Bobby’s DeFi Gems: Fractal Protocol
Hey everybody, Bobby’s here again, it’s time for a new edition of Bobby’s Gem Bags — if you just stumbled upon this series, check out my introductory article!
If you’re a regular here, you might think, “You’re drunk Bobby, go home.” but nope, nothing wrong with yours truly or the title - we’re just taking the series in a new direction. We’ve just recently had a change of format due to popular demand, to include some coins that aren’t yet trading, but could be worth trying to pick up as soon/cheap as possible. This time, we’re going a step forward and introducing Bobby’s DeFi Gems. So, instead of focusing on the 100USDT bags from my $UNI airdrop, we’ll shift towards exploring the project itself.
An important thing to note is that not every DeFi Gem project will become a Gem Bag — simply because it might be impossible for me to get in at the initial offering or at reasonable price post-offering. For those that do, I’m sure to let you guys know via my Twitter acc.
Today, we’ll be looking at something a bit different, a project with a mission to change the current paradigm of internet, maybe even change how we see and use the internet itself. I know, it’s a tall order, but bear with me. Let’s take a look at Fractal Protocol!
If you’re not paying for it, you’re the product
If you’re paying for Netflix, or piggybacking on your friends account like a pro, I’m pretty sure you’ve read heard this said before. The term itself predates the Social Dilemma, but it’s never been more relevant than today. If you’ve been living under a rock - none of the free services you’re using today are actually free. They are all being paid for by you.
It might be you in the form of algorithmically stripped away data sold to the highest bidder on the Ad Market to try and make you buy that extra soft organic soap, but it’s still being paid by you. To make matters even sillier, I remember reading a calculation somebody did that said all of Google’s revenue divided by the number of its users would boil down to a subscription of less than 40$ a month, which works out to giving up one or two cups of coffee a month for complete access to all the services Google provides, but without your data being sold in an non-transparent manner.
But people are suckers for a “free lunch” no matter how hard you try to explain there’s no such thing, so the situation is what it is, and there are indications it will be getting worse than this in the near future.
A solution (attempt)?
This problem has been slowly growing over time, and we’ve reached a point where users are becoming aware of the situation and the implications the selling of their personal data might have. This is why the project we’re discussing today was founded all the way back in 2017. Yep, these guys have been working all across the “great bear”.
So how does Fractal Protocol propose to save the day? They believe the control over personal data can be restored and given back to the users, as long as somebody manages to create a strong enough incentive for advertisers and content creators to break away from the established order. Now, I’m saying they are attempting to solve the problem, because it’s going to be an upwards struggle - Google and Facebook pretty much control the internet at this point.
Fractal Protocol proposes to act as a zero-margin, trustless and transparent intermediary for the data exchange. In doing so, they believe they can increase the quality of that data exchange, which could end up providing you with a better user experience in the end. Think about it - how many times did you see some random YouTube ad that had absolutely zero to do with your interests and it’s simply a nuisance? I once googled fishing rods because I couldn’t believe what my mate paid for one. I was getting the inside scoop on fishing equipment for the next two months before the algo gave up. Now, if I was interested in fishing and the advertiser had that info, maybe I would have found the whole thing useful.
Fractal Protocol proposes to present an alternative to blindly going for the biggest data set (the Facebook-Google duo) and instead going for a high-quality data set it creates. They will be starting off on ETH and then moving onward to Polkadot once they launch their trustless ETH bridge, with Fractal continuing to operate on both ecosystems.
Team and partnerships
The founder and CEO, Julian Leitloff, comes from a banking background, but went on to launch several successful startups, including Stilnest, which got him onto the Forbes’ 30 under 30 list. His co-founder and CPO, Julio Santos, comes from software consulting and has developed, and managed the development of, several technology solutions for clients like Twitter, Disney, Sony, and HBO.
The project assembled a top-tiered advisory as well, with Bruce Pon, founder of Ocean Protocol, Ingo Rube, Initiator at KILT Protocol and Czhang Lin, the founder of Polkadot Fund. But maybe the most impressive name on the advisory list is Fabian Vogelsteller - the creator of ERC20.
As for the partnership/client base, the are already working with Ocean Protocol, KILT Protocol, Polkadex and Polymath.
FCL Tokens
Let’s take a look at the token behind the platform — FCL. Stepping away from the usual crypto buzzwords, the team is clear to state: “There is no profit, no dividend, no ownership, and no voting rights via the token. We intend that the token functions as the Protocol’s native currency, fueling the incentives mechanism embedded in the Protocol.”
The tokens will serve to incentivize all parties involved: users, advertisers, verifiers, insurers and attesters. We’ve already discussed how Users will get control over their data and privacy and improve the relevance of stuff they are seeing while Advertisers get more for their money, not having to waste resources on failed targeting. Verifiers are publishers and ad networks, which stand to benefit from ad revenue and increased user engagement. Insurers are there to provide liquidity to Verifiers and Attesters are intermediaries such as the Fractal ID service, which will bring additional value to the Users while creating a sustainable business model of their own within the ecosystem.
Fractal sold their tokens in a pre-sale, with prices ranging from $0.025 to $0.05 in the first round and $0.1 in the latest round. The cheaper tokens come with an ironclad vesting schedule - 6months lock and then 12 months vesting, and the $0.1 ones come with a 6 months vesting period. Given the fact their public sale is set to list on Polkastarter at $0.1, this gives the private sales basically no edge over the public sale, which is great.
When it comes to the public sale, the team has pledged the entire raise of $400k towards providing Uniswap liquidity. As there are tokens set aside for liquidity providing as well, we could be looking at as much as $800k in initial liquidity, which is sure to help with the price volatility from the earliest stages, so another great thing.
The one thing I haven’t been able to find out, at the time of publishing, is the starting market capitalization of FCL. While the team very transparently outlines the vesting periods of all participants and token reserves, it still remains unclear if tokens are being made available on listing, post-listing, etc. so I can’t calculate a market capitalization. From what we’ve seen from Polkastarter IDOs, I’m gonna assume it will be under $1.5M but I’ve reached out to the team to try and find out the exact number. I’ll update the article as soon as I have more info, which I’m guessing will be closer to the Polkastarter IDO of FCL on February 25th.
Final Thoughts
The more I read on Fractal Protocol, the more I realize how biased I actually am towards it. The project has been around for several years, they’ve put together an experienced team, coupled with very respectable advisors and are already working with the likes of Ocean Protocol and Polymath. I think by now we all know what kind of hype and visibility a Polkastarter IDO generates, so there is sure to be interest a-plenty for FCL, but there is something more at play here.
I can’t shake of the feeling that what these guys are trying to do is important. Sure, we’ve mentioned it’s gonna be an uphill struggle against the establishment, but isn’t that what’s crypto is supposed to be? Questioning the established order with improvements and innovation?
The only piece of information that I feel is currently missing is a clearer token metrics, which we here at DeFi Raccoons value very much, so I’ll be waiting to see more updates from the team on this, but as is, I’ll be looking to add FCL as a Bobby’s GemBag come Polkastarter IDO.
If you want to learn more about Fractal Protocol, check out their webpage, follow their Twitter or join their TG community!
That’s all we have time for today, until next time, consider joining our socials underneath to join our DeFi Discussion!
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Now for a disclaimer — I’m not a financial advisor, anything you read on my Medium isn’t financial advice, it’s a log of myself doing due diligence on projects, please verify any and all information presented (error reporting welcome) and make your own decisions.
