After moving into crypto, people have been asking me about investing in ICO projects and where they should spend their money on. If you don’t know what an ICO is – it stands for Initial Coin Offering – which simply means that companies come up with their tokens to raise funds, and if their tokens get listed on any exchanges, you get to trade them off for other crypto, or for fiat (which is your normal currency).
Some people trade by putting money in the top 10 coins – think Bitcoin, Ripple, Stellar, Litecoin etc, while some prefer investing in upcoming ICO projects with huge potential based on their white paper. When an ICO happens, private sale (getting private investors through their own network) will happen followed by a public pre-sale or crowdsale (also known as token sale / public sale). The pre-sale usually lasts for just awhile and comes with a bonus of coins which gives you more value for money. During the pre-sale and crowdsale is when these individuals who are interested in buying tokens would participate by putting their own money and purchasing the project’s tokens or coins.
Before people choose to invest, they would have to do their due diligence on the project, checking the team, its project concept, the potential of the tokens and scalability etc.. There are a lot of things to consider before putting your money in.
So I’ve recently taken up a project called GreenLink which is founded by the BoxGreen team. If you’re based in Singapore, you may be familiar with BoxGreen. BoxGreen was founded by Walter Oh in 2014 and it is only growing stronger – they have recently set up their first cafe along Upper Thomson road named Thrive which you will find acai bowls, healthy snacks and more. I have to say that after meeting with the team, I do feel the passion and dedication to their projects and works.
The key motto for GreenLink is driving sustainability and social change with the use of blockchain. You could read the whitepaper here, or you could read on for a simplified explanation of their idea. You will also find me as one of their team members (hehe). The problem that the blockchain protocol exists to solve would be verification of supply chain. This is based on their concept of Proof-of-Existence (PoE). If you are familiar with blockchain, you would know Proof of Work and Proof of Stake etc. In this situation, Proof of Existence is an entirely new concept by the GreenLink team.
In PoE, businesses will upload their documents and certifications on the blockchain, creating records of existence, integrity and ownership for these certifications. This allows consumers to verify the origins of the products they are purchasing. You may read more about the proof of authorship and how the digital signature works here (P13, 14).
They will also allow web integration through an open API and web-based plugins for ecommerce stores, which will allow online consumers to also verify products’ origins before making an informed decision to proceed with the purchase. Being an eco-friendly cutie pie has never been more verified and beneficial with the Social Ledger that GreenLink has also come up with. All your eco-friendly actions will be recorded on the blockchain and it is now your chance to be the true-blue eco-friendly ambassador or influencer because businesses can now appoint ambassadors accordingly, with verified information. Besides these, there will also be a consumer loyalty program, incentivising your eco-friendly behaviour and purchases!
Personally, I do think that projects relating to making the world a better place are hard to take off as people are closed up about big ideas on “saving the world”. However, GreenLink here has shown the possibilities of putting all of these problems aside and push towards rewarding individuals for their efforts and eco-friendly purchases. People often aren’t rewarded enough to be motivated on their own to make such decisions, but now we have the solution. Think about it, GreenLink can then be applied to beauty products (no animal testing), apparels and fashion (no sweatshops) and more. I do see a huge potential and market for this project.
If you are interested, do join us in discussing the project details on their Telegram channel and the token sale will take place in September 2018. Their airdrop campaign is also happening now (click this link to participate and get free IMPACT tokens). If you would like to participate in their token sale, head to their website and subscribe to be updated with their news!
Coke of All Trades 