Skycoin

Researcher: Kan Yilmaz

Kan Yilmaz Score: 4

4 Date: January 28, 2018

Analysis

Skycoin uses Obelisk, BFT like sync system using game theory to validate transactions. No PoW like consensus, just consensus based on time.

Obelisk can halt or the network can slow down with attacks. Manual fixing (blocking bad actors on individual base) would be needed in those cases.

Skywire allows sharing bandwidth. There are free and premium bandwidth which individuals can charge.

Skywire will be the 1000x potential application. If it can be a mesh network where gamers can pay for premium bandwidth and decreased their ping around 20-30% it will be a game changer. They should focus on gamers first. I haven’t seen any attempts from the team to market Skywire to gamers.

SkyLedger, a platform similar to Ethereum’s ERC20 with individual chains for each application.

It has the potential to Moon (Market potential is trillions of $)

Has/Will have hardwares (Skyminer, SkyAnttenna, SkyWallet etc..)

Team is very strong technically.

The SmartContract languages are Go-like but it kinda sucks. They are allocating more than necessary resources on this project and market it like it’s a game changer, but it’s not.

They say they have a few secrets which they haven’t shared yet so market can’t beat them.

The core team is based in China but has offices all around the world.

Has more than 80 people working.

Has been around for 7 years and has pivoted multiple times. They are a few years ahead of their competitors.

Their GitHub is amazing. Compared to other projects, development speed looks a lot faster.

They have the core ledger built (blockchain). Almost everything else is going to be built. Obelisk is not built yet. Not sure what consensus algorithm they’re using at the moment.

Has Lead Dev from Ethereum and Core devs from Bitcoin

Synth (kind of like CEO) is extremely smart and troll.

This project does a lot of different projects. Obelisk and Skywire can be the game changers.

Skycoin is a project that we all need. Trustless, borderless mesh network is one of the most needed applications that can be built by using Blockchain. I see a few ways the Skycoin can fail:

Synth is a troll, the culture is toxic. They’ll lose the trust of the community by acting unprofessionally.

Skywire won’t be able to deliver its promises.

They’ll invest resources on too many not so valuable projects like KittyCash, CX, SkyAntenna etc.

They should just focus on Skywire and dominate the market as soon as possible. This is a controversial project. There are too many risks but the rewards may be amazing.

Conclusion

Smart team, great tech, suck at marketing, the team is too troll which may hurt the coin & the ecosystem.