ICO ALERT REPORT
An analysis of Skincoin, compiled by our team of industry researchers, traders,
and professionals. For a comprehensive list of active and upcoming Initial Coin
Offerings and for more ICO Alert Reports, visit www.icoalert.com.
RELEASED JUNE 17, 2017
ICO ALERT REPORT An analysis of Skincoin
June 21, 2017 at 00:00 UTC to July 21, 2017 at 00:00 UTC
Distributed to Ethereum wallet as ERC20 tokens.
60% sold during ICO
30% to Skincoin Foundation. Until the official exchange is
launched, the tokens will be exchanged for game skins at the
market rate, and will also be used to form a stable market
and further development over the next five years.
1 billion SKIN
Fixed supply.
6,000 SKIN : 1 ETH
100,000 ETH
No lockout period.
SALE PERIOD
TOKEN
DISTRIBUTION
ALLOCATION &
PRE-MINE
TOTAL SUPPLY
GROWTH RATE
ICO PRICE
INVESTMENT
TARGET
LOCKOUT PERIOD
This report is intended to provide information for research purposes only. This is
not investment advice and does not constitute any soliciation or endorsement of
any investment. Any investment you make is done at your own risk and at your full
and absolute discretion. The contents of this report are the property of ICO Alert. All
rights reserved.
DISCLAIMER
ICO ALERT REPORT An analysis of Skincoin
WHAT IS SKINCOIN?
Skincoin is an Ethereum token which seeks to create a fungible currency for the current skin gambling
market. Skins are digital items coveted by players in video games that allow players to change the appearance
of their weapons, armor, and more. These digital skins have a real world value with some of
the rare items amounting to hundreds or even thousands of dollars. The most popular games that have
seen these skin markets develop are CS:GO, Dota 2, and Team Fortress 2. Users can deposit their skins
into these skin gambling websites and gamble with them in a variety of ways, such as roulette, jackpot,
or opening cases for a shot at rarer skins.
The current problem with the skin gambling market is centralization. While many skin gambling websites
list the odds of pulling a rare item out of a case, it’s impossible to prove if these odds are accurate
or if they are being manipulated in favor of the skin gambling website. This issue became very apparent
inside the gaming community when it was revealed that the owners of a very popular website called
“CS:GO Lotto” were the same YouTubers promoting the website, without any disclosure. It was discovered
that these YouTubers were manipulating the website so that their accounts would always win. This
enabled them to make videos showing them winning huge amounts of money and enticed millions of
people to join their website.
This scandal was only possible because of the centralization of the CS:GO Lotto servers. Since the scandal
was exposed, the gaming community has viewed these skin gambling sites through a very skeptical
lens, often making jokes about the possibility that these websites are rigged.
Our initial assumption of Skincoin was that they were going to solve this centralization problem by decentralizing
their existing skin gambling platforms; however, upon further inspection, it is clear that is
not the case. While they are still solving a legitimate problem by making skin tokens fungible between
skin gambling websites, it is important to note that their servers will still be centralized. In effect, this
means they will be running a centralized service that happens to use a decentralized token.
The Skincoin team already owns multiple skin gambling and eSports betting websites, so they don’t
need to build an entirely new platform to support the cryptocurrency. Rather, they will be integrating
Skincoin into the existing operations of SteamTrade, SkinWin, and CaseClub.
In addition, the Skincoin team will be solving the issue of liquidity in the skin gambling market. They will
be launching a Skincoin exchange which offers players the ability to convert skins into SKIN tokens and
vice versa. This will enable gambling and betting sites to settle their transactions without the risk of centralized
services like Steam blocking their trades.
THE TEAM
Skincoin claims to have “an excellent, well-organized team.” Since 2013, they have been creating, developing
and supporting their own betting projects in the eSports market with a turnover of more than $1
million per month.
The following information about the Skincoin team was found in the Skincoin whitepaper. However, when
ICO ALERT REPORT An analysis of Skincoin
attempting to verify the information presented, we found that none of the Skincoin team members have
active LinkedIn profiles or other online profiles where this information could be verified. A Google
Search for “Skincoin team” turned up a page with photos of all of the team members. These photos,
when used in a reverse image search on Google, turned up zero relevant results.
Alexey Zakharov, Founder
Has been working at Hewlett-Packard, Merlion, Open Technologies. He has launched and brought to payback
more than seven projects in the gaming area related to the game items CS: GO, Dota 2 since 2013.
Igor Solomatin, Co-Founder, CEO
Has extensive experience in promoting products of American company Hewlett-Packard in the Russian
market. Successful experience in launching and promoting Internet projects. Starting from 2013 he has
been co-founder and general director of gaming projects related to Steam and the market of game items
(skins) with a turnover of more than $1 million per month.
Alexander Kravin, leading architect-developer (full-stack)
More than 10 years in the field of complicated and highly loaded systems software development. Developed
applications for telecommunication companies, banks and State structures from scratch. Since
2015, developes game services, applications for administration and monitoring. Leading architect-developer
of Steamtrade.net, Skinwin.com.
Alexey Bazlov, developer (back-end)
Since 2008, he has been developing game servers for online games, working with the network part,
interacting with the client-server, optimizing the work of high-load projects. Starting from 2012, he has
been working with Steam projects. Developer of the Skinwin.com and Case.club projects.
Oleg Agayev, developer (front-end)
Eight years of web development experience (full-stack developer). For a long time he held the position
of full-stack developer of a large corporate b2b portal based on the Laravel and AngularJS frameworks.
Large experience of development popular gaming services adjacent to the Steam platform. Platform
developer of Steamtrade.net, Skinwin.com, Case.club.
Hasan Delic, designer (UI / UX)
Large experience of UX/UI design in eSports industry. Great vision in design of game industry. Creator of
the Skinwin.com, eSportsmate.com, Ninjas in Pyjamas, Escape Gaming, Luckbox.
ROADMAP
The following was supplied by the Skincoin team.
For the last three years of joint work, our team developed and launched the following projects:
Trading platform of game subjects CS:GO/Dota2/TF2 - Steamtrade.net;
Game service for skins and points - Skinwin.com;
Shop of random objects (opening of cases CS: GO) - Case.club.
ICO ALERT REPORT An analysis of Skincoin
Projects are successfully running in the market for two years with a total turnover of more than $1 million
per month. For all of our working projects, we will immediately introduce the new payment currency
SKINCOIN and further we will work on partnership with key projects for the fastest coverage of the
gaming market.
Roadmap until the end of summer 2017:End of July 2017: implementation of receiving skincoins tokens as payment and bets at https://
skinwin.com/, https://csgodep.com/, https://skin-hunt.com/, https://case.club/August 2017: launching of the platform-exchanger Skincoin Exchanger (skins <=> skincoins)
August 2017: implementation of SKINCOIN reception on the trading platform https://steamtrade.net/
September 2017: implementing API for accepting payments on third-party sites
October 2017: launch betting platform for betting on eSports matches with acceptance rates in
SKINCOINS.
WHAT IS THE METRIC FOR THE SUCCESS OF SKINCOIN?
As with most ICOs, the metric for the success of Skincoin is user adoption. The team has set aside 300
million SKIN tokens in order to attract new users to the ecosystem. Because the Skincoin team already
owns several skin gambling and eSports betting websites, they already have a large user base with
which Skincoin can be integrated. This will give them a huge advantage since growing a user base is one
of the most challenging things ICOs face.
The current skin gambling and eSports betting market is massive, amounting to $5 billion in 2016. Of
this $5 billion, the breakdown between various game styles is as follows:
44.79% Sportsbooks: players bet skins on the outcome of eSports matches.
25.8% Jackpot: players bet skins in lottery-style games.
13.95% Roulette: players bet skins in roulette-style games.
5.59% Coinflip: players bet skins on the flip of a virtual coin.
9.88% Other: players participate in raffles, rock-paper-scissors, mastery boxes, and blackjack.
The fact that SKIN tokens will be immediately integrated with 5 of the major skin gambling and betting
websites dramatically increases the chance for Skincoin to succeed. If Skincoin can position themselves
as the de facto currency in which all skins are denominated, the platform is likely to see massive success.
CONSIDERATIONS AND CLOSING
Overall, the Skincoin team is posing a solution to a real problem that currently exists inside a massive,
multi-billion dollar market. Their ability to immediately integrate with 5 of the major skin gambling and
betting websites is a huge advantage, one that will allow them to soar above any copycat coins that
ICO ALERT REPORT An analysis of Skincoin
launch in the future. However, it is disappointing that the Skincoin service will ultimately be centralized.
A decentralized, fungible token is a step in the right direction, but does not fully decentralize the underlying
service. Because of this, users may remain skeptical about the skin gambling market since the
Skincoin service will still not be provably fair.
View the Skincoin website.