ICOVO: Does it have a Chance to Survive in the Cryptographic Space?

Dealing with cryptocurrencies is an extremely risky enterprise. Not only they are the most volatile assets of all, very subjected to market fluctuations, and do depend upon the king crypto Bitcoin (the slightest swing in its price always has a huge impact on the value of all altcoins because almost all alternative digital coins are bought with BTC).

At the same time, crypto investors do not have enough workable tools to protect their investments and avoid a bad deal. To make things worse, a majority of existing ICOs are pure and simple scams and have no intention of fulfilling their promises (in fact what they actually do is just collecting money from easy meats and make off with the raised capital). ICOVO is willing to provide an effective remedy for this plague with its DAICOVO smart contract for conducting honest ICOs.

How was DAICOVO Born?

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DAICOVO is an implementation of Buterin’s smart-contract conception called DAICO – Decentralized Autonomous Initial Coin Offering. It is an innovative smart-contract, aimed at securing ICO sponsors in the following way:

Developers, holding their ICO, do not have immediate access to the gathered money.
Tokens, which are distributed during a token sale, are temporarily blocked, what does not allow ICO planners to sell their tokens short after an ICO.
All investments, collected during a token sale, are accumulated in the smart-contract and are returned to the ICO developers in limited amounts and only when certain conditions are met.
If an ICO project fails to reach a Soft Cap, all money is refunded to the investors.
If an ICO project reaches a Hard Cap, the token sale stops automatically.
DAICO smart-contract also vests investors with rights to perform consolidated fund management via voting where one token is equal to one vote. Thank this, it is investors themselves who can control the developers and decide how much money of the total sum that was raised to unlock for them.

What Problems will ICOVO Solve?

There are several long-simmering problems ICOVO aspires to tackle.

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Problem: investors are not compensated in case an ICO project is canceled or frozen.

ICOVO solution: DAICOVO smart contract guarantees the return of invested money.

Problem: scam and fishy ICOs are hard to detect

ICOVO solution: an obligatory KYC/AML compliance of all ICOs on the platform and regular reports on the projects’ progress.

Problem: a photo of passport or other ID taken for KYC can easily be fabricated with the help of Photoshop or other identical tools.

ICOVO solution: ICOVO has a special photo uploader for KYC/AML that prevents fabricated or somewhat treated photos of documents to be provided into ICOVO.

Problem: whitepapers of ICOs are complicated, hard-to-understand and compare for an ordinary person.

ICOVO solution: all whitepapers of ICO platforms will be presented in a standard, simplified format and will be stored in the IPFS to prevent any unauthorized modification.

ICOVO Strong Points

An innovative smart-contract proposed by one of the most influential men of the cryptographic world.
A groundbreaking and altruistic idea to create a single global standard for ICO startups and guard ICO investors against scam cryptocurrency projects.
Decentralized fund management that will not allow ICO holders to scurry away with gathered funds.
Projects’ whitepapers will be kept in the blockchain. ICO projects will not be able to alternate something in them.
KYC/AML procedures for both ICO founders and participants. Notably, investors do not have to undergo KYC/AML every time they decide to take part in a new ICO but will do this only once when signing up with ICOVO.
This Switzerland startup does not have any real competitors because no one cryptocurrency project has dared to offer the same so far (I mean, the protection and refund of investments in case there is something wrong with an ICO).
It is not necessary to hold OVO tokens (ICOVO payment unit) to take part in ICO projects approved by the ICOVO platform. Instead, you can pay with ETH.

ICOVO Weak Points

ICO startups may not be willing to list their projects on ICOVO platform (the reasons for that are obvious, I suppose).
Since OVOs are not necessary to participate in ICOs hosted by ICOVO, there is no need to purchase them. Isn’t it strange?
This market niche (blockchain platforms adopting the DAICO smart contract) is vacant but it is hardly an advantage. It only means that if ICOVO succeeds, dozens of other similar projects will enter the race, driving ICOVO out of the market. Being a pioneer in the sphere means being the first to commit fatal mistakes, and rivals are always on the watch.
ICOVO team seems too ambitious with their desire to release a mobile application with a wallet and decentralized exchange (in fact, already existing and available for download on mobile devices, but they say, it lags seriously), the DAICOVO smart-contract, and ICOVO Web Platform in the nearest future. Given the size and background of the team, they’d better focus on the DAICO actualization solely.

Verdict

Pouring money into initial coin offerings is an exceptionally risky investment. Moreover, the ICO market is unregulated and still forming, what makes investing in it sheer hara-kiri. From this perspective, the ICOVO project seems very solid and promising due to their ambition to make ICO founders behave honestly and translate promises into actions, returning control over project tokens into the hands of investors.

However, I personally doubt whether ICOVO would attract many co-thinkers on their platform because ICO startups are unlikely to want to give their investors so much freedom. Limited use-cases of OVO coins on the ICOVO platform also look strange. Although now ICOVO does not have competitors in the field, they really will have to fight for their place in the sun if their initiative turns out a success. Let’s wait for the first ICO to be conducted on the ICOVO platform to make firm conclusions.

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