Ambrosus is an interesting project which aims to introduce the blockchain technology into the food chain & supply industry. As it is advertised on their website, they combine high-tech sensors, blockchain protocol and smart contracts to set up the world’s first publicly verifiable and community-driven ecosystem to assure the quality, safety and origins of food.

How Ambrosus works

One of the key features of the Ambrosus network will be the sensors that will track food at all the stages of the logistic process. These input devices are a “customized combination of robust sensors, biosensors and food tracers”. They “assess and monitor in real-time the product’s physical attributes and its surroundings down to the individual unit, coupled with a unique ID, smart tagging and anti-tampering mechanisms”. This means that smart contracts will gather information from the traced items all along the supply chain, and will store it on decentralized ledgers.

It is still unclear how the information is filtered before its storage, but it seems that the data is splitted in two parts. One part is sent to IPFS (a decentralized data storage network) while the other is sent to the Ambrosus blockchain. The data stored in the blockchain may be the one that needs to be continuously traced while the data stored on a system such as IPFS may rather be richer data, like detailed references. Smart contracts will also be used to read and verify the integrity of the various transactions that will happen on the Ambrosus Network.

ICO characteristics

Start September 13 End / Total supply / Conversion rate 1 ETH = 1000 AMB (Amber token) Soft Cap / Hard Cap 100 000 000 CHF Distribution 16.9% early investors – 40% investors – 25% investment – 16.8% team – 1.3% Reviewing Use of funds 70% R&D – 25% partnerships – 3% legal – 2% administration

Team

The team behind Ambrosus is quite relevant to the project needs. Angel Versetti, CEO, “previously worked at the United Nations, World Resources Forum, Bloomberg and was trained at Google”. Dr Stefan Meyer, CTO, “has over 20 years of R&D experience in food analysis, ultrasound sensors and data encryption. Previously, Stefan led R&D projects at Nestlé, MHM Microtechnique and Vitargent Biotech and also sold two projects to Maersk Group and Perrot GmbH. He was the Founding Managing Director of the Integrative Food and Nutrition Center at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL)”. You can read the full curriculum vitae of each member here.

Basically, the whole core team (8 members) has a very serious background in the food industry or the blockchain technologies, took apart the Community Manager who has however a strong background in laws.

Roadmap

Another good point for this project: the roadmap of Ambrosus is rather clear and detailed compared to the common ICO.

September 2017 Release of Proof of Concept for the core protocol, sensor prototypes, demo of Ethereum blockchain-based decentralised applications and marketplace. Launch of the exchange platform demo. September-October 2017 Token Generation Event October 2017 Release of Alpha-version of Supply Chain Management Protocol; Release of Proof-of-Concept for sensing system, edge and central gateways. November 2017 Release of Alpha-version of the quality-driven decentralised marketplace for food and commodities. Final architecture and development of customized data center and tailor-made API. Selection and testing of encryption methods. December 2017 Release of an Alpha-version of decentralised commodities trading platform; Initiation of 5 R&D programs January 2018 Opening of a Center of Excellence in Lausanne for quality assessment of goods. Launch of a dedicated Digital Commodity Quality Research Lab for hardware development. February 2018 Launch of Alpha-version of large-scale decentralised storage solution for supply chain sensors. Manufacturing and testing of the gateways. Validation of the data center and test of data analytic modules. March 2018 Launch of a public Beta version of marketplace, exchange platform and product checker software integrated into Ethereum blockchain. Release of a full suite of APIs for legacy sensors and IoT. Launch of developer tools suite. Development of oracelized modules for inter-operability of API with SAP and Gs1 software. Release of first-generation food tracers.

This goes on until end of 2020… To consult the full roadmap, please visit their blogpost about it.

Useful links

Our advice

The concept of Ambrosus totally makes sense. You have sensors sending data about the food chain to smart contracts which interpret and store it as exploitable information in the blockchain. This trusted data can be retrieved by the participants to monitor and adapt their processes and logistics. It is a great use of the blockchain technology to disrupt centralized structures by enhancing transparency and trust between parties. My opinion is that their biggest challenge will be to overcome all the security issues that will arise from the new kind of cooperation it brings to the food industry. But I am pretty confident that this challenging task will be handled seriously by the developers.

Overall, Ambrosus is a very promising project. The food industry is a huge market and any improvement at any stage of the supply chain can generate a lot of profits. Therefore, there is no doubt that the Ambrosus team will work hard to make it real.

For this reason, I think it is a 9 out of 10 for HODLING gentlemen. However, you may want to Flip. Flipping may be a bit risky if we take into consideration the latest bans that occurred in China and South Korea. Dumps may occur since holding tokens is not as safe as it was yet a few days ago. As it is a bit random, I would give a 5 to FLIPPING.