ICO Analysis: Creativechain

Blockchain 2.0 — using the blockchain for functions aside from simply register the movement of funds.

The purpose of Creativechain would be to let digital creative works to be registered one time and become indelible — permanently the property of the founder or owner, in a provable way. From a financial standpoint, there are several possible utilities here, chief among them allowing creators to get paid regardless of who or where their material looks.

The recent irruption of blockchain technology provides many chances for the registration and distribution of intellectual property with no intermediaries.
Creativechain’s whitepaper correctly identifies that conventional media industries have not managed to exploit the energy of the decentralized internet. While they have managed to profit from things like Spotify, the sale of MP3 albums and e-books, they have failed to automate this and rely on law enforcement to make sure their properties are not pirated.

Creators would have the ability to register their work on Creativechain, and then people who would like to enjoy the job or use it in other commercial applications can simply license it from the creator directly, in an automated way. If you’re a publication searching for some content, you could let a few posts through Creativechain, and a market of competing writers could serve your need.

Creativechain incorporates all the advantages derived from the creation of crypto coins. In this way, without needing to use bank accounts, purchases, micropayments or donations can be made to the authors of the registered contents.
These are the token of exchange on Creativechain. They will obviously be exchangeable for Bitcoin when altcoin exchanges list them.

The platform also intends to make the creation of decentralized applications easier for developers, so that platforms can be built on top of it so as to make the acquisition and distribution of content easier. Creativechain is a Scrypt-based Proof-of-Work network, meaning that individuals will have the ability to obtain CREA by mining, and miner rewards will be enhanced with the enrollment fee that all creative works will pay (.001 flat fee.) This fee is interesting because it means that all participants in the network will have incentive to see the network grow and prosper — miners will want more people using Creativechain so that more registrations are made; consumers will want more users so as to potentially make the worth of their CREA and subsequently their works rise. Combined with the ability to exchange the token, therefore adding another component to the machine: you, the speculator. All components play vital roles, as in all markets.

Finally, Creativechain will make it simple for people to utilize wise contracts. With no middlemen of Paypal and the banking cartel, subscription fees can be more affordable. All kinds of digital content providers can benefit from something like this: “we got rid of our advertisements, can you pay a couple CREA a day for automatically-enabled access?”

The platform also has a concept called “Smart Actions,” which means that creators will be able to sell access to their own content using a variety of methods. Presumably, for instance, a founder could sell the rights to something for non-cryptocurrency, and then issue a license to the lessee themselves. The overwhelming theme appears to be to enable the legitimate owners of content, instead of the publishing and recording powerhouses of old.

Who It Is
Proto has been operating around that industry since 2007, and he founded Comando Suricato, his current firm, in May of 2013. Since then he’s worked for a few blockchain-related companies in graphic/web design classes. It is evident that he himself would benefit from a successful launching of Creativechain, given that he creates visually interesting and higher quality artwork on a regular basis. In a recent interview, Proto said:

Creativechain is a platform with a clear roadmap whose purpose is to be a free software tool of reference in the multimedia ecosystem of this new age blockchain. During this year, we expect to see the usage of the platform in the primary audiovisual media (photography, video and audio). Once Creativechain platform is consolidated, we’ll open new platforms linked to the blockchain of Creativechain. They will be specialized in the distribution of software, ebooks, blogs, newspapers and other means of cultural supply.
Next on the creators list is Anna Nos Ripolles. She’s also a co-founder of Comando Suricato, and has acted as an art director at a few organizations over the last few years. Her role or significance is relatively unclear, but presumably as an artist she plays a direct role in the look and feel of this Creativechain product.

Web searching her LinkedIn username reveals a bit more of her career, from before her record on the site. For instance we find here which she is a highly competent desktop publisher.

She and David are both performers lends some credibility to the platform’s intentions — it is always best to attempt to solve one’s own problems.

Last on the founders record is Vicent Nos Ripolles. Vicent appears to be the technological brain of the creator group, having worked in IT consulting as well as having previously funded and founded a co-working space called the Entropy Factory. He lists PHP, payment gateways, and electronic payments as his abilities.

Unlike other projects we’ve reviewed here, the team includes mostly programmers. That’s what you need to observe when dealing with a technology product: more developers and actually useful workers than anything. The product doesn’t reach market at the behest of their “social media manager” after all. Creating the rest of the team we have 4 programmers, 1 system administrator, and 1 strategic communication guy. This last guy likely plays the very difficult/important function of reaching out to content makers like Hacked.com and trying to get them to use the platform.

The Verdict
The writer will be eating his own dog food with this one, and entering the crowdsale personally. The merits of the project, and the need of it, are known very well to the author. So as to not pollute the rating, let’s look at a few of the negatives of the project before delivering the verdict.

The function of Creativechain might be played with a capable Counterparty or Ethereum project, eliminating its novelty. On the same note, Factom could only expand to do everything Creativechain intends to do. It certainly would not fall outside of their mission of “making the world’s systems fair.”
Creativechain uses a Scrypt proof-of-work mining algorithm. While this is good for miners, it has to remain great for miners in order to avoid difficulty surges and valleys. Many altcoins experience periods where, right after a massive mining outfit disconnects from the network, no one staying has the hash power to mine another block for hours before the difficulty drops. One hopes Creativechain will be aware of this danger and implement smarter difficulty adjustment alogrithms as a result, since availability of the payment and content railings is of the utmost importance. Nothing against Spanish speakers, but the language of money in our current times is most definitely English. If Comando Suricato is entirely serious in their project, they will hopefully contract with communications people in English-speaking countries to more clearly convey their message to the money centers. The whitepaper itself is clearly not written by a native English speaker, but this should only become a problem if rival projects reach fruition before Creativechain has a chance to mature.
These items notwithstanding, we are going with a 7.3 with this one. Like most of altcoins, it has the capability to tank in value, but the utility would still be there. This tank in value would impact you mostly if you entered in at the crowdsale level, otherwise it would be a benefit for you. So you may just want to wait till it gets listed on exchanges, and catch it on a downward motion, if you believe you are going to have a use for the coin. As far as pure speculation goes, you’ll want to limit your investment here pending the long run, but active trading, rather than passive holding, could net you a tidy profit once the thing goes live.

Investment Details
Just under 8 million CREA are available for another couple of weeks (roughly). Unlike most ICOs, you can buy CREA with a bank account. That they are producing their identities known to the banking cartel is a major plus in terms of security, because no sane scammer would do as much.

If you enter the crowdsale via Bitcoin, make sure you have control of the wallet you use — don’t use Coinbase or some other Bitcoin bank, because in the event that the ICO doesn’t take off, your refund will be sent to the address you sent from (without 2\%). The wallet is currently available for testing:

You can’t buy a particular quantity of CREA in the Crowdsale. The way they’re doing it, the 7,947,316 CREA that are being marketed will be dispersed amongst the investors by how much they invested. If 100 people invested and you invested 20 percent of the group’s sum investment, then you would get 1,589,463.20 CREA. Currently around 70 people have spent roughly a little over $10,000 in bitcoins. Bank investments are obviously not public in precisely the same way. This makes the present value of each CREA about 70 satoshis.