Divi — The Future of Blockchain Marketplaces

6 min readJan 2, 2018

(First published November 2017 on Steemit: https://easyicoreviews.com/diviproject/)

Launched in January 2017, Divi is looking to bring cryptocurrency to the masses, but with another approach than that of Electroneum.
Whereas Electroneum caters more to the gamers out there, Divi has its focus on gaining mass adoption through a peer-to-peer decentralized marketplace — think of it like eBay on the blockchain (insane potential!). The thought behind the vision is that people are investing in and trading with cryptocurrencies, but there is nowhere to actually spend them — and this is one of the problems that Divi seek to solve.
The value and use of the DIVI token will come partly from users having to spend DIVI on other users’ items and small fees when they list products.

But they are doing more than just that. The Divi Project is also going to implement an extremely userfriendly wallet with multiple functions like renaming of wallet addresses (so you can have “your_friend-Divi” instead of “x6yh5as069ysah42d…..”, user search, messaging, instant exchange, MultiSig security, scheduled payments & subscriptions, a piggy bank, automatic taxes, and even a Divi credit card!

As you can see below, it’s about time cryptocurencies come out of the clausets and into the “real” world. Divi has a huge emphasis on being the early wave of mass-scale adoption, and the Divi blockchain is set to go live in Q1 2018 with the Token Sale starting on Nov 8, 2017.

(Screenshot from the whitepaper)

The Divi Team

Divi Project Team

The vision is enormous so the question remains: can they pull it off?
With a solid team of 8 members, 4 advisors (inkluding Tim Sanders, former Yahoo! Chief Solutions Officer) and 3 brand ambassadors, it definitely looks promising.
I couldn’t find confirmation of who the CEO is as there seems to be multiple Founding Partners — it would indeed suit the vision to have a decentralized leadership.
Let’s take a look at some of the individual members:

Founding Partner Geoff McCabe
Geoff has founded two multimillion dollar companies, Seventh Sense Inc and Anthology Inc. He currently owns Tropisphere Real Estate, a top real estate firm in Costa Rica, and he has designed and managed more than 10 Costa Rica-related websites. He’s also blogging on his VR website, virtualrealitytimes.com.
All in all a very experienced guy, although my one concern is that he might not want to devote 100% of his time to the Divi Project with all these businesses of his. Only time will tell.

Former Microsoft Creative Director Michael Greenwood
Working with UIX design at Divi, Michael is really one of those heavy conerstones in any company. He brings 20+ years of experience in digital media to the table. Other than Microsoft, Michael has worked with Nike, Amazong, and Fly Dubai.

Founder & Lead Programmer Phil Eggen
“Phil Eggen has been writing code since he could type.”
He’s previously been working as MEAN/iOS Developer/Designer at RD Media, Ocean & H, and Mandeville before co-founding Divi. He seems like the kind of guy who can discover a new technology, and, before you know it, be an expert in it.

Lead Strategist Maxwell O’Brien
O’Brien has founded multiple startups and started his adventure in the crypto space by participating in Ethereum’s early stages. To me, this alone proves his insights in the market and ability to innovate (who wouldn’t have loved to buy ETH at less than $1!?)
He also worked as a Real Estate Agent at Bennion Deville Homes before joining the Divi Project.

The Divi App, Masternodes, and Lottery.

Divi App

As already mentioned, the Divi app is going to have A LOT of interesting features.
But one of the more interesting things that we haven’t discussed yet is their Masternode System with 5 tiers — something that hasn’t been done before. DIVI (the Divi Token) is going to be a PoS (Proof of Stake) system as opposed to PoW (Proof of Work, like Bitcoin).
Masternodes basically replace miners in the blockchain. What this means is that instead of having to purchase expensive mining rigs to acquire coins, all you have to do is “stake” the coins you already own to help secure the network — and get paid in DIVI. If you’ve heard of NEO, this is essentially the same concept, except with five tiers instead of NEO’s one.

The 5 levels of ownership are as follows:
1000 Coins — Level 1: Copper
3000 Coins — Level 2: Silver +5%
10,000 Coins — Level 3: Gold +10%
30,000 Coins — Level 4: Platinum +15%
100,000 Coins — Level 5: Diamond + 20%

The more coins you have, the better your chances are of receiving coins when a new block is formed. This incentivizes growth and brings value to the coin.

On top of that, Divi is going to implement a lottery. Each minute, a new block will be mined containing 12.5 DIVI coins. From each block, ½ DIVI token will go to the lottery fund from which 11 winners are drawn every week. Each winner will receive up to 5,000 DIVI and, if the coin’s value reaches even just $10, well, that’s $50,000 dollars!

There is SO MUCH MORE to cover, but these are some of the key points. I will link the whitepaper and FAQ below for those of you who want a more in-depth explanation of how this all works.

Fund Distribution

So, when you invest your hard-earned money, you might want to know where it all goes.
Whereas some companies choose to reserve a big portion of the tokens for themselves — sometimes up to 50%, Divi seems to have a healthy fund destribution:

(Chart from https://www.meta-chart.com/pie)

After that, 20% will be distributed to a reserve: 10% for marketing expenses and such, and 10% to be vested by founders for a minimum of 2 years — inaccessible to the founders for this period of time.

Token Sale

As previously mentioned, the Token Sale begins somewhere around November 8.
A single DIVX* token is going to cost you about 60 cents, with a 30% discount in the first three weeks, 15% in the next three, and with no bonus in the last three weeks ($0.60).

The DIVX token acts as the “placeholder” token until the Divi blockchain goes live and the DIVI token becomes available. When it does, you will then need to redeem your DIVX tokens from the Token Sale for DIVI at a 1:1 ratio within a 60 day period after which both your DIVX and DIVI tokens will be sent back to you.
The DIVX token will probably not keep its value after this event, but according to this FAQ the team might find some practical use for it.

So, should you invest?

Well, I can’t give you financial advice but I can tell you that I am definitely going to put at least some of my profits into the Divi Project.
I’m gonna sum up this review with a quote from the whitepaper:
“The Divi Project has a novel solution to solve the biggest and most lucrative problem in the crypto world: “Mass Adoption” by ordinary people. We seek to bring the power of the blockchain to those who now shun it, currently finding it too technical, uninteresting and scary. There has never been a bigger financial opportunity in history, and the Divi Project intends to be first to market with a viable solution.”

There are so many ICOs coming up at the moment with the promise to deliver mass adoption — some of them will die off and some will definitely take off faster than you can imagine. In my eyes, Divi seems like a solid candidate with their innovative reward systems and the team’s extensive business experience.

Website: www.diviproject.org
Lottery article here.
Masternodes explained here.
Whitepaper here.

Only invest what you can afford to lose!