1.
How to Evaluate
a Token Project
Strategies & Tactics
Edith Yeung
June 2018

2.
Edith YeungSelected by Inc's Magazine as one of the Silicon
Valley’s investors you must know, Edith Yeung is the
head of 500 Startups Greater China and partner of
500 Mobile Collective Fund.
Edith invested in over 40 mobile, VR, AR, AI and
machine learning startups, including Hooked - #1
reading app for millennium, DayDayCook - #1 Asian
Cooking media and platform, Fleksy (acquired by
Pinterest), Human (acquired by Mapbox), AISense,
and many more. Before 500, Edith was the head of
marketing for Dolphin Browser, a Sequoia-backed
mobile browser with over 150 million installs
worldwide. Edith also worked with many Fortune 500
companies such as Siebel, AMS, AT&T Wireless and
Autodesk.
Edith Yeung | @edithyeung | edith.co

3.
Disclaimers
• This session is purely for knowledge sharing
• I cannot give you any investment or legal advice ☺.
• I am not a lawyer or financial advisor.
• Token investments are extremely risky
• Please DO NOT invest in anything you don’t truly understand and
cannot afford to lose

4.
Blockchain by the Number (as of June 12 2018)
• Total market capitalization of crypto currencies hovers around
$301 billion.
• Bitcoin is valued at ~$117 billion. Bitcoin makes up ~39.1%
• Initial coin offerings have exploded in popularity, closing in on
$14.6B+ in funding in 2017 alone.
• Over 1600 Crypto tokens and 10K Crypto markets
• If you had invested $100 in Bitcoin in 2011 that Bitcoin would be
worth over $2.5M today.

5.
ICOs Raised Over $5B across ~800 Blockchain
projects in 2017. Equity Investors Deployed $1B in 215
Deals
https://www.cbinsights.com/research/blockchain-vc-ico-funding/

6.
60%+ Consumer Focused Tokens. 30%+ Infrastructure
and Platform Focused Tokens.
http://tomtunguz.com/saas-and-blockchain/

7.
Top 10 Crypto Currencies (May 2018)
1. Bitcoin
2. Ethereum
3. Ripple
4. Bitcoin Cash
5. EOS
6. Litecoin
7. Stellar
8. Cardano
9. TRON
10. IOTA
Source: https://coinmarketcap.com/

8.
Top 10 Crypto Exchanges (June 2018)
1. OKex
2. Huobi
3. Binance
4. Bitfinex
5. Bithumb
6. Upbit
7. Lbank
8. HitBTC
9. Bibox
10. GDAX
Source: https://coinmarketcap.com/

9.
Top 20 Most Active Crypto Funds (May 2018)
• 500
• Andreessen Horowitz
• Arrington XRP Capital
• BlockTower
• Blockchain Capital
• Danhua Capital
• Dekrypt Capital
• FBG Capital
• Fenbushi
• Huobi Capital
• Hashed
• INBlockchain
• Kinetics Capital
• Metastable
• Multicoin
• Node Capital
• Okex Capital
• Pantera Capital
• Polychain
• ZhenFund

10.
What kind of
investor do you
want to be?

11.
10 Things to Look for in a
Token Project

12.
10 Things to Look for in a Token Project
1. Purpose - what is the purpose of the project and token. Do you really need
blockchain for this?
2. Competitive Analysis - are there similar projects out there already?
3. Team – is this team legit?
4. Technology – does this blockchain solution make sense?
5. Community – do they have strong community support?
6. Token allocation – what is their token allocation?
7. Milestone & Timeline – what is the project timeline?
8. Financing – what is the total target raised? What is the cap? Any lockup?
9. Social proof – who else are investing (investors) and involved (advisors)?
10. Legal – do they have all the financial and legal documentation ready to go?

13.
1. What is the propose
of this project and
token?

14.
Many Strange, Weird, Bullshit Tokens Out There…
Source: Top 10 Weirdest Coinhttps://www.forbes.com/sites/laurashin/2017/07/10/cryptos-in-wonderland-12-of-the-weirdest-wackiest-coins/#6eaf8e2f2a70

15.
Ether is a necessary element — a fuel — for operating the distributed application platform Ethereum.
It is a form of payment made by the clients of the platform to the machines executing the requested
operations. Ether is the incentive ensuring that developers write quality applications (wasteful code
costs more), and that the network remains healthy (people are compensated for their contributed
resources).

16.
Lumen is the built-in currency for the Stellar network which serves two purposes:
• Lumens play a small anti-spam role. Each transaction has a minor fee—0.00001 lumens—
associated with it. This fee prevents users with malicious intentions from flooding the
network. The Stellar network requires all accounts to hold a minimum balance of 1 lumen to
ensures that accounts are authentic and maintain a seamless flow of transactions.
• Lumens may facilitate multi-currency transactions and trades between pairs of currencies
between which there is not a large direct market, acting as a bridge.

17.
2. Are there similar
projects out there?

18.
3. Is this team legit?

19.
Are They Crypto Native or Crypto Want-to-be?

20.
How to Validate a Crypto Team?
Linkedin
Twitter
Slack
Reddit
Github
Website
Crunchbase
YouTube
Slideshare
Line
Telegram
Medium
Dribble
Facebook
Baidu Baike
Youku
Tudou
QQ Video
Angellist
Kakao Talk

21.
4. Does this blockchain
solution make sense?
Do you really need
blockchain for this?

22.
3. Awesome

23.
• Inner workings of the protocol and application
• How does the whole system works
• How the token will be used within the system
• Development roadmap
• Token allocation

24.
Original Bitcoin Whitepaper - https://bitcoin.org/
bitcoin.pdf

25.
List of Whitepapers You Should Read
• Bitcoin - https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf
• Ethereum - https://github.com/ethereum/wiki/wiki/White-Paper
• 0x - https://0xproject.com/pdfs/0x_white_paper.pdf
• Stellar - https://www.stellar.org/papers/stellar-consensus-
protocol.pdf
• Filecoin - https://filecoin.io/filecoin.pdf
• OmiseGO - https://cdn.omise.co/omg/whitepaper.pdf
• Qtum - https://qtum.org/en/white-papers
• Nebulas - https://nebulas.io/docs/NebulasTechnicalWhitepaper.pdf

26.
5. Do they have strong
community support?

27.
6. What is the token
allocation?

28.
Super Clear Token Allocation and Use of
Proceeds

29.
Super Clear Token Allocation and Use of
Proceeds

30.
7. What is their
milestone and timeline?

31.
8. Financial terms -
what is the total
target raised? What
is the cap? Any
lockup?

32.
10 Financial Questions You Must Ask for All
Token Projects
1. What is the total amount raise
2. What is the total percentage of token are you selling
3. What is the total cap
4. What are the level of discounts and lockup timing
5. When will Testnet and Mainnet launch?
6. Did you raise equity?
7. Is there geography restriction?
8. What is your legal entity setup & structure?
9. How are you going to spend on dollar amount raised?
10. Will you keep your funds in ETH, BTC or USD?

33.
9. Who else are
investing (investors)
and involved
(advisors)?

34.
10. Do they have all the
financial and legal
documentation ready to
go?

35.
Super Clear with Financial & Legal stuff…
• Currencies accepted (BTC, ETH)
• Clear “Know your Customer” (KYC) process
• Clear bonus program or discount program
with lock up policy
• Clear timeline and duration of the offering
• Clear geo-fencing criteria (does not accept US
investors)
• Minimal and maximum token investment size
• Will you be using a SAFT?
• Are you geo-fencing the offering?
• Are you setting up a foundation to be a
steward of the token?

36.
Scam Alert
• Celebrity advisors and endorsements
• More advisors than team members
• Ask you for private keys over email or Twitter
• Fake websites

37.
10 Things to Look for in a Token Project
1. Purpose - what is the purpose of the project and token. Do you really need
blockchain for this?
2. Competitive Analysis - are there similar projects out there already?
3. Team – is this team legit?
4. Technology – does this blockchain solution make sense?
5. Community – do they have strong community support?
6. Token allocation – what is their token allocation?
7. Milestone & Timeline – what is the project timeline?
8. Financing – what is the total target raised? What is the cap? Any lockup?
9. Social proof – who else are investing (investors) and involved (advisors)?
10. Legal – do they have all the financial and legal documentation ready to go?

38.
Crypto future is really bright…

39.
edith@500startups.com
@edithyeung
http://www.edith.co/#newsletter
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