According to data from CoinSchedule, initial coin offerings (ICOs) have raised almost $3 billion year-to-date, which includes Telegram’s pre-sale that targeted $850 million. It seems that 2018 will become another record year for the ICOs. If you missed the recent crowdfunding events, don’t worry – the most interesting ones are still to come.
One of the exciting projects that we want to discuss today is Ovato, a decentralized ecosystem used to create and monitor social media-oriented advertising campaigns. The blockchain-based system will involve merchants, social media influences, and customers. It will revolve around Ovato Coin, with the ticker OVT, which is currently released via a multi-stage ICO.
The Ovato Coin will be used for loyalty and rewards programs, charity, and other use cases focused on the merchant-client relationships.
The OVT token can enjoy a guaranteed success given that it will be distributed on top of Bitovation, a California-based Ovato subsidiary that helps clients get rebates in Bitcoin. Currently, Bitovation is already working with 950 US-based brands.
How Will Ovato Coin Be Used?
Prior to explaining the specific use cases of Ovato, we should stress the fact that this token can be used the same as any other cryptocurrency out there, such as Bitcoin. OVT will provide users with immediate settlement so that the latter ones could pay with Ovato or transfer it to someone else in exchange for goods, services or other digital currencies.
However, Ovato wants to address the multi-billion dollar loyalty rewards market, so it will have many similarities with the way Bitcoin is used under the Bitovation project. In other words, brands and agencies will use Ovato’s system to conduct marketing campaigns, while brand influencers and loyal clients will earn OVTs by supporting brands or regularly buying goods. Eventually, they will be able to use OVT tokens to pay merchants or convert them to fiat money.
Ovato-based loyalty programs will ultimately encourage brand recognition among consumers, which is expected to trigger the establishment of clear habit patterns that favor both the company and its loyal customers. It’s a win-win situation for all the parties involved.
Besides the mentioned use cases, the Ovato token will be applied in charity programs. Today, 90% of the donations don’t reach their destinations. This is a sad statistic that exposes the centralized charity agencies. A significant portion of non-for-profits’ failure is the result of inefficiencies. Donations with Ovato will be transparent and secure thanks to the blockchain technology.
Ovato ICO
To achieve its goal, the Ovato team calculated that it needed to raise $30.35 million via a public token sale event, which already started on February 28 with its pre-sale period.
The ICO event was split into more periods as follows:
- 96-hour pre-sale – this four-day period came with a 70% discount of the OVT token. Thus, investors could buy coins at a price of only $0.60. Just 1 million tokens were available for this crowdfunding stage. The investors had to buy at least 1000 tokens at once.
- Lot A token sale – this is the current phase that ends on March 26, so you can jump in and buy OVT tokens now, as they come with a 50% discount. Accordingly, can buy OVTs at a price of $0.95 per token. 5 million tokens will be offered during this stage.
- Lot B token sale – the third stage will succeed the Lot A phase and will end on April 17. Investors will be able to buy OVT tokens at a price of $1.50, which suggests a discount of 25%. 7 million tokens will be sold then.
- Lot C token sale – this lot is scheduled for the period between April 18 and May 9. You will be able to buy OVT tokens for $1.75, which means a 12.5% discount. A hard cap of 6 million tokens is planned for this stage.
- Lot D token sale – finally, the Lot D phase will start on May 10 and will keep live until the last day of the month or until the target amount is raised. 2 million OVTs will be distributed at the full price of $2 per token.
Investors can buy OVT tokens by paying with Ethereum, Bitcoin, Litecoin, and Dash. Note that Ovato is an ERC20-based token created on top of Ethereum via Solidity programming language. Thus, you will be able to hold your tokens on any ERC20-compatible wallet.
The tokens will be distributed as follows: 50% for the pre-sale and ICO, 14% for the team, 16% for affiliate marketers and advisors, 15% for the distribution partners, and 5% for bounty.
The Final Note
The loyalty and reward markets currently estimated at $65 billion and are expected to reach $100 billion by 2020. This is a vast territory that has to be addressed with innovative technologies, such as blockchain.
Ovato might enjoy a guaranteed success given that it’s one of the first startups to apply the distributed ledger technology in this huge industry. It wants to reduce the loyalty program costs by 87% and also ensure the transparent and secure manner of processes.
Besides, Ovato is targeting the $400 billion charity industry, which struggles with several problems caused by the way traditional agencies handle their programs.
If you want to become part of Ovato’s success, make sure you participate in its public token sale at the earliest stage possible, so that you could enjoy generous discounts.
Don’t hesitate to check Ovato’s whitepaper here.
Images courtesy of Ovato
