Overview
What does the company/project do?
Vault12 has the objective to build a cryptocurrency storage platform. The first use case is the storage of cryptocurrencies. However, the team believes that in the future individual ownership of assets secured by cryptography will include house keys, car keys and other things. Vault12 will provide a solution for storage of these high-value cryptographic assets.
How advanced is the project?
The team started working on the project in February 2018. As of June 2018 the team released a white paper, announced credible and high-level investors and counts with an active Telegram group.
What are the tokens used for and how can the token value appreciate?
The Vault Guardian Token (VGT) is an ERC-20 token. An initial sale of 400 million tokens is planned for 2018. Owners of cryptographic assets are supposed to reward Guardians with tokens. Guardians enable the owner to safely access cryptographic assets.
Team & Advisors
The Vault12 core team includes two co-founders, of which one is the CEO and the other one the COO plus one Chief Design Officer and one Chief Marketing Officer. All of the team member count with a proven track record.
Max Skibinsky is the co-founder and CEO of Vault12. He is a serial entrepreneur and a former partner at the well-known Silicon Valley VC Andreessen Horowitz.
Blake Commagere is the co-founder and COO of Vault12. He is also a serial entrepreneur and an angel investor.
Beyond the very experienced co-founders the team counts with Brandon Forant, an experienced designer and entrepreneur, as Chief Design Officer and with Wasim Ahmad, another serial entrepreneur and advisor as Chief Marketing Officer.
Apart from the core team there is a high number of top-tier advisors. It is unknown how many engineers are currently working for Vault12.
Product
The product of Vault12 is a Crypto Assets Storage System. In this system the mobile devices of an owner’s most trusted friends and family members form an encrypted, distributed and decentralized storage network. Vault 12 categorizes three tier groups: the owner, the guardians, which include close friends and family, and the custodians, which represent people that are not so close to the owner.
The owner is the only person who has visibility of the cryptographic assets and has the option to change guardians and custodians at any time.
Vault12 is designed to serve four different storage tiers with the corresponding security levels. The lowest storage tier is called Quick Access and enables the owner to access it without any other individual. The Ultra-Secure Storage provides the highest level of security and is most difficult to access.
Vault12 is designed to eliminate the risks of storing cryptocurrencies that exist in both, centralized exchanges and hardware wallets. A potential user of Vault12 is anyone from individual cryptocurrency investors to cryptocurrency funds.
Strength and Opportunities
The idea is original and not a simple copy-paste from an existing blockchain project.
The investors into the project look incredibly strong. Among them are some of the brightest minds in cryptocurrency such as Naval Ravikant and the Winklevoss twins.
There is a clear concept for monetization: Users should pay 100 USD per month as application subscription. However, this fee is relatively high, and it remains to be seen how many users would actually pay this amount.
The market potential exceeds the classical cryptocurrency segment, since the team projects that other enterprises such as law firms will use the service.
Weaknesses and Threats
The design of both, the storage system and the access system, is complex. Further, it is unclear whether users will prefer guardians for accessing their funds over the currently widespread hardware wallets, which give them direct control without any third party involved.
The usage of traditional hardware wallets is still recommended by Vault12. Rather than creating a completely new type of storage, Vault12 is creating duplicate digital backup structures with a new access system.
Verdict
The bright idea and the strong investor base provide a good outlook for the Vault12 ICO. The team is experienced and has a credible track record. These factors give reason for optimism in the short run. Achieving mainstream adoption for this new cryptographic asset storage system is still a very challenging task, and whether this will be achieved will determine the long term value of the token.
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