Thekey (TKY) Fast Facts

• ICO Crowdsale Start Date: November 2017
• Maximum Discount: 20% + 5% (Pre distribution investors with New Years promotion)
• Platform: Neo
• Amount Raised: $22m USD (with a 51% crowdsale, values the company at about $43m USD)

Thekey (TKY) Utility

THEKEY already has real world use for multiple markets in China. Insurance agencies, Government agencies, the Health industry and more are already using the product to identify and monitor usage of hundreds of millions of citizens in the country. A large number of copyrights and patents have already been obtained for the product.

THEKEY uses blockchain technology to provide absolute assurance that the user is who they say they are. Using at least six strong elements, including government data and biometrics, it provides an identity verification that can be used by government agencies and private organisations. Initially targeting a China, THEKEY aims to replace paper based identity requirements, which may be lost, stolen or forged, with a single secure solution.

This token already has an extremely close working relationship with multiple branches of the Chinese government and is being actively pushed by them to continue development of this technology. From the outside, it appears to be one of a few blockchain services with some level of Governmental approval and support.

Thekey (TKY) Team

THEKEY’s team is a who’s who of well connected and business savvy individuals. Leading the team is their CEO Catherine Li. Catherine, who studied and worked in Canada for a number of years, has a strong background working with large datasets in the medical industry. She was awarded the Most Outstanding Women Entrepreneur in China award this year and is passionate about blockchain technology. She also brought home the award for the Most Commercial Valuable Project of the year for her work with the first generation IDV solution, which this project builds upon.

There are few people who have the technical knowledge of the blockchain, the inside business knowledge of the primary market as well as the recognition and the attention in China as Catherine. She is a hugely capable and well connected woman, perfect to lead this team.

Supporting her are a team of technical superstars to ensure the technology can match her brilliance. Ken Huang is THE security and identity management expert in China. He has previously worked as a contractor to US government on a range of cyber security and identity management projects and is now leading a team of technicians to secure and deploy the project.

Interestingly, they have also brought on a set of advisers and partners with a deep knowledge of the blockchain industry. Roger Lim, a notable blockchain investor in Asia, and the NEO foundation are two of the more interesting strategic partners listed in this project.

I rarely give a perfect 100% to any section of these reviews, but the team at THEKEY is truly the right group to achieve their stated goals.

Thekey (TKY) Roadmap

THEKEY are in an enviable postion where they have already been working on this project for three years. They have worked through the tough initial phase of many unknowns and developed a winning product, already in use today by hundreds of millions of users. Their goal with this ICO is to take that established product, add in the advantages from the blockchain and continue to roll it out to larger markets.

They have given themselves 6 months to develop a test product, and then a further 6 months to test that, before launching on mainnet. While China and their Government is clearly the initial target market, THEKEY have been talking to other organisations and foreign governments as well.

Thekey (TKY) Value

A valuation of $43m USD for the company that could be responsible for the next generation of identification in the world’s most populous country appears to offer excellent value to investors. We expect to see significant growth by THEKEY as they continue to sign up new partners and users to its platform.

Thekey (TKY) Transparency

This is the primary area THEKEY should be looking to improve on. Given their target market and staff base, it is clear that THEKEY has a Chinese bias in most aspects. Difficulties in effectively communicating with the western market has been evident throughout the campaign. While mainstream media within China is reporting on the team and the product development, these are often inaccessible or incomprehensible to the non-Chinese audience. English communication coming from the company has not always provided the clarity that would be expected by an organisation of this size.

The campaign has effectively been conducted in four currencies (NEO, ETH, BTC and USD), each with their own fluctuation in value to each other. A hardcap in USD is providing further concern as the effect on the distribution ratio of tokens isn’t fully known yet.

Social media and chat channels are all extremely busy with investors flooding in with praise and queries for the project.

Thekey (TKY) Distribution

The whitepaper is extremely detailed and covers the existing generation 1 IDV solution, as well as the plans for gen 2. It is good to see the majority (51%) of tokens going to members of the pubic.

THEKEY are not using a smart-contract based distribution method. Instead, they rely on an extremely manual, cumbersome and resource intensive process to confirm KYC requirements and ordering of TKY tokens.

Thekey (TKY) Summary

This outstanding team has an outstanding product already in the market in one of the largest countries in the world (on many different fronts). THEKEY could solve identification issues in the real world as we move into the cyber realm.

The pre-distribution phase is ending shortly, but even without the discounts in the standard crowdsale, this token still offers outstanding value and a very large upside to investors.

Crypto Coin Disclosure

The author is providing some assistance with the community engagement of this project for English speakers.
He does not hold any tokens, but will be investing into the standard public pre-distribution phase.
No payment or private consultation was sought for this article.

Read about our transparency requirements.