BMJ Score: 2.9
Market
Transparency
Team
Token
Adoption
Quick Summary
98 crypto investors read thisCommentary
Bitacium’s platform strives to integrate business and social media as the standard for interactive commerce on the blockchain. The Bitacium ecosystem offers consumers and merchants the opportunity to conduct business transactions while earning from their activity on the platform. Some advantages to the platform include a 7% cashback offering for expenses paid with the XBCU token, low charges to withdraw fiat currency, user rewards for trading XBCU in exchanges, fast speed of transactions, and a token that is supported by various wallets. The platform also allows users to borrow liquid funds instantly based off the current value of their crypto asset holdings. The token model for this platform is interesting because there are two separate tokens. First, there is the XBCU token, which is used as both a digital currency and a medium of exchange. What makes this token unique is that each investor owns 20% of the Bitacium platform profit. The second token, the XBCU token, is used for individuals as collateral on the platform to obtain a loan. After the loan repayment, individuals will receive their entire collateral back, even if it has increased in value. While the market itself is saturated with ICOs targeting the cross-border payment space, Bitacium does have some unique differentiators. While we are impressed with the token and unique platform, we are concerned about the transparency of this project. There is no clear roadmap on when the MVP will be released, and the whitepaper vaguely indicates that the platform will go live in May 2019. Given the saturated market with other competitors that have working platforms, this go-live date is very late. Furthermore, the team seems small. The whitepaper only lists 6 individuals, 2 of which are in marketing/PR, one who is an advisor, and the remaining three who fall under role of co-founder and architect. There are no bios for the team, and the lack of information on the team does not increase our confidence for this project. Ultimately, while we think that Bitacium has a very interesting concept, the lack of MVP, weak transparency, and small team do not give us confidence that it can capture the market at this time.
Investment Information:
- How to invest: Bitacium is currently in the private sale stage and will release instructions on how to participate sometime in the near future. Keep checking the site to stay up-to-date.
- Discount: 50% bonus throughout the presale
- Eligibility: Only residents of the United States are restricted from participating in the Bitacium presale.
- Token Price: 1 XBCU = $0.50 USD (bonus included)
- Jurisdiction: USA
- Acceptable Payment Currencies: BTC (Bitcoin) ETH (Ethereum), Fiat.
Market: 3.5
- Problem addressed/solved: Bitacium wants to make the world feel a bit smaller by giving people access to instant cross-border payments, loans backed by crypto, and an online marketplace where merchants and buyers alike can interact with each. Payments typically take multiple business days to clear when you are sending funds offshore, and online marketplaces often require users to input personal info that many do not feel comfortable sharing. Bitacium will look to bring innovation to business and social activities via the blockchain, putting everything into one network to enhance lifestyles around the world.
- Target customers/customer/ segments/verticals: Bitacium will focus on social media users, merchants, traders, and ecommerce businesses as its target market.
- Value creation: Bitacium will feature an ecosystem that offers various consumers and merchants a complete system to conduct business transactions and communication from one spot while earning from each other’s activities on the platform. Stakeholders will experience instant transactions, cash back rewards after purchases, decentralization, and safety/security when using the platform.
- Competition: Bitacium might have shot itself in the foot when it comes to competition. Since the team spread themselves so thin, they’ll have competitors coming from every direction. For example, Stellar Lumens works heavily on instant cross-border transactions while a number of ICO projects are looking to create online shops exclusively for crypto users. Thus, Bitacium will have a tough time edging out the competition, especially without a niche market in mind.
- Market size/potential: Bitacium posts stats such as “30 million blockchain users” and over “2.6 billion social media users” to get people engaged with the project. The fact of the matter is that Bitacium requires serious advancements in the adoption of crypto and blockchain for the project to be successful. It’s heavily reliant on the success of the crypto market and will live and die by that sword. Bitacium might do better to zero in on a certain niche market, such as cross-border payments and look to expand from that point onward rather than trying to conquer the world in a day.
- Regulatory risks: The biggest risk here is around the fact that the success of this platform is contingent on the success of the crypto market. If crypto market has regulatory mandates against it it will hurt the success/growth of this platform.
Transparency: 2.5
- Investor value: In a nutshell, XBCU investors own 20% of the Bitacium platform system. Holders of the XBCU earn from the Bitacium Exchange Platform based on the portion of tokens they hold in their wallet. The XBOND is an additional token that Bitacium offers that can be used as collateral on the platform to obtain loan.
- Disclosures: Bitacium only provides us with a mediocre whitepaper and sub-par website. Unfortunately, this is one of those projects that seems to have spread itself too thin with hopes of creating a token that becomes “ the most utilized ERC20 token in the Ethereum network” via online marketplaces, exchanges, and cross-border transactions. Bitacium would do better to focus on its niche market of cross-border payments where it can put forth a strong effort and expand from that point. It’s evident that this project, with it’s tiny team, might be biting off more than it can chew.
- Token distribution: 50% sold in crowdsale, 30% presale, 15% founders/team, and 5% reserved.
- Use of proceeds: 40% publicity and partnership, 25% development, 20% I.T infrastructure, and 15% legal and financials.
- Caps: Soft cap: $1 million USD; Hard cap: $13 million USD
Team: 2
- Track record: Bitacium has one of the smallest teams of any project BMJ has reviewed thus far. The team has a total of five people, four of the core team members and just one advisor. It’s unclear who the CEO of the company is, but Richard Usman has the title “Co-Founder” underneath his profile on the website, so it could be him. His activity on LinkedIn revolves solely around blockchain and crypto. He shares many articles for his 3,000+ followers but has no other work experience besides Bitacium listed. Anurag Gautam, Digital Marketer, has worked as an advisor for a number of other ICO projects. Gautam, although experienced in the crypto world, has yet to list Bitacium as an active project that he’s joined.
- Integrity: This team definitely doesn’t scream “trustworthy” solely judging by the website and LinkedIn profiles. The team has no organizational structure, lacks a true leader, and only consists of five people. Bitacium must do a better job of internally structuring the project and building a team of passionate people who can carry this project through to success. Considering all the value that Bitacium wants to provide its users, it must look into expanding the team (with blockchain talent especially) sometime in the near future.
- Richard Usman, Co-Founder (LinkedIn)
- Anurag Gautam, Digital Marketing (LinkedIn)
- Wayne Notarte, Community Architect (LinkedIn)
Team Members
Token Mechanics: 4
- MVP: The ERC-20 XBCU token has been active on the Ethereum network since March of 2018. Since then, Bitacium has been working on the development of the Decentralized App and Exchange that’s expected to launch in March of 2019. It’s unclear what level of development the project has reached and if an MVP would be available soon, but having the token already on the Ethereum network is a big plus.
- Token use case: XBCU is an ERC-20 token built under the Ethereum blockchain ecosystem for versatility, speed, and security. XBCU will act as the broker currency that can be exchanged for other digital currencies instantly and is already available in various exchanges globally. It serves as the primary medium of exchange on the platform and has a specific function as a cross-border payment tool.
- Value-added: A few benefits of the XBCU token include its high liquidity, cross-border payment functionality, and profit sharing if users hold enough of the tokens. The value-added nature of the token means merchants can use the Bitacium platform system to have XBCU converted to any other digital currency including fiat without any fuss. Bitacium hopes to establish XBCU as the leading, cross-border payment token while building a marketplace where merchants and buyers will interact and exchange in the XBCU token.
- Decentralization: Bitacium will actually be setting up both centralized and decentralized exchanges to give users the option of both technologies.
- Token Supply: Max supply of 25 million XBCU tokens.
User Adoption: 2
- Technical difficulty/investment expertise needed: Bitacium actually hurts its case a bit when presenting all the buzz words and “future functionalities” of the platform like A.I, earn from gaming, and marketplace spending. It appears the MAIN goal is to facilitate easy cross-border payments without the technicalities and middlemen that you would otherwise have to encounter when sending funds abroad. This is a concept that most, if not all, investors should be familiar with at this point.
- Halo effect: Partners for Bitacium include Shift and Openledger, both of which are essentially advisory companies who help other projects integrate or develop blockchain-based businesses.
- Buzz: Bitacium has been able to amass a few hundred followers across both Facebook and Twitter, yet the engagement on both platforms needs work as they average less than 10 likes/shares per post. Marketing and target audience outreach should be one of the first priorities for Bitacium as it moves forward with the project.
