Fundamental Analysis: Particl
Upvote and Resteem! Link
Let's talk about Particl, the decentralized e-commerce platform with plans to disrupt e-commerce in a major way. I was skeptical, as always, about any cryptocurrency-based company claiming to have to ability to disrupt services like Amazon and other major online retailers. However, upon further investigation it became apparent that they may just be on to something. Their approach is, in a word, elegant. It's a simple approach to solving the problems of both privacy and security, but will they be able to pave the way to a new ecommerce future? Let's take a look.
In steps Particl
with a potential solution.
I'm sure anyone that has made online purchases more than once has had the wonderful experience of having their information sold to other companies and been spammed with ads. I have had my phone number sold by "reputable" companies and get solicitation calls and emails all the time. It's quite annoying but this is the price we pay for "security." Unfortunately, there are numerous horror stories from people that have been taken advantage of on sites that have no oversight such as Craigslist and others like it. There seems to be no middle ground. Amazon charges fees to oversee the security of transactions, while Craigslist leaves one open to more scams. In steps Particl with a potential solution.
Two words that Particl uses frequently that instantly grabbed my attention are: "Open-source," & "Decentralized." They seemed counter intuitive to me. How can they have both secure, private transactions whilst maintaining a decentralized platform? That just didn't seem to compute. I found my answer in their innovative implementation of smart contracts on the Blockchain! That is another appeal they have for me, they are truly the first group to do this.
A simple solution to buying products from places like, Etsty and Ebay and Craigslist.
Classically, the only way to have a secure transaction in the past was to have a third party authority oversee the transaction. That's how companies like Amazon and Google Marketplace make their money, by insuring transactions. Let's be honest, they also make money by selling your customer profile to anyone willing to pay for it as well. With Particl the transactions happen on the blockchain but there is no log of information insuring privacy of your information. Particl introduced their own utility coin that piggybacks on the Blockchain and allows for complete anonymity. They are even including an encrypted messenger service and a "No trust escrow" to ensure the transactions go smoothly.
The Escrow they are using is called "MAD." This stands for "Mutually Assured Destruction." Essentially, the money is held in escrow until both parties pony up some money for the product being sold. The money isn't released until the transaction is completed. Should the parties not sign off the funds are destroyed. A simple solution to buying products from places like, Etsty and Ebay and Craigslist.
They are going to allow any major cryptocurrency to be used for purchases on the marketplace and will exchange it for PART (their proprietary utility coin) at the time of transaction. To add stability to the network they are going with a Proof Of Stake mining system. This will allow those who hold the coins to act as nodes and will act as an incentive to keep some money invested in the coin. There is no max cap but there is a small limited supply currently and the inflation rate is set and will decrease over time. This means, it won't take a ton of capital pouring into the coin to send it skyrocketing in value if they even affect a small portion of their target market.
When looking at potential investments it is important to me that I consider the risk versus reward. I ask myself if a coin is worth trading or investing in. In the case of PART it is a coin I am seriously considering to keep in my portfolio as in investment in the long term. The fact that PART is a Proof Of Stake coin and has real world use and is a disruptive tech makes me lean towards investing in this coin for 2018. I like the idea they are promoting, I like the team and I also like that fact that it's a new coin and hasn't reach exponential growth yet. It also seems low risk since it has at least risen to the top 100 coins (97th on coinmarketcap.com at the time of this writing).
add some PART coin to their portfolio
Other considerations I took when I was looking at this coin as an investment was it's total supply. It has currently his it's cap on total supply and is a relatively small supply. It will inflate with time as more people adopt but the inflation mechanically slows down over time. By simply holding Particl's coin, PART, you are going to earn interest and have the ability to help govern the marketplace making you a part of the market! This is the mechanism Particl plans to use to keep their open-source ecommerce platform from being used to partake in illicit activity. The community is self-governing and has the ability to vote to have things excluded from the marketplace which keeps it from getting the nefarious reputation much of the crypto market has from the mainstream public. Since adoption is the key to surpassing their competition the fact that they already have a plan on how to avoid that type of "deep web," "silk road" reputation is very good for the future value in my eyes.
There is some competition for Particl that they will have to overcome, such as Safex. Though I do believe Particl has a much better dev team than their competition and they are the first on the blockchain, I won't be taking a huge position because there are other companies doing smart contract ecommmerce technology. However, those exist on the Ethereum network and Chille. Particl has the simplest approach to smart contracts and therefore I see them being a long term winner IF they can reach adoption. I would recommend anyone add some PART coin to their portfolio. I personally am going to store my PART coin in their free wallet to generate extra coin for use on their network.
Coins that have a real utility are of great interest to me and PART has definitely caught my attention. Not to mention the Alpha release of the market place is scheduled for Q1 of 2018! That means this should be a huge quarter for them. It could easily gain several hundred percent in the coming months, though I think 50% increase is a good conservative estimate. They seem to deliver on their promises and had many "firsts" in the tech side from their release on day one (including native SegWit). The User Interface is easy to use and setting up a node seems to be as well. I think this will be a large year for Particl.
Resources:
https://en.m.bitcoinwiki.org/wiki/Particl
https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/particl/
https://github.com/particl/whitepaper/blob/master/decentralized-private-marketplace-draft-0.1.pdf
