Opportunities:
Ripio has received VC funding from 2013 to as recently as April 2017, which could be an indicator that the companies is growing. VCs rarely fund a declining company.
Ripio’s investors include well-known blockchain VCs such as Tim Draper, DCG, Pantera Capital, Fenbushi Capital, Medici Ventures, Funders Club, Boost VC, and Huiyin Blockchain Ventures. This means that the company has passed the scrutiny of these institutional investors.
Ripio was a finalist of TechCrunch Disrupt Battlefield New York 2016, demonstrating that the team is solid.
Detailed and well-thought-out white paper, showing that the team has a good plan as to execution.
Ripio has a realistic game plan. It is focusing first on Argentina, then Latin America, then eventually abroad. We believe that this realistic approach is much better than ICOs that promote they will disrupt trillion dollar industries and expanding into geographic areas that they are not familiar with.
Peer to peer lending utilizing blockchain technology has a lot of opportunities in Latin America because of the (1) large portion of unbanked people and (2) popularity of cryptocurrency in Latin America due to the high inflation rate.
It is easy for borrowers to use the Ripio Credit Network because the borrowers receive local currency and don’t need to deal with any cryptocurrency – RCN tokens work under the hood. This helps drive adoption of Ripio.
They have a no-discount policy, even for presale participants and VC investors, allowing a fair playing field for all participants.
Concerns:
The project requires a few different parties, including co-signers and wallet providers, to work. Ripio may not be able to find enough agents in time to scale the project.
Many banks do not like cryptocurrency and refuse to deal with it. If cosigners cannot find a way to convert their RCN tokens back to fiat, the business model will break down
Conclusion:
Overall, we like this ICO both for its short-term potential and long-term potential. Our thoughts of the tokens for short term and long term are as follows:
For short-term holding:
Good. It looks like the presale is sold out, even without a discount, which leaves only 8.5% (or 21,250 Ether) for the public crowdsale. There is a maximum contribution of 20 Ether in the public crowdsale, which should leave plenty of unmet demand.
For long-term holding:
Good. The business plan is well thought out and the team is veteran in the blockchain space since 2013. We like the way Ripio Credit Network is structured so that borrowers don’t need to deal with cryptocurrency, which makes it much easier to drive adoption
