Zilla: The Most Helpful ICO Tool of the Year

Some of the most common questions I receive from those outside the crypto space are “What should I buy?” or “How do I participate in an ICO?”

Disclaimer: I am not a financial advisor & therefore absolve myself of all responsibility (directly or indirectly) for any damage, loss caused, alleged to be caused by, or in connection with the use of or reliance on any content, goods or services mentioned in this article. As usual, DYOR.

While you can buy into and support existing coins/projects by purchasing them on exchanges, ICOs offer a promising alternative to seed investing by helping you get your foot in the door early, offering you massive discounts or bonuses at significantly reduced rates (compared to what they’d be trading at once they hit exchanges), and allowing you to show your support for a project during its earliest days of inception.

But ICOs in general can be a daunting process & there’s somewhat of a learning curve behind them:

1. create an account on an exchange where you can purchase/trade fiat for ETH
2. create a MyEtherWallet (aka MEW)
3. transfer your ETH from the exchange to your MEW
4. find out the ICO’s ETH address & purchase requirements
5. send ETH from your MEW to the ICO’s ETH address

Newbies may seem overwhelmed with all these steps (and more) when initially delving into the ICO world; all the while trying to ensure they’re not confusing their addresses with their private keys, or sending to a wrong (or even real) address so their funds don't get lost in space! All the pitfalls involved in the purchase process leaves a lot of room for a lot of error.

Zilla simplifies all that! Its founder (Abasa Phillips) describes his product as the “Amazon 1-Click” for ICOs. Their platform allows you to browse all ICOs in one place & evaluate general public opinion on each ICO, as an upvote/downvote system will be implemented so that scams will rank lower in overall hierarchy. This voting system is also meant to give its users a general idea on whether or not a project has the potential to “pop.”

In my opinion, a project demonstrates worlds of accountability AND credibility when they already have a minimum viable product (MVP) in place. Not only is Zilla’s platform already being built, but they were originally planning on launching their own ICO on it as well! This early version is soon to be released, which--although you initially won’t be able to participate in an ICO with it--you’ll still be able to vote on ICOs to provide (and receive) general community sentiment regarding a certain coin/ICO/project. It’s not until wallet functionality is added into their platform (which is set to happen very soon; December projection) that you’ll be able to actually participate in an ICO.

And it’s not only Ethereum-based tokens (ERC-20 tokens) that will be made available to you. Zilla plans on expanding their reach to other blockchain-based tokens (take NEO for example, where the Red Pulse ICO took place last October) so that there’s not only a wide variety for an investor to choose from, but also--from the ICO team’s perspective--increased exposure. Why is this important? Well, did you know that Japan has a ton of ICOs launching left & right, yet the majority of English-speakers are very much unaware of them?

Another problem Zilla tackles & resolves is the overwhelming amount of information provided by a coin in their whitepaper (WP). I've delved into tons of WPs myself, and those of you who’ve done so too know very well that WPs all have different formats, and each coin will be sold with differing token metrics in mind. Zilla plans on presenting each ICO with a standard, easy-to-read format that provides a good general overview for its users so that the information is simpler to digest. Every ICO will also be provided with a separate page for token metrics so that breaking it down is more user-friendly.

Team evaluation is also a crucial aspect when analyzing a project. As I mentioned earlier, the Zilla team is being led by Abasa Phillips, who’s been in the crypto space since 2011 & has grown several successful startups in the past (PRIMO & Pegapay to name a few). Originally from America, he leaped across the Pacific & made a huge name for himself in the Asian markets; impressively fluent in both Japanese & Chinese as well! He’s also slated to speak in Bangkok during the Blockchain World Conference, which I’m very excited to attend this December 4th!

Their compliance officer, Tomomi Yamashita, has formerly worked at Merrill Lynch, American Express, and Citi. Adding such a hard-hitting compliance advisor to the Zilla team is extremely important, as it ensures they’re always one step ahead of regulations, which are becoming increasingly more difficult as governments attempt to regulate the cryptocurrency industry as a whole. This is just the tip of the iceberg and after evaluating the rest of the Zilla team, I feel like I’m putting my money in good hands with them.

Speaking of money, Zilla is preventing scammers from placing products on their platform by requiring each & every ICO team to fill out a full Know Your Customer (KYC) form. If a certain team or user has demonstrated shady business practices, they will instantly be banned from the Zilla platform for life!

As far as Zilla’s token functionality, public crowdsale participants will be able to partake in any ICO while being charged ZERO fees! ICO teams will be charged 2% fees for using Zilla’s platform, but if they’re token holders, this fee is reduced to only 1%. They’re also providing an additional feature called Zilla Black, where subscribers can get access to data that helps them determine which ICOs are the most promising. Subscription for this service will cost 1 ETH per month, but crowdsale participants will be able to access it for free for life!

The last thing I’d like to point out is that normally, ICO pre-sale prices for a specific token are made available only to venture capitalist firms or whale investors (say, 200 ETH minimum for example). The Zilla team is proactively building relationships with every ICO team so that they’re allocated a certain pre-sale amount that will be designated for Zilla users! This means that instead of having to invest a large amount at once (like 200 ETH) to get the pre-sale discount/bonus, you can purchase through Zilla for as little as 1 ETH to get that same discount/bonus rate!

In summary, I have very high hopes for Zilla as I believe a more user-friendly product such as theirs is absolutely essential if we want to see higher cryptocurrency adoption rates in today’s society. In fact, I’m surprised that something like this hasn’t come out sooner, as it’s long been overdue!