There is a video link at the bottom for those who prefer an audio version!
Nucleus vision is in my opinion, a very smart project that aims to revolutionise the way we do shopping in the stores. It’s does so by combining a number of different technologies, namely Blockchain, internet of things (IOT) and AI, all into a retail setting to create a very unique and personalised user experience. Sounds abit complicated? Haha, don’t worry, I’m going to take you through this project and explain everything simply and clearly.
In the world of Nucleus Vision, when a shopper enters a store, the first thing that happens is there is an inconspicuous scanner will scan the shopper to identify them.
Strictly speaking, the scanner isn’t scanning the person, but the mobile phone of the person.
That’s where the Internet of things come in. Internet of things is the wave of technology where electronic devices like your car, your radio. Your mobile phone etc.. can communicate with each other to exchange information about you for your convenience. The scanner communicating with your mobile phone is an example of Internet of things at work.
The scanner is an original hardware known as ION created by Nucleus vision themselves, in partnership with Intel Chip, Alpha and Raisys. The ION sensor is a plug and play hardware, so very easy device for shops to install and start using Nucleus technology. It is also able to detect various other information besides your mobile ID e.g. temperature, motion, pressure etc…
This is actually my favourite thing about Nucleus. It’s the fact that they have a working hardware. If you’ve been following a channel, you will know that I am very big on blockchain projects that create their own hardware e.g. WTC, HPB, Matrix etc.. because if you have a software program and its up on Github etc.. it may be novel now, but its not that hard for another project to copy or model after what you are doing. In otherwords, you are not indispensable. But if you have a working hardware, it is going to be very hard for a new project to muscle you out, because your tech and performance will both be hard to reproduce. So personally, I love investing in projects that create their own hardware, especially when they already have a working product like Nucleus where they already have sensors installed in 10 shops and working well.
The other impressive thing about their hardware which is the way it collects information. Communication between most IOT devices today run on what is known as RFID chips. RFID chips are the little chip that is in most smart phones that allow your phone to do paywave etc.. Most IOT projects e.g WTC/ Vechain etc.. have to install RFID chips on every item they want to track/ communicate with. But Nucleus, with the ION scanner, doesn’t need to use an RFID chip. It doesn’t need Wifi or Bluetooth or GPS, it works on all phones, not just smart phone, so even the old school feature phones, so there’s literally no barriers to adoption.
Sounds like magic! How does it do that?
It works through your local telcom provider.
Nucleus vision actually partners with your local telcom company to piggy back off the information they have of you.
So when you sign up with Nucleus vision, you confirm this by sending a text to your telcom company and this authorises Nucleus Vision to collect your information.
Now what happens to the information that Nucleus Vision collects?
It goes to the blockchain network!
Now one of the biggest hurdles of IOT mass adoption is security. Because IOT is all about devices sharing information, there is a big concern that the information may not be securely stored. That’s where blockchain comes in, because blockchain is a decentralised, untamperable, secure record of information. That’s why there are so many blockchain projects that partner with IOT technology because they complement each other. If you’ve seen my other videos on WTC and other blockchain/ IOT projects, you’ll know I think that the blockchain/ IOT arena will be one of the major development pathways for blockchain and worth paying attention to.
The information on the blockchain will be organised in 3 groups:
The data provider component, that is the component that creates the profiles of individual users and it also generates an encryption key specific for that profile. So your data is secure on the decentralised blockchain, but where on a blockchain like Bitcoin, you can see all the information openly, here your data is encrypted and secure.
The next component is the data exchange component. This is the middle man that coordinates the exchange of data for nCash tokens, meaning the shopper gets paid crypto for providing some data to the Nucleus system. We will cover more of this later.
The third component is the data requester component that is the manager of the system that supports queries of existing requests, accessing the resulting data and specifying the amount of NCash tokens that the data exchange (the previous bit) payouts.
Once the information is organised on the blockchain, the information goes to 3 other different places.
The shopper. The shopper will have a Nucleus vision app on their phone that will hold all their information. So from there, the shopper has full control of their data, e.g. which shops are allowed to see the data or collect their data etc… Not every participating retailer will automatically get your data, you have to approve them for them to be able to decrypt your information.
The telcom company will get some of the relevant information to them and
The Neural network (or the AI system of the nucleus project) will also get a copy of your data which it then analyses
The Neural network does several things
For the shopper it processes the known profile of the shopper, and based on the previous stores you visited as well as your previous purchases, the AI will match your personal preference with all the products in the store and generate recommendations for products that you might like. It’s like having a personal sales assistant help you find what you want, except this sales assistant has prior knowledge of your profile a can help you select good more accurately.
For the participating retail store, the AI provides information e.g. how many customers there are along with customer categorisations.
It will also do Data Analysis to provide insights and recommendations to the shop e.g. what products are more popular, what kind of customers they attract, etc..
One of the key features of the AI is called deep learning, and this is significant. AI technology is still very young. Deep learning is a kind of AI technology that is currently only being used by very big companies like google and yahoo etc.. it’s state of the art stuff. So as far as AI technology go, nucleus vision is up amongst the leaders in the field.
The last aspect of the project to introduce to you is their reward system and the way the token is used.
Firstly there is no mining. Sorry guys. But there is an even easier way to get tokens!
Remember how I told you the ION scanner will scan your phone when you enter the store.
More accurately, the ION scanner will ask you for permission to scan your phone when you enter the store. For this to happen, you must of course have the Nucleus app installed on your phone previously already. So if you say “yes” and allow the scanner to collect your information, that is sort of a mining and you get rewarded with Ncash tokens!
I mean, actually they are collecting your information to help you. It is to create a profile and a recommendation to make your shopping experience easier and more enjoyable. But now, besides having a personal sales assistant, you also get rewarded for it! It’s a great deal!
It gets even better. There are 4 different ways the shopper gets rewarded.
Simply for visiting the store. That’s right. You get a small amount of tokens for simply visiting the store. This is a great feature that will drive the crypto community to visit participating retailers.
Consider this. Currently there are over 90,000 Ncash followers on reddit alone. There are also 10 Gini and Jony stores in India who have already installed the ION scanners and are participating in this project. If any of these 90,000 subs ever visit India, we would almost visit and Gini and Jony store just for the novelty and curiousity. That channels 90,000 crypto supporters to this brand. It’s a big incentives for shops to get this kinda of interest, and that’s why they can pay the shopper some tokens for even visiting the shop.
Secondly as mentioned above, you get some tokens for sharing your information with the network, and the more information you share as you move around different shops, not only do you get more tokens, but your profile also becomes more complete and the AI recommendations become more accurate.
The next is Ncash shoppers are rewarded with loyalty rewards. These rewards can be discounts or tokens. And tokens can also be used to purchase rewards or simply cashed out on an exchange like Binance. Some rewards can also be used across any participating retailer, and the rewards themselves are also tailored to the individual based on their profile, after all there is no point giving a guy a voucher for a handbag.
Finally shoppers are rewarded for allowing the shop they are in to collect their information from other data providers. This is controlled from your phone app.
All rewards are paid by the retailers, because as discussed above, retailers have a lot to gain, by employing the technology in their shop.
Retailers can also reward other retailers or data providers for exchanging information that you have authorised.
The Nucleus Vision company themselves, also earn money from the retailers, either by collected a very small sum everytime the technology is used or by collecting a cut of the profit earned from Ncash customers. I think this is still being worked out.
But as you can see, the entire system is set up to really reward shoppers multiple ways and in this way, build a sense of loyalty of the shopper towards that brand and the nucleus system. It is really advertising, marketing and shopping on a whole new paradigm.
Now this technology is not a dream. The ION sensor network is already u and running with over 75K unique identifications and counting. I think the latest I heard is the unique identifications is already 90K.
There are 10 stores live with 19 sensors installed. They also have MOU or expression of interest from 14000 stores.
And they have 2406 customer authorisation, 1833 offers redeemed and growing. This number was taken 2 months ago on 20th Feb. I’m sure its more by now.
If you’ve been investing in the blockchain for a while, you know how important having a working product is. A lot of blockchain projects are concepts, we don’t know whether they will actually be able to produce a working project, but these guys have a working product and even a working hardware. It makes them a very attractive investment in the blockchain space.
This is their team, my favorite guys is this dude who looks like Einstein. Im going to talk about him first just cos I like him. His name is Brooks Atwood and he’s the project’s Chief design officer and he’s previously worked as design director for R and A architecture, also been a public speaker at TED conferences, been a chief design officer at Bellboi Inc, senior designer at Stargate and more.
Their CEO is Abhishek Pitti, he’s very active and has been doing a lot of AMAs, videos etc.. you can youtube him easily. The Nucleus community loves him. He got a bit of flag of putting on his resume the Harvard business school, because he didn’t actually complete his Harvard degree, he dropped out in the last semester to found Nucleus Vision. Nucleus vision’s marketcap is currently $179 million, so Im guessing he’s doing better than some of his classmates then. So prob a good choice what he did, but I actually agree with the critics that if you didn’t complete the degree don’t put it up on your resume, which he is still doing. There was also some FUD saying he never completed his undergrad, which is not true, he actually completed a degree in aero engineering from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and worked as an aero engineer for a period of time. If you ask me, that’s the university he should put up because that’s the degree he completed. Be proud of your degree and your alma mater.
The rest of your team you can go through, but they have a good team with a lot of experience in their respective fields, but not much blockchain experience prior to Nucleus Vision. But, and this important. Nucleus vision is not a new project guys, it’s a very new coin on the market, but the project was actually started in 2014, so before Ethereum was launched on the crypto market. So even if they only have this one project as their blockchain experience, it doesn’t mean they are losing out to others.
These are their investors, There’s Tim Draper the well known big-time crypto investor, there was some question about whether he was really on board, I think it’s been clarified by Abhishek that he is definitely on board.
You’ve also got other people like Sriram Viswanathan, the co-founder of intel capital and Darshan Patel- India’s entrepeuner of the year 2016 and more. It’s a very decent investors list.
This is their list of advisors. Im an ICON supporter so I was glad to see Min Kim the co-founder of ICON on board.
There’s also founder and CEO of wachsman PR, prob the biggest PR company in the blockchain space.
Arun Seth, former CEO british telecom and guess who? Ian Balina! Ian Balina is a prominent crypto youtuber, with some interesting news recently. I will leave you guys to go do your own homework and decide whether you think having Ian Balina as an advisor is a good or bad thing. There are mixed opinions.
Ok partnerships. This is where there was some serious concerns about Nucleus Vision recently.
Sometime ago, they had put on their website that they were trusted by “trusted by hundreds of brands” and names included Tommy Hilfigure and Nautica etc..
Some guy actually went to ask these brands and found out from them that they didn’t know Nucleus Vision. This sparked a spam FUD and the token price dropped steeply because people began to panic sell.
Another speculation that was causing FUD then too was how big their community was with at that time over 90K telegram users which was bigger than some of the biggest coins and their reddit then had over 60k subs but only 50people online. I’m not concerned with this FUD, because I think the numbers can be easily explained. Back in March there was a couple of big crypto youtubers promoting this coin hard, including Ian Balina and also another channel cryptocurrency news with the main guy Zac saying he believed this coin with 1000x. Each of those guys have more than 100k subs, so its quite understandable how the social media got such large numbers on their social media.
But coming back to the partnerships controversy. The CEO Abhishek has since come out to explain that what happened is they had partnerships with franchise but not the actual brand. So they had partnership with maybe one shop that sold Tommy Hilfigure, but never actually had a partnership yet with the actual brand. So technically, they weren’t lying,
and a lot of the community took up arms and became defensive saying they were right and it was legit.
But the thing is this. Ask yourself honestly, when you put up a brand name on your website saying you are trusted by them, what is the impression you are giving the community? You are giving the visitor the impression that you have had contact with the actual brand. Not just a franchise. So whilst technically you can’t say it was wrong, yet everyone with half a brain knows it was an intentional mislead. And Nucleus knew it too and so they took it down.
Now I’l give you my personal opinion on this, and some won’t like what I have to say. I don’t think Nucleus vision is a scam, I think it’s a legit project that have worked hard to get where they are today. I think they are a good investment, BUT, I think they made a mistake. And they know it that’s why they took down those names. But they never said sorry. The CEO has been doing videos and AMAs telling the community how much he wants to be open with them, redirecting attention to how many MOUs they have and how they are waiting for partnerships to be official and how the whole process was more complicated than they thought etc.. but he is not doing the one thing that many people want which is a simple apology.
Blockchain teams are just people. They will make mistakes. But the crypto community is forgiving and forgives and forgets easily if they apologise. Consider Litecoin and the recent Litepay saga. It wasn’t really Charlie Lee’s fault that the guy running Litepay was a crook. But still Charlie Lee took ownership the very day the news was announced and officially apologised to everyone and litecoin company also apologised to everyone. Some might argue they didn’t have to, but they did, they took ownership and everyone forgave them. No one is calling them a scam coin. Consider another example, Tron and how the English translation done by an unethical volunteer ended up having large bits of plagiarised material. Tron fixed the problem, but they never apologised. And til this day, there is still a sub group of the crypto community who label them a scam and always will.
Nucleus vision risks going down the same path if it continues to insist on not apologising for their mistake. It was a mistake to put premature information up and it was misleading.
I like Nucleus as project I really do. I want to like the CEO, because he is active with videos and tries hard to communicate with the community. The community loves him. But the fact that he still puts up the Harvard symbol on his resume which will give a first time visitor the false impression he has a degree from there, even though he himself has clarified he hasn’t graduated from there and the fact that he still won’t apologise for the mistake of the partnerships, makes me disappointed in him, but not the project. I still like the project.
Alright moving on.
This is their roadmap. It is a very long and detailed roadmap. It goes from 2018 all the way to the end of 2022.
They got scaling across india in Q3 this year, scaling across S.E. Asia in Q4 this year. North America Q1 of 2019.
And you go through the road map you see them target more and more ion sensors deployment, more telcom partnerships and more users.
But Il tell you what is the most exiciting thing to me on their roadmap. It’s actually not on the website or whitepaper roadmap. They have a summary lite paper which is only 9 pages long, but on that lite paper, they have another roadmap that looks like that
It doesn’t talk about the retail expansions step etc.. instead it talks about the different industries they are targeting. So not just retail, but agriculture, health industry, transportation, homes and cities etc…
And all this time as I was reviewing this project, a part of me was thinking, they have the patent to possibly the best IOT technology out there. There are offering governments a potential way of employing IOT technology to connect and collect data on a mass scale cheaply and easily. Governments wont have to manufacture and employ millions of RFID chips or ensure good WIFi throughout the country. With just partnerships with Telcom companies which the governments already have, they probably even have ownerships of those telcom companies. The government can easily collect information on anyone with a mobile phone. The technology of Nucleus Vision should be bigger than just retail. That’s what I was thinking the whole time I was reviewing the tech. So when I saw this roadmap, which shows they are thinking of branching out to other industries, it just sealed the deal for me that this project is going to be absolutely huge. This is what Il be looking forward to in their roadmap, industry expansion.
Alright that leads me to the end, which is price prediction.
Currently the token price is $0.043 and its peak was $0.047 cents. So some people will moan and say, “oh no, I miss the boat, should have gotten in when it was $0.025”.
What I am thinking to myself is this. Imagine when Ethereum was $1 and $2. Imagine if I refused to buy in at $2 or $3 because I thought I missed the boat, because I missed the one dollar price point. I would be kicking myself now. Ethereum is $673 now. It is a price just one year ago, anyone would have laughed and told you was impossible. I believe, and this is just my personal opinion, that in 2-3 years time, Ncash’s price will be so high, the 2-3 cents difference now will be negligible. Even if the token was $0.10 now, I think it is still a cheap entry point.
The current marketcap is just over $170million. I think this coin is very possibly a $10- even 20billion dollar marketcap project, maybe even higher in the long term.
When I look at Nucleus vision, I see a project that is not only going to be one of the biggest blockchain projects, I see a project that will be one of the biggest internet of things (IOT) project which is a bigger market than blockchain, and I also see it as one of the leaders in the AI technology with deep learning. It has patent technology and hardware, and it also has a working product out already. What more do you want? Besides an apology from the CEO. Haha, I had to throw that in.
Look, personally I think it’s a great project, some will disagree with me, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, its all cool. Im not a professional, none of this is professional advice. I definitely wish everyone watching this all the best in whatever they are investing in.
Ok, that’s it guys! That’s my thoughts on Nuclear Vision. Give us a comment below, let us know what you think of Nuclues vision and if you are invested or now. Let me know as well, whether you think the CEO should apologise, or you think they were above reproach on this matter. I am honestly interested to know what you guys think.
Have a fantastic weekend, we will catch you again very soon!
