A Comparison Between Cindicator, Red Pulse, and Pareto Network.

An investigation of fundamentals, value, and potential ROI.

As many things in life, the value of something is always relative. I would like to receive a kilogram of gold over some food anyday, who wouldn’t right? However, when I am on a lonely island (and there is no possibility to escape; crucial detail), I would probably choose the food and deep down hope I never escape to regret my choice afterwards. Similarly, I can talk all about Pareto as if it is an isolated project, but it is not. The truth is, there are other projects out there that promise valuable actionable information. Although there are slight variations between these projects, it is important to know how Pareto compares to them. I am talking about Cindicator and Red Pulse.

The Closest Thing to a Crystal Ball in Crypto: Information Platforms

In the crypto markets, investors do not have access to conventional sources of research or equity analysis. This lack of fiscal information is the greatest challenge to crypto investment analysis especially considering the speed at which new cryptocurrencies and tokens are entering the market as tradeable assets. To illustrate this, the number of cryptocurrencies available to investors today is more than 2000 and the numbers are growing exponentially. This represents a huge opportunity for investors, but the sheer number of choices makes it nearly impossible to differentiate between them. Not everyone has the patience nor the expertise to go through all these projects with due diligence and decide objectively which ones to HODL and which ones to trade. You will need a lot of expertise in the financial and technological domain to properly value these digital assets, not to mention a lot of patience, a certain degree of obsessiveness, and absolutely no kids or wife to hassle you during the arduous process. In other words, crypto investors need information tools to help devise and implement investment and allocation strategies to take advantage of cryptocurrency as an asset class.

Luckily, three projects come to the rescue, albeit in different ways, namely Cindicator, Red Pulse, and Pareto Network.

Cindicator

Cindicator was started in 2015 by a team of experts in the fields of maths, data science, quant trading, and finances working in synergy. A whole mouth full of expertise and usually indicating that they know what they are doing. The advisors include great names including Charlie Shrem and Evan Cheng (Director of Engineering at Facebook). They have an all star team that’s for sure.

Although there are many big traders and investment houses who are all running their private paid services in silos, there was a need for a sort of ‘IMDB of crypto’ to provide more objective valuation for digital assets. Wisdom of the masses, for a good enough sample, averages out the human eccentricities to some extent and brings out a more objective evaluation for users. However, the masses in this context are professionals assumed to be able to give solid trading advice. I call it ‘IMDB for crypto’ because Cindicator is the one in control of the questions on tradeable assets which are then answered (or reviewed) via an Android or iOS app by professionals, ultimately providing an average score for each question.

Cindicator goes one step further. Not relying entirely either on expert intelligence nor on wisdom of the professionals, Cindicator combined both their knowledge as well as Artificial Intelligence (AI) to create a hybrid intelligence system for most effective asset management. So, basically 95,000+ decentralized financial analysts, enhanced by Artificial Intelligence (AI), are what make up the hybrid intelligence in Cindicator product. Professional analysts are responsible for providing the basic work for the ecosystem. AI then builds on the information the professional analyst has provided. The accuracy of everything is back- and forward- tested. Traders and investment funds trade using the average of answers provided by all forecasters for each question and enhanced by Cindicator’s AI/ML algorithms. The holders of the Cindicator token on the platform are the beneficiaries of all the work done by both the professional analysts and the AI.

Cindicator has a market cap of over $150 million and its web application, android app, and iOS app is already live. So, it is already a working product. You can apply to become an analyst on their portal. You can share your market vision and reap the rewards. Your predictions will include price levels of popular assets, such as cryptocurrencies, stocks, futures, and Forex (I emphasized this because its an important comparison variable). The more accurate your predictions, the higher monthly reward you receive.

Moreover, although Cindicator is used to make predictions and monitor market trends in cryptocurrencies, their whitepaper suggests that the platform can also be used for business and corporate solutions, event predictions (political events), and scientific analyses.

Red Pulse

Red Pulse is a market intelligence platform that covers China’s financial markets and provides clients with in-depth, up-to-date knowledge on the economic workings of the area. The Chinese market had so far remained incredibly difficult to understand as a market for investment and industry participation. Red Pulse seeks to bridge this gap and bring efficiency to the whole process by building the next-gen knowledge sharing platform. Red Pulse utilizes a mix of machine learning, Chinese natural language searches, and traditional research in order to uncover and process the most pertinent information for stakeholders.

The Red Pulse platform spans market-based events that are contributing to the Chinese economy, sectors, and companies in general. Red Pulse was created to offer access to contents that concern the financial markets in China. Presently, there are three problems plaguing the Chinese financial market, and they include information overload, inefficient research content structure, and lack of transparency and accuracy. Even though a research ecosystem on Asian market exists today, there is a sort of oligopoly when it comes to controlling the content production and content distribution. So, you might be getting information on the Chinese market but through Bloomberg research showcased on a particular TV channel. Smaller and independent research producers lose out and are unable to reach you.

Red Pulse is trying to address this situation, along with tackling issues of information overload, and the lack of accuracy and transparency of information. The latter two are done through a quality editorial oversight of Red Pulse information ecosystem. The editorial body administers a fair and transparent incentive system; vetting and approving good content creators as expert level content contributors. Incentives on the platform will be simplified and content creators will get compensated directly for their valuable contributions while making sure that users of the contents gain access to the most relevant information they require. Research content is conveniently categorized into General Macro, Finance, Tech & Internet and Consumer sectors, with an additional 4,000+ tags based on company, ticker, topic and sub-sectors.

The Red Pulse platform is also employing the services of the machine learning system to further enhance the research process. Incorporating ML into the model enables basic analysis, data collection, and data classification to be performed more easily.

Currently, the market cap of Red Pulse is around 92 million, indicating that speculative wise it still has a lot of room to grow. This is also indicated by the fact that at one time the total market cap had reached almost 600 million, suggesting that it may get back up there in due time.

Pareto Network

The Pareto Network is a service for incentivizing the generation and sharing of information about actionable opportunities in cryptocurrency and related assets. It replicates the function of research desks at investment banks, providing a flow of information that anyone can access. Regardless of the other projects, Pareto is positioning itself as the thought leader in crypto research, crypto valuation, and crypto investment.

On Pareto Network, individual users, research groups, or organizations will be publishing their own information and news, and they will be rewarded if it’s helpful. So basically it is a peer-to-peer content marketplace for information in the cryptocurrency space. This is exactly what sets it apart from the other two projects; Cindicator uses expertise from the professionals coupled with AI and Red Pulse has an own editorial office to judge the content, while Pareto uses a more organic approach dependent on community feedback. I have also explained this organic approach of Pareto in an earlier article (see https://medium.com/@anonymouscrypto_83949/pareto-network-separating-the-signal-from-the-noise-in-the-circus-named-crypto-74695d0279d3).

Relying on an entire community is crucial as the whole crypto market is built on announcements and insider news, and its not always the professionals, AI, or an editorial board that has access to this information. Pareto Network can become a one-stop destination for all buyers and sellers of valuable information related to crypto world. Yes, in its current decentralized form it may even host important insider news and crypto leaks that would otherwise never reach public eyes. The ‘Wikileaks of crypto’.

This peer-to-peer marketplace is an extremely big market still waiting to be tapped. The aim is to be the first real-time actionable intelligence platform for investors. The users on Pareto Network, be it individuals, research groups, or analysis organizations, contribute their ideas, hypotheses and new theories, their fundamental and technical analyses (FA/TA), their in-depth reviews, and their findings on technological leaks, to the Pareto network by creating valuable content and giving it a certain monetary value. The users can then choose to pay the content creators according to the price they deem fair. The value of information is determined organically. If someone posts massive inside information, he can ask for a huge price and the ROI on this information will guarantee that people are willing to pay such a high fee for his information.

Ownership of Pareto token is mandatory to access Pareto peer to peer network. This is required also for the content providers which ensures that the platform is not flooded with unnecessary and irrelevant information. The value of Pareto tokens is determined by the value of information in the Pareto Network is, or the perceived value of future information in the Pareto Network.

“Purchasers and users of Pareto have no expectation of profit from ownership of the Pareto token, and the platform itself discourages holding for mere speculation. Pareto tokens are required to access the Pareto Network. Spending tokens by paying Content Contributors is the best way to move up in the rankings to receive the information available in the Pareto Network sooner. Thus, Pareto tokens represent the cost to the user of accessing the Pareto Network and receiving its content at the optimal time relative to other users.”

The platform democratizes the access to high quality information related to potential trading opportunities which previously was accessible only to fund managers. Given the huge inflow of Millennials, Generation X, and Generation Y in digital asset investing, such a platform as Pareto is highly required in the market. The barrier to entry is kept low in Pareto Network and content contributors need not be machine learning experts or financial analysts.

Currently with a market cap of $17 million, Pareto Network is a decentralized information sharing platform in which trading of information takes place using the PARETO token. Pareto Network taps into a $16 billion capital research market, so there is a huge scope for growth.

May the Best Man Win: A Direct Comparison between the Three Giants

Let’s begin with Red Pulse. Red Pulse taps into the Chinese market, and aims to facilitate transparency of the Chinese market for global investors in a way which has not been done before. Although Red Pulse already boasts a market cap of over $95 million, there is still a large potential for growth. Nevertheless, when comparing Red Pulse with Pareto Network and Cindicator, the former targets a smaller market as compared to the latter two. So, given Red Pulse’s current market cap, the scope for growth is relatively less than Pareto Network and Cindicator, especially when compared with the insane low market cap that Pareto Network currently has.

However, the biggest argument against Red Pulse, maybe even removing it as a competitor to the other two, is its highly centralized nature. While Pareto uses its community, and Cindicator uses a large database of professional traders, Red Pulse employs an editorial board to judge for the transparency, accuracy, and value of new content. In other words, if that board is full of Tone Vayses (“I don’t trade bitcoin but here is advice on how to trade bitcoin”), get ready to receive questionable Intel. The whole point of this new revolution into cryptocurrencies and blockchain is its decentralized nature, enabling an entire ecosystem to contribute to the growth and direction of a new platform. In other words, as a person looking for utility as well as a speculative investor, and also as an advocate for decentralized systems, my bet would not be on Red Pulse.

Continuing with Cindicator, there is a lot to be liked. First off, the team is very good and knowledgeable which always is an important variable on judging a project. While Pareto Network relies on intelligence from either individuals, traders, or organizations, which can be traded to information seekers on a peer-to-peer basis, Cindicator relies on hybrid collective intelligence of professional forecasters supported by AI. Both are targeting the international market, so the potential marketcap is huge for both. Both are trying to solve the same problem but in different ways.

However, the peer-to-peer nature of Pareto makes it a more dynamic outlet for valuable intel compared to Cindicator. Contrary to Cindicator, with Pareto there is no need for a intermediary party, ‘professionals’, nor AI to keep the information flowing. Pareto provides great scope for high value transactions between content creators and buyers on an ongoing basis, and thus it seems the revenue flowing through Pareto platform could be much higher than Cindicator. Cindicator receives its information from preset questions that are answered by expert traders and professional via an app on the phone. Therefore, the flow of information is dependent on the activity of the Cindicator team, the community is dependent on their continued work to receive the best Intel.

Also, due to averaging out professional’s opinions on preselected trades and using mathematical algorithms provided by AI, Cindicator is mainly focused on quantitative actionable Intel. The output is thus always numerical. In other words, TA trading advice. Very valuable indeed, but still numerical only. That is, Cindicator can predict certain price ranges of assets, be it stocks, bonds, or crypto, maybe even provide an indicator of sentiment, but it cannot provide detailed qualitative intel, be it events, bugs, exploits or other info that can be profited from.

In contrast, in addition to quantitative information, such as EndoTech’s ‘Portfolio Allocations’ or ‘Blockchain Vitals’ that are available on Pareto, Pareto can also provide more qualitative information, which may even be more valuable in some instances.

A vivid example was the launch of Bitcoin Cash on Coinbase. Prices spiked to $9000 and then dropped to about $3000 in few hours. Interestingly, Coinbase has been hit by a class action lawsuit over alleged insider trading. To fully understand how centralized and unfair this system is, imagine you got in at $8000, only for the price to drop down to $3000 in few hours. This is the problem Pareto is trying to solve. Having a supply of relevant and real word data is extremely important to every company, and the crypto space, being in its early stages still lack this.

With Pareto, information and useful data becomes more easily available to crypto traders and investors. The network uses a gamified system which ensures that genuine analysts get to rank higher, thus increasing the stability of the markets. Pareto creates a platform whereby actionable information can be sold. This could be events, bugs, exploits or other info that can be profited from.

Bitcoin Cash spiking after being listed on Coinbase is one example. The CryptoNote bug of May, 2017 is another example of an actionable qualitative information. The bug which affected CryptoNote-based currencies like Monero, Bytecoin, Boolberry, DigitalNotem and DashCoin allowed double-spending. This means anybody with the right technical information can exploit this loophole and create infinite amount of the coins. Although Monero found and fixed the bug on their network, a cryptocurrency like Bytecoin had 693 million tokens (about $.3 million) artificially created before the bug was fixed. Such qualitative information can be sold only on the Pareto network, and investors can decide whether or not to take action.

Therefore, Pareto creates an information marketplace where traders and blockchain development teams are on the lookout for such information. While traders are out to make profit before such loopholes are closed, development teams are on the lookout to ensure that such information doesn’t make it far down the chain before plugging the holes. Again, apart from bugs and exploits, news and solid chart analysis can also be sold on the network.

Finally, since Pareto boasts only a market cap that is around one-eighth of Cindicator, I believe Pareto to be the most undervalued project of the two. In due time, it is not hard to see that the growth potential in terms of token valuation is much higher for Pareto compared to Cindicator.

Even if one would argue that these three projects are equally valuable that still puts Pareto as the most profitable project in the long-term simply because of its extremely low market cap compared to Red Pulse or Cindicator. If Pareto reaches the market cap of Cindicator, it would have to grow 811% (142 mil / 17.5 mil). Similarly, if it would reach Red Pulse’s market cap, Pareto would grow 526% (92 mil / 17.5 mil). In other words, if I were a speculative investor I would currently chose for Pareto even if I found Red Pulse and Cindicator equally valuable.

Blockchain technology is vast and its possibilities endless. There is no doubt about the growth of information platforms, as they have much value to offer to the real world and the crypto community. The near future looks like the likes of Pareto, Red Pulse, Cindicator, and other blockchain based information platforms will be world leaders in the generation and distribution of data. Like in the real world, competition is good and monopoly always slows down progress. So I say, may the best man win. Good luck to all three projects!