How big are the VeChain (VET) Hyped "Big-Name" partnerships?

January 6, 2019 Bitcoin

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VeChain is a project with the most fervent support in crypto. Advocates emphasize their ties to large companies as positioning themselves far ahead of any competitor to become the leading business-oriented blockchain network. However, while VeChain has confirmed many important partnerships, the project has also attracted many unproven rumors and unbridled speculations.

While a strong community is a great resource in the speculative and hype-based cryptography and blockchain space, VeChain's support can sometimes do more harm than good. Already in February 2018, all the mentions of VeChain were banned for a month by the popular subreddit / cryptocurrency among the accusations of excessive shilling by the supporters of the project. And for VeChain detractors, there's a lot more hype than substance.

Four posts that have appeared at the top of VeChain's subreddit in the last few days perfectly exemplify the blurring of lines between high-level credible partnerships and baseless hype that have long surrounded the project:

1. Voices of a partnership with Delta Airlines.

2. VeResearch collaborations with higher education institutions including the University of Oxford.

3. An article stating that VeChain has been selected to provide specialist advice on the development of blockchain at government level in Italy.

4. A speech at the conference by Sarah Nabaa, head of VeChain County, illustrating well-established use cases and partnerships.

The first of these is almost completely speculative. The second and third are highly misleading. The fourth is the only one that seems rooted in reality.

But outside of these headlines, buried within the comments of a daily discussion thread, are truthful and apparently true statements that the VeChain Authority Nodes are held by such important entities as Ali Baba and Prudential Investment Management Group.

So let's analyze the rumors and the clamor and get to the truth. How real are VeChain's connections with large companies? And to what extent will these links establish the future success of VeChain?

Authorized truth

Sarah Nabaa's speech from BlockShow Asia last month is a perfect primer for anyone unfamiliar with what VeChain is offering or why large companies would be interested in collaborating with it.

The founder Sunny Lu has worked in the past as Chief Information Officer of Luis Vuitton China, where he realized the scale of counterfeiting that affects the luxury brands. As Nabaa explains, the most difficult to neutralize is the counterfeiting of the "gray market". This refers to manufacturers contracted by companies like Luis Vuitton to produce their overproduction products, creating extra objects that fit perfectly to the specifications of the original product. This is particularly problematic when luxury goods are supposed to be part of a limited run.

VeChain's solution for counterfeiting the gray market consists of sewing RFID labels in clothing and accessories. These RFID tags can be scanned using the VeChain smartphone app, verifying the authenticity of the product. They can also provide all kinds of additional information. Nabaa gives the example of the subsidiary of H & M Arket, which promotes the sustainability of its clothing production. Arket has dragged handbags with RFID technology into its London store, with these RFID tags that provide information on the sustainable supply of materials used in the production of the beanie.

Nabaa lists some of the major companies that have directly invested VeChain, including DNV GL, Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PwC) and Breyer Capital. DNV GL, based in Norway, defines itself as a "global quality control and risk management company", operating in 100 countries with 14,500 employees and with a turnover of about 2.25 billion dollars in 2017. PwC London-based is the second largest professional services company in the world, with approximately 250,000 employees and a turnover of $ 41.3 billion in 2018. Breyer Capital is a venture capital company founded by Jim Breyer, which has equity estimated $ 3 billion.

DNV GL's official press release announcing the company's partnership with VeChain in January 2018 states that companies "will initially turn to the food and beverage, retail and fashion industries and progressively expand to cover other sectors, starting with automotive and aerospace industry. " Nabaa & # 39; s BlockShow Asia speech illustrates how they have already started to implement food & beverage solutions, with the MyStory app from DNV GL which now tracks the wine sold in Shanghai using VeChain's RFID chips and the VeThor blockchain platform . In addition to verifying the authenticity of the wine, imagine this app that provides details on minutiae such as the grape variety and the composition of the soil used in the winemaking process, with scanners and chips connected to the VeTor blockchain that tracks every step of the process. production.

So far, so concrete. But it is easy to understand why the confirmed information on VeChain has led to almost hysterical speculations about future possibilities. For example, a photo of Jim Breyer at a Chinese government function was strongly publicized on the VeChain subreddit under the title "More Proof of Chinese Government Connection?". Although there is no direct connection with VeChain in the picture or the event surrounding it, the position of Jim Breyer – front-and-center, standing directly next to the Chinese Premier Xi Jinping, while the CEO of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg is pushed to the periphery – has caused wild speculation.

Blockchain and crypto are massively speculative, with much more attention focused on future potential than current adoption. Many of VeChain's most promising use cases are still under development. During BlockShow Asia's speech, Nabaa mentions the demonstration of concepts that VeChain has developed in collaboration with BMW, including a "car passport" that keeps track of things like service history and even microdata while driving during the life of a & # 39; car to counter fraud within the resale market.

And some of VeChain's potential partnerships are shrouded in secrecy, probably due to non-disclosure agreements. Nabaa's speech drew attention to six French luxury brands listed on the website of Sunny Lu's former employers, Luis Vuitton Moët Hennessy (LVMH): Fendi, Celine, Christian Dior, Emilio Pucci, Givenchy and Kenzo. One of these brands is already a paying customer of VeChain, with VeChain actively developing a system to track a limited edition luxury bag for this customer. However, Nabaa said that she was unable to explain which, leaving the comments section on Reddit to try to understand it among themselves.

These tempting statements make speculation inevitable. But speculation about possible partnership announcements was also a part of VeChain's highly orthodox approach to marketing.

Partnership with Delta Airlines, Oxford University and the Italian government …?

If we take a look at each of the speculative partnership announcements that have attracted recent attention to VeChain's subreddit, we see a few different sources for speculation. The last element is the easiest to explain. The post "VeChain Among the Experts to Bolster Italian Blockchain" addresses a CryptoVibe article with a misleading title. The article focuses on Renato Grattola, who is a member of the steering committee of the VeChain Foundation, but primarily is a director of DNV GL. Just as the comments on Reddit make clear, there is a link to VeChain, but it is more tenuous than the title of the article suggests.

Also the connection between VeChain's VeRaearch initiative and several major universities, including the University of Oxford, is all but clear. The source of the complaint is a tweet from Ben Yorke, a British fan of VeChain based in China who translated the information from the Mandarin.

Following the conversation on Twitter's rabbit hole takes you to an advertisement for a VeChain-funded research position at the University of Oxford, and a heated debate about how much this constitutes a "partnership" with one of the most prestigious universities in the world.

The apparent link with Delta Airlines is the most shamelessly speculative of all, but it is also the most heavily upvoted. This discussion comes from a tweet of WaZalinking, the pioneering use of Delta RFID tags for airline baggage with VeChain's victory of a Delta-sponsored Global Scaling Award.

Providing the blockchain infrastructure for the innovative baggage tracking of an important airline is completely in line with the suggested future plans when the investment of DNV GL in VeChain was announced, but the link between Delta and VeChain it is all but concrete.

Exaggerated expectations and over-exploited speculations are the same as those in the cryptic space. But VeChain is a project particularly linked to this type of speculation, and for good reason.

The Coca Cola Kid Effect

Many of VeChain's biggest partnership announcements were preceded by cryptic tweets from a mysterious figure approaching the Coca Cola Kid's handle. This Steemit article provides an excellent primer on M.O. of Coca Cola Kid. and incredible precision. Highlights include the Kid tweeting a "emoji" of a lit cigarette before a partnership announced between VeChain and China Tobacco, and this cryptic screed highlighting the words Pilgrims, Beacons, Others, and Cysts (PBOC) that cause the rumors of a partnership with the People's Bank of China (PBOC).

At the height of the last race, the Coca Cola Kid tweets were an incredibly effective marketing tool for VeChain. Dry press releases describing potentially huge partnerships seemed to have a far less effect on price shifts than CCK's cryptic tweets. Most followers seem to think that CCK's tweets were unofficial leaks rather than a veChain viral marketing strategy, especially because his Twitter account was much quieter as the PBOC tweet included the words "they found me" "and" I had to make a run away. "

But the drip-feed of suggestions through the CCK's Twitter account has influenced VeChain supporters to read between the lines continuously. Every cryptic tweet has attracted hundreds of answers and has sparked discussions on Reddit and other forms of social media. Whether intentional or not, the CCK has played a huge part in establishing an online community committed to VeChain.

Announcements, rumors and statistics

In August 2018, VeChain moved from being an ERC20 token of Ethereum to its main network. At the same time, the supply of tokens was changed, so that each VEN ERC20 token was equivalent to 100 principal network tokens of the VET. The entire cryptocurrency space has been stuck in a bear market since the beginning of 2018. While VeChain has largely aligned itself with the broader market, the main net migration and change in token offerings have a negative effect on its overall position in the cryptimetry rankings by market capitalization.

On December 31, 2017, VeChain ranked 45thth on coinmarketcap.com, with a market capitalization of $ 578 million and a token price of $ 2.09. VeChain was one of the biggest gainers during an upsurge altcoin in January 2018, rising from 45that 16th placed in the ranking, while the market cap rose to $ 3.2 billion and the price per token touched $ 7.05. The IFP has remained around 16 yearsthor 17th placed on coinmarketcap.com until the main move in August, at which point he slipped to 21stplace. At the time of writing, VeChain is currently ranked in 25th placeth, with a market capitalization just under $ 229 million.

Since the main launch of the network, VeChain has slipped down from the rankings and its price has declined largely in line with Bitcoin and the encrypted market in general. This is despite a steady stream of positive announcements regarding partnerships and a fairly substantial increase in the use of the network.

The main measure of activity on the VeChain Thor blockchain network is the number of "clauses". Within the VeChain network, clauses group activities that involve multiple accounts and smart contracts, making the number of clauses roughly equivalent to transactions on other networks. Looking at vechainstats.com, the highest number of VeChain clauses was reached immediately after the main net change in August (526,068). This peak activity is probably due to users exchanging the VEN ERC20 tokens with the main network tokens of the IFP.

VeChain's network activity included 183,737 clauses in September, down slightly to 178,215 in October and increasing month by month since then. November saw an increase of 228,378 clauses, which more than doubled to 468,994 in December. A milestone of 1 million transactions was approved in November. 135,219 clauses have already been used in the first five days of January, putting VeChain on track to record 2 million transactions by February.

Some interesting information was discovered by VeChain supporters on Reddit without any official announcement from the team. VeChain has a structure of network nodes, with a destination of 101 nodes of authority at the highest level. The analysis of the IP addresses associated with these nodes led the Redditors to discover that the owners of authority nodes probably include Alisoft, a subsidiary of Alibaba, as well as Prudential Fund Management Co. Ltd.

The experience has taught VeChain supporters to continually read between the lines for signs of unannounced partnerships. But beyond the clamor and speculation, VeChain is clearly a project with powerful supporters. If this will result in rewards for the owners it is a matter of debate. As with Ripple, VeChain detractors have pointed out that ordinary token holders may not necessarily reap the expected benefits from the success of the underlying company.

VeChain is a large-scale ambitious project with lots of information and hype to examine. VeChain's committed online community seems convinced it will be more than worth it.

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