I must say I was coming close to a ‘crypto burnout’. After months of research and after trading numerous coins for one and other, disillusioned and with broken hopes I came to the conclusion that not only am I none the wiser, I have actually lost more than if I would have just bought BTC and HODLED. The acronym ‘smh’ has never been more appropriate. Although immensely frustrating, I get relief from the fact that I’m not alone.

I was a little late to the party, a good friend hassled me to buy BTC already in 2016 but what did I do; I spend tons of money on stuff. Yes, stuff. Very unfortunate decision, because if I had spent only 25% of my entire materialistic spending on BTC at that time I would have come close to being a millionaire. Of course that would entail not diving back down with the market after BTC had hit a high in December but yeah as they say “hindsight is always 20/20”.

So I started in October 2017, first by buying BTC. As I was following the charts, and became better and better at it, I enjoyed learning all about the crypto market. That’s where it first went wrong. I discovered the “altcoins”, or simply “alts” as we call them, towards the end of November. The crypto start-up projects that could make me a millionaire overnight. Or so I thought. First, everything went well and I made a lot of BTC on trading alts. Little did I know that would I have given a dart to a monkey back then and let him chose my alts by throwing it at a list of them, I would still have made a lot of BTC and dollars, simply because crypto went into an insane bullmarket. Yes, I am talking about the infamous ‘December of 2017’ month of crypto. Bryan Adams should write a song about it. Then January came and we all know what happened. I lost a lot already early that month, and even after VeChain had thrown me a life jacket to keep me from totally drowning, I was still down a lot.

That’s when it really started to go really bad. I started to do intense research. I discovered ICOs, and Ian Balina, Sergio, OhHeyMatty, and all the others, and my research intensified even more. I spend days and nights researching every new project, and like many, saw opportunities everywhere. I thought myself a genius, I dove even deeper, and invested a big part of my portfolio in ICOs. I was going to be rich soon. Reality hit when some of my invested ICOs started to come onto the market and went down to half their ICO price. No problem, I thought, so I even went into more vigorous research, spending entire nights again to find that one gem, that one coin that was going to make me rich. Nope. Did not happen. In fact, I was at the point that I almost lost 80% of my portfolio on ill-informed investments and noob-like research qualities. My research slowly died out and after a while, with like a thousand new ICOs coming up each month, I could not see the forest for the trees anymore. I gave up and decided to HODL (finally) but that did not help much. I needed a trustworthy source, a source that would research things for me, and no I tried Palm Beach and like many others watched Cliff High, and the numerous YouTube video’s by all the self-proclaimed experts, all to no avail.

I think my story is shared by many crypto investors; we want to be successful, but in this sea of crypto projects and scams we cannot see anymore what is valuable. Everyone is hyping their coin and we are just following. Real data and profound insight have become incredibly valuable but we cannot understand what is valuable and what is not because everyone is constantly screaming at us which coins to buy.

Then I discovered Pareto Network. Since I had given up on my illusions of grandeur on being a bona fide crypto researcher, and my self-esteem had now vanished, I thought I’d give it a try. It changed everything for me, and for this I am very grateful to come upon this great project. This is exactly what crypto needs right now and almost nobody knows about it. A project where I actually, apart from ETH, bought its tokens for their utility value rather than speculation on their future price. Before continuing I will first shortly explain what Pareto Network is, so that we are all on the same page. I think that before I finish, most people reading this article will see what I see; this is for once a valuable token with a utility that will only grow and expand as more people discover this great and helpful tool.

Pareto Network; the definition of valuable information

So what is Pareto Network and why do I think this is an absolutely crucial player in the cryptosphere. Let me first state this: the strength of Pareto Network lies in its simplicity. By the way, everything is done through the Pareto Network platform itself, which is already up and running. If you want access, you can just begin right away after a few simple steps (you will need Metamask). See here for the steps you need to take; https://blog.pareto.network/how-to-access-the-pareto-network-with-a-web3-browser-8c7dfa917c0b.

Shortly stated Pareto Network is a service platform where the generation and sharing of valuable trading and inside information on crypto projects is incentivized in a genius way. While Wall Street has its research desks that do a lot of research on profitable opportunities, the crypto world has Pareto Network. It’s actually very simple. Say I find out about a great trading opportunity such as I discover how to double spend on the IOTA tangle, before everyone else figures it out. I can then put a price on this information in the form of PARETO tokens. Of course the more valuable the information is, the higher the price I can set on my discovery. Indeed, knowing how to double spend on the IOTA tangle is massive info and I can ask a massive price for that. Anyone on the Pareto Network with an interest in my data can then decide to pay me a part of the amount I asked or the full amount. If someone rewards me the total cost price I set for my information, he will receive the full power of the reward and move up the priority list appropriately. If the user rewards less than the amount I requested, he will move up proportionally to the amount contributed (more on this in the next section, bear with me). Below is a figure I copied from their whitepaper. I strongly recommend reading the whitepaper, it’s one of the clearest, most concise, and best written whitepapers out there.

The Pareto Network Ecosystem

So first of all, the people who create the content upload it to the Pareto Network. The algorithm is then designed to notify the token holders that new content is up. The PARETO token holders in their turn can decide on the value of that content and whether they want to invest in it or not. If they make an investment, they get access to that content based on the amount of PARETO tokens paid. The more you are willing to invest the sooner you will receive the content and have an edge over others. Some content will cost next to nothing while other content is worth a big bag of PARETO tokens. The types of content that is continuously released on the Pareto Network are the following;

• Sector reports (e.g. storage, prediction, computing)

• Analyst reports — coverage of new & existing tradable tokens or investments

• Analyst reports on return on staking/mining

• Technical trading alerts and reports

• Codebase reviews

• Code vulnerability and security assessments

• Evaluation of investor tools

• Evaluation and discussion of fund management tools

• Crypto investment manager surveys

This content can be created by anyone with valuable knowledge, be it individuals, groups, or organizations. Some content is singular, meaning it is just one piece of valuable information, others will be multiple items created over time. Of course, one would think it takes time before there is content after the platform has launched. After all new platforms first need users and such to start gaining value. However, Pareto has come up with a good solution for this problem; adding content contributors happens in two phases that are completely overlapping. During the first phase, which already begun even before the platform went live, Pareto has recruited qualified contributors to start building a flow of information that can be used immediately by token users. This has ensured that the platform already had tons of valuable information immediately when it went live. During phase two, which started immediately after the platform gained traction and more and more users entered the network, content is created and exchanged organically between the creators and the users with the incentive being PARETO tokens.

Back to my story

So you can understand my enthusiasm when I went on the platform and found out that there were many hardcore and genuinely smart individuals on there that wanted to sell their information for often very low prices. Indeed, I bought and traded on many pieces of info, be it fundamental analysis, technical analysis, but also deep research on crypto projects, upcoming changes in projects, and other valuable inside information available to everyone if one just dug deep in the internet, and also lots of reviews and in-depth analyses on new ICOs (whether the info on the ICOs is correct I do not know yet, I have already invested but of course will only know when they hit the market).

This information has already paid itself back more than double, meaning that I am on the platform just for over two weeks now and have already made around 120% gains on my crypto portfolio by buying a good batch of PARETO tokens and immediately spending them on the platform. I still have a large part of my PARETO tokens left, meaning I only spend a small amount of my tokens to double my portfolio. This is genius. We are not talking about ‘Tradingview’ type of info. No, we are talking about the Sherlock Holmes type of crypto detectives who go very deep to find that one piece of info almost nobody knows about, yet. You know those pieces you sometimes read on some forum and think “damn, that’s some proper detective work”. Well, Pareto is loaded with that type of information. Not the simpleminded “this coin will increase in value because it is a great project” but people who go so deep they deserve the title “Crypto Sherlock’s” (yeah, bad joke, I’ll show myself out).

For once, I am not invested in a project as a speculative investor. I will only buy more PARETO tokens once my tokens are all used on the platform, so I still have access to many great insights. I could not be more excited! I am slowly moving up the ranks. Since there are still so little people who know about this great platform, it is currently not hard to move up the ranks to get new information sooner. Let me shortly explain how this works!

The genius ranking algorithm of Pareto

The thing is, information is often more valuable the sooner we receive it, so if I want to receive new information sooner and have an edge on the others, I can choose to spend a greater amount of PARETO tokens on that information. The more I spend on information, the higher my ranking and thus the greater the guarantee that I can be among the first to receive that information. However, this also works on a higher level, much like ‘karma points’ on Reddit. If I am a frequent user and pay high fees for upcoming information, I will move up the “waterfall”, akin to a leader board, and will ensure that I will be notified sooner and receive the profitable information faster when new information comes up in the future. The way the Pareto Network algorithm defines one’s place in the waterfall can be summarized as follows;

“The algorithm is counting how many PARETO tokens a user owns, how long they’ve held tokens, and how many PARETO tokens they have spent by paying content contributors. The largest benefit comes from spending the tokens on content contributors, creating a virtuous circle of incentivized information that benefits the users of PARETO tokens.” (pp. 12, whitepaper). See below for a visualization of this process.

Another stroke of genius is the way the algorithm penalizes the speculative purchase of tokens. This essentially means that if you buy tokens but do not use them and only keep them in your MEW wallet, you will slowly lose your place and move down the ladder in the waterfall. In other words, the more PARETO you spend proportional to what you hold in your wallet, the greater your incentive, simply because you will receive profitable information sooner. This way the users are incentivized to spend their tokens whenever new profitable information comes up and the content creators are being rewarded for their content, creating a win-win situation for both parties.

I believe that mechanisms such as this will eventually create and sustain long-term value of PARETO tokens. Exactly what we miss right now in crypto. Most projects do not have a working product and the value of most tokens is merely based on speculation. It is common sense that the tokens that get used more and more will be the ones that will survive the inevitable ‘purge’ and maintain their value in the long run. However, since PARETO tokens are as valuable as the information that is released on the platform, the more users that discover the platform and want to move up the waterfall the more these new users are willing to pay for PARETO tokens, thus organically growing their individual value over time. This is the way to not only ensure durability of the project but to also maintain an organic growth of token value based on the increasing number of users of the platform. Instead of speculation, it is actually the utility of the token that will drive its value up. I think this is genius and a much need fresh breeze of air in a space where nearly every trading decision is based upon pure speculation and whitepapers full of empty promises for the sometime in the future. Pareto Network is already up and running and users are increasing each day. I compare it to Steem in its early days but rather than journalism it contain pieces of great info on trading opportunities.

I know it sounds incredibly stupid but I wish the community that is already on the Pareto platform did not know about the platform and accidentally made an account and signed in, that way I would actually be able to sell this article. This is valuable information. One day you will look back and realize that reading this simple medium article, written by a noob writer, has enabled you to be on the ground floor of an incredible project and have made a good profit out of it. All hail Pareto Network! Yes, forgive me for being excited this was what I needed to get alive again. To beat my “crypto burnout” as I call it. Now if you don’t mind I will make sure to move up the waterfall before more and more of you guys and gals discover this great new platform.

Disclaimer: None! I never wrote anything on Medium before. I wanted to write this article to give back to the Pareto community and to ensure that the content creators on Pareto who helped me to grow my portfolio will actually have a greater user base to disseminate their new content. It’s the least I could do for them.