BMJ Score: 3.1
Market
Transparency
Team
Token
Adoption
Quick Summary
68 crypto investors read thisCommentary
Despite the increase in cryptocurrency investments, holders cannot easily spend their funds for online shopping. The Secure Crypto Payments platform wants to create an easy-to-use tool for processing crypto payments that will allow merchants to expand their customer base and make it possible for buyers to use their cryptocurrency in online stores. The eCommerce transaction processor will execute quick and secure payments between buyers and merchants without a third-party service, many of which often charge individuals up to 15% of their funds to complete a transaction. The merchants will have the ability to securely receive funds in fiat money or the cryptocurrencies of their choice. There is clearly a need for a platform like Secure Crypto Payment, but this is a saturated space. The competitive landscape includes players like Coingate, and Bitpay, which are very similar to the Secure Crypto Payment platform. The main differentiators for this platform include its enterprise-ready software, a cash back option, and the ability to receive refunds in the currency sent by the buyer to the merchant at the exchange rate as of the value date. Another unique aspect for this platform is the token model. While the SEC coin is a utility token, it embodies a loyalty system model where the more individuals spend, the more benefits they receive in the form of free shipping, early access to new products, and access to private sales. Additionally, the cash back reward increases with each spending level, starting with three percent at Bronze and up to 12 percent for Platinum. The platform will be built on the ETH blockchain, and the MVP is scheduled for release in Q1 of 2019. We are also impressed with the team’s dedication and growth for their development team. All members are verified on LinkedIn, and the project features a strong advisory board including individuals from Microsoft and Kiehl’s. Ultimately, we think that Secure Crypto Platform is addressing a very real problem in the crypto-ecommerce space. Our biggest concern is whether or not it will be able to beat out its competition. We would encourage the team to focus more on building out their partnerships and user base. If they can get a working MVP by their roadmap timeframe of Q1 2019, this will be an excellent start.
Investment Information:
- How to invest: To purchase SEC tokens, you must first get whitelisted by clicking the “whitelist” tab on the front page of the website. You will be able to register for the token sale from the form presented.
- Discount: 20% bonus throughout the presale.
- Eligibility: Restricted countries include the U.S.
- Token Price: 1 ETH = 1,000 SEC
- Jurisdiction: Estonia
Market: 2
- Problem addressed/solved: Cryptocurrency holders cannot spend easily their funds on Internet platforms. They often face high exchange rates and a multitude of security questions that fiat payers won’t encounter. Owners of online businesses do not have simple and e-commerce-friendly instruments for processing highly volatile currencies, nor do they have a full understanding of how to deal with cryptocurrency inside their financial system.
- Target customers/customer/ segments/verticals: SCP’s target audience is centered on online retail. This can range from small to large sellers, all of whom simply want to expand their customer base and offer an additional form of payment. After implementing Secure Crypto Payments, merchants will be able to receive fiat while selling in crypto.
- Value creation: Secure Crypto Payments’ objective is to create an easy-to-use tool for processing crypto payments that will allow merchants to easily expand their customer base and make it possible for buyers to make purchases with digital currency in the biggest online stores.
- Competition: Many blockchain startups seek to solve the issues that stand in the way of digital currency payments across all merchant platforms. A few of the existing market participants include CoinGate, BitPay, and PFSWeb. Secure Crypto Payments actually went the extra mile and included a full competitive analysis between itself and the previously mentioned competition on page 14 of the whitepaper. The key attributes that SCP claims over the competition are cash back, multilayer loyalty system, reconciliation reports, SEC gift certificates, marketplace, and PSP extension.
- Market size/potential: Online retail surpassed regular retail many years ago. The invention of the internet introduced an entirely new way to shop and the people of the 21st century are certainly taking advantage of it. Online retail will continue to grow, but this project depends on the success of the crypto market as well. SCP will be heavily reliant on the mass adoption of crypto currency that will eventually force online merchants to accept digital currency as forms of payment. If crypto were to wither away, so would Secure Crypto Payments.
- Regulatory risks: This will be a heavily regulated space because it is tied to the success of cryptocurrencies as a whole. It will have to closely monitor government regulations on whether or not cryptocurrencies are considered legal funds as well as PCI and GDPR mandates for ecommerce.
Transparency: 3.5
- Investor value: SEC hopes to please investors with long-term benefits stemming from the correlation between the price of an SEC token and the number of transactions conducted on the platform. The cash back system will help build the trading network and incentivize customers to continue to spend to earn tokens and join the loyalty program. The goal is to increase the trade volume and the overall demand for the SEC token, thus increasing its value.
- Disclosures: SCP has one of the best whitepapers around as it delivers all relevant information in an efficient, well-organized manner, including an abundance of employee descriptions. The project also provides a two-pager that breaks down the core aspects of the project for those who want a quick overview. The one knock on SCP is its lack of an MVP. If SCP can produce its MVP in Q1 of 2019 like the roadmap says, then its score will be nearly perfect.
- Token distribution: 60% ICO, 13% team, 13% reserve funds, 8% reserve for partners, 5% advisors, and 1% bounty/airdrop.
- Use of proceeds: 35% marketing, 30% software development, 8% legal and compliance, 7% reserve, 7% team scaling, 5% operations, 5% consulting and research, and 3% software certification.
- Caps: Soft cap: No indication of a soft cap; Hard cap: 121 million SEC
Team: 3.5
- Track record: SCP presents its team in a professional manner with quality photos and descriptions on the main site. The project is very keen to boast about its team as many members have highly esteemed backgrounds with loads of experience. For example, CEO Mike Minov has founded three startups prior to starting Secure Crypto Payments with his partner Pavel Kovalyov. Kovalyov is the CTO of SCP and will undertake the payment gateway integration aspects of the project. He’s had 6+ years of experience working on ecommerce sites and implementing a variety of payment gateways. The rest of the team has equally impressive resumes and SCP does a great job covering all the important aspects of the project like blockchain development, marketing, and ecommerce expertise.
- Integrity: SCP lacks crucial partnerships that would help legitimize the project. As of right now, it has a solid team, but it’s missing a few “X-factor” components like partnerships that would put its score to the top one percent. Having said that, the professional presentation of the team and their credible experience will help put investor worry to rest.
- Mike Minov, CEO & Co-founder
- Pavel Kovalyov, CTO & Co-founder
- Yurii Kucheruk, CFO & Co-founder
- Vlad Darmenko, COO & Co-founder
Token Mechanics: 4
- MVP: SCP plans to launch its MVP extension in Q1 of 2019. The project has supposedly spent all of 2018 developing smart contracts, integrating API, and working on general architecture. SCP could garner a lot more attention once the MVP is released because a product like this will require some companies to take the plunge and try the extension to test its ease-of-use and speed of transactions before the masses buy into it.
- Token use case: The SEC token is an ERC-20 utility token. SEC will be used for the following purposes: paying for products, cash back reward unit, multilayer loyalty system reward unit, refund process, SEC gift certificates, and creating liquidity through decentralized exchanges.
- Value-added: The SEC token will allow for many advantages on the platform. It serves as the main unit of exchange, meaning that customers will pay the online merchants with only SEC, increasing its total number of transactions. All cash back rewards will also be issued in SEC to both increase customer loyalty and incentive more spending using the payment gateway.
- Decentralization: SCP isn’t necessarily creating a platform, so decentralization doesn’t apply to the project. Instead, it’s creating a type of plug-in that will be applicable to the vast majority of online merchants.
- Token Supply: 121 million SEC
User Adoption: 2.5
- Technical difficulty/investment expertise needed: The common investor will have no trouble understanding Secure Crypto Payments. The objective for SCP is to create an easy-to-use tool for processing crypto payments that merchants can use to expand their customer base and provide additional forms of payment for goods and services.
- Halo effect: Secure Crypto Payments lists Restram, BlockSoftLab, Strateg, and Starwood as its current partners. The partnerships with Restream and Starwood don’t seem to add too much benefit, but BlockSoftLab and Streteg will help with the blockchain maintenance/development and legal aspects of the project.
- Buzz: SCP has been able to get 4,700 members to sign up on Telegram, but it has an extremely limited outreach in terms of followers and social media platforms. SCP has over 1,200 followers on Twitter, but it’s safe to say most if not all followers are fake accounts as the engagement per post is next to nothing. You can find Secure Crypto Payments on lower level ICO sites such as ICO Holder, Coin Gecko, and ICO Bazaar.
