Overview
Blockchain technology is rising day by day and with its popularity, developers are keen in making such projects that can bring a change in the world. If we type ICO on google, the results are in hundred of thousands. Basically, ICO is an initial coin offering i.e. funds in cryptocurrency that the organisation requires to build that project. If we look in depth most of the ICO offers benefits or ease to the customers but not to the developers. Imagine a platform,where as a customer you can buy subscription, newsletter, shop online, purchase games or apps with any cryptocurrency you have.Now Imagine as a software developer,without in-depth information of blockchain technology you can integrate a decentralised payment infrastructure that accepts all the cryptocurrency in your applications. It is indeed a win-win situation right? That exactly what Open platform aims to ease some tension of the developers by providing such a payment infrastructure/gateway that not just accepts all cryptocurrency but also integrates with any application and games. Open helps application developers to decentralise their payment system without having to make a change in their current application and it also focuses on providing customer a platform where the payment can be made through cryptocurrency. You can make your netflix payment through cryptocurrency with the help of this platform.
What is Open Platform?
According to their website, “OPEN Platform enables users and developers of mainstream apps to use and accept cryptocurrency while avoiding restrictions imposed by current payment infrastructures.” In much simpler language, Open platform is a platform that uses blockchain technology, providing developers to seamlessly integrate payment gateway into apps and games without having to modify their existing app system and in addition, it provides customers the aid of using any cryptocurrency for making the payment. Open platform’s vision is to make such a decentralised platform where the customers and developers accepts and returns in any cryptocurrency, thus empowering the users to pay in any digital money and developers to choose which one they want to accept.Open’s vision is to become a catalyst for overall blockchain adoption and integration with non blockchain software developers.
How does it works?
Open platform is developer friendly platform, it can be embedded in the existing application just by deploying 15–16 lines of simple codes without having in-depth knowledge of blockchain technology and is applicable to all types of applications and games. Open platform can be built in an application using some of the blockchain components like Scaffold, Open_wallet, Open_state and developer_wallet.
Scaffold is a smart contract that acts as a payment processor in open platform that can be modified, changed according to the payment model of the apps. It is flexible to the ecosystem of the application and helps user in making payments for order payment, subscription, in-game payments etc.
Open_state indicates the user that they can access the said service in return of the payment they made in the scaffold and it also shows the number of coins user has.
Open_wallet is a place where user’s money is stored as any cryptocurrency.
Developer_wallet, this is basically used by developer and this gives developer the flexibility to choose which cryptocurrency their wallet will receive, this technology uses Omisego SDK i.e. a program which functions like a vending machine / exchange. One token goes in, another goes out.
SWOT analysis
-->Strength
Bridges the gap between decentralized payments and real time software applications.
Open platform uses token scalability mechanism to scale the platform infinitely.
Open platform has experienced team.
They already have big giants as their investment partners.
Ahead of their roadmap.
-->Weakness
Although this is one of the good projects we have in ICOs, but this project still has lots of work to do to reach its goal of being the largest payment channel like Paypal.
-->Opportunity
Providing such ecosystem that solve blockchain monetization and easing the workload of app developers.
There is no project closest to what Open platform is planning to do.Clearly this project can have the monopoly in this industry.
-->Threat
There is no competition as such but the threat can be bitpay or coinifi who are into the market and famous ICO but they only deal in bitcoins not all the cryptocurrencies.
Team & Investors
Team
In Open’s team, there are 11 core members and 4 advisors. The team looks promising and has well off experience in their individual field. Some of the members are listed below.
Ken Sangha (CEO),9 yrs of experience in business leadership, founder of many applications such as doubleplay entertainment. LinkedIn
Alvin Lau (Managing director), 11+ yrs of technical projects managing experience. linkedin
Andrew leung (CTO), 10+ yrs of experience in software engineering. LinkedIn
Abhishek lunia (Blockchain lead), 4 yrs of experience in blockchain development.linkedin
Dennis Lewis, (Marketing Director), 30 years of experience in marketing, recently working with icosuccess.com and Suchapp.linkedin
Investors:
Tim draper, he is a giant venture capitalist who runs draper dragon organisation just to invest in upcoming and promising project. Tim decided to back this project with his funds.
Zensoft, a software building platform, that helped various silicon valley start-ups with funding and partnership, has now decided to back Open platform.
Jeremy Gardner, A blockchain enthusiast, founder and chairman of blockchain education network,cofounder of Augur.
Neo global capital, one of the blockchain with live decentralised application, and a venture capitalist group that has funded various good projects.
Roadmap
The roadmap of this organisation has been taken from the website
Proof of Concept
They have provided with the testnet mvp video on their website mvp-video and also they have presented with a API to check how the scaffold works http://api.openfuture.io. Check the links to know further how exactly this project will work.
ICO details
Token metrics
Ticker: OPEN
Token type: ERC20
ICO Token Price: 1 OPEN = 0.0800 USD
Fundraising Goal: 18,000,000 USD
Total Tokens: 1,000,000,000
Available for Token Sale: 50%
Whitelist: YES (SINCE 10 FEB)
Accepts: ETH
Why Open tokens?
Open tokens are basically used by developers that want to create scaffolds. These scaffolds power their application.
People are not hindered by it, only developers need to worry about OPEN tokens.
Verdict
Open platform is offering to not just the customers but developers a platform which can help both to make payments or accept payments in any cryptocurrencies. This project is highly versatile if we go by their vision. This project has lots of potential of being one of the biggest payment channel in the world of blockchain cryptocurrency.It reduces the cost and time that in general is required for the transaction.The team has the calibre to built this platform and bring this project live and not to forget that Open is already in partnership with crypto race league and zensoft for deploying this project.Having a giant venture capitalist like Tim draper already makes this project a reliable one. I am not a financial person but keeping these facts in mind, I would definitely invest in this project.
Reference
Website : https://www.openfuture.io/
Whitepaper : https://s3.amazonaws.com/openmoney/OPEN+Platform+White+Paper+2018-03-08.pdf