BMJ Score: 3.1
Market
Transparency
Team
Token
Adoption
Quick Summary
122 crypto investors read thisCommentary
The freelance marketplace is one of the most exciting fields that blockchain can transform. The ability to independently set up smart contracts along with the potential to leverage token rewards could be a fundamental change in how people work together. By competing with platforms like Upwork and freelancer.com, Payperblock aims to remove the middleman and eliminate inefficient payments, conflict biases, and rating inflation. Payperblock raised a substantial amount of money in funding, most of which is being devoted to the research and development of the Payb blockchain. This is a huge undertaking, and we worry that Payperblock might be recreating the wheel. While there is demand to improve the freelance industry through blockchain tech, we were not overly impressed with the Payperblock team or their roadmap, and are not confident with how this project will progress.
Investment Information:
- How to invest: In order to participate, join the whitelist.
- Discount: Week 1: 5%, Week 2: 3%, Week 3: 2%
- Eligibility: Only open to accredited investors (individuals of $1 million net worth or 250k+ income).
- Token Price: $0.005 USD per token
- Jurisdiction: Finland
- Payment Methods: BTC, ETH, and LTC
Market: 3
- Problem addressed/solved: Blockchain related opportunities are the second fastest growing job specialization in today’s labor market with 14 job openings per each blockchain developer. However, conventional freelancing platforms suffer from issues that impact their overall performance such as:
- Centralized authority can raise concerns among freelancers about fair dispute and justifiable policy changes.
- Freelancers often encounter difficulty in receiving payments.
- Unjust negative reviews from biased clients can seriously impact freelancer reputation.
- Platform service fees are high.
- Target customers/customer/ segments/verticals: The primary customer pool for the company includes freelancers who are blockchain experts and associated organizations looking for said experts.
- Value creation: Payperblock connects freelancing blockchain experts to some of the most promising blockchain projects. Although freelancing platforms already exist, Payperblock will feature some distinct benefits that include the lowest fees in the industry, decentralized authority, guaranteed payment, and an enhanced dispute resolution process.
- Competition: Payperblock offers a few definite advantages over non-blockchain freelance platforms. Their fee of 1% lies below the 2.75% and 3% of Upwork and Freelancer.com, respectively. (However, it is worth noting that CanYa’s fees are also set at 1% and the platform already has 7600 users and 3400 service providers in place.) Payperblock doesn’t charge a commission fee, unlike other sites that will charge anywhere from 5% to 20%. Payperblock will likely find their most threatening competition in projects like Blocklancer and Coinlancer, promising companies that also want to introduce the world of freelancing to blockchain. Other competitors include Ethearnal, which focuses on its tokenizing reputation as a main differentiator in a peer-to-peer freelance system and Origin, which decentralizes the sharing economy and already has partnerships like Uber, Airbnb, Fiverr, and Getaround. The bottom line is that Payperblock faces competitors with arguably better partnerships, tokenomics, and users.
- Market size/potential: Freelancing is one of the fastest growing industries in the world, and the industry is already worth more than $1.5 trillion in revenue per year. Over 77 million people on the global scale identify their primary employment as a freelancing job.
- Regulatory risks: Compliance with data protection regulations such as GDPR will come into play for Payperblock. The security and scalability of the new blockchain will be of paramount importance. Of concern also is the potential for a fluctuating token price to impact freelancer payments, depending on the speed with which transactions occur.
Transparency: 2.5
- Investor value: Investors will achieve value as blockchain enters the realm of mass adoption, thus pushing more blockchain experts to join the platform and find valuable work. Plus, holders of the Payb token will have voting rights on nearly all matters involving the Payperblock platform.
- Disclosures: Payperblock has a mediocre, 21-page white paper that fails to provide the details that investors want. They must look into either expanding their current whitepaper or adding a few other documents that might showcase the project with more specifics.
- Token distribution: Public Sales 45%, Cold Storage Development 25%, Developers and Advisors 10%, and Bounty program and Bonuses 20%
- Use of proceeds: Research and development 40%, Staffing 31%, Marketing 10%, Operation Expenses 9%, Consultancy 6%, and Legal 4%.
- Caps: No indication of soft cap; Hard cap $10 million USD
Team: 3.5
- Track record: The CEO, Adeoluwa Osho, has the right combination of experience for the position of Chief Executive Officer. He’s a serial entrepreneur who founded Mamtus Nigeria and SuprView Oy prior to starting Payperblock. The Operations Manager, Jani Kaipainen, went to the same University as Adeoluwa. He too has experience as a CEO, running Mekiwi Ltd for the past 2 ½ years. The one area of concern would be blockchain experience. The team has a few members with the right knowledge, but will it be enough?
- Integrity: The two frontrunners of Payperblock, Adeoluwa and Jani, have resumes that put worries aside for most investors. With a solid group of individuals behind them, both men could lead this team to success in the blockchain world.
- Adeolu Osho, CEO (LinkedIn)
- Jani Kaipainen, Operations Manager (LinkedIn)
- Jaakko Asikainen, Development Lead (LinkedIn)
Team Members
Token Mechanics: 3.5
- MVP: The Payperblock MVP was launched in November of 2017, but there’s no sign of an app or desktop version on the website. If their MVP was completed to fruition and functions properly, it should be listed on the website for anyone to try.
- Token use case (What does it do? Is it really required?): The Payperblock platform will allow transactions in both BTC and PAYB, but holders of PAYB will receive a 50% discount when using the PAYB token. Therefore, ownership of the PAYB token is not required for use of the platform, but rather it offers a discount to those who use it. It is an ERC20 token now, but in 2018 will be transferred over to its own blockchain.
- Value-added: Token holders have a lot of power on the Payperblock platform. They’ll have voting rights to make important decisions such as raising/lowering fees, reviewing project disputes, and much more.
- Decentralization: PayB blockchain will work as a decentralized digital machine; it is a public blockchain technology used for peer-to-peer contracts.
- Token Supply: Max supply of 10 billion tokens.
User Adoption: 2.5
- Technical difficulty/investment expertise needed: Payperblock operates as a platform for blockchain freelancers looking for work. It is an easy concept to understand as it’s essentially a decentralized recruitment site specifically for blockchain.
- Halo effect: Payperblock doesn’t list any partners on their site nor their white paper. Once the platform launches, they might have other ICO projects/blockchain companies to promote their product as the best source for blockchain freelancing experts.
- Buzz: Payperblock has thus far generated 500, 1,800, and 2,200 Facebook/Twitter/Telegram followers, respectively. Their buzz disappoints, considering the company has been in existence and had a functioning MVP as of November 2017. They plan to designate 10% of ICO funds to marketing, which, in an honest assessment, is unlikely to accomplish much.
