Araneobit is a Russian blockchain project aimed at making international banking services cheap, widely available, fast, and decentralized. The services performed by the network will include remittances, loans, and all manner of cross-border financial transactions.
Users of the Araneobit platform will not need to use the system’s native token, Token Z, but those who do will receive commission discounts while using the platform. Araneobit has mobile apps in development for release later this year. The company hopes to open offices in 48 countries and have 16 million users by the end of 2019.
Why Does the World Need Something Like Araneobit?
When analyzing a new blockchain project for quality, it’s important to clearly understand the project’s use case. What problem is the platform trying to solve? In the case of Araneobit, the company wants to greatly simplify international banking, by bypassing today’s most common channels: international banks, Western Union, Moneygram, etc.
If you’ve ever sent money overseas, you know how expensive and slow each of these options is. This is one of the reasons that blockchain projects like Bitcoin have been such a sensation: they cut out the middleman, eliminating time and cost from the equation. Those who understand the tech have been taking advantage of it for years.
But that’s the problem; most people don’t understand Bitcoin. And even among crypto enthusiasts, Bitcoin is a somewhat dubious means of wealth transfer because of its extreme volatility. Araneobit has a number ofways in which it will make border-free blockchain money transfer much more accessible to the everyday user.
What is Araneobit’s Plan to Get 16 Million Users?
The key to changing the international money transfer payment paradigm, outside of the current international banking system, is providing an experience so simple that anybody can understand it and do it. That’s why Araneobit is focusing on mobile users. Mobile device adoption rates continue to soar across the world, and Araneobit envisions a world in which all of these users will be able to move money around through decentralized channels from a device of their choice.
To create this future, Araneobit is creating mobile apps for all major operating systems. These are meant to launch later this year, at which time we’ll really be able to discern the quality of the Araneobit project. Mobile uptake is key. Araneobit is not yet well known outside of Russia, and even there it has big marketing challenges to achieve. If they do manage to produce a “killer app”, the sky is the limit for how far Araneobit could go in disrupting the international banking order.
Who Will Benefit From the Araneobit Platform and Services?
Araneobit is casting a wide net in its search for users. Fundamentally, the service serves people who send international remittances. Remittances can technically be used as payment for any service, but in common conversation, the term usually regards a family member working in one country sending money to family back home in another country.
Users like this are plagued with high costs from usurious services like Western Union. It’s not uncommon to see a person losing well more than 10% of the small amount they’re sending this way. These individuals are ones least able to afford high transfer costs, but they often pay the most. Contrast this with Araneobit, which charges 0% for transfers under $100.
This is far from the extent of Araneobit’s services, however. The company can easily offer any service which deals with the transfer of funds, particularly across national borders. International loans and spending can be performed with ease. Investments in foreign assets become much more accessible. The transfer of wealth becomes faster and less expensive.
The Araneobit team sees a global financial community, smothered in the straightjacket of national borders. Blockchain as a new infrastructure of money transfer eliminates high fees and long waits. With early adoption for simple transfers, Araneobit will have lots of time to add additional services for its ever growing user base.
What Does it Cost to Use Araneobit?
It’s important to note that the Araneobit network isn’t usable for the general public, because the Araneobit applications are as yet unreleased. However, the company has made clear what will be the cost for using the network.
For transfers of less than $100, there is 0% commission and service fees. The low costs that exist are “Eaten” by the company as an incentive for people to use the channel. It’s easy to imagine Araneobit filling a niche much like Venmo in the United States, which allows individuals to quickly send each other digital cash when they need to split a check or perform some other simple exchange.
It’s in the $100-$1,000 transfer price range where Araneobit makes its money. Depending on various factors, these transfers are charged a commission fee between 0.2% and 2.0%. For larger transfers, the price goes down again, with a minimum fee of 0.06% to 0.6%. It stands to reason that larger transfers are charged a lower rate than medium transfers, as the company makes more money without performing any additional work.
Users can send fiat currencies like USD, or they can transfer fiat wealth into Token Z, the native token of the Araneobit platform. When using this token , Araneobit will discount their transfers, as a further incentive to use Araneobit and not some competitor, present or future.
How to Buy Token Z in the Araneobit ICO
Araneobit is currently in its “closed Pre-sale phase”. During this time, the company is doing widespread outreach within Russia and to Russian cryptocurrency investors. It’s unclear how many Token Z coins will be distributed during this phase, but Araneobit has made clear than 70% of the coin supply will go to investors.
You can request an invitation to the ICO/Pre-sale through this link. The public ICO will officially begin on August 1, 2018. Registered participants can contribute Ethereum (Token Z will be a token released on the Ethereum blockchain). The company is capping this public ICO at 25,000 Eth.
Who is the Araneobit Team?
Araneobit’s corporate, development, and advisor teams are refreshingly public, with easy-to-verify credentials. We won’t go into great detail because short bios are available for most team members, images of which we’ll give you below.
The Araneobit Roadmap
Because Araneobit has yet to release the mainnet of their platform (though there is hope that the apps will be released before the August 2018 ICO), it’s important to look closely at their roadmap. Potential investors should decide how promising they believe the roadmap to be and, based on previous achievements of the team, how realistic these goals are to actually produce.
The team hit their Q1 website release goal, as stated in their roadmap. It’s during Q2 and Q3 2018 that things really start to get interesting. The following are to be accomplished before August:
- Final testing of the Araneobit applications and platform functionality.
- Real P2P transactions verifying proof of concept.
- Creation of the “Cluster Blockchain” system.
Starting with the public Araneobit ICO, the company will enter the next stage of its roadmap:
- Opening international offices.
- Creating partnerships with online companies and retailers.
- Building of a data center.
Between 2019 and 2020, the company wants to perfect its data center, create an online store, and be active in at least 25 countries, both as an application and through the operation of company offices.
Why Does Araneobit Need to Use Blockchain?
It’s important for potential investors to question the premises of the companies behind potential investments. It’s almost a cliche in crypto at this point that the ICO can be a money grab for scams, and that blockchain is being used by companies who have no need of it, specifically because they want to grow quickly because of the attention pouring into the space.
Araneobit is one company that actually needs to use a blockchain to create its desired reality. Blockchain is the only way to achieve instant transfers and low fees, without using existing centralized networks. Blockchain was literally made for convenient financial applications. Araneobit is building upon the firm foundation built by Bitcoin and the best financial altcoins.
It’s important to note that Araneobit is building a “Cluster” blockchain, not just your run-of-the-mill Bitcoin-inspired blockchain. The Cluster blockchain can perhaps be compared most closely to IOTA’s Tangle. Novel new blockchain designs are, as yet, unproven, and even IOTA has yet to demonstrate that its network can handle the demands of a global user base. However, this could be said of blockchain itself and should not be seen as a deterrent from the Araneobit model.
Final Thoughts on Araneobit
Like so many other blockchain projects, Araneobit really just needs to build its platform, and then the world will see if they can be successful. There’s a lot to like in the Araneobit white paper and marketing information. It’s true that the world has a massive market for remittances and international banking, and that the current international finance order is inefficient and expensive. Araneobit, or a company very much like Araneobit, could easily step into this disorder and introduce a new paradigm.
Araneobit seems to distinguish itself in that its vision for building its blockchain-based international banking is founded on a correct understanding of the needs of the global market. People need to be able to move money and benefit from complex banking services, without being limited to the possibilities contained in their own nation. We are a global society, and this will only become more so in the coming years.
Based on this accurate perspective, we think that Araneobit’s blockchain-based banking resources model could be a big hit. When the Araneobit apps get wide release later this year, we’ll finally know if the network demonstrates the ease of use necessary to make Araneobit a household name. Until then, investors should be watching closely Araneobit’s activity in Russia. Those who would like to invest should definitely contact Araneobit now and try to get in on the ICO or Pre-sale.
In the years to come, blockchain will fundamentally change the global financial order. Will Araneobit be a key player in this revolution? Only time will tell, but we’re optimistic that they’ll be making a splash in 2018.