to a broad spectrum of the supply chain in general as well. They seem to be a very potent and effective solution.

I personally think the Origin Trail project will do very well if they can continue to grow and achieve their goals, and if they can become established as the go-to solution for the area of supply chain. It is also an unknown for me as to what will happen with the competing projects in the crypto/blockchain supply chain space, and how they will develop in the future.

At the end of the day, readers need to decide what they think the future will be for TRAC. More research may be required, but hopefully I have given some awareness to this great project and given a good amount of content to assist in educating the public. Origin Trail could go nowhere in price or even go down. But it also could do very well. Decide for yourself based on the data and your own personal research ;) I have not yet invested in TRAC, but I may do so in the future. I have also not been compensated by Origin Trail for this review.

(**Everything written, said, tweeted, etc. is based on my personal opinion, my interpretation of the data/material, and is not financial or investment advice whatsoever. I do not claim to be an expert. Articles may be subject to edit/update at the discretion of the writer)

Sources:
ICOdrops.com
Coinmarketcap.com
Origintrail.io
Origin Trail Whitepaper

Video:
Vimeo.com via ICOdrops.com