FortKnoxster: Review

BACKGROUND

With the current rush of Initial Coin Offerings flooding the cryptocurrency market, it is something of a challenge for blockchain startups to figure out a way to stand out from the crowd and make a clear and attractive proposition for investors.

FortKnoxster (token symbol FKX) has so far succeeded in meeting that challenge, at least for the concept that it is proposing.

WHITE-PAPER

The Fortknoxter proposition revolves around something known as Encryption as a Service (EaaS).

Cybersecurity has now become a priority concern for almost everyone engaged in any form of electronic communication.

Governments, industry and individuals are becoming increasingly aware of the surveillance that takes place all around them and are looking for solutions that can offer reassurance in terms of protecting privacy.

Fortknoxster is proposing a blockchain-based single dashboard application to manage what it terms a virtually impregnable system of communication for:

• File sharing and storage
• Group calling and conferencing
• Chat
• Email
• Screen sharing
• Voice messaging

As per the white-paper, it is setting out to be “the safest communication and data storage platform ever buil and eventually to become the nightmare of any hacker, spy or other IT criminal.”

According to the white-paper, Fortknoxster’s own team have alpha- and beta-tested a suite of applications with positive outcomes. You can test a demo of its services here.

Following these developments, they are now organising a token sale which is currently forecast for February 2018 to solicit support from investors for the development of a platform that uses a range of incentive mechanisms designed to to reward hard drive sharing and rental on its network.

TEAM / ROADMAP

Self-described “privacy evangelists“, the Danish engineers and security experts who launched Fortknoxster were primarily responding to the Edward Snowden revelations in 2013 which exposed the actions of certain governments engaging in mass surveillance without any democratic oversight.

The solution, as they see it, is to offer online users a privacy platform that provides for a host of communication methods in a hyper-secure manner.

Since then, the founding team has been performing research on the development of secure systems of communication which began in earnest in 2014 with Alpha and Beta testing completed in 2015, with its live users making use of its embryonic product suite in 2016.

A significant code re-write was performed in 2017 to prepare the system for its eventual integration onto the Blockchain especially largely as a result of the need to provide secure storage, according to the white-paper.

The Fortknoxster team carries strong credentials in relation to design, development, security and knowledge of blockchain technology.

TOKENOMICS

The token sale will be held in February, 2018 and carries a hard-cap of $15 million. An estimated 135 million of the ERC20-compliant FKX token will be minted.

Planned distribution of the tokens issued include roughly 59.5% for the token sale, 12% for partners and advisors, 11% community incentives, 10% for Fortknoxster and 7.5% for the founders – which gives a token reserve of roughly 30% if one defines community incentive falling into the category of general circulation.

The general approach of the business model is to provide users with free access to a basic minimum of services. If users then want to use expanded services – for example, access to more secure disk space on the network, they will pay for this through the medium of FKX token.

The token will be used to reward referrals, loyalty and rental of disk space to the network for the distributed, secured storage aspect of the platform.

Residents of the US and Singapore are not allowed to participate in the token sale and distribution. Name, address and email will be required from all participants contributing to the token sale. For those who participate, one dollar (US) will buy you roughly just over five token.

MARKETING

There is reasonable activity on social media in relation to the project – Facebook particularly with a following currently numbering in the four figures. There appears to be no active campaigns on Twitter and Youtube although there is evidence of reasonable, extemporaneous coverage. The telegram channel, on the other hand, demonstrates an active, engaged community membership – likely derived from the subject matter that the product itself relates to.

There appears to be an absence of experienced marketing heads amongst the prominent team members and advisory board. This is a common complaint within the ICO space where teams are very often engineering-heavy, Fortknoxter makes no exception.

CONCLUSION

A solid proposition addressing a real concern that, for certains part of the project at least, makes for an appropriate blockchain fit. The unknown here is the team itself which retains a relatively low profile in terms of the individuals involved. A high profile advisory board member would be of benefit.

The project will likely need to consider injecting significant funds into its marketing aspects, not least because the vision they represent of empowering citizens with privacy tools is very much an objective that in itself deserves success.

There is little to indicate that the team is not capable of delivering on their promise of delivering a top-spec product. This project, on the other hand, will spin on its ability to get its message out there.