Metronome

Researcher: Goku Yilmaz
Score: 2
Date: June 18, 2018

Analysis

Idea:

8M/10M tokens available for sale.
Company blogging since November 2017.
Metronome attempts to create a stable, predictable money supply ad infinitum, using daily descending price auctions to distribute the token supply at market prices. Through the Auction contract, an initial 8,000,000 MTN are sold in a 7-day initial descending price auction, followed by 2,880 MTN per day minted and sold in the daily auctions (through year ~30, where mintage hits a 2%-per-year inflation floor).
Descending price Auction. The price descends by 0.0001984320568 ETH every 60 seconds. Users will have the option of buying Metronome at any price target they want until it reaches a minimum of 0.0000033 ETH. The starting price is 2 ETH. 2 ETH price = $8B raised. 0.0000033 ETH = $13K.
All Ethereums collected in Metronome smart contracts can be sold back to Metronome buyers.
Can move METs across different blockchains. Like ETH, ETC. Extra validators are needed to ensure which chain is the correct one while swapping between chains.
Compares itself to and is competitor to BTC, LTC, ETH, XRP, ZEC as a currency.
Has the ability to subscribe to a decentralized network by making weekly standard payments.
Self-Governance: MTN tokens will be managed by its user community, with the system managed by autonomous smart contracts. There will be no third party with any special privileges either within the system or in the MTN marketplace.
Reliability: Metronome was architected to provide rapid market price discovery, prioritize predictability and provide a steadiness to the MTN token supply over time.
Portability: Metronome’s cross-blockchain capability uses a proof-of-exit receipt when users leave one blockchain, which enables them to enter another. The MTN token will be issued first on the Ethereum network, with Ethereum Classic, Rootstock on Bitcoin and Qtum support expected to follow. This will allow users to select the blockchain that suits their requirements for governance and security, or even upgrade the MTN contract if needed.

Team:

Matthew Roszak, founder worked in Keystone Capital in 1995(Acquired by Coinbase), Was board member of a company that IPOd. Founded and worked 15 years in a company that raised $200M. Then founded a private investment firm that invests and acquires businesses for large moneys like $50M. Board member of a lot of late stage startups and companies, has strong networks in Chicago, NY, Toronto. Seems like producer or investor in The Rise and Rise of Bitcoin documentary. One of first investors in Blockchain Capital. Founded Chicago Blockchain Center. Chiairman of digital commerce. Founded Tally Capital that only invests in crypto stuff. Estimated to be a billionare. Started getting into ICOs since 2013. Gave Richard Branson and Bill Clinton their first BTCs. Andreas, Charles, Erik, Charlie, Nick all follow him in twitter.
Founders invested in Dragonchain, Civic, Poet, Rivetz, Genaro recently.
Jeff Garzik CEO is legendary in bitcointalk forum. Was Bitcoin core developer in Bitpay since May 2013 for 2 years.
Founder shares, 75% of 2M MET are locked for 3 years.
Gustav (Orchid cofounder, ETH core dev), Don Tapscott (Blockchain Revolution Author), Vinny (Civic) are advisors.
Their Chief Cryptographer is founder of Coinlab, Bitcoin foundation. And advisor to DFJ, lightspeed, pantera etc..
Some people say these founders have a lot of red flags, like having controversial issues about technology, lawsuits etc..
A lot of the team is from Chicago and Toronto. Developers in github seem to be from Argentina.

Opinion:

Not sure if incentives will make sure this is stable, it might just go moon.
Its very possible that a lot of dumb people will go FOMO in without understanding the economics. And will pay 2 ETH for what will end up to be worth a 0.02 ETH coin. Losing 100x of their money. Clever way of scamming idiots. evolution at work.
I’m guessing the first 2M will be sold very slowly. The next 4M will be sold faster, and the last 2M might deplete in 1 hour. Economically if we buy in the first 3M we will definitely lose money, in the first 5M we will probably lose money, in the last 3M, we will probably make money.
I value this somewhere around $100M-$30M. So somewhere between 0.025 ETH - 0.0074 ETH entry price is good. Any higher than 0.025 might not worth it. If its near 0.0074, going all 10% of portfolio in might be worth it. If it goes below 0.002466667 for some reason, going more than 10% of portfolio might make sense. It will come to buyable price range in about 5 days.
Presale starts Monday, should be ready to invest by Tuesday probably.
It seems like because of economic incentives the price will be tied very closely to the blockchain market, so kind of like a stable coin, stabilizing based on the coin markets.
This might be one of those coins to exit in 1 week or 6 months.
They won’t be launching and maintaining a blockchain. They will launch a few smart contracts, tie blockchains together, and let the decentralized web take care of the rest.
Big innovation in fundraising and setting a fair price for all investors. There is no KYC, presale, whitelist or bonus.
Since all ether is locked in a proceeds contract, the valuation for this will be equal to the valuation of all ethers in contract/all metronomes. This is the only cryptocurrency where the net valuation is very very clear.
There could be serious fucking arbitrage opportunities in here. Via the daily auctions. First the opportunity will be big, then the market will get competitive and opportunity will get smaller.

Questions:

Really have no idea how much this will or should be worth in the long term or which role it will serve in the marketplace.
The math part of the paper should be checked by Onur to find opportunities or weaknesses.

Conclusion

The founders are too high profile to fuck up their brand. Definitely need to get ready to buy this because you can choose your own risk/valuation. Need to follow how fast the tokens are being sold if we want to participate.