SOMA (SCT) ICO Review & Analysis – SOMA Project Review

SOMA

The Evolution of Ecommerce

ERC20 Token

SOMA brings a social trading experience to consumers while providing a robust tracking and authentication protocol for business. The integration of social media functionality allows users to monetize social influence and provide value-added services to one another for just compensation.

Simultaneously, SOMA’s enterprise solution protects against forgeries and helps companies streamline processes and access data points never before available to them. From an item’s creation all the way through secondary markets, SOMA covers the entire product lifecycle.

Buy & Sell in Seconds – Our sleek trading platform empowers users to buy & sell in seconds, rather than minutes. Soma is creating a mobile-first commerce infrastructure with a smooth user experience and intuitive interface between users.
Social Interactions – A defining feature of the Soma platform is the merging of social interaction and trading in a single digital platform. Traditional social media interactivity, such as liking and following, will bring a social element to the trading experience.
Integrated Logistics – A five-star global trading platform requires an equally robust logistics integration for hassle-free item delivery. Soma implements an AI-based logistics solution to coordinate the fastest and most cost-effective way of transport.

“For Enterprise Customers, SOMA offers their unique “Heimdall Protocol” as a way to provide Verification/Authenticity services to Manufacturers and Resellers. SOMA’s Heimdall Protocol ties an item securely to its digital representation on the blockchain. This digital representation provides (a) waypoints and timestamps for key benchmarks or milestones, (b) certificate of ownership and record of chain-of-ownership, (c) authentication of provenance, and (d) a comprehensive repository of all documentation and multimedia associated with the item.”

Positives

Soma is working in the Decentralized Marketplaces/Social Media space. We don’t have a name for that particular combination but Soma has set themselves apart from potential competitors by building a product that combines both Peer-to-Peer Trading with Social Interaction. Very unique. We’ve seen big companies such as Facebook and Pinterest start to integrate marketplaces on their platforms but it all feels very “tacked on”. These big companies are simply standing between users, taking a fee just to connect a Buyer & Seller. Soma actually rewards social interaction. To give you an idea, think about Facebook and eBay teaming up to create marketplace, minus all of the centralized bull****.
Soma has recently received funding from Business Finland, the most important public funding agency for research and innovation in Finland. The agency is directed by the Finnish Ministry of Employment and the Economy. This is incredible considering the early stages that Soma is in regarding their development roadmap. To secure the Round 1 funding of €50,000 is an accomplishment that should instill investors with a great deal of confidence. Should they be successful in properly utilizing that 50k and impressing Business Finland, they could potentially secure up to €20 Million more in funding. We always see big players in the top 50, top 20, etc receive recognition from government bodies and their divisions so it’s incredible that the Team at Soma was able to get the eyes of the Finnish Ministry of Employment and the Economy considering how young the project is. Could have something to do with Somas impressive branding/networking ability?
Soma’s Heimdall Protocol really grabs our attention. Not only are they facilitating transactions between buyers and sellers, they’re going as far as to provide Enterprise customers with the ability to verify authenticity. Their Pilot Client, Sipilänkello (Finnish Luxury Watch Manufacturer) has already signed up to utilize this feature. With so many Luxury products in a wide range of industries, Soma allows Manufacturers and Licensed Retailers a way to prove their products are legit. The Heimdall Protocol adds a point of difference that competitors in this space should be worried about. The pilot program will be kicked into gear in Q1 2019, running through Q2. The Luxury Watch market is incredibly lucrative and has some of the most counterfeited products you can find. Soma has clearly recognized this and is taking full advantage by providing the perfect solution for manufacturers and resellers.
Lets take a look at Soma from an investors standpoint for a second. Usually we don’t discuss price/value of a project but we absolutely have to mention how undervalued Soma is considering the applications the project has. At the time of writing (August 2018), Soma is sitting at a Market Cap of $460k+ USD. Any investor that has been in the crypto space for long enough knows that a project fundamentals as strong as Soma’s does not deserve this low of a valuation. Take any Decentralized Marketplace (Syscoin for example), now take any product verification/authenticity platform (Devery, WaltonChain) and have a look at their valuation. At this point, Soma provides an incredible opportunity for investors to enter a fast progressing, well funded project on the ground level. We hate using the term “Undervalued Gem” but it definitely applies here.
Soma doesn’t just facilitate the decentralized exchange of goods, they’ve even got a Decentralized Cryptocurrency Exchange for those who are interested in buying/selling crypto assets/coins. SOMA will also provide a secure wallet to store cryptocurrencies, and a crypto portfolio to track gains and losses. People outside the cryptoworld can gain their first access to cryptocurrencies by selling items on the SOMA platform. Very exciting and a very unique feature when you look at their competitors.

Concerns

The good news – Soma doesn’t have any red flags. With that being said, the majority of our concerns will lie with the actual fundamentals of a Decentralized Marketplace rather than with Soma specifically. Decentralized Marketplaces are still being used by a very specific group of people – cryptocurrency enthusiasts. The general population feel safe with big companies such as eBay, Amazon, the list goes on. People still don’t realise the benefits of Decentralized Marketplaces but this will improve over time. Soma does an awesome job of enabling Enterprise clients to get onto the Marketplace and this is a great way to attract their customers. You can’t just put a banner up and say “We’re better than eBay” and Soma definitely isn’t taking this approach, which is a relief. This is not a direct concern for Soma, we’re just saying that Decentralized Marketplaces have a long road ahead, investors need to be patient.
At the time of writing (August 2018), we can’t find any public Github activity worth noting. Everything looks to be dated back to 2017. We’re going to go ahead and assume that Soma is developing their code privately to keep competitors from knowing too much, at least while development is early. This isn’t unusual for projects taking risks, building unique features, trying new things, etc. Not a huge concern but Investors would be better off following Somas Twitter at this time. Investors who are new to Soma may be a bit concerned when they find their Github to be relatively empty right now.
We don’t really have any concerns regarding the fundamentals of Soma. We could mention that the SCT Supply is on the lower side when considering the application of the token, but this doesn’t alter the fundamentals of the project. We could mention the wide range of features that Soma is tackling as being maybe a bit too ambitious, but the Team has proven to be on time with milestones and transparent with their development progress on Twitter/Telegram. Most concerns we have are simply to do with the sector in which Soma is operating. Decentralized Exchanges, Marketplaces and Product Verification Protocols are all still waiting to be adopted by the mainstream, but so is Cryptocurrency, is that Soma’s fault? No way.