With the ability to deploy on either public or private blockchain networks, AERGO gives businesses the flexibility in developing and deploying blockchain applications.
AERGO is a “4th generation” enterprise ecosystem which is comprised of its own blockchain, a hub for decentralized applications, and a marketplace. The platform is stated to utilize a fast and efficient blockchain protocol, a powerful SQL smart contract engine, IT integration APIs, and easy to use developer tools.
Comprehensiveness: The whitepaper begins with a brief disclaimer which spans approximately 2 pages. The whitepaper claims that the technical whitepaper is available through the company website. However, at the time of this review (Aug 2018), this document was not available.
The first section of the whitepaper primarily gives a generic overview and the context of blockchain technology with respect to technological evolution and how the organization believes that “this new world is the next phase of the internet: the human-centered decentralized internet”.
A significant portion of the whitepaper does not specifically discuss the project. Instead, a broad overview of blockchain technology and dApps are included in the document.
Business related aspects of the platform, beyond details of the token sale, are quite limited. Specific technical details of the technical infrastructure of the platform is also lacking considering the nature of the project.
Team information is available in the appendix and the company website. The project GitHub page is not available. Legal content is minimal.
Readability: The readability of the documument would be improved if it were more concise, which can be accomplished with the omission of the beginning section of the whitepaper which primarily gives a broad overview of blockchain technology.
The whitepaper uses language that seems to hype up the product without providing specific details. For example, it is stated that the company believes that “it will also be capable of engaging and utilizing a parallel throughput networking fabric, as well as supporting a multi-thread architecture for multicore and ultra-fast cached memory computer environments”.
Transparency: The whitepaper contains language that seem to generate hype towards the product instead of adequately informing the reader. Potential competitors are not compared/evaluated.
Presentation of Business Plan and Token Model: Business development plans are lacking. The marketing plans or the strategy for widespread adoption of the platform are not discussed thoroughly in the whitepaper. The token economics are discussed broadly.
Presentation of Platform Technology and Use of Blockchain: The platform will be able to support public, private, and a hybrid architecture configuration. With regards to transaction speed/efficiency, there is a lack of specific technical content provided in the whitepaper. Instead, the organization claims that “they have developed “a new parallel processing capability of smart contracts seeks to allow AERGO Chain to handle millions of transactions per second”. Additionally, It is stated that “AERGO intends to leverage and build upon Blocko’s existing COINSTACK platform, which is a fully supported enterprise product that has been adopted by many of its existing clients”. Overall, considering the nature and scope of the project, there seems to be a lack of specific technical content provided in the whitepaper. A technical whitepaper was not available on the company website was not available at the time of review.
Legal Review and Risk Assessment: The whitepaper contains a brief disclaimer towards the beginning of the whitepaper which spans approximately two pages.
Differentiation: AERGO aims to become the dominant enterprise blockchain platform. The whitepaper claims that AERGO is the “next generation enterprise blockchain protocol and platform” and will connect with legacy IT software with the AERGO blockchain. The following are the main components of the AERGO ecosystem: the AERGO chain, the AERGO hub, and the AERGO marketplace. AERGO chain will utilize AERGOSQL which is stated to allow users to “code the smart contract as easy as possible”. AERGO hub allows dApps to interact with the blockchain and will consist of public and private repositories. However, other enterprise blockchain competitors are not thoroughly evaluated and the proposed features of the platform does not seem like it will effectively differentiate the platform from potential competitors.
Readiness: It is not evident that substantial progress has been made with the platform from a technical perspective. This is evident with one of the responses in the FAQ section of the project website from a question regarding the current stage of development: “We have established AERGO for the open source community and supporting ecosystem and includes the design of a comprehensive operating strategy and governance structure for AERGO Public Network, AERGO Hub and AERGO Marketplace”.
There is a lack of business related milestones. The milestones presented are quite vague.
Current Position within Roadmap: The organization’s description of their current stage of development suggests that developments with regards to the platform are primarily conceptual.
Feasiblity: There have been no updated from the organization with regards to the alpha version of the product, which seems to indicate that the the proceeding technical developments with respect to the AERGO seem to be quite ambitious.
Blockchain Innovation: Although there is a lack of technical detail provided in the whitepaper, the ambition of the project is to develop an entirely new blockchain infrastructure that will have fast transaction speeds and effectively serve enterprise users.
1 - Very difficult, highly unlikely.
2 - Quite a few / somewhat better competitors (e.g., 7-10, some further ahead). Blockchain solutions are trendy in the sector.
Target User Base: The target user base is not effectively discussed in the whitepaper. It is inferred that the platform aims to become a notable competitor with respect to enterprise blockchains. As a result, enterprise users are the target demographic.
Market Penetration Potential: Market penetration will be difficult, especially considering the number of blockchain projects that have similar goes to AERGO and the lack of specific technical content provided in the whitepaper as well as the lack of technical progress that has been achieved thus far.
Direct Competition: The platform aims to become the “de facto enterprise blockchain”. There are numerous blockchain projects that have the same ambitious, many of which are much further along in development when compared to AERGO. The whitepaper does not include content which assesses the project against potential competitors.
Solution Advantage: Considerable advantages are not adequately discussed in the whitepaper. From a feature standpoint, the platform aims to provide an easy means for legacy IT software to connect to the AERGO blockchain while providing a protocol that is stated to support millions of transactions per second.
Blockchain Disruption: The potential level of disruption when considering the solution description seems fairly weak due to the lack of specific technical content provided in the whitepaper. More specifically, the details regarding the blockchain infrastructure of the platform is discussed inadequately and as a result, the projected level of disruption is uncertain.
Long-Term Vision: It is stated that the team recognizes that “the AERGO Project has very ambitious long-term goals”. When considering the milestones outlined in the whitepaper, the long-term vision of the development of the platform is not clear. The organization aims to develop a enterprise blockchain platform but without a thorough comparison with potential competitors, the plans of how the organization aims to compete with similar projects is difficult to assess.
Company Stage and Foundation: It is stated in the whitepaper that “AERGO’s core technology is based on COINSTACK from BLOCKO Inc”. According the the company LinkedIn page, the company is based in Hong Kong, Wanchai and was founded in 2018.
Nearly all team members are concurrently working at BLOCKO. The overall level of commitment to the project is uncertain.
Background of Lead/Core Team Members: Bio descriptions are not provided for team members on the company website but can be found in the whitepaper. Information regarding past work experience and education can be found for all key team members (board, comimittee heads, tech team). GitHub links are not provided for those with technical positions.
Relevance of Team’s Previous Experience and Skill Set: Most of the team is concurrently working at BLOCKO, a blockchain infrastructure provider that was founded in 2014 and as developed COINSTACK. AERGO is a much more ambitious project in comparison, and thus, prior experience seems correlated to project requirements.
Team Skill Set Balance (biz / tech / blockchain): There does not seem to be major concerns with respect to team skill balance seeing as the team has experience developing a functional blockchain-related project and possesses a reasonable number of individuals for business and technical development.
Strategic Partnerships: Strategic partnerships or launch partners are not evident.
1 - Practically undefined, or has identifiable critical flaws.
5 - Fully decentralized, or centralized components fully justified by business and technology models.
Token Economy: Total supply: 500,000,000 AERGO Tokens Token economics are not discussed thoroughly. Details of the token economy is discussed via a few bullet points of token use cases and a figure briefly outlining the flow of token circulation.
System Decentralization (besides token): The platform will utilize a delegated proof-of-stake (dPoS) consensus protocol and “”intends to implement a novel score based autonomous delegation algorithm to enhance reliability and quality of service””. Further details of this implementation are not provided. Furthermore, it is stated that “”AERGO Chain supports various consensus algorithms and allows its users to define and choose a consensus algorithm to best meet their business requirements””. However, the default consensus algorithm will be PoS. The document spends a considerable amount of content comparing different consensus algorithms (PoW, PoS, and dPoS) which seems unnecessary considering that it is mentioned that the platform will support multiple consensus algorithms.
Use of Proceeds (Fund Allocation): The use of proceeds is presented in the whitepaper as follows: 40% – R&D 30% – Ecosystem incubation 15% – Marketing 10% – Strategic alliances and business development 5% – Miscellaneous Further details are not provided.
Token Allocation: The token allocation is presented in the whitepaper as follows: 35% – Reserved by token issuer 30% – Proportion of Tokens for Sale 20% – AERGO community incentives and strategic partners 10% – Advisors and key backers 5% – Employees of token issuer and affiliate Vesting periods are not clearly outlined and it is unclear whether unsold tokens will be burned.