By now, I’m sure many of you have heard of an Initial Coin Offering (ICO), a crafty way young startups have been able to secure funding for their ventures without the help of Venture Capitalists. I would also assume that most of these ICO’s have been conducted on the Ethereum protocol. However, there is a small wave that is accumulating market share and notoriety. Allow me to introduce Waves, the brain child of Russian physicist, Sasha Ivanov. Today, Waves trades at $7.21, but because of the recent launch of their decentralized exchange (DEX), their partnership with Deloitte, the EXTREME ease of users creating customized tokens, ability for users to lease their Waves, and the additional drivers that I will discuss, we could see Waves trading at $40 a coin in 12 months.

Basics:

Launched in June 2016, Waves is an open-source blockchain platform, based on Scala, that allows users to launch their own custom cryptocurrency tokens and provides them with a decentralized exchange The decentralized exchange, DEX, allows users to trade any token pairs that are on the blockchain, which currently has close to $1.5mm in trading volume Waves give users the ability to launch ICOs to fund projects from all parts of the world in a matter of minutes, without going through intensive coding. Past successful ICOs on the Waves platform are PrimalBase and MobileGO Ticker: WAVES

Price: $7.21

Ranking by Market Cap: 20

Market Capitalization: $718,476,000

Circulating Supply: 100,000,000 WAVES

Max Supply: 100,000,000 WAVES

Average Trading Volume: $2,821,733

Block time: 30 Seconds (Working on bringing this down to 1 second)

Consensus: PoS

Team:

Leading the Waves team is Sasha Ivanov, Russian physicist, who has been involved in payment systems software development throughout his career. He launched the first instant cryptocurrency exchange, coinomat.com The Waves team currently has 8 additional developers working on the project full time The team also has 7 additional social media managers and community manages Rounding out the team are 2 business development professionals and 1 product manager

Drivers of Growth:

Sasha Ivanov clearly states that the Waves team’s focus is on mass adoption, specifically targeting two markets: fiat transfers on blockchain and crowdfunding on blockchain. Instead of using complex coding of contracts like the Ethereum protocol, Waves is offering the use of plugins, this is basically having the main end-user client downloading a plugin from Chrome Trading on DEX offers no trade limits, small fixed commissions on pre-order basis, funds are kept in a secure wallet and not on the exchange, and trading volume has spiked to $1.5mm since its launch this year. DEX offers a far more seamless experience than other exchanges on the market The Waves platform allows users to create, issue, transfer, and exchange assets and custom tokens. The platform is so easy to use you can create your own token in less than 5 minutes Waves has a partnership with Deloitte, which gives Waves the exposure to Deloitte’s clients Waves has also partnered with Microsoft Azure’s, adding this Blockchain as a service will give corporate developers countless blockchain solutions Waves has partnered with The National Settlement Depository (NSD), the central depository for the Moscow stock exchange, to help develop a digital blockchain platform to serve digital assets Waves has partnered with Gazprombank Digital, the digital division of the well-known bank, to provide clients with comprehensive initial coin offering (ICO) services and customized blockchain solutions — specifically tailored for the Russian metals and mining sector The Waves team plans on making their platform KYC & AML compliant in order to form partnerships with banks. This will provide Waves users with the ability to have banks act as a gateway for fiat currency to be deposited and withdrawn from their account seamlessly Waves allows users to lease the tokens in their wallets to various nodes for interest Waves currently has wallets available for IOS and Android The Waves team is planning on expanding their current capabilities with the introduction of smart contracts, a blockchain messenger, and new fiat and cryptocurrency gateways

Headwinds:

Most other infrastructure coins, like ETH and ETC, are a little more maturity and have a longer track record than Waves, but the team behind this project is very capable of making that a nonissue Since regulation will always trail innovation, the digital currency space can be subject to new regulations in the future

Summary:

Based on the current valuations of projects similar to WAVES:

Ethereum:

Price: $462.80

Market Cap: $44,500,478,479

Rank: 2

Circulating Supply: 96,154,464 ETH

Ethereum Classic:

Price: $30.33

Market Cap: $2,975,279,282

Rank: 11

Circulating Supply: 98,109,202 ETC

Without incorporating a growth rate my 12 month price target for WAVES is:

Current:

Price: $7.21

Ranking by Market Cap: 20

Market Capitalization: $718,476,000

Circulating Supply: 100,000,000 WAVES

12 Month Price Target:

Price: $40

Ranking by Market Cap: 9

Market Capitalization: $4,000,000,000

Circulating Supply: 100,000,000 WAVES

Taking into account a compound average growth rate of 20% my 12 month price target would be closer to $48 a coin.

I hope you enjoyed today’s write up because this coin is ready to shine. Waves team… I know 2018 will be your year!!