Verasity (VRA)

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Verasity
TypeToken on Binance Chain
Consensus mechanismProof-of-View
Total supply10,839,985,784 VRA
Websitehttps://www.verasity.io/

Basics

"Verasity.io describes itself as a video player that provides 'rewarded video player technology' to major video publishers across the globe. Verasity.io purportedly offers a patent-pending Video Player that enables VRA rewards, monetization, and loyalty schemes within the video player wallet. The project claims that its technology is available to 280,000 video publishers with 240 million users and 50 billion monthly views. "

“Verasity is an attention-based video and gaming platform that enables content creators to earn tokenized rewards. Rather than trying to create a crypto-friendly Youtube, a la Dlive, Verasity is designed to integrate into existing platforms such as Twitch, Youtube, and Vimeo.
Behind the scenes, Verasity has been busy, gaining an entry into Asia’s lucrative streaming market through a partnership with Jun Capital, while a token burn has seen 17% of VRA’s supply removed from circulation. In Q4 2019, the project reported a 20x increase in videos viewed and a 10x increase in wallet registrations."”

  • Claims (11-2-2020) to be able to:

"Integrated as an SDK into all major online video platforms (over 90%), provides rewards for actions without changing the publishers’ workflow or the viewer’s habits or preferences."

History

Token

 ICO

  • Had a private and public sale in Q1 2018, which ended in Q2. But had a second public sale in Q4. Launched their GenesisPlayer that same quarter. The price was $0.0075, it is now $0.0006 (11-2-2020).
  • Has a token lockup for the team until 2023 (at least).
  • To date, over 90% of VRAB (BEP2) has been swapped to VRA (ERC20) in the VeraWallet (29-7-2020).

Token allocation

30.5% Token Sale

25% Foundation Reserve (illiquid for an indefinite time period they say, but also ‘until it is needed’)

20% Founders & Team (locked until 2023)

13% Staking Program

7.5% Advisors & Partners

4% Rewards & Referrals

As of the time of the Blockfyre report (Q3 2019), 66% of the tokens was still locked up.

"The ownership of VRA / VRAB is well spread over 18,000 addresses (Binance Chain + Ethereum), with the TOP 100 (Top 50 Binance Chain + Top 50 Ethereum) holders w/o team wallets holding only around 44%"

Utility

Token Details 

Tx Fees and Burns

  • From (12-4-2018) the BlockPulse report: 

"Verasity charges a small transaction fee on transactions made on the network and uses this money to fund further development of the platform."

  • Does token burns. "Verasity utilizes 50% of all ad and transaction fee revenue to buyback and burn VRA / VRAB tokens, which ultimately will result in a deflationary token supply." The platform burned 2.1 billion VRA tokens since its inception, 17 percent of the total supply. 

Staking Program

"The main issue is the with the token and associated utility. The requirement for a blockchain makes sense, but the token could use more utilities as the staking program is the only reason for the relatively low velocity. Once the staking pool is exhausted, this may cause a way higher velocity and thus selling pressure. In addition, there is proportionally much tokens allocated to the team & foundation (45%)."

As a response Verasity extended (21-1-2020) the Staking Program and: 

“Tokens required to pay for Staking rewards will continue to come from the Rewards Pool, as per the whitepaper. If the Rewards Pool becomes depleted tokens required to pay for Staking rewards will be purchased from external VRA/VRAB exchanges. Therefore any additional tokens necessary to fund the new later staking end date will not have an inflationary impact on the project’s tokenomics.”

VRA Rewards

"We are not paying compensation to the publisher with VRA. We are paying the publisher compensation with cash as a revenue share of the advertising. The VRA is only used to incentivize viewers for watching content and ads without ad blocker.

Viewers get VRA rewards for watching ads. Publishers and Verasity earn fiat revenues from the ads. The amount of revenue that Verasity earns is substantial. Further the publisher must go into the exchange markets to buy VRA to reward their own users and to support their VRA reward campaigns."

How it works

How they envision it working:

  1. Viewers earn VRA by watching videos and ads or referring more users.
  2. Publishers buy VRA from exchanges to fund their campaigns to build audiences which they monetise through adds, e-commerce and subscriptions and then reward VRA to users.
  3. Advertisers buy VRA to reward viewers watching their ads in order to reach and engage potential customers.
  4. Users can stake their VRA and receive daily rewards for doing so.
  5. Users can also donate VRA to creators or publishers, and (hopefully) buy goods services with it.
  • From this AMA (3-12-2020), on bots taking over;

"It is hard to tell them apart but there is human behaviour that is hard to mimic and the user has to sign up to the VeraWallet to obtain his reward which is still difficult for a robot to do. There will always be a % of fraud, it’s not possible to stop 100% of it but we will keep it within acceptable boundaries."

Tech

Whitepaper can be found here. Got a big update on 5-1-2020.

Economics Paper can be found here.

  • Will use a "Patent pending blockchain technology that produces accurate, secure and auditable audience verification metrics." called "Proof of View" (verification and analytics). The blockchain will be used to store all the non-video data, such as the record of all micro-transactions and the various smart contracts.
  • From (12-4-2018) the BlockPulse report:
  1. "Verasity will launch their own blockchain based on the Graphene DPoS design. This modular blockchain enables a high volume of transactions and the ability to confirm transactions in 3 seconds.
  2. Proof of View- A system which records user’s views via a series of hashes which are stored in the public blockchain. PoV works in tandem with the Veraplayer to ensure that views are legitimate. One example is that a view will not be counted if the video player is not actually displayed on the screen, to prevent users from repeated watching content in another tab of their browser.
  3. Video Hosting and Delivery- Verasity uses a custom built platform which in combination with a content delivery network enables 8 petabytes of data to be delivered per month.
  4. Veraplayer is a proprietary video player which is blockchain enabled and support PoV, alongside high quality 60 frames per second streaming."
  • At the moment (11-2-2020) seems like to use it, you need to make an account on their website.
  • From this AMA (3-12-2020):

"We are not building a video sharing platform. Verasity provides the tools and infrastructure for publishers to monetize and reward. We are building a layer on top of other video players like Twitch, YouTube, etc. Video sharing platforms cannot compete because they try to change the workflows of publishers and the habits of viewers. They simply have not been successful when competing with YouTube. Take the example of PewdiePie who left to Dlive with only .25% of his fans🙏

We have an SDK that integrates into all the major third-party video players. We have 15 desktop publishers and one mobile publisher now and many more coming on to use our SDK and users are rewarded VRA for watching great content across the web."

On scaling

"We batch transactions and for microtransactions, we do not think this part is necessary to put on the blockchain. Once blockchains have scaled we will look at potential solutions then for all transactions to be on-chain. By going on to the Binance Chain which is an order of magnitude faster than ERC20 this problem is solved as well in the intermediate term."

Staking

  • Was launched in 2019.
  • From this (Q3 2019) Blockfyre report on Verasity:

"The Staking allocation is slowly released into circulation with a rate of 0.1% on the staked amount (currently 2.5B) daily. The circulating supply is around ~3.6 billion VRA / VRAB, of which around 69% are currently staked

The ownership of VRA / VRAB is well spread over 18,000 addresses (Binance Chain + Ethereum), with the TOP 100 (Top 50 Binance Chain + Top 50 Ethereum) holders w/o team wallets holding only around 44%"

Burning

  • From their blog (20-4-2020):

"As stated in the White Paper, Verasity will continue to take a random amount of all revenue and fees earned and will buy back VRA from exchanges to be burned in order to reduce circulating and total supply. Verasity will inform the community from time to time after buy back and burn events. Verasity has burned 2,135,033,305 VRA since its launch."

 Privacy Method being used

Oracle Method being used

Their Other Projects

DEX

Governance

"We have elements of centralisation which is important to run a successful business. But we decentralise the value of our network based on our token."

DAO

Upgrades

Roadmap

  • Can be viewed (11-2-2020) here. The roadmap has everything before 2020 checked off. Could be perfect planning, or they moved things forward on their roadmap with their last update (5-1-2020).
  • New roadmap is up (19-10-2020).
  • They plan to "Earn VRA without needing to stake - with a VRA splash app with ads on mobile home screen" in the first quarter of 2020.
  • They plan to 'launch testnet on new blockchain' in Q3 of 2020, which also will launch the beta of Proof of View.
  • From this AMA (3-12-2020):

"We will announce a fiat gateway in a few weeks that will allow users to buy VRA simply with VRA via a bank transfer and to receive fiat when they sell their VRA. "

  • "Verasity us set to launch (6-1-2020) Blockchain-based Game Store. Verasity is also going to incorporate tournament features in the offering, which will enable players to set up a tournament and fight against other players globally to obtain rewards and VRA tokens."
  • In an update (24-2-2020):

"We’ve been running at full throttle to achieve all our targets, securing partnerships and integrations with iVideosmart and 4Dsight (two of the Q1 goals). Our momentum continues to gather with the coming launch of our Destination Portal, which includes the Verasity GameStore (boasting hundreds of game publishers)."

"The launch of GameStore (with 500+ games) and Verasity.tv portal were the biggest highlights of Q1."

 Audits

Smart Contract audit can be found here. "All the steps that are mentioned above were followed and some minor gas optimizations and style guide errors were found, all of them were rectified in the next testing iteration. Token contract is designed to be upgradable which is a good approach to follow. Overall the code flow is very good and all the requirements of the crowdsale are fulfilled."

Bugs 

Usage

  • Has their own game. From this AMA (3-12-2020):

"Verasity is acting as the publisher of the mobile game: Triviata. We developed and scale our own mobile game to understand how we can provide other app publishers with a more beneficial app platform. The app has already had 10,000 downloads and 3,000 daily active users in two months and is doubling every month. It also produces substantial revenues for Verasity!"

  • In 2019 Q4 they had; "Over 100 publishers and 1 million viewers signed up to use Verasity technology". However on their roadmap they hope to have "1000 publishers and 10 million viewers utilizing the Verasity technology" by the end of 2020.
  • From (22-11-2020) a platform that integrated Verasity:

"“Verasity’s tech integration results after just 30 days on our eBonus.gg site went far beyond our expectations:

Total videos watched: 2.02M -> 2.39M (18% improvement)

Videos watched (unique user daily visualisations): 82.2K -> 102.4K (25% improvement)

Total watch time: 1289 days -> 1756 days (36% improvement)

And these % values have persisted! Really impressive gains in an industry where even a few % points makes all the difference in profitability. Thank you Verasity!”

— Pedro Pereira, CTO, eBonus.gg"

  • From this (Q3 2019) Blockfyre report on Verasity: "the team is in talks with 136 publishers at the moment."
  • From their blog (3-2-2020) on adoption statistics:

"Since our launch in April 2019, the initial publisher Beta for 2019 has already reached 1.3 million viewers per month. It took Brave browser more than 2 years to achieve the same growth of what Verasity has managed in 8 months!

For the 9 months through to December 2019, publishers have seen a strategic growth to 1.3 million viewers. Overall on average, that’s 5 times more audience engagement since adopting the Verasity attention based platform via our SDK and smashing all expectations to date."

  • From their blog (20-4-2020):

"In the very short period since the GameStore launched it has already exceeded 20,000 gameplays and has over 600 registered players. Shortly we will be scaling up our marketing and promotion of the GameStore, focusing on player acquisition and retention. We forecast in 12 months to have 28,000 paying subscriptions contributing almost $350,000 in revenue in the first year. At the end of Year 2, paying subscribers to the GameStore is forecasted to be 250,000 with a total revenue of $3,417,000. Year 3 grows to 790,000 subscribers and over $15,000,000 revenue."

Legality

"Verasity Foundation is a company incorporated in the Cayman Islands under the Companies Law and registered as a foundation company in relation to the Foundation Companies Law, 2017.

Verasity is not registering its tokens under the U.S Securities Act and maintains its tokens are utility tokens only."

Pros and Cons

Pros

  • Live product. Which is getting usage “For the 9 months through to December 2019, publishers have seen a strategic growth to 1.3 million viewers. Overall on average, that’s 5 times more audience engagement since adopting the Verasity attention based platform via our SDK and smashing all expectations to date. Since our launch in April 2019, the initial publisher Beta for 2019 has already reached 1.3 million viewers per month. It took Brave browser more than 2 years to achieve the same growth of what Verasity has managed in 8 months!”
  • Clear target market with a product that solves a real problem. Furthermore,
  • the team is building a growing network of partners and publishers in their
  • target industry.
  • Uses SDK on top of existing platforms like YouTube, instead of building a  video platform itself.
  • Have skin in the game with their mobile game: Triviata. Which ‘produces substantial revenues for Verasity!’ This means they know how their product works and also that they are making money for development. 
  • Project looks professional, website is up to date, roadmap looks doable. 
  • Token lockup for the team until 2023 (at least)
  • High staking percentage (69%) spread out over addresses. “The ownership of VRA / VRAB is well spread over 18,000 addresses (Binance Chain + Ethereum), with the TOP 100 (Top 50 Binance Chain + Top 50 Ethereum) holders w/o team wallets holding only around 44%””
  • The platform burned 2.1 billion VRA tokens since its inception, 17 percent of the total supply.

Cons

  • There are many projects with a similar vision out there. 
  • Although there is a clear go-to-market strategy in place, we still don’t see the highest demand for a product like this, which will change with better utility and overall user experience.
  • Is not fully decentralized "We have elements of centralisation which is important to run a successful business. But we decentralise the value of our network based on our token."
  • Has a lot of advisors (who got tokens) and only 33% of the tokens are in circulation. This looks a bit 2017 ICO’sh. 
  • Their Proof of View blockchain is set to have testnet in the next quarter and mainnet should launch end of the year.
  • Staking reward program ends in 2021, what will happen then with staking is a bit fuzzy. 

Competition

"The team's goal is not to compete with big video sharing platforms, but rather add an additional layer on top of them. The implementation of a Rewarded Video Module SDK for 95% of all online video platforms for publishers does not require any changes for the publisher's workflow or changes to the viewer's video platform preferences. In our view, this is a superior model and provides a higher likelihood of success over the long term.

In the crypto space, several competitors are trying to build similar platforms. Most of the better-known ones (e.g., Brave) utilize a model where a new browser is needed to block ad revenue and then replace it with the platform's ads. The question about the capability of this model to scale beyond a small group of early adopters remains unanswered, as it might not be able to generate enough incentives for big publishers as well as viewers, to change their habits and move away from platforms and browsers. Therefore, Verasity is in a unique position and has a clear USP."

Coin Distribution

Team, investors, partners

Team

  • As a Cayman Islands Foundation, Verasity is tax exempt (9-3-2020).
  • Full team can be found here (11-2-2020). There are 11 team members in total listed on the website, aside from the Executive Management mostly within the areas of Blockchain development and Digital Marketing. Besides the core team, there are furthermore 10 advisors on board.
  • Chris Gale; Executive Management "Founder and CEO of Ad Tech Company, Odyssey Mobile which successfully exit to Phunware in 2014 who later listed on the Nasdaq in 2018. Crypto Investor and Blockchain Advisor. 15 Years of digital media and technology." Been in crypto since 2016.
  • John Rankin; Executive Management "Video publishing and advertising entrepreneur. John founded and built a global video advertising business with multinational entertainment company Outfit 7, creators of hit mobile app Talking Tom which received 7 billion downloads."
  • Max Gutchenko; Chief Technology Officer "Experienced Chief Technology Officer with a demonstrated history of working in the Internet industry. Video and Blockchain."

Advisors

  • David Rowe; Advisor "Founder Hydro66, CEO Black Green Capital, Founder Easynet Group that was sold to BSkyB, Former Managing Board Member, Sky."
  • Scott Brown; Technology and Blockchain expert "VP Product Management, Akamai CEO, Octoshape VP Technology Fellow, Turner Media Systems Development, AOL."
  • Sangjin Hong; Advisor "Entrepreneur and investor. Co-founder and CEO of Chain Cabinet (a blockchain startup platform). Partner at Kstartup (a startup accelerator based in Korea). Former product manager at Microsoft."
  • Christopher Keshian; Advisor "CEO of APEX Token Funds. A group who invest in crypto funds such as Pantera and Multicoin Capital. He's also a Managing Partner at Neural Capital and a leading innovator in blockchain technology. He was the CEO/ Co-founder of the first fiat gateway to the Ethereum ecosystem."
  • Mark Ramberg; Executive Management "GM Media and Entertainment, Amazon VP Business Development, Akamai Business Development, Microsoft."
  • Andy Long; Blockchain and Data Centre Expert "20 years experience in telecoms and finance in strategy, business development and management. Director Strategic Development, Black Green Capital, responsible for leading the commercial launch and build of Hydro66 as startup CEO and continues to advise on strategy in the datacenter and Blockchain space."

Funding

  • From their blog (20-4-2020):

"We forecast in 12 months to have 28,000 paying subscriptions contributing almost $350,000 in revenue in the first year. At the end of Year 2, paying subscribers to the GameStore is forecasted to be 250,000 with a total revenue of $3,417,000. Year 3 grows to 790,000 subscribers and over $15,000,000 revenue.

The operating costs of Verasity are closely monitored and are below $1,650,000 per annum. Based on the current business model this is not forecast to grow materially over the next three years. Much of the larger necessary investments, such as platforms and technical development, have already been incurred and now Verasity is set to reap the rewards of its work. The business will be at breakeven, being all monthly expenses covered by monthly revenue, by Q1 2021 using the most conservative revenue forecast of the GameStore only. Should the GameStore grow faster or ad revenue for publishers come back to normal, breakeven will be much earlier. Verasity has more than enough reserves to cover this period as well as the targets in the Roadmap and all marketing costs associated with scaling the business."

Partnerships & Investors

Jun Capital, North Block Capital, Black Green Capital (two advisors also come from this firm), AmaZix, Azar Capital, Amdax (Dutch), iab, cryptecon and ppa.

  • A partnership with Jun Capital
  • Is partners (26-5-2019) with Binance Chain and is part (9-2019 however the announcement itself seems deleted as of 2-2020) of the Binance Chain Alliance: "Verasity’s video player solution offers the perfect vehicle for viewers, publishers and content creators to benefit from the utility of blockchain technology. I’m glad that Binance and Verasity are leading that charge globally.” - CZ (Changpeng Zhao), CEO of Binance"
  • Partners (9-2010) with the PPA (The Professional Publishers Association)
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