Celer Network ICO Review and CELR Token Analysis

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Celer Network ICO Overview

The Celer ICO and CELR Token offer an off-chain network solution to bring Internet-level scale to blockchain. The Celer Network is not a standalone blockchain but a networked system layer that utilizes generalized state channels for off-chain transactions. The Celer ICO targets both performance and flexibility through innovations in off-chain scaling techniques and token economics designed to maximize the network-effect.  

‘Celer’ is short for ‘celeritas’ – the Latin word for speed – and a c in physics represents the speed of light. This is not to be confused with a C in Physics, which represents a passing score for a mediocre student.

Celer ICO Value Proposition

On the Celer Network, end users are connected to a decentralized and trust-free network of Celer Nodes via the cChannel, which functions as a generalized state channel. Between Celer Nodes, cRoute is used to route generalized states (e.g. conditional payments) in a high-performance, trustless manner between end users. cOS, the native development framework, provides a convenient means for developers to create dApps (or “cApps”) that are both large-scale and low cost.

cChannel forms the foundation of the off-chain scaling platform. It is a generalized state channel and sidechain suite utilizing a DAG to supports offchain state transitions. The conditional state dependency DAG on top of the state channel and sidechain network supports complex, high-performance use cases like gaming, insurance, prediction markets and decentralized exchanges.

cRoute is used to route generalized states (e.g., conditional payments) in a trustless and efficient way between end users via state routing algorithms. Celer report a x15 improvement in performance on the shortest path algorithms used by offchain scaling solutions Lightening Network and Raiden.

cOS is the mobile-based off-chain operating system of the Celer Network, complete with a development framework to quickly build and operate scalable off-chain dApps. cOS provides design templates and handles the operation, storage, tracking, and dispute of off-chain states, offering simple to use APIs for the incorporation of functions like conditional payments.

As an analogy, the team compare cOS to the in app building system on WeChat, which enables APIs for developers to build mini-apps inside the platform. Moving beyond off-chain payments, cOS also provides the API and design framework for more complex off-chain state transitions, expanding the use case applicability of the Celer Network.

Four Layer Architecture of Celer Network

The CELR token is the sole means of transacting value on the Celer Network. The Celer Network utilizes a Proof of Liquidity Commitment (PoLC) mechanism, which works like a staking protocol, to create sufficient liquidity for state channel service providers to function.

Participants can lock their idle liquidity, for example ETH, in a Collateral Commitment Contract (CCC). Once a CCC is constructed, it will start to receive newly generated CELR token. The Celer ICO proposes the incentive to receive CELR through this mechanism will help create an abundant and stable liquidity pool crucial for the Celer Network’s function and expansion.

Another incentivized liquidity mechanism is the Liquidity Binding Auction, or LiBA. LiBA enables state channel service providers to access liquidity through “crowd lending”. For example, a state channel service provider can host a LiBA on the network to access liquidity for a certain amount of time through a bidding mechanism. The channel provider pays interest to the lender for the amount of time the liquidity is available.

Finally, on any off-chain state channel, availability monitoring provides an essential insurance function in case users go offline. The State Guardian Network (SGN) is a special compact sidechain to “guard the states” when users go offline and bring the most recent states back on-chain when necessary. The SGN is monitored by “Guardians”, who submit a stake of their CELR tokens to the network. Users can then pay CELR to Guardians, which they receive over the period of time they guard the user’s state when offline. The more CELR that is staked, the higher the likelihood of becoming a Guardian.

With the implementation of PoLC mining, LiBA and the SGN, Celer aims to create a more nuanced tokenomics model, known as the cEconomy, to maximize the function and growth of the network. In addition to direct payments, the CELR token functions as a tool for liquidity and an incentive to guard states.

Celer ICO Team

Mo Dong was the founding engineer and product manager at Veriflow, where he developed formal verification algorithms for distributed systems. He has an extensive academic background in computer science and teaches full-stack smart contract programming courses. Mo received his PhD in Computer Science from University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. His complete resume is available here.

Junda Liu is a 7 year veteran of Google, where in 2011 he developed their data center networking infrastructure. He continued at Google as a Senior Android Engineer, where he contributed to developing the Project Fi mobile service. Junda received his PhD in Computer Networks from UC Berkeley.

Xiaozhou Li specializes in developing scalable algorithms and protocols that achieve high performance at low cost. His solutions have become core components of Google TensorFlow, Intel DPDK, and Barefoot Deep Insight. Xiaozhou holds a PhD in Computer Science from Princeton University.

Qingkai Liang holds a PhD in Computer Networks from MIT and as a researcher there spent 4 years developing and optimizing networked systems. His high-performance routing algorithms have been applied to products at Raytheon BBN Technologies and Bell Labs.

Celer ICO Strengths and Opportunities

Celer has placed a particular emphasis on tech development and keeping their community informed on the relevance of the various innovations deployed by the network. To demonstrate the full-stack MVP, the team released a video of their first cApp built on the Celer Network called cGomoku.

With the release of the MVP demo, the team have shown their commitment to developing the Celer Network by showcasing the viability of their innovative architecture at this early stage. As the first cApp built with cOS, the demo of cGomoku both highlights the functionality of the development framework and the network itself.

The team draw directly on their experience researching and building innovative tech solutions for developing the architecture of the Celer Network. Mo Dong developed formal network verification algorithms at his previous company, Veriflow. Junda Liu, Qingkai Liang and Xiaozhou Li have ample experience developing high-performance distributed systems and network infrastructure for applications at the enterprise level.

The team have a history of transforming theoretical knowledge into functional applications and with that, foster a high level of confidence in their ability to deliver on their ambitious vision.

Celer ICO Weaknesses and Threats

Off-chain scaling solutions are in no short supply, but their market caps illustrate that some have fallen out of favor with the investing community to a degree. Lightning Network, Raiden and Trinity all take aim at providing off-chain payment scaling. Beyond pure payments, solutions like Plasma and Loom Network provide a pathway for the development of computation intensive applications.

The Celer Network has several aspects that distinguish it from other off-chain scaling solutions: x15 faster transactions than Lightning Network or Raiden; a developer suite and token system designed to incentivize adoption; and blockchain agnostic compatibility.

But the adoption of Celer is not just about developer suite functionality and token economics.

Community building and marketing strategies to drive real adoption are crucial for the success of the Celer Network. Up until this point, the team have made clear their focus remains on product development. Yet as we know, the road to onboarding developers, contributors and users is not as straightforward as producing even the most technically viable solution for offchain scaling.

For Celer to take a lead role as a scaling solution, serious attention must be paid toward building an ecosystem of users. While the team members are highly-qualified tech experts and even have experience with startups, marketing Celer to the wider community will require additional expertise and resources. A more balanced team with personnel specifically dedicated to building partnerships and spreading awareness would further strengthen the project as it progresses.

The Verdict on the Celer ICO

The Celer ICO offers one of the most viable layer 2 projects for bringing scalability to the blockchain. On a technical level, Celer employs novel solutions for accessing liquidity and maintaining availability of user states; two issues facing all off-chain scaling networks. With the right strategies to promote adoption of the Celer Network, the project could be a top contender in the scaling race.

Additional Information

We have been in discussions with the Celer ICO team and our ratings are based on conversations and information that they have asked us to keep confidential. While it may seem premature to rate their ICO highly, we have been made privy to insights that suggest a very strong project, and we will update this review when the Celer ICO team is ready to share further data.

The Celer ICO team has a Telegram Group at https://t.me/CelerNetwork for more immediate updates.

As a Top 5% rated project, we took a medium-sized position in Celer Network ICO (CELR Token).

Learn more about the Celer ICO in our 4900+ member Telegram Group.

CELER ICO REVIEW SCORES

SUMMARY

The Celer Network ICO (CELR Token) is attempting to reverse the trending notion that off-chain solutions are no longer necessary or attractive. The team, with their impeccable academic credentials and impressive experience, have addressed this erroneous idea head-on, by making it clear that while sharding and other on-chain solutions have their place, an ‘Internet-grade’ blockchain is not possible with these technologies alone. We applaud their strong stance and the fact that they already have an MVP. Despite strong early support in the crypto community, we would like to see a stronger nod toward the commercialization of their tech through mass adoption, and look forward to revisiting the project soon.

Founding Team……………………….8.6

Product…………………………………..8.4

Token Utility…………………………..9.8

Market…………………………………..8.7

Competition…………………………..6.2

Timing……………………………………8.6

Progress To Date……………………7.1

Community Support & Hype…..8.5

Price & Token Distribution……..7.7

Communication……………………..9.3

FINAL SCORE……………………….8.2

UPSIDES

• Team has exceptional technical background
• MVP demo already released
• Product offers innovative approach to a blockchain Achilles’ heel.

DOWNSIDES

• Team is small and heavy on tech end
• Unclear strategy to drive adoption

Today’s Date: 6/17/18

Project Name: Celer

Token Symbol: CELR

Website: https://www.celer.network/

White Paper: https://www.celer.network/doc/CelerNetwork-Whitepaper.pdf

Additional Information: https://t.me/celernetwork

ICO Review Disclaimer

The team at Crypto Briefing analyzes an initial coin offering (ICO) against ten criteria, as shown above. These criteria are not, however, weighted evenly – our proprietary rating system attributes different degrees of importance to each of the criteria, based on our experience of how directly they can lead to the success of the ICO in question, and its investors.

Crypto Briefing provides general information about cryptocurrency news, ICOs, and blockchain technology. The information on this website (including any websites or files that may be linked or otherwise accessed through this website) is provided solely as general information to the public. We do not give personalized investment advice or other financial advice.

Decentral Media LLC, the publisher of Crypto Briefing, is not an investment advisor and does not offer or provide investment advice or other financial advice.  Accordingly, nothing on this website constitutes, or should be relied on as, investment advice or financial advice of any kind. Specifically, none of the information on this website constitutes, or should be relied on as, a suggestion, offer, or other solicitation to engage in, or refrain from engaging in, any purchase, sale, or any other any investment-related activity with respect to any ICO or other transaction.

The information on or accessed through this website is obtained from independent sources we believe to be accurate and reliable, but Decentral Media LLC makes no representation or warranty as to the timeliness, completeness, or accuracy of any information on or accessed through this website. Decentral Media LLC expressly disclaims any and all responsibility from any loss or damage of any kind whatsoever arising directly or indirectly from reliance on any information on or accessed through this website, any error, omission, or inaccuracy in any such information, or any action or inaction resulting therefrom.

Cryptocurrencies and blockchain are emerging technologies that carry inherent risks of high volatility, and ICOs can be highly speculative and offer few – if any – guarantees. You should never make an investment decision on an ICO or other investment based solely on the information on this website, and you should never interpret or otherwise rely on any of the information on this website as investment advice. We strongly recommend that you consult a licensed investment advisor or other qualified financial professional of your choosing if you are seeking investment advice on an ICO or other investment.

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Founding Team

This category accounts for the leaders, developers, and advisors.

Poor quality, weak, or inexperienced leadership can doom a project from the outset. Advisors who serve only to pad their own resumes and who have ill-defined roles can be concerning. But great leadership, with relevant industry experience and contacts, can make the difference between a successful and profitable ICO, and a flub.

If you don’t have a team willing and able to build the thing, it won’t matter who is at the helm. Good talent is hard to find. Developer profiles should be scrutinized to ensure that they have a proven history of working in a field where they should be able to succeed.

Product

What is the technology behind this ICO, what product are they creating, and is it new, innovative, different – and needed?

The IOTA project is a spectacular example of engineers run amok. The technology described or in use must be maintainable, achievable, and realistic, otherwise the risk of it never coming into existence is incredibly high.

Token Utility

Tokens which have no actual use case are probably the worst off, although speculation can still make them have some form of value.

The best tokens we review are the ones that have a forced use case – you must have this token to play in some game that you will probably desire to play in. The very best utility tokens are the ones which put the token holder in the position of supplying tokens to businesses who would be able to effectively make use of the platforms in question.

Market

There doesn’t have to be a market in order for an ICO to score well in this category – but if it intends to create one, the argument has to be extremely compelling.

If there is an existing market, questions here involve whether it is ripe for disruption, whether the technology enables something better, cheaper, or faster (for example) than existing solutions, and whether the market is historically amenable to new ideas.

Competition

Most ideas have several implementations. If there are others in the same field, the analyst needs to ensure that the others don’t have obvious advantages over the company in question.

Moreover, this is the place where the analyst should identify any potential weaknesses in the company’s position moving forward. For instance, a fundamental weakness in the STORJ system is that the token is not required for purchasing storage.

Timing

With many ICO ideas, the timing may be too late or too early. It’s important for the analyst to consider how much demand there is for the product in question. While the IPO boom funded a lot of great ideas that eventually did come to fruition, a good analyst would recognize when an idea is too early, too late, or just right.

Progress To Date

Some of the least compelling ICO propositions are those that claim their founders will achieve some far-off goal, sometime in the future, just so long as they have your cash with which to do it.

More interesting (usually) is the ICO that seeks to further some progress along the path to success, and which has a clearly-identified roadmap with achievable and reasonable milestones along the way. Founders who are already partially-invested in their products are generally more invested in their futures.

Community Support & Hype

Having a strong community is one of the fundamental building blocks of any strong blockchain project. It is important that the project demonstrates early on that it is able to generate and build a strong and empowered support base.

The ICO marketplace is becoming more crowded and more competitive. While in the past it was enough to merely announce an offering, today’s successful ICO’s work hard to build awareness and excitement around their offering.

Price & Token Distribution

One of the biggest factors weighing any analysis is price. The lower the price the more there is to gain. But too low of a price may result in an under capitalized project. It is therefore important to evaluate price relative to the individual project, its maturity and the market it is going after.

The total supply of tokens should also be justified by the needs of the project. Issuing a billion tokens for no reason will do nobody any good.

Communication

Communication is key. The success of a project is strongly tied to the project leaders’ ability to communicate their goals and achievements.

Things don’t always go as planned but addressing issues and keeping the community and investors in the loop can make or break a project.

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