PascalCoin Analysis in Detail

in #crypto • 7 years ago (edited)

PascalCoin is a very special blockchain project because it has a deletable ledger, it only stores the last 100 transactions. As if it was not enough of a feature, PascalCoin has human-readable addresses, does not have any fees & very fast transactions (5 minutes; 140+ txn/sec on the mainchain).

This analysis is done following strict criteria and is the result of hours of research as well as chat/emails exchanges with developers. Your constructive input and comments are more than welcome.

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In a nutshell

This first section called “in a nutshell” is opinionated. Please do make your own judgement by reading this article and doing your own research.

Pros and Cons

Note that some points are both in pros and cons

  • Pros
    • No Fee
    • Very fast transactions (5min; 140+ txn/sec on the mainchain)
    • Infinite scalability, thanks to the deletable blockchain
    • Low weight blockchain, very fast wallet synchronization
    • No ICO. The developers are more interested in creating a robust system for value exchange than raising money.
    • Goal oriented around value exchange, sending and receiving payments, and nothing else.
    • Seeks to be “what Bitcoin is meant to be.”A pure, easy-to-use digital currency.
    • Currently the project has a very low market cap of $80 million USD (as of January 3, 2018)
    • The main focus has been on the technology. There is a potential for an increase in value once marketing beings.
    • Very few exchanges list PascalCoin and the ones that do are somewhat obscure. So there is big potential for a leap in value once it hits a well-known exchange.
    • No hardware wallet: market value will increase once one released.
    • No web wallet: market value will increase once one released.
    • No OSX wallet: market value will increase once one released.
  • Cons
    • This is a new technology. The maturity has yet to be fully tested which makes it risky.
    • The team not well known in the blockchain field and there are no well-known advisors, which can be seen as risky.
    • Very little marketing which likely impacts the market value.
    • Aims to be a “currency” which has a lot of competition.
    • No hardware wallet: riskier to store securely and market value probably affected
    • No web wallet: market value probably affected.
    • No OSX wallet: market value probably affected.

Overall rating

  • What investment rating do you give?
    • 3/5 - The technology is interesting and the infinite scaling is pretty unique.
  • What investment risk do you give?
    • 3/5 - The team is fairly unknown and the marketing falls a bit short meaning it may be a while until this project comes to fruition.
  • What is your gut feeling about this project?
    • While the technology is solid, I still feel that DAG (Direct Acrylic Graph) technology, used by IOTA & Raiblocks ($XRB), has the potential to eclipse it.

The nitty gritty

General Info

Project Overview

  • What is the goal of project?
    • Infinitely scalable version of the blockchain
    • Super fast transactions
    • Human-readable addresses
    • As anonymous as Bitcoin, so not private. But privacy is on PascalCoin's roadmap.
  • What is the best way to describe the project?
    • Scalability comparable to the VISA network
    • High throughput-per-unit-of-storage results in:
    • A high number of users
    • Fast confirmation times
    • Low fees
    • Privacy and untraceability due to the deletable blockchain - although nothing stops anyone to log all the transactions being processed
    • "Works without a historical operations requirement, yet is still able to control double spending or check balance” bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1583719.0
    • "Delivers the promise of true "Deletable Blockchains." The blockchain in PascalCoin V2 is now permanently deletable from the Network itself without affecting Proof-of-Work validation for new nodes,” according to the white paper. http://pascalcoin.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/PascalCoinWhitePaperV2.pdf
    • "New nodes can join the network without the need to download the infinite history of blocks. Instead, they download the latest Checkpoint and a few dozen latest blocks in order to fully synchronize with the provably most-work-chain,” according to the white paper. http://pascalcoin.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/PascalCoinWhitePaperV2.pdf
    • While PascalCoin still utilizes a blockchain for transactions, proof-of-work, and an immutable ledger, the PascalCoin Safebox, allows the chain to be “snapshotted” and later deleted, to free up space.
    • While many other cryptocurrencies attempt to push the boundaries of the blockchain capability, PascalCoin re-invents a new system for how the Blockchain is handled, operated on, and saved.
    • "Unlike most cryptocurrencies, PascalCoin accounts are simple and easy-to-remember (e.g. 1234-56) and not complicated strings which must be copy-pasted or scanned.", white paper.
    • The coin will be private in the future.
    • There are plans to add Private Balances and Private Payments into PascalCoin using the ZK-SNARKs approach pioneered by ZCash.

Other reviews

Competitors

  • Ripple
    • Ticker: XRP
    • Market cap in the top 3 (as of January 3, 2018)
    • Fast transactions: 1,700 transactions per second on Testnet
    • Low fees
    • Has miners
  • IOTA
  • Raiblocks
  • There are also 2 forks of PascalCoin
    • Pascal Lite
      • Ticker: PASL
      • Listed only on Cryptopia
      • Had a huge spike in price on the first few days of 2018, otherwise pretty unremarkable.
    • PascalCoin Classic
      • Ticker: XPASC
      • Not much information about this, not listed on CoinMarketCap

Organisation

  • What is the organisation behind the project?
    • PascalCoin is not a legal entity at this point in time
  • In which country is this organisation based (country of jurisdiction)?
    • As it is not a legal entity, nowhere.
    • The developers are spread out all over the world with the lead developer residing in Australia.
  • What is the experience of the organisation behind the project (if it's not its first project)?
  • Does the project has any partnership with other organisations?
    • No

Legal

  • Has there been appropriate consideration of legal matters?
    • Due to them not having an ICO and doing a fair-launch instead, there was no need for a legal entity.
  • Is there a significant legal risk to token holders or other actors?
    • No more legal risk than Bitcoin.
  • Does the project have a identifiable legal representation?
    • No.

Team

  • What is the experience of the advisors (is any famous in the DLT field)?
    • There are currently no external advisors.
  • How many people are on the team?
    • There are several full-time developers including Albert Molina & Herman Schoenfeld. We estimate 5 in total although the number of full-time contributors is not recorded.
    • Sphere 10, a company directed by Herman, allocates developers to this project from time to time.
    • There is a community of infrastructure developers including Jason Knapp, developer of PascWallet.com PASA exchange.
  • Who are the team members?
    • Albert Molina
      • From Catalonia, Spain
    • Herman Schoenfeld
    • Various other developers have contributed to the PascalCoin project (web, documentation, code, etc.)
  • What is the approximate proportion between tech people and business people?
    • At the moment PascalCoin is predominantly tech focused, with little to no business development or marketing ⧸⧸support.

Project background & timeline

  • When did this project start?
    • PascalCoin was created in 2016 by Albert Molina.
  • Is the project actually made of several projects? (If yes, how many and which are they)?
    • This seems to be the only project.
  • What were the achieved milestones?
    • May 2016: invented and designed by Albert Molina
    • July 2016: first beta version released
    • August 11, 2016:
      • the PascalCoin genesis block generated
      • source code and wallet installer on GitHub and SourceForge
        presentation at Bitcoin freenode forum
  • What is the state of the project? Do they already have working product?
    • Yes, there is a currently working product available.
  • What is the roadmap for the future?
    • New wallet with OSX support
    • Mobile wallets for both iOS & Android
    • Checkpoint torrenting
    • Ultra-high throughput fine-tuning & optimisation
    • And more according the roadmap. http://www.pascalcoin.org/#roadmap
  • Is there a public Trello board shwoing the progress?
  • Is the project on track or ahead of its roadmap?
    • It is on track.
  • Is the project already profitable?
    • Currently the project is not a for-profit venture.
    • Does the project already have clients? If yes, who are they?
    • Not publicly available yet.
  • How can people submit an improvement proposal?
  • Is there any other community/public info?

Market Size

  • What is the size of the targeted market (roughly)?
    • Huge -- this could potentially be the next Bitcoin, intended only as a currency.
  • How does the project current market cap compare to some of its competitors?
    • As seen in the “competitors” section above, PascalCoin is entering a crowded space (payment focussed coin) with sizeable competitors such as Ripple, IOTA and Raiblocks.
    • However, these competitors all have a very high market cap so PascalCoin has the same potential to reach them at some point.
  • How much demand is there for the project in the short and long term?
    • There is a huge demand. Bitcoin limits are being reached; users are growing increasingly frustrated with high transaction fees and very slow transaction speed so the market is desperately seeking a “Bitcoin replacement.”
  • Is the project being discussed in the relevant communities more than usual before launch?
    • Not particularly

Token Use

  • Do token holders have any influence over the project (i.e. right to vote)?
  • Do token holders have get any dividends?
    • No
  • Do token holders get access to additional functionality over non-token holders?
    • PASC does not give extra functionality
    • PASA (PascalCoin Account) holder get access to accounts
  • Does the token have any special utility?
    • No
  • Is there any built-in governance or project decision-making?
    • No

ICO

Online presence

Noise

  • Much mainstream media coverage?
    • No
  • Much niche media coverage?
    • Not especially.
    • PascalCoin is still very unnoticed for now.
  • Much buzz on social medias?
    • Not especially. Although its recent high gains (early Jan 2018) might change this.
  • Any recognisable partners such as governments, companies, institutions or influencers?
    • No
  • Any recognisable backers/investors such as governments, companies, institutions or influencers?
    • Not known yet.

Overall marketing

  • Is branding taken seriously?
    • Yes and no. The website and other posts are clear. However, there does not seem to be any real marketing/branding effort underway. It makes sense considering the market cap of the project.
  • Is this project more marketed than other similar projects?
    • No
  • Is there a clear and well-defined marketing plan?
    • No. If there is, it is not publicly disclosed.
  • Is the project lead regularly active on social media, publishing articles, being interviewed (videos & podcasts) & giving talks?
    • There appears to be an active project lead on Discord.
  • Is the team regularly active on social media, publishing articles, being interviewed (videos & podcasts) & giving talks?
    • Not particularly
  • Is the team mostly communicating about business (partnerships, exchanges...) or technical topics?
    • Mostly about technical topics through Discord.
  • Is there much help available to get new users up to speed (wiki, articles, youtube...)?
    • There is not a huge amount of help online, but just enough to get started.
    • The amount of help is proportional to the market cap.
    • Discord seems to be a good place to get questions answered; there are 6 mods there.

Code quality & transparency

  • Is the code publicly available (i.e. on github)?
    • Yes. github.com/PascalCoin/PascalCoin
  • Was the code audited by 3rd party companies/organisations? if yes, was the audit published publicly? Is there any history of hacking?
    • PascalCoin uses OpenSSL for crypto, highly audited. Exchanges audit code before listing. Sphere 10 also audited. Solid security.
  • Is there any history of big bugs?
  • Is there any strategy in place to avoid hacks or similar issues?
    • No reason to do this as it is potentially very secure. Peripheral security always could do more work, use a daemon, upgrade api security, etc.
  • Has a bug bounty been established to incentivise the discovery of exploits and bugs?
    • No bug bounty at the moment, but one is on the way.

Technology

  • Is this project a fork of another project?
    • No
  • How clear is the white paper?
  • Is the white paper surprisingly short or long?
    • It is a medium-to-long length paper sitting at 18 pages.
  • In the white paper, has the concept been fully thought through and described?
    • It explores the technology fairly completely, although fails to mention potential attack vectors which are standard in most white papers.
    • Is the white paper clear on technical implementation?
    • It is clear on technical implementation and is kept up-to-date with development.
  • What type of DLT (Distributed Layer Technology) is this?
    • Blockchain
  • Is there any privacy/anonymity feature?
    • No, but it is on the roadmap.
  • What is the consensus used?
    • PoW: Proof of Work
    • The SafeBox model does not work with Proof-of-Stake (PoS) since stake-proofs cannot be aggregated to secure the SafeBox.
  • Is there a prototype or proof of concept?
    • No
  • Is there a test network/project?
    • Not anymore
  • Is there a live network/project?
    • PascalCoin is currently live and operational.
  • Is the live version in alpha or beta?
    • No. The project is live and stable.
  • What programming language is used?
  • What license is the code written under?
    • Full source code is available under the MIT license
  • What is unique about PascalCoin accounts?
    • The address space in PascalCoin is finite
  • Accounts are limited resource and commoditised
    • Accounts are very cheap and can be purchased for under 1 PASC
      Special: how do I get a PascalCoin account?
    • http://getpasa.com
    • pascwallet.com - purchase an account
    • With a wallet using PascalCoin’s in-protocol account sale/purchase and settlement features.
  • Special: since accounts are limited, how can you scale to millions of users?
    • There are plans on the roadmap to support billions of users by either:
      • Increasing issuance from 5 per block to N per block (N = 10, 20, 100, etc.)
      • Issuing accounts per block in accordance with Moore’s law
      • By using dynamic account creation utilizing new Create Account & Destroy Account operations
      • Providing a one-time issuance of millions of accounts for faucet-based distribution
      • Using a combination of the above
  • What is the current transfer speed?
    • 5 minutes
    • 140+ txn/sec on the mainchain
    • For large transfers it is acceptable to wait for 2-4 confirmations
    • Many small or micro-transactions accept 0-confirmation transactions since they are still quite safe.
  • How is the transaction fee calculated?
    • You can send 1 transaction in a block without a fee. If you send multiple transactions in the same block, you must include a fee for each.
    • For example, if you are sending to 5 different addresses, you must include a fee of at least .0005 PASC or .0001 for each in order to prevent spam.
  • Can the project easily run for decades (i.e. without the ledger to become extremely heavy)?
    • Yes
    • "PascalCoin can run for a 100 years at 100 txn/sec and still have a lower footprint than Bitcoin does today -- in fact about ~10GB"
    • Yes. Dual-mining Ethereum is hurting PascalCoin
    • However, PascalCoin team will soon be rid of centralisation, this PIP (PascalCoin Improvement Proposal) paves a path forward. The community will be voting on this soon.
  • Does the technology have any unique features?
    • Yes, the Safebox technology is very unique
      • “The PascalCoin Safebox allows the chain to be “snapshotted” and later deleted, to free up space. How this works is the Safebox saves balance information from PascalCoin accounts every 100 blocks, and archives it.”
        “From the archive, users can easily sync new wallets and software with the PascalCoin blockchain within minutes. Instead of downloading the entire chain, they only need to receive the account balance data from the Safebox, and the remaining blocks on the chain, which will always be at most 100. Because of the Safebox, infinite scaling of the chain is already integrated with the ability to continuously save snapshots while keeping the local blockchain free of extra bloat.” http://www.ethereumwiki.com/altcoins/an-introduction-to-pascal-coin
    • Yes, the addressing/accounting system is unique
      • “While many standard chains require long hashes of numbers and letters for identifying an address in the ledger (Bitcoin, Ethereum, Monero, etc), PascalCoin utilizes short numerical addresses, allowing for easy memorization and transaction verification.”
      • “Addresses aren’t able to be created on a whim, thus reducing bloat on the ledger.”
      • “Accounts do not bloat the chain, and are available for miners to sell or give away via a built-in marketplace in the PascalCoin wallet.” http://www.ethereumwiki.com/altcoins/an-introduction-to-pascal-coin

Storage

  • Is this an ERC20 token?
    • No
  • Do any hardware wallets support this crypto (Ledger, Trezor, Keepkey)?
    • No
  • Do any regulated exchanges list this crypto?
    • No
  • Are there any web wallets?
    • No
  • Are there any paper wallets?
    • No
  • Are there any desktop wallets?
    • Windows & Linux only
    • OSX coming very soon -- mostly likely in January 2018.

Closing

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Authors and contributors

  • Follow us on Twitter @icoPntsAnalysis
  • Written by
    • Adrien Berthou - founder of ICO Points Analysis
    • Herman Martinus - Shoegazer | Beach bum | Tech professional | ICO Points Analysis writer
    • Laura Guy - ICO Points Analysis writer

Sources

#pascalcoin #blockchain #cryptocurrency
7 years ago in #crypto by
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    • [-]
     7 years ago  

    Incredible analysis again!

    Thanks for sharing

    [-]
     7 years ago  

    Thank you so much! More analysis coming this week :)

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      [-]
       7 years ago  

      [ipa-news] thanks! have a nice day!

      [-]
       7 years ago  

      You're welcome. Glad you enjoyed this analysis

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        [-]
         7 years ago  

        Excellent analysis ; well written and covered on a coin that’s an uncovered gem

        [-]
         7 years ago  

        Huge fan of your very detailed fundamental analysis of crypto projects. It is truly refreshing and enlightening. Thanks so much for performing this service.

        I have a couple questions:

        1. How do you initially select the cryptos you will perform a deep dive analysis?

        2. Are there cryptos out there you would give a 5/5 overall rating on technology and investment quality from a long term perspective?

        3. I know you don't speak to price much, which I appreciate as too many make baseless assertions about price of cryptos but just wondering if you have any methodology in how to determine if a price of a crypto is expensive or cheap (i.e. overvalued or undervalued)?

        Thanks again!

        [-]
         7 years ago  

        Thanks a lot!
        Regarding your questions:
        1. So far, Adrien was the one selecting the cryptos on which we did the analysis. Mostly based on how much of a game changer the project was.
        2. a rating of 5/5 for "long term perspective" would be rather reckless, no one knows where crypto will be in 1 year so how could we say 5/5 for in 10 years (as in, 10 years would mean "long term")? You can find other ratings in the "Overall Rating" section though.
        3. A good rule of thumb is to look at the project's market cap compared to similar projects, or projects that it tries to compete with. For that reason we added the "Competitors" section. And yes, we don't do price assertion, mostly because no-one in the team has the required experience for that. Maybe one day, once we get a super star crypto trader on board ;)

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          [-]
           7 years ago  

          Thanks so much for the detailed responses. I really appreciate it.

          Sorry if this is pushing it, but just wondering if you could also recommend any other blogs or authors that are performing high quality fundamental analysis on crypto currencies such as yourselves?

          Thanks again and look forward to your next post!

          Cheers,
          Ben

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            [-]
             7 years ago  

            Super travail! Bisous de France :)

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              [-]
               7 years ago  

              You can't selectively ignore laws of supply and demand, and that seems to be a fundamental requirement of this coin. Only 5 accounts are created with each 100 coin block, so they are 20x as rare as coins. Why should they not be 20x as expensive? If PASC goes up to $50, it should cost $1000 for an account, which is required to start using your PASC. Would you pay this much for a bank account?

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                [-]
                 7 years ago  

                great article!

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                  [-]
                   7 years ago  

                  So much research and no PascalCoin donation address? You are funny. No money for you.

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