ICOrating

MERCURY PROTOCOL Basic Review (https://www.mercuryprotocol.com)

ICO dates (25.10.2017 — 25.11.2017)

Web: icorating.com

Email: info@icorating.com

Twitter: @IcoRating

Links

Project details

Name: Mercury Protocol

Ticker symbol: GMT

Project Type: Communication protocol

Extended Company Description:

Mercury is a decentralized protocol built on the Ethereum blockchain. The protocol can be used to promote positive user behavior: Timeliness of communication, quality, or availability.

Company: Radical App International

Website: https://www.mercuryprotocol.com

Whitepaper: https://www.mercuryprotocol.com/files/Mercury_Protocol_whitepaper.pdf

ICO Details

Public ICO Start:

25.10.2017

Public ICO End:

25.11.2017

Token Sale Duration (weeks):

4.4

Token Type: ERC-20

Total number of tokens:

1,000,000,000

Tokens available on sale (Pre-Sale + Public ICO):

600,000,000

Investment Goals:

Primarily for research and development of the protocol

Price of 1 GMT:

US$ 0.04 [28]

Accepted Payments:

ETH

Bounty: No

Token role: Functional/Infrastructure

Team

Team (number of people)

15

Advisors and partners (number of persons)

2

GitHub: https://github.com/mercuryprotocol

Social Media

Twitter: Posts: 146, followers: 1731

Telegram: Subscribers: 1700

Medium: Subscribers: 408

Reddit: Subscribers: 233

LinkedIn: Subscribers: 21

YouTube: Posts: 146, subscribers: 38

Project information

Mercury Protocol is a decentralized, open-source protocol enabling the exchange of messages between previously isolated applications, and is meant to provide message privacy and data protection.

[1]

Mercury Protocol will provide the following features: – Decentralization: Communication is not owned or controlled by any one party. – Security: All data are protected from unauthorized access and blockchain-protected. – Trustless: Messages and transactions are validated without a trusted third party; – Accessibility to any application: The general protocol will be available for all relationship types [1]. Initially, the Mercury Protocol will be integrated into the Dust messenger as proof of concept, and will enter the market by the end of the third quarter of the year 2017. It will then be integrated in the Broadcast application (a new platform designed to deal with social media issues.) Broadcast will be released by the end of the fourth quarter of the year 2017.

[2]

Partners: n/a

Advisors: – Mark Cuban (https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-cuban-06a0755b/) - Businessman, billionaire. Owner of the Dallas Mavericks NBA basketball team, owner of the Landmark Theatres, CEO of the HDNet company and HDTV cable network; – Nick Tomaino (https://www.linkedin.com/in/nick-tomaino-99157823/) - Founder of 1confirmation, director of Runa Capital, employee of the Department of Business Development at Coinbase.

[1]

Attracted investments: n/a

Conclusion

Experienced specialists from the blockchain industry as well as prominent advisors are behind the Mercury Protocol. Strengths of the project:

- High-profile advisors.

- The project is generally favorably received by the Blockchain industry.

- There is a working application that will soon integrate project technologies.

- Large scale public use of messenger services, offering great opportunities to monetize

the project.

Weaknesses of the project:

- Not all project team members indicate that they are working on the Mercury Protocol

on LinkedIn, which makes the team seem uncoordinated

- There is scant data regarding the market in the official documentation.

Market and industry

– According to Statista, the revenue from mobile applications has exponential growth. Thus, the revenue from WhatsApp in 2015 amounted to US$49 million; by 2020 the projected income is US$4.8 billion. Roughly the same growth is projected for Facebook Messenger and Wechat. – In addition, Statista predicts that the number of mobile messaging users will be 2.48 billion by the year 2020. CAGR will be 11.4%.

[29] [30] [31]

There is no market analysis in the white paper.

[2]

Comment:

The potential of the market is enormous, and therefore the project can be successful. However, the declared Dust audience, as presented in the white paper (on average at least 20,000 active users per day and more than 200,000 messages sent per day) is somewhat exaggerated. According to the data, the audience is no more than 7,000 persons.

Competitors

The following competitors are identified in the white paper: -Status (https://status.im/) is a browser, messenger and gateway to a decentralized world. Allows you to store tools and communicate using a messenger. - Signal (https://signal.org/) is a platform for rapid and secure messaging. - Toshi (http://www.toshi.org/) is a browser for the Ethereum network providing access to financial services and secure messaging. In addition, Messenger and Wechat are identified as competitors. The following can be added to the list: - Kin Kik (https://kin.kik.com/) — a platform for exchanging messages with the use of digital currency. WhatsApp, Viber, Telegram, and the like could also be added to the list.

[2] [32]

Conclusion It is worth noting that all of these competitors could potentially become partners because the Mercury Protocol is built on top of these applications.

Engineering features of the platform

Technical description

- The Mercury protocol is a decentralized, open-source protocol built on the Ethereum blockchain. This allows the application to store all messages in-memory (RAM) rather than on a hard drive. The ERC20-based token will encourage user participation in the platforms that will be integrated into the Mercury Protocol, enabling users with GMT to interact with Mercury Protocol services on the blockchain.

Protocol features:

[2]

- Use of State Channels: Part of the blockchain will be blocked by a multi-signature or a smart contract, where the only way to update is to confirm with all the members of the group. - Activation of interaction with external sources. - Hardware wallet with backup keys for improving communication security. Users download applications that are integrated into the Mercury Protocol. GMT tokens allow you to use all provided services and run premium accounts. Users can earn GMT by performing specific actions that promote the platform (for example, by consuming X messages per day, reading a message within seconds, and so on.)

Technological roadmap

In the future, as technology and data are being developed, it is planned to implement: - 4th Quarter of 2017: -Completion of the Broadcast application (version of 1.0.0) and its release to the market. - Promotion of Mercury Protocol within the framework of the Dust application. - Launch of the web interface for decentralized management. - 1st Quarter of 2018 onwards: - Opening of the Mercury Protocol code. - Development of services for Dust and Broadcast. - Implementation of State channels. - Regular security audits.

[2]

Comment: The white paper presents the application’s development strategy up to

the first quarter of 2018, however it is still somewhat unclear what the team plans to do. The project (Broadcast) is currently in preliminary alpha-mode; the first version is planned to be developed before the end of the year. The Dust application is already operational, but it is not yet possible to test the Mercury Protocol.

Dust Messenger

The following active blocks are represented in the open repository:

There are 2 open repositories - - Global-messaging-token-contracts - dedicated to tokens - Mercury Protocol wiki

Screenshot of the repository

Comment:

The development team states that the platform code will be ready in the first quarter of 2018. In the current repository, there is activity in global-messaging-token-contracts only.

Conclusion

The protocol will be integrated into the Dust and Broadcast applications. The Dust app can be downloaded from Google Play and AppStore. The protocol offers a wide range of functional solutions.

Documentation

We analyzed the Mercury Protocol site and the documentation for sufficiency and consistency to make an investment decision.

The documentation includes the white paper and privacy policy. The documents are available in English only. The Mercury Protocol is described in detail in the provided documents.

The website also provides information on the project, the timeline, the roadmap, the public ICO, the team, advisors and answers to the most frequently asked questions. The site is available in Chinese, English and Korean.

[1]

Conclusion The documentation provides insight into the project.

ICO

Tokens to be issued,%

60%

Public ICO Start:

October 25, 2017

Maximum Amount

Token Type: ERC-20

Accepted Payments:

ETH

Cost of 1 GMT:

US$ 0.04

Crowdsale Period:

4 weeks, until November 25, 2017

The GMT token is designed for various utilities in the messengers that are compatible with Mercury Protocol. Dust is the first application to use GMT.

Users will receive rewards in GMT for their active participation in applications and networks built over the Mercury Protocol. Thus creating an ecosystem that encourages active participation in such applications.

Token limitation:

1,000,000,000

Advantages of token holders: Limited amount of tokens, functional tokens, which allows using the application services on the protocol.

Max Goal: US$ 24,000,000

Max Goal: US$ 4,000,000

No bonuses are to be provided.

A bounty program is not declared

Comment: Prior registration is required to participate in the public ICO [2]

Token and capital distribution

Tokens and capital are distributed according to the following scheme:

Token and capital distribution scheme

[1]

Conclusion Tokens do not affect the distribution of shares in the company.

Development plans

According to the roadmap: - From the 4th quarter of 2017 to the 1st quarter of 2018 and onward — raising user awareness about the Mercury Protocol. - 1st quarter of 2018 — Organization of a hackathon to support and encourage developers.

[1], [2]

Conclusion

There is no marketing strategy in the white paper. When asked about this, the creators of the project said that they will work with the fastest and most flexible platforms for Networking 2.0 (a decentralized network enabling communication using several messengers, which does not own or control user personal data).

Team

The team consists of 15 people, as well as 2 advisors. Information on the principal team members (LinkedIn):

- Ryan Ozonian (https://www.linkedin.com/in/rozonian/) - CEO, co-founder. CEO, co-founder of Dust Messaging. Experienced entrepreneur in the field of mobile media, Ryan previously founded and managed Mention Mobile. - Preethi Kasireddy (https://www.linkedin.com/in/preethi-kasireddy-41383528/) - the main blockchain engineer. She has previously worked as an investment analyst at Goldman Sachs and as a partner in the Andreessen Horowitz venture fund. Has experience as system administrator and software developer. Preethi is a blockchain developer since June 2017. - Rohit Kotian (https://www.linkedin.com/in/rkotian/) — Technical director. An experienced software engineer and the lead developer. There are 12 other people in the team.

Conclusion

Only 5 people identify their affiliation with the project (Mercury Protocol) on LinkedIn. The project has a strong technical team; the team consists mainly of technical specialists in a variety of areas: blockchain, mobile applications, software development, web development and design. There is also a project manager; however, there are no marketing and sales specialists, although this has not impacted on the popularity of the project.

Marketing

Information about the project is available on Twitter, Facebook, Slack, Medium, Reddit and Youtube. The team is actively communicating with users on social media and in forums. There is no bounty program, but it will be available in the first quarter of 2018.

The project is active within social media. The team answers users' questions on Telegram and Slack. News is regularly updated on Twitter, Slack and Facebook. The format of the articles on the project indicates that they were written to order.

Comment: User interest in the project is quite high. The main marketing campaign is deployed on Twitter. The team also has a channel on Youtube where they explain how Mercury Protocol works.

[1]

Analysis of the site traffic based on Similarweb.com data shows the following:

Mercury Protocol traffic sources (Similarweb.com)

[6]

Comment: 61.85% of traffic comes from following direct links, 14.71% — following links, 15.54% — search traffic.

Search traffic: According to SimilarWeb, 15.54% of the search traffic is 100% "organic".

Referral Links: 14,71%

Comment: Because there is no data on the site traffic, it is not possible to determine whether it is popular among users.

Conclusion

Based on the analysis of the marketing campaign, it can be concluded that there is a high level of interest in the project among users. A lot of questions are posed to the team on Slack and in Telegram; the team does not answer all of them due to quantity. An active Twitter campaign is being conducted, and videos are being published on YouTube. It is prudent to cooperate with Mark Cuban since his high profile could stimulate interest in the project.

Contacts

You can contact the developers via the following links:

Website: https://www.mercuryprotocol.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/mercuryprotocol

Telegram: t.me/MercuryProtocol

Medium: https://medium.com/@MercuryProtocol

Slack: https://www.mercuryprotocol.com/slack

Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/MercuryProtocol/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/18270256/

Github: https://github.com/mercuryprotocol

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCa_tIG6rzXFBYpyMM_CuCQA/featured

Useful Links

1. Website: https://www.mercuryprotocol.com

2. White Paper:

https://www.mercuryprotocol.com/files/Mercury_Protocol_whitepaper.pdf

6. Similarweb: https://www.similarweb.com/website/mercuryprotocol.com

28. Icodrops https://icodrops.com/mercury-protocol/

29. https://www.statista.com/statistics/487656/mobile-messaging-apps-revenue/

30. https://www.statista.com/statistics/483255/number-of-mobile-messaging-users-worldwide/

31. https://www.iris.xyz/investing-life/advisors-play-critical-role-educating-overwhelmed-clients-about-what-they-will-need

32. https://kin.kik.com/papers/Kin_Whitepaper_V1_Russian.pdf?ver=2

The information contained in the document is for informational purposes only. The views

expressed in this document are solely personal stance of the ICOrating Team, based on data

from open access and information that developers provided to the team through Skype, email or

other means of communication.

Our goal is to increase the transparency and reliability of the young ICO market and to minimize

the risk of fraud.

We appreciate feedback with constructive comments, suggestions and ideas on how to make

the analysis more comprehensive and informative.