BMJ Score: 2.8
Market
Transparency
Team
Token
Adoption
Quick Summary
92 crypto investors read thisCommentary
One of the major barriers to entry for trading stocks is the large amount of capital required. The Stockus platform creates a unique opportunity for users to trade without this capital and enables individuals to participate in a variety of tournaments to compete. Those who create the most successful portfolios will win money. Transactions made by players on the platform are based on smart contracts, and all transactions will be processed in the STT token. This is an extremely niche focus for the gaming sector, but it is still highly competitive.There are other platforms such as Stox and Gnosis, but they focus more on predicting market behavior while Stockus has players trade and play on the actual stock market. Additionally, the project has a working beta version with over 10,000 users. An area we would like to see enhanced is the team, which is very small. While the core members have some great financial experience, only one member has blockchain experience, and there is only one advisor with a gaming track record. Additionally, we did not see any partnerships, which are essential in driving user adoption. Furthermore, this is a heavily regulated space and may be not be allowed in many jurisdictions because it is considered a security-based exchange.
Investment Information:
- How to invest: Stockus claims that its pre-ICO will be conducted on the KICKICO crowdfunding platform. The best way to get more information on this is to contact the team on the website “Contact Us” page.
- Discount: Bonus up to 50%
- Token Price: The sale rate will range from $ 0.2 (first 500k STT) to $ 0.3 (reaming 1.5 million STT) for one STT token (bonuses included in price).
- Jurisdiction: Unknown
- Eligibility: Unknown
Market: 2.5
- Problem addressed/solved: Stockus plans to attack the following problems in the trading/gambling industry: risk and high costs of entering the market, complexity and lack of training, high commission brokers, stress on the player, and lack of alternatives.
- Target customers/customer/ segments/verticals: The Stockus platform is designed for players who, in short, do not want to lose their money. Although Stockus cannot guarantee this, it is planning to keep players around with STT incentivizations that would make up for losses.
- Value creation: Stockus is a gaming and trading platform, where various tournaments are held. It allows users to play on the stock exchange, improve trading skills, compete with players around the world, and earn a significant amount of money without risking capital. Stockus will seek to have fewer fees, lower costs of entry, and a stress-free environment where the risks are much smaller compared to the rewards.
- Competition: The most prominent competitor is the Forex market. It’s built for beginners but has extreme volatility, which ultimately drives users away within two years. Stockus plans to oust the competition by offering massive winning pools, operating on their own trading platform without outside influence, and allowing those with little capital to participate.
- Market size/potential: Over 10 million people try to beat the traditional financial markets each and every day. Next to the smaller than average commission, low risk, and no capital requirement, the main advantage of Stockus lies in the fact that the size of the prize pool in tournaments is unlimited. The more players participate in different tournaments, the higher the prizes.
- Regulatory risks: This is considered a security-based exchange, so it may be illegal in certain jurisdictions that have harsh regulations against gaming and financial trading.
Transparency: 4
- Investor value: Stockus has big plans for its token. According to the whitepaper, Stockus believes that, “the Stockus platform could potentially become a serious competitor to the forex, the value of the STT can exceed $200 billion and become one of the most active and popular cryptocurrencies.” This is a huge overstatement of course, but it’s how the project plans to get people interested. It’s important to keep in mind that page five of the whitepaper states that the STT rate will be set at 1 STT = 1 USD after the completion of the ICO. It seems that Stockus wants to implement a type of stable coin on the platform, which will limit the value that STT can achieve.
- Disclosures: Stockus has a below average whitepaper that’s very disorganized. All the explanations are random and there’s no clear structure to the document. The website picks up the pace better than the whitepaper, and the MVP is the top dog of the bunch. The beta version has an instructional page along with over 10,000 active users that have been testing the Facebook-based version of the platform.
- Token distribution: 70% ICO, 10% team/founders, and 20% will be reserved to maintain the necessary level of the prize pool of tournaments, payments on referral programs, and the holding of advertising tournaments.
- Use of proceeds: Deployment of tournaments: DFT, WFT, Freeroll and the creation of new tournaments 35%, creation of a mobile platform for Stockus 15%, marketing 30%, administrative costs 5%, bounty-program 5%, reserved for Stockus to control of STT economy and reservation for owners 15%.
- Soft cap: The minimum target at this stage of sales is $5 million USD.
- Hard cap: The total volume of sale of the tokens of the STT will compose approximately $7.0 million.
Team: 2.5
- Track record: Overall, Stockus has a small team with just five members and no advisory board. The majority of the team is also very young, with at least three members under the age of 30 (COO, CTO, and Development Director). CEO Evgeny Kostyukhin is the eldest of the bunch and has over 10 years of experience trading. After working for the Russian Defense Agency, he went back to school and received his Master’s in Economics. All members have poor LinkedIn profiles with very few connections.
- Integrity: It’s tough not to question the integrity of the Stockus team. They’re very inexperienced as a whole and lack an advisory board. Stack that with the poor online profiles and it’s a recipe for distrust.However, the MVP (along with UI screenshots) helps boost the project’s trustworthiness a bit.
- Evgeny Kostyukhin, Founder & CEO (LinkedIn)
- Yury Gerchikov, Development Director (LinkedIn)
- Artem Katinov, COO (LinkedIn)
Team Members
Token Mechanics: 3
- MVP: Stockus has an impressive beta presentation on its site. It’s a Facebook-based beta version of the platform that has acquired more than 10,000 active users. It does not appear that the beta version is available for just anyone to join, but instead requires early commitment to the project. The team plans to release the blockchain beta version next.
- Token use case: The STT Token will be used to pay for participation in professional Stock Tours on the Stockus platform. The prizes earned by users in tournaments will be paid out in STT Tokens. The following features will be available to users of the STT token: the purchase of additional services in tournaments, replenishment of user capital, payment for the services of other users, and receipt of payment for participation in referral programs.
- Value-added: It’s evident that the STT token is at the core of this project. Stockus wants everyone operating in STT so that all actions can function on the platform and all rewards are granted in STT. Although STT is a utility token, its use cases on the platform all help incentivize users and keep them demanding STT tokens so that they can continue to participate.
- Decentralization: There is no mention of a decentralized platform on the main site or whitepaper.
- Token Supply: A total of 15 millions of STT will be issued.
User Adoption: 2.5
- Technical difficulty/investment expertise needed: Stockus is no ordinary trading platform. It actually looks more like a game with tournaments where the best traders receive gains and prize money. Stockus is an intricate project, so some parts of it will definitely get technical. Having said that, the team does a great job of breaking down the project on the main site.
- Halo effect: There is no mention of partnerships on the site or whitepaper.
- Buzz: Stockus has managed to pick up 200 Facebook, 2,000 Telegram, and 1,200 Twitter followers. Most posts on the Twitter and Facebook accounts receive very little attention in terms of likes and shares, leading us to believe that most of the followers are fake.
