Summary

Project name: Ripio Credit Network

Token symbol: RCN

Website: https://ripiocredit.network/

Whitepaper: https://ripiocredit.network/wp/RCN%20Whitepaper%20ENG.pdf

Hard cap: 127,500 ETH (public crowdsale ICO contributors own 51% of total token supply if hard cap is reached, 106,250 Ether sold in presale, 21,250 Ether available for public crowdsale)

Conversion rate: 1 ETH = 4,000 RCN

Maximum market cap at ICO on a fully diluted basis: US$74 million assuming current Ether price of $295

Bonus structure: None

Presale or white list: Presale is over

ERC20 token: Yes

Crowdsale date: October 24, 2017 (please refer to Ripio’s website for the most up-to-date information)

Token distribution date: Expected to be October 24, 2017 if public crowdsale is over by then

Video summary (video is 9:57 long):

Project Overview

What does the company/project do?

Ripio’s main objective is to offer digital payment alternatives within everyone's reach in Latin America, a region where 65% remain unbanked. The Ripio Credit Network is a protocol that aims to bring enhanced transparency and reliability in credit and lending. The protocol enables peer-to-peer lending, regardless of where the lender and borrowers are located, and which currency is used. By reducing the traditional banking brokerage costs and management fees, Ripio aims to allow better conditions for both sides, creating a better credit alternative than what’s available today. By including an intermediary agent (the Cosigner), the Ripio Credit Network seeks to neutralize the lender’s credit risk and, in case of a default, provide an alternative mechanism for managing the debt collection in the borrower’s country of residence. The picture below shows how Ripio works in a nutshell:

There are different parties involved in the Ripio Credit Network: Borrower – makes a credit request from its Wallet Provider. They will receive a loan in local currency. Wallet Provider – generates a smart contract to: (i) specify the terms of the loan, (ii) receive funds from the Lenders via Credit Exchanges, and (iii) distribute these funds to Borrowers and other agents. Ripio will be the first wallet provider. Scoring Agent – provides a credit score for each Borrower. ID Verifier – verifies the Borrower's identity. Co-Signer – acts as a guarantor for Borrowers, and may act as a local agent in the Borrower’s country of residence for debt collection in the event a Borrower defaults. Ripio will be the first co-signer. Credit Exchange – allows the Lender’s offer to extend credit to match with a Borrower’s request for credit via a smart contract generated by the Wallet Provider. Ripio will be the first credit exchange. Lender – invests by lending funds via a Credit Exchange. Lenders can choose how much guarantee to be purchased from the co-signer (from 0-100%). The more guarantee the lender purchases, the higher the insurance premium will be. Each network agent will have to follow a different process to join the network. Most of them will need to sign up in a credit exchange and / or integrate the RCN protocol to their software.

How advanced is the project?

Based in Argentina, in 2013, BitPagos (the predecessor of Ripio) started as Latin America’s first Bitcoin payment platform, offering bitcoin-based financial services for merchants. A year later, the company launched Ripio, a digital wallet that enables consumers to send, receive, store, and buy or sell Bitcoin in local currency and to make online payments on thousands of websites. Ripio was one of the finalists of the TechCrunch Disrupt New York 2016 Battlefield. In January 2017, BitPagos was rebranded as Ripio. According to Crunchbase, Ripio has received $6.15 million in VC funding in 6 rounds. Ripio currently has over 100,000 users in Latin America. Future roadmap and milestones: October 2017

Oracle MainNet deployment.

RCN Token crowd sale begins.

RCN development team growth.

Linking of the current Ripio Credit product to the network.

December 2017

Full scale completion.

Implement of advanced smart contracts, RCN agent interfaces, and SDKs.

April 2018

The Ripio Credit Network goes live.

What are the tokens used for and how can token value appreciate?

RCN Tokens will be required to facilitate transactions among the other agents in the RCN. RCN Tokens will be required to access the RCN network given that agents' fees and obligations – plus the corresponding distribution expenses within the network – are driven by the use of these tokens. ID Verifiers get RCN Tokens in exchange for verifying the Borrower’s identity. Scoring Agents receive RCN Tokens in exchange for providing data related to, and rating, the Borrower’s creditworthiness. Cosigners collect a premium in RCN Tokens in exchange for cosigning the smart contract along with the Borrowers. When a Lender agrees to the smart contract listed on the Credit Exchange, RCN Tokens that have, per the Oracle, a corresponding funds value in a specified currency in the amount of the loan, are sent from the Credit Exchange to the Wallet Provider through the smart contract. Finally, the Wallet Provider trades RCN Tokens for the Borrower’s local currency and provides the Borrower with the funds accordingly. Note that only the lenders and agents deal in RCN tokens while the borrowers only deal in fiat. This is going to reduce the barrier of entry for people who want to borrow from the Ripio Credit Network. As RCN tokens are (1) required for lenders to access the platform and (2) used to compensate agents, the more usage the Ripio Credit Network has, the more valuable RCN tokens should be.

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Team

Ripio has a team of 12. As it is a blockchain company since 2013, they have extensive experience in blockchain development. Sebastian Serrano, CEO of Ripio, was the CEO of devsAr, a web & mobile development agency. A few members of the core team also used to work there. Ripio’s advisors include Sergio Demian Lerner, Co-founder & Chief Scientific of RSK, Juan Llanos, Fintech & Regtech Lead at Consensys, and Jeff Stewart, Co-founder & Chairman of Lenddo.

Opportunities

Ripio has received VC funding from 2013 to as recently as April 2017, which could be an indicator that the companies is growing. VCs rarely fund a declining company.

Ripio’s investors include well-known blockchain VCs such as Tim Draper, DCG, Pantera Capital, Fenbushi Capital, Medici Ventures, Funders Club, Boost VC, and Huiyin Blockchain Ventures. This means that the company has passed the scrutiny of these institutional investors.

Ripio was a finalist of TechCrunch Disrupt Battlefield New York 2016, demonstrating that the team is solid.

Detailed and well-thought-out white paper, showing that the team has a good plan as to execution.

Ripio has a realistic game plan. It is focusing first on Argentina, then Latin America, then eventually abroad. We believe that this realistic approach is much better than ICOs that promote they will disrupt trillion dollar industries and expanding into geographic areas that they are not familiar with.

Peer to peer lending utilizing blockchain technology has a lot of opportunities in Latin America because of the (1) large portion of unbanked people and (2) popularity of cryptocurrency in Latin America due to the high inflation rate.

It is easy for borrowers to use the Ripio Credit Network because the borrowers receive local currency and don’t need to deal with any cryptocurrency – RCN tokens work under the hood. This helps drive adoption of Ripio.

They have a no-discount policy, even for presale participants and VC investors, allowing a fair playing field for all participants.

Concerns

The project requires a few different parties, including co-signers and wallet providers, to work. Ripio may not be able to find enough agents in time to scale the project.

Many banks do not like cryptocurrency and refuse to deal with it. If cosigners cannot find a way to convert their RCN tokens back to fiat, the business model will break down

Conclusion

Overall, we like this ICO both for its short-term potential and long-term potential. Our thoughts of the tokens for short term and long term are as follows:



For ​short-term holding



Good. It looks like the presale is sold out, even without a discount, which leaves only 8.5% (or 21,250 Ether) for the public crowdsale. There is a maximum contribution of 20 Ether in the public crowdsale, which should leave plenty of unmet demand.



For long-term holding



Good. The business plan is well thought out and the team is veteran in the blockchain space since 2013. We like the way Ripio Credit Network is structured so that borrowers don’t need to deal with cryptocurrency, which makes it much easier to drive adoption

For more information about the ICO, please visit the following links: Website: ​https://ripiocredit.network/ Whitepaper: https://ripiocredit.network/wp/RCN%20Whitepaper%20ENG.pdf Blog: https://medium.com/@rcn_news GitHub: https://github.com/ripio/rcn-token Bitcointalk thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2202647.0

