In order for the cryptocurrency movement to continue its accelerated growth, there needs to be more tools and platforms that work to lower the barrier of technical difficulty for the average investor or blockchain user. The platforms that are able to accomplish this stand to create tremendous value, similar to what we have seen with every previous technology boom of the last 25 years.

An example of perhaps the first mainstream platform that lowered this crypto difficulty barrier is Coinbase, which worked to make buying and selling cryptocurrency as simple as a few clicks. While certainly, no one enjoys their hefty fees and less than ideal exchange rates, Coinbase was the first to provide everyone, regardless of technical understanding, the ability to purchase their first digital asset. The end result for Coinbase has been more money than they know what to do with (seriously, they launched a venture fund to unload all of this cash).

Looking into the blockchain project landscape to finds projects with a similar mission focus, we find a few interesting groups. One project that is hoping to become the go-to platform for simplicity on the blockchain is Ethos, which aims to make the cryptocurrency market accessible to everyone, accelerate adoption of blockchain technology and democratize ownership of cryptocurrencies. To accomplish this, they are building out a number of products within their platform, including a universal wallet and a suite of APIs designed for developers building financial systems on the Ethereum blockchain. A key element of the Ethos platform is their social ecosystem, where they hope to build out a crowdsourced investment model, as well as a social gamification system for participation in the new blockchain economy.

Interested in Ethos? Here’s a quick rundown of the project:

Platform & Development

In short, the Ethos project aims to build a cryptocurrency platform with ease-of-use and social interaction as the core features. Towards this goal, they have built platform with three major components, as described by the Ethos whitepaper:

Universal Wallet

This self-custodied universal wallet allows the user to safely store, manage and further monetize their crypto assets in a single location.

There are a few unique features built into the wallet, including the ability to register and verify a personal or business name attached to the wallet, essentially removing the need for a cryptographic address. This enables for verified interactions, important for both merchant and B2B transactions. This identification system is similar to what the I/O coin project heralded for a long time.

Each wallet is protected by added security features, including biometrics and PIN protection. The mobile wallet will soon include cold wallet integration for further security. Additionally, users are able to monitor asset classes (Watchfolio), including coins and tokens, through a market data feature that pulls from, among other things, an active community of enthusiasts. This is an interesting crowdsourced model that allows users to conduct due diligence directly in their wallet platform.

Fiat and Diversification

This system includes a unique legal structure with a fiat/diversification system whose capabilities are amplified by the Ethos liquidity network tokens. Perhaps the most interesting facet of the entire Ethos project is the One-Click Diversification feature, which enables users to diversify their fiat across a variety of cryptocurrency assets with ease. Essentially, users can leverage a range of allocation arrays created by Ethos, and easily adjust the percentage of each asset allocation to fit their preference. Each asset is backed 1:1 by Ethos.

Social and Community

This is the crux of the Ethos platform, where users are rewarded for sharing their expertise and helping to build an investment community. There are a number of early social features that Ethos is rolling out, including:

Ethos Ratings: Users provide quick opinions on different asset classes to help paint an overall sentiment rating for these assets as potential investments.

Ethos Reviews Users share deeper analysis and can directly answer questions from other users, with quality responses being rewarded with tokens and reputation points.

Ethos Predictions invites users to predict the future performance of cryptocurrencies as part of both short and long term contests, with rewards and reputation points going to the most accurate predictors. Predictions is a fun, gamified way to learn more about how the market works and learn from each other, while generating powerful crowd-sourced data to help our users make informed decisions.

Ethos Experts: Users who have demonstrated real value added to the community through continued quality and accuracy. These experts will be given special badges and privileges, including the ability to create their own asset bundles that other users can co-invest in, essentially building social investing platform.

An additional major focus of the Ethos team is building out accessible APIs that facilitate people and businesses to build a scalable and compliant set of services on top of open standards. Ethos will play a role as a platform and toolkit for others to harness in building the next generation of open, decentralized, blockchain and crypto-based services.

A few initial areas of focus for API building blocks include Ethos Wallet Services, Ethos Relay, Ethos Fiat Gateway, and Ethos Broadcast. Each of these APIs act as a bedrock to the Ethos platform and the project aims to build a system similar to Amazon’s AWS for both consumer-facing and enterprise applications.

The ETHOS Tokens were created as a utility token for the platform. In short, the ETHOS Tokens will:

Be the payment mechanism for accessing and using services on the Ethos platform

Pay for transaction fees and API calls

Enable liquidity to help with changes in user asset allocations

Finally, while there is no Ethos roadmap, they do provide a great deal of literature on the different facets they are developing, as well as the larger blockchain economy. You can read their literature here.

Team

The Ethos Team is led by 20-year-old founder and CEO Shingo Lavine, who is currently a student at Brown Unversity. He has assembled a team around him with experience in product development, technical architecture, and investment management.

Token Financials

Ethos (ETHOS) currently has a market cap of ~$150 million with a circulating supply of 76,351,981 ETHOS and a total supply of 222,295,208 ETHOS.

Final Take

Ethos is taking a very smart approach to building out a blockchain platform by focusing on ease of use and lowering the barrier of difficulty for mainstream adoption. We are especially interested in their universal wallet and look forward to trying out the unique diversification features. Ultimately, further value creation will be tied to both platform and API adoption.

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Disclaimer: The author(s) of this article may have a position in one or more of the securities mentioned above. This article is for informational purposes only and should not be taken as investment advice. Always conduct your own due diligence before making investments.