Author: Sav

All views and opinions expressed in this article are the author’s opinions and are not in any way intended to be financial or investment advice.

The purpose of this piece is to highlight what the author considers to be one of the most, if not the most, undervalued blockchain projects currently listed on the market today.

The author has spent a 15-year career identifying undervalued investment opportunities for large financial institutions and high net worth investors.  During this time, he notes some common traits that are shared amongst projects that prove to be high value success stories.

This piece is not intended to be a technical paper, nor is it intended to be financial advice, rather an opinion piece that directs attention to a project that is currently slipping under the radar.

The Perfect Storm

Identifying the kind of value that yields truly outstanding returns is not an easy task.  We’re not just looking for a project with good management, quality partners, innovative technology, and a dominant position in a high growth sector.

If these factors are clear, it is often too late.  The project’s value will be largely reflected in its market price and any gains will likely be vastly inferior to the kind of project that I am about to lay out for you in this paper.

What we’re looking for is a project that has these qualities but, for whatever reason, people doubt.  In crypto terminology, we want a project that is plagued with FUD (Fear Uncertainty and Doubt).  More than any other factor, it is this doubt that is integral to identifying projects with true explosive value and the key to getting in before the rest of the market.

It is the author’s opinion that this is precisely the kind of perfect storm that surrounds INT at this present moment. 

How I Got Involved With INT

In late 2017, my value seeking research led me to begin looking at projects wanting to apply blockchain technology to the IoT sector.  For reasons I will discuss later in this article, blockchain IoT ticked all the boxes for a sector poised for mammoth growth over the coming years.

Upon researching the various options, I encountered a handful of well marketed projects with thriving communities of loyal and bullish followers.  Despite looking promising, they all lacked the key ingredient I was looking for – doubt.

Then I stumbled on a Chinese IoT project called Internet Node Token (INT).  Amidst a highly restrictive Chinese regulatory environment, INT’s community was fearful.  To add fuel to the fire, the western community was furious with the lack of communication, marketing and overall transparency offered by the predominantly Mandarin speaking INT team.

With unanswered questions mounting, I watched over the ensuing months as INT’s telegram community imploded under the sheer weight of uncertainty surrounding the project.  As the price continued to plummet, I saw telegram administrators come and go as they failed to contain the sheer volume of FUD bombarding the channel daily.

This was when I saw the key ingredient that I was looking for.  Upon realizing this, I quickly volunteered to take on the role as telegram administrator to gain a deeper insight into what was really happening behind the scenes at INT.

What I Discovered as an INT Insider

I knew within the first 10 minutes of talking to INT that I was not dealing with a typical crypto currency project.  The team was humble, realistic and down to earth in a way that most promoters of crypto currencies were not.

There was no hype, no unrealistic promises, but instead what shone through was a calm confidence that they would be able to deliver on their technological goals during what they foresaw to be an impending collapse in the crypto currency market at large.

In hindsight, I see now that INT were planning for the crash before it happened.   Moreover, they had a clear and concise plan of allocating resources towards working product development and industry adoption before the next phase of the bull market was to commence. 

After this conversation and many after, it became apparent that I was not dealing with the kind of pump and dump scam that characterized most alt coins at that time (and still today).  This was a very smart and development focused team that favored real world achievements over hype.

They had a plan, and they were quietly and confidently executing it behind the scenes rather than committing time and effort to dispelling the FUD surrounding their project.  Their mentality was simply that their achievements would eventually dispel all doubts in due course. 

Fast Forward to 9 Month Later

The 9 months following my initial conversation with INT saw the eventuation of precisely what they foretold and planned for.  The crypto currency bubble deflated in catastrophic fashion and most of the alt coin market pulled back to pre-bubble levels.

Rather than wasting company resources on building hype in a bear market like many of its competitors, INT stuck to their plan and focused primarily on progressing their technology and gaining adoption in a wide variety of Chinese industry sectors primed for IoT adoption.

INT was quietly gaining a foothold across a variety of Chinese sectors that rivaled most of their larger cap competitors.

Quietly Positioning for the Upcoming Chinese IoT Boom

The GSMA recently issued a report titled ‘The Industrial IoT in Greater China’ that highlighted how China is poised to lead the global Industrial IoT market going forward.  The report estimates that there will be 13.8 billion industrial IoT connections globally by 2025, with China accounting for about 4.1 billion of these connections - or a third of the global market.

While the crypto currency market bled, INT was positioning themselves as a key player in this upcoming Chinese IoT boom through the aggressive pursuit of industry cooperation in the following areas:

IoT Hardware

The abovementioned report draws on interviews with various mobile operators in China, including state owned China Telecom, who outline how the combination of fast internet speeds, AI and IoT is transforming the region’s industrial sector.

INT has secured a partnership with China Telecom’s subsidiary Zhejiang Telecom to jointly invest in R&D for the development of IoT router hardware and software.  Moreover, the INT team has confirmed the marketing plan for the initial product with Zhejiang Telecom, including product sales channels and terminal pricing.

This router, scheduled for release in Q1 2019, will eventually generate cash flow for INT and set them apart from their peers by allowing them to be financially self-sufficient and less reliant on inflows of new capital.

Smart Cities

In another recent study, Bain & Company predicts that the global IoT market will grow to about $520B in 2021, more than double the $235B spent in 2017.  Fueling this rapid growth is the emergence of numerous smart city projects throughout mainland China.

In a move to establish a firm footing in this rapidly growing and highly competitive sector, INT has secured cooperation with a subsidiary of one of China’s leading telecom equipment manufacturers ZTE CLAATEK.  Through their cooperation with ZTE CLAATEK, INT will provide specialized advice for the Quzhao Smart City Project with a view to improve traceability and the collection of tamper-proof information through IoT.

Smart Construction

As China’s cities are becoming smarter, so too are the construction processes and methods used to build them.  In another move to cement their expertise in this growing sector, INT have made significant progress on a pilot project in conjunction with China’s only provincial state-owned construction enterprise, Hubei Industrial Construction Group.  The project uses RFID technology in Smart Construction Sites and Smart Buildings to ensure traceability and facilitate the collection of tamper-proof information through the application of IoT.

Smart Logistics

In addition to the growing adoption of IoT in China’s smart cities, the online retail sector is also quickly evolving to incorporate blockchain based IoT solutions into all aspects of their businesses.  Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd and its logistics subsidiary Cainiao Network Technology Co Ltd have said that they plan to spend more than $15.6 billion to construct a nationwide smart logistics network in China. This is further evidenced by reports that the company has filed for more than 10% of the world’s blockchain related patents.

To further their exploration into blockchain and IoT related technology, Alibaba’s logistics subsidiary Cainiao has commenced 2nd round discussions with INT in relation to integrating INT’s technology to improve their application of blockchain technology to the field of smart logistics.

Other Areas of Cooperation

The 4 sectors outlined above are a small sample of the partnership opportunities being prioritized and progressed by INT.

Examples of other opportunities currently being progressed by INT include:

·         Undisclosed cooperation with Huawei (under NDA)

·         Undisclosed cooperation with IBM’s manufacturing division (under NDA)

·         Joint research laboratory with the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Pending government approval)

·         Smart parks and smart parking project with a well-known internet company (1st round negotiations)

·         Cooperation with European EPC Competence Center (2nd round negotiations)

·         Cooperation with unmanned plant protection machinery company (1st round negotiations)

·         Hardware cross-compilation with DAPP partners (2nd round negotiations)

·         Municipal-level road and bridge detection project (1st round negotiations)

·         Intelligent recyclable packing container for Hubei based pharmaceutical company (reached trial intentions)

·         Preliminary cooperation plan with Zhejiang based pharmaceutical manufacturer to promote smart medical care construction (1st round negotiations)

·         Cooperation with Zhejiang based prison totaling 3 million RMB in value (signed and confirmed)

·         Cooperation negotiations with Zhejiang based Religious Association regarding smart temples and information construction (preliminary communications)

·         Cooperation intentions with intellectual property project in Gansu Province (1st round negotiations)

·         Cooperation with smart home manufacturing company in Beijing (2nd round negotiations)

·         Cooperation with financial services agency regarding authenticity of data and traceability in the financial services industry (1st round negotiations)

·         Cooperation intentions with Myanmar based CB securities and Myanmar Government (1st round negotiations)

The cooperation arrangements listed above are at various stages of progress, thus perhaps it would be optimistic to assume that all of these will eventually result in partnership agreements.  That said, what this shows is that INT have been spending the bear market aggressively chasing adoption opportunities to secure firm footing in the Chinese IoT market before it takes off.  It also showcases the depth of governmental connections within the INT executive and advisory team, with a large proportion of their cooperation opportunities involving the Zhejiang and Hubei public sectors.

In addition to this extensive list of potential adoption scenarios, INT are also a matter of months away from announcing the release of their public mainnet and the final completion of their IoT router.  One could speculate that most of the abovementioned negotiations are pending the successful release of these working products before the signing of the final agreements.  If this is true, we could see a wave of partnership agreements announced after the official release of their mainnet in Q4 2018.

2 Working Products by Q1 2019

Unlike most of its competitors, INT will come to market with two working products within the coming quarters.  Their much anticipated public mainnet release is due for launch in Q4 2018 and the finalization of their IoT router in Q1 2019.

Not only will INT have released two working products by Q1 2019, partnerships are already in place to begin adopting these working products immediately after release.  As you might recall, the Hubei Construction partnership discussed above will provide the first pilot application of INT’s mainnet and provide a public platform to display the real-world use of INT’s IoT blockchain to the rest of China’s IoT industry.

In addition to this, the development of INT’s IoT router was conducted jointly as a part of the Zhejiang Telecom partnership.  Once completed, INT and Zhejiang telecom will move forward with marketing of the router and begin earning revenue from its sales.  In this regard, unlike most crypto projects that need to issue new tokens to raise capital, INT might have the option to meet operating costs with sales revenue rather than being forced to dilute existing holders whenever new capital is required.

Considering the abovementioned progress made by INT to date, the author suggests that the level of doubt being priced into INT’s project is misguided.  Instead, he sees a relatively undiscovered IoT project that has put their head down through the bear market, achieved two working products and negotiated a long list of partnerships opportunities with serious players across much of the public and private sectors in China.

This is precisely what INT said they would do when they addressed their community in February 2018.  Rather than hyping the market and promising riches, INT clearly warned that a market-wide crash was coming and that they would be one of the few projects to survive it.

To date, INT have held true to this promise and look set to emerge from this bear market not only as a survivor, but as a project that has laid firm foundations to benefit immensely from the upcoming IoT and crypto currency boom cycles.

Something to Stop and Think About

During my 15-year investment advisory career, I learned that change is truly the only constant.  What we see in front of our eyes today may look entirely different tomorrow, next month or next year.  I believe that this is particularly relevant with respect to the market for tokenized economies as they are today.

At present, the utility token market is being treated uniformly.  When alt season hits, alt coins rise.  When alt season is over, they all fall.  One need only take a cursory glance at the price charts of lower cap alt coins to see that they all look the same – i.e. regardless of individual merits, they are all being treated equally.  This uniformity is indicative of an immature and inefficient market and is glaring confirmation that the real utility token phenomenon has yet to begin.

At some point in the future we are going to see markets mature.  Some sectors will outperform and some projects within those sectors will begin decoupling from the prevailing uniformity as true demand for their token economies begins to emerge.  Make no mistake, this is the big change in the crypto currency market that is upon us.  As more and more projects apply their working products to real world scenarios, we will witness the true projects benefit immensely and the fake ones turn to dust.

The glaring opportunity here is that the entire lower cap tokenized economy market is being priced as if they are all going to turn to dust, and it is precisely this broad sweeping doubt that is creating an overwhelmingly ripe environment for undervalued investment opportunities. 

I repeat, most alt coins will be mismanaged and will turn to dust.  But in moments like these, it often pays to step back from the prevailing rhetoric and take a pause to think for oneself.  This is a time when a moment of clarity can yield a fortune.

INT is set to emerge from the bear market wielding not one but two working products.  Not only that, both working products will be immediately adopted in real world partnerships and showcased for the prying eyes of the rest of the Chinese IoT industry to see.  This real-world adoption of INT’s working products aligns with China entering wide scale adoption of IoT across its key industries and society at large.  Furthermore, China’s impending IoT boom is set to happen midway through a global crypto currency boom that is said to have the potential to dwarf the 1999 internet bubble.

This is what a perfect storm looks like and, from the author’s point of view, INT seems to be right in the middle of it.  For now, it remains shrouded in doubt and hidden amongst the pile of garbage that makes up most of the utility token market today. However, as INT’s achievements continue to drip feed into the market’s psyche, it may only be a matter of time before the market matures and begins to price in the significant real-world progress being made by this undiscovered Chinese IoT project with the mission to Make a Different World.

Personal interest statement: The author of this article holds INT tokens (obviously).