BMJ Score: 4
Market
Transparency
Team
Token
Adoption
Quick Summary
257 crypto investors read thisCommentary
Data is one of our most valuable assets, but consumers rarely have control over their own information. Rubiix wants to reverse this by building an ecosystem for brands and consumers where consumers can provide anonymous access to their personal financial data as the basis of targeted marketing. Brands will get valuable data and consumers will actually get a share of the ad revenue made. While there are many competitors in this space, Rubiix is unique in that it deals exclusively with consumer financial data (credit card transactions) based on its knowledge of how valuable this is for the digital media industry. The project also has a working product, an active community of users, a founding team with a proven track record, and the support of the industry in which it operates. The token is valuable because it allows access to the platform and, as a collateral data staking token, it also acts as a deposited trust.The more RBX tokens users have, and the longer they have them, the more power users have in the community and the more valuable their shares become over time. Additionally, the more RBX brands hold, the more ad exposure they are eligible to have. The Rubiix team is impressive, with extensive experience and proven track records in the space. They also have several notable advisors including Greg Tavalsky, the Vice President of IBM Digital. Their extensive partner list includes Amazon, Chase, Zelle, Azure, IBM, and Paypal among others. Overall, our team is very impressed with this project, and we think that Rubiix will successfully help brands and consumers thrive in an ecosystem where data is reliable, activity is verifiable, and good actors are rewarded.
Investment Information:
- How to invest: If you want to be one of the first to participate in the Rubiix presale, visit their site and register for the whitelist.
- Discount: 45% discount
- Eligibility: Restricted areas include the U.S.
- Token Price: US$0.38 = 1 RBX, exclusive of transaction fees or costs
- Jurisdiction: Gibraltar
- Minimum contribution: 0.1 ETH
Market: 4
- Problem addressed/solved: Rubiix wants to make it easier for companies to find out what consumer spending habits are like, what their preferences are, and what their general sentiments are on any number of variables. Consumers typically have serious trust issues with companies that want their data, especially regarding their spending habits. That’s why Rubiix provides an anonymous and secure way for consumers to share their financial data and actually get rewarded for doing so.
- Target customers/customer/ segments/verticals: The target audience for Rubiix includes top brands and companies that want valuable financial data that consumers are willing to supply. On the flip side, Rubiix is yet another platform where consumers can join and provide their data anonymously for rewards, serving as another source of income without having to really do any work for it.
- Value creation: Rubiix is giving companies access to anonymous financial data that they previously had no way of legally obtaining without having to go through tons of regulatory issues. Willing consumers can now provide that valuable data for companies in exchange for RBX and other rewards on the platform. It’s a win-win!
- Competition: Unlike other blockchain data companies that attempt to utilize basic user data that is largely publicly available (social media behavior), Rubiix deals exclusively with consumer financial data (i.e credit and debit card transactions). They intend to separate themselves from the numerous other big data blockchain companies by specifically targeting financial data versus other data types.
- Market size/potential: Rubiix already has 10,00 users and various companies participating on their platform, so there’s obviously a market for this product. The question is whether or not there’s significant room for them to expand and continue to capture more users and companies. Having said that, their proof of concept and the traction it’s generated thus far gives them a good case for expansion once the global platform launches.
- Regulatory risks: The project will have to ensure GDPR compliance regarding how it handles customer data. It will also have to have policies on the protection of digital assets from a cybersecurity perspective.
Transparency: 4.5
- Investor value: The RBX is different from the average utility token in that the more you hold, the greater your utility and reward from the platform. Users won’t want to settle for the minor prizes when giving their data to companies; instead, they’re going to want the max rewards and therefore will try to hold more RBX. As for the companies, Rubiix mandates that they buy a chunk of RBX to distribute to those consumers providing their data. This creates an interesting two-pronged demand approach that might very well increase the value of the RBX token.
- Disclosures: Rubiix definitely exceeds the expectation when disclosing its project. The project provides a whitepaper, lite paper, protocol, and brand brochure for those companies looking to join the platform. Additionally, the roadmap goes into hyper detail of not just future plans, but also what has already been accomplished since 2017. If investors go through just one document, it should be the well-organized and concise lite paper. Lastly, the project provides the data it has generated from the usage of the beta version of Rubiix.
- Token distribution: 55% token sale, 25% company reserve, and 20% team & advisors.
- Use of proceeds: 44% sales and marketing, 32% engineering & tech, and 24% general and administrative.
- Caps: Soft cap: $4 million USD; Hard cap: $15 million USD
Team: 4
- Track record: The Rubiix team consists of 21 employees and an additional 6 investors and advisors. The CEO, Oren Berdichevsky, founded a company called Skindo, a leading digital media company, which was sold to Universal McCann and has seen impressive growth since its inception. The rest of the team brings in significant experience in their respective fields with the CTO and Blockchain Architect, Tomer Avni, posting 10+ years in experience and Omri Regev (Head of Engineering) adding his own 17+ years of experience leading teams of developers. The Rubiix team is definitely stacked with talent and, on an important note, blockchain talent.
- Integrity: Rubiix has serious investors and venture capitalists that are deep into the project. They’ve also acquired advisors from the likes of IBM and Amazon. The Rubiix team has the experience and proven track record to ease the worries of potential investors. On top of that, their devotion to transparency adds an additional layer of security for the super skepticals.
- Oren Berdichevsky, Co-Founder & CEO (LinkedIn)
- Michael Lachar, Co-Founder & CPO (LinkedIn)
- Tomer Avni, CTO & Blockchain Architect (LinkedIn)
- Omri Regev, Head of Engineering (LinkedIn)
Team Members
Token Mechanics: 4.5
- MVP: Rubiix has a working product that was constructed back in 2017 (on Google Play and App Store). It was only open to U.S users and immediately hit its hard cap of 10,000 users. In total, the Rubiix community has spent over $500 million on credit and debit cards that are linked to Rubiix, and the ecosystem has made over 10 million granular transactions of consumer spending data directly available for use in digital media campaigns. The global MVP version of the Rubiix app is expected to launch in September of 2018.
- Token use case: RBX can best be viewed as a premium membership or “status” within the Rubiix ecosystem. Just as credit cards, airlines, and hotels offer premium status within their organizations, RBX confers analogous benefits to its holders. RBX enables users to gain more platform rewards, which are distributed via a ledger asset called Ruby. On the flips side, businesses will purchase large amounts of RBX to put up as rewards on the platform for those consumers who share their data with said companies.
- Value-added: RBX provides its holders with special benefits and privileges inside the Rubiix Ecosystem as they continue to stake their data as collateral. The more RBX they “stake” (hold) for longer periods of time, the greater their rewards for doing so. It creates a unique demand for the RBX token as users will obviously want to hold more in order to receive greater prizes for the same amount of participation.
- Decentralization: Rubiix never addresses decentralization on its site or documents, so it’s safe to say that the project likely lean toward a more centralized platform.
- Token Supply: Max token supply of 106,698,565 RBX
User Adoption: 2.5
- Technical difficulty/investment expertise needed: Rubiix wants to bring together consumers and businesses by rewarding consumers with tokens for sharing their financial data, purchases, preferences, etc. anonymously on the Rubiix platform. The companies can then join the platform and pay for access to this data to then use for marketing, market research, etc.
- Halo effect: Rubiix has some incredible partnerships with the likes of Zelle, Microsoft Azure, IBM, Chase, PayPal, and Amazon associates. Having said that, Rubiix lists these companies under “Partners & Integrations”, which means that they could simply be utilizing Microsoft’s software or Zelle’s mobile banking features. It’s important to note that Rubiix has no proof of partnerships with these companies.
- Buzz: Rubiix has an extremely low social media following with less than 1,000 aggregate followers across their main accounts that include Facebook, Twitter, and Telegram. Furthermore, they don’t have any links on their site that show they’ve been involved or included in relevant business articles.
