Syscoin Review: The First Fully Decentralised Marketplace

As cryptocurrencies move closer to gaining mainstream acceptance, their interaction with e-commerce platforms should prove to be vital. There have been rumblings that online retail giants Amazon and Ebay are looking at the possibility of allowing Bitcoin payments on their sites.

Syscoin hopes to bypass third parties altogether and aims to provide a decentralized marketplace that can give centralized sites like Amazon a run for their money.

What is Syscoin (SYS)?

Syscoin markets itself as being a global network, a distributed ledger, a decentralized database, and a blockchain. On top of all this, it is also a cryptocurrency with the platform including its native SYS token.

The project is headed by Sebastian Schepis who is both a creator of Syscoin and a core developer and the project is also well supported by the Blockchain Foundry. The Foundry acts as a blockchain technology development company and creates commercial blockchain based solutions for both individuals and businesses. Despite being started in 2016, the Blockchain Foundry management team were instrumental in developing the Syscoin protocol in 2014.

The Syscoin project is something of a Swiss Army Knife and the comprehensive platform contains a collection of features that can be used to provide solutions for a wide range of decentralized services.

One of the main aims of the team behind the project is to bypass middlemen and place control back into the hands of retailers and consumers, whilst eliminating the substantial fees currently being charged by the leading e-commerce platforms.

What Makes Syscoin Special?

Syscoin came to life as a fork of the Bitcoin protocol in 2014 and has an algorithm that allows for merge-mining with Bitcoin. This allows miners to simultaneously mine cryptocurrencies that are based on the same algorithm, and Syscoin is able to leverage the power of merge-mining with Bitcoin and other SHA-256 coins. This provides Syscoin with a highly secure and stable network that acts as a solid foundation to the platform.

In addition to providing a fully decentralized marketplace, the Syscoin platform also incorporates a number of key features aimed at enhancing the entire e-commerce experience. For instance, users have access to an unlimited inventory, while retailers can both resell other users’ goods and allow their products to be resold for a commission.

Prices in the marketplace can be pegged to fiat currencies such as USD, EUR, and GBP or to the price of BTC. While the marketplace also incorporates an arbitrated escrow feature that holds tokens in escrow until the terms of the sale are met and the funds are released to the seller.

The platform also incorporates encrypted messaging, wallet addresses linked to names, and digital certificates that allow users to issue and exchange private digital assets such as registration keys and gift cards codes.

On top of all this, Syscoin offers close to zero cost financial transactions, and in order to unlock these low fees, users need to make payments via the native SYS cryptocurrency. The platform also allows for payments to be made in Bitcoin and Zcash (ZEC).

How Viable is the Project?

Syscoin is an established project having been around since 2014 and still has a lot of room to grow in terms of developing their user base and generating significant revenues.

The project works in direct opposition to centralized business markets and allows users to sell anything directly on the Syscoin blockchain or build a business site that uses their infrastructure to process transactions.

The team has developed a fully functional product and has worked to incorporate a number of features that make the platform a truly viable alternative to sites such as Amazon and Ebay.

In addition, Syscoin has the ability to increase in value due to speculation as well as benefiting from deriving intrinsic value from the range of decentralized services it provides.

Syscoin’s blockchain can support 750 transactions per second (TPS), and this is scheduled to increase to up to 300,000 TPS with a planned masternode release. The SYS token is currently one of the lowest fee cryptocurrencies on the market and only lags behind transaction fee free cryptocurrencies such as NANO and NEO.

Crucially, the platform also allows for distributed certificate management and utilizes cryptographic techniques that allow users to issue, authorize, and exchange a range of digital certificates.

These certificates can be authenticated via the platform’s use of a cryptographic proof of work mechanism and this opens the door to the widespread creation and exchange of digital assets such as certifications, ownership documents, receipts, event tickets, software licenses and warranties.

Syscoin also makes use of hardened smart contracts that are reinforced and cannot be compromised in the same way as Ethereum smart contracts and this makes the platform a serious option for organisations involved in insurance, medicine, and gaming.

This also allows for a range of goods and services to be traded on the site that surpasses the current abilities of most centralized marketplaces.

Despite incorporating all these features, the project still has a number of obstacles to overcome in order to attract mainstream adoption. Currently, the leading mainstream marketplaces are extremely well known and it will take a comprehensive and prolonged period of advertising and marketing in order to attract users to the site.

Syscoin is also competing with platforms such as Shopify and Wordpress (Woocommerce) which allow retailers to set up e-commerce sites relatively easily and are also very well known.

In addition to having to fight for attention, Syscoin is also facing “internal” competition from other blockchain operations. BitBay also operates as a decentralized marketplace that allows for the trading of goods and services without the need for middlemen. While newcomer Origin Protocol is also poised to establish itself in the world of decentralized marketplaces.

Is Syscoin Worth Investing In?

As one of the market’s more established coins, crypto investors should feel more comfortable knowing that the project has a good number of years behind it. However, up until March 2017, Syscoin had a market cap of just $6m and each SYS traded at a price of $0.01.

A surge in interest in the summer saw the project increase significantly in value before the end of year Bull Run saw SYS trade at a price of around $0.91 and reach a market cap of $487m.

As a result, it’s easy for new investors to think that they may have missed the boat even though the token currently trades at approximately $0.70 and retains a market cap in the region of $375m. However, a number of developments should see the project continue to increase in value over the year.

Masternodes are scheduled to go live in Q1 of 2018 and this will facilitate up to 300,000 TPS, in addition, micropayments are due to become functional as the Lightening network is incorporated into the Syscoin core mainnet.

The team has also outlined their plans for the year stating:

Our 2018 development plans include adding decentralized databases and file storage, increasing transaction speed to POS/Visa/MasterCard capabilities, adding true Turing-complete smart contract capabilities for unlimited business logic, sidechains, application layers, and our identity laye

To sum up, Syscoin is backed by a strong team that generally deliver on their promises. The platform contains a range of features that will prove valuable to retailers and is well positioned to make its mark as blockchain technology becomes more well known.

Also, as Amazon, Ebay, and PayPal continue to increase their fees and enforce stricter rules, online vendors will soon have little choice but to look for cheaper alternatives.

Syscoin is a blockchain protocol that allows both individuals and businesses to trade goods and services, data, and digital certificates both securely and at a low cost. The platform will benefit massively from any significant increase in adoption and new investors may be best served to view the project in the medium to long term even though it has shown an ability to spike suddenly in value.