Crypto Briefing Research Department

September 20, 2019

NASH DIGITAL ASSET REPORT:NEX Review and Investment Grade

Project Profile ........................................................................................ 3

Fundamental Factors ............................................................................. 4

Grade ................................................................................................... 5

Summary .............................................................................................. 6

Market Opportunity ................................................................................ 7

Underlying Technology ........................................................................ 11

Ecosystem Development ..................................................................... 15

Token Economics ................................................................................ 19

Core Team .......................................................................................... 22

Roadmap Progress .............................................................................. 26

Token Performance ............................................................................. 28

Conclusion ........................................................................................... 35

Disclaimer ........................................................................................... 36

Contents

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NASH NEX

Key Metrics STO Information

Current Price

Market Capitalization

Top 10 Addresses Combined

ATH Price

30-Day Average Price

24H Volume

30-Day Average 24H Volume

Sharpe Ratio

$1.72

$62,299,654

56.1%

$3.43 (Aug 05, 2019)

$2.08

$3,047,131

$3,215,759

-0.32

Sep 3, 2018 - Sep 14, 2018

$1

$25,000,000

N/A

28,380,513 NEX

50,000,000 NEX

$12,250,000

STO Dates

STO Price

Public Allocation

Private Allocation

Circulating Supply

Total Supply

VC Funding

nash.io Whitepaper

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Fundamental Factors

Market Opportunity

Core Team

Ecosystem Development

Token Performance

Underlying Technology

Roadmap Progress

Token Economics

5.5

7.5

5.5

5.0

7.8

6.0

6.5

Combined Score: 6.3

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C

GradeUsability issues present substantial issue for token; significant uncertainty,

but project still demonstrates moderate progress on development or

ecosystem fronts, having passed important milestones, albeit with delays.

Adverse conditions in the market pose major risk to value of token.

Methodology

For a full description of our methodology, please click on:https://simetri.cryptobriefing.com/methodology/

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Nash, formerly known as Neon Exchange, is a decentralized (non-custodial) digital asset exchange that was born during the crypto boom of 2017. The team behind the project is building a platform that enables decentralized cross-chain trading with the functionality and speed of similar centralized (custodial) services.

The exchange caters to the demands of retail users by adding fiat on/off-ramps, a sleek UI/UX design, open-source developer SDKs and more.

While technologically Nash presents an interesting solution, ongoing delays in the development have been hindering its progress. The exchange was launched in September 2019, almost a year overdue. Still, user access is currently limited (referral code needed for registration), the number of trading pairs is small and as a result trading volume is nearly zero. Moreover, the team is taking

more time to fully launch the platform and “will need at least one quarter to fine-tune the operations.”

Slow development is likely to have a negative effect on its market position. Nash is trying to enter a highly competitive space, where several key centralized players control the majority of the trading volume. It is highly questionable that users from these exchanges will be willing to switch to a relatively new decentralized solution with limited functionality and extremely low volume.

Given the previous history of delays, it could take a while for Nash to integrate all the necessary features and overcome the initial lack of liquidity. The team needs to accelerate its pace of development, otherwise it risks facing major problems with user acquisition and ecosystem growth.

Summary

WHILE TECHNOLOGICALLY NASH PRESENTS AN INTERESTING SOLUTION, ONGOING DELAYS IN THE DEVELOPMENT HAVE BEEN HINDERING ITS PROGRESS.

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Market Opportunity

Nash is trying to enter the cryptocurrency exchange market, which became a multi-billion dollar industry during the crypto boom of 2017.

Crypto assets may revolutionize the global financial system, and according to some reports, reach a value from $5T to $40T in 10 years. This will have a direct effect on trading volumes, making exchanges one of the key beneficiaries of the industry expansion.

However, as the field continues to evolve, competition will intensify. While Nash can find some success competing with its decentralized rivals, it will be extremely difficult for it to compete with industry giants such as Binance, Coinbase, Bitfinex, and Huobi.

Compared to Nash, large centralized exchanges have higher liquidity and provide a wider selection of trading pairs. In addition, they offer their users additional profit opportunities such as trading competitions, IEO projects and staking support. They also present advanced functionality for institutional traders; custody services; margin trading; futures and many more.

Having a much smaller team and fewer financial resources, it will be difficult for Nash to catch up with the level and quality of services offered by centralized exchanges.

By offering non-custodial trading solution, Nash provides a safer option, since there is no single point of failure, and users are always in control of their funds. The DEX model also decreases the risks of price manipulation and falsification of trade volumes, a major point of concern for many centralized exchanges. Still, without significant volume, these benefits alone will not give Nash a significant edge over its centralized counterparts.

Established players already have working mechanisms in place to secure the funds of their users, and store the majority of their crypto assets in cold wallets. Beyond this, Binance has a multimillion Secure Asset Fund for Users and allocates 10% of all trading fees received into this fund to provide insurance to potential breaches.

Summary

• Nash has a lot of competition, mainly from custodial exchanges like Binance, Bitfinex, Coinbase, Huobi• The exchange offers non-custodial cross-chain trading, which gives it an advantage over its decentralized competition

• The project has to push for an all-round expansion to capitalize on its technological strengths

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Bitfinex 0.2% taker 0.1% maker for trading volume below <$500K

2012 - Margin trading- Lending- Advanced order types- API platform, charting tools- Corporate accounts and professional trading

$136.5M $1B

Coinbase 0.25% taker 0.15% maker for trading volume below <$100K

2012 - Retail and pro exchange- Margin trading- Fiat on-off ramp- Retail friendly app- Custody solutions

$249.2M N/A

Project name Launch Date Key features Fees

Nash

Binance

median taker fee 0.19% and zero maker fees

If you are not using BNB to pay your trading fees, each trade will carry a standard fee of 0.1%

2019

2017

- NEX dividend token- Limit, market, stop-market orders- Maker/Taker fee structure- Decentralized trading

- KYC- Limit, market, stop orders- Advanced API features- Margin and Features trading- OTC trading

24-Volume

$7.5K

$1.2B

Market Cap

$62M

$3.3B

Huobi 0.2% taker 0.2% maker

2013 - OTC legal service- Rewards of sub-tokens- Fiat on-off ramp- Margin trading

$786.9M $1B

Competition - Centralized Exchanges

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In regards to price manipulation and wash trading, the centralized market is also maturing, with transparency initiatives such as CoinMarketCap Data Accountability & Transparency Alliance. This should lead to greater accountability for centralized entities, with at least the top players reducing the impact of illicit activity to a minimum.

While custodial exchanges are the de-facto options for most traders, still some prefer decentralized alternatives valuing the idea «Not your keys, not your bitcoin».

Still, while the market expected DEXes to be fully decentralized, and have no point of control, the SEC fine for EtherDelta DEX founder, showed that even decentralized exchanges will need to stay compliant with regulations and follow AML/KYC procedures in order to exist on this market.

The team behind Nash has stated that their goal is to provide users a decentralized exchange experience that is as good as that of the top centralized exchanges. So, Nash has been focusing heavily on the user experience and at the same time has put a lot of efforts to comply with regulations, by fully registering its tokens as a European security.

The fact that Nash is staying compliant with the European regulations, is a good factor for its long term viability, but limits its differentiation from centralized exchanges in the near term.

Also, it is important not to overlook the benefits of the technological

solution realized under the hood. Nash’s cross-chain trading engine is able to match the orders off-chain and then finalize the transfer of assets on-chain, without controlling user balances. This improves the trading speed and at the same time expands the number of trading pairs the decentralized exchange can offer.

As an example, players like IDEX or Kyber Network are limited by the speed of Ethereum’s blockchain and cannot offer trading pairs beyond Ethereum’s ERC-20 tokens. Now, there are more scalable solutions such as the Binance DEX, but even compared to them, Nash presents a more elegant solution, when it comes to facilitating trading.

Concerningly, the likes of Waves DEX and Stellar DEX, have been developed to feature similar functionality and allow pairs outside of their underlying blockchains, but this so far, has not attracted enough volume to make them prominent in the space.

Similarly, for Nash, it may not be enough to just have good technology, to become competitive in this market.

With this said, Nash is entering a highly competitive market, where it will be very difficult to contend with a few dominant players which make up most of the actual traded volume.

Still, with its non-custodial model, Nash can find market share, but the exchange will need to deliver on all fronts in order to be considered by the cryptocurrency traders as a viable alternative.

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Project name Launch Date Key features Fees

Nash median taker fee 0.19% and zero maker fees

2019 - NEX dividend token- Limit, market, stop-market orders- Maker/Taker fee structure- NEO/ETH cross-chain trading- Off-Chain matching engine

24-Volume

$7.5K

Binance DEX between 0.04% and 0.1% depending on the asset

2019 - Uses BNB for trading- Launched on Binance Chain- Similar performance to Binance CEX- No market/limit orders- Crypto is withdrawn through Binance or integrations with Cosmos

$2.2M

Kyber Network 0.25% of the transaction value

2018 - On-chain liquidity protocol $1.1M

Waves DEX Flat fee model - 0.003 WAVES per transaction

2018 - Uses matcher nodes to match trader orders - Based on the Waves blockchain- Fiat gateways- Non-Waves based token trading via atomic swaps

$269.5K

IDEX 0.2% taker 0.1% maker

2017 - Part of the Aurora Project (a DeFi platform)- Ethereum exchange- Support for limit and market orders

$585.7K

Stellar DEX no maker fees and taker fees of 0.15%

2014 - Multiple exchanges running on the Stellar blockchain (Interstellar, Stellaport, etc.)- DEX functionality built into the protocol of Stellar- Trading and matching engine happen on-chain

$38.8К

Competition - Decentralized Exchnages

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Underlying Technology

Technologically, Nash is ahead of its decentralized competition with key features, including high-speed order matching, cross-chain trading, and complex order types. However, compared to centralized rivals it still lags behind in terms of functionality. While the team strives to make Nash perform on-par with its centralized counterparts, it may take significant time given the history of delays.

In order to compete with the high-speed order matching of centralized alternatives, Nash uses an off-chain distributed matching engine built on the NEO blockchain. Matching orders is considered the most time-consuming part of decentralized trading, so by moving it off-chain Nash increases the speed to 100,000 trades per second. Such speed makes it possible for Nash to have almost instant order execution, in contrast to the slow speeds of its decentralized rivals.

In addition to providing high speeds, the matching engine lets Nash beat its decentralized rivals by supporting advanced order types (good ‘til time, fill or kill, stop-market and more) and APIs.

Summary

• Nash’s decentralized nature makes the listing of new assets more technologically difficult and time-consuming• The technical improvements required to achieve significant adoption may take a significant amount of time

• Nash provides high-speed order matching and cross-chain trading, which differentiates it from the majority of decentralized rivals

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Advanced orders give users more flexibility than simple point-to-point orders. API makes it possible to control orders with specialized software, which enables algorithmic and high-frequency trading which is essential for professional traders.

However, the exchange does not offer margin trading, although it was planned to be implemented. Margin trading might have given Nash a significant edge, especially over decentralized exchanges. It remains in the pipeline, but with no declared time frame for release.

Furthermore, the matching engine supports cross-chain integrations with other protocols, which puts Nash ahead of some decentralized exchanges that are limited to listing the assets native to their host chains. For instance, IDEX which only supports Ethereum and ERC-20 standard tokens.

Cross-chain is the process of trading or transferring assets that exist on two different blockchains. Users who send orders to the matching engine are essentially depositing the cryptocurrency they wish to trade in the Nash smart contracts. Nash uses elliptic curve cryptography, requiring users to sign the proposed trades with their private keys and prevents the exchange from moving user balances within the smart contracts.

Currently, using cross-chain, Nash supports just two blockchains and trading of NEO, ETH along with ERC-20 and NEP5 standard tokens. Nash Matching Engine | Source: icosbull.com

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Cross-chain exchange on NEO and Ethereum | Source: icosbull.com

Nash’s listing capabilities are limited compared to the centralized exchanges. The exchange is not compatible with the unspent transaction output model and scripting used in Bitcoin and its forks. Hence, adding more assets will require the implementation of specific mechanisms, which could be time-consuming. In this respect, custodial exchanges are more attractive than Nash since they provide users with a variety of trading pairs and quick listings of popular assets.

Additionally, the matching engine contributes to the centralization of the exchange, which is at odds with the project’s decentralization

ethos. Off-chain matching happens on hardware controlled by the team, which means that users have to trust it.

Sending and signing the order to the smart-contract address works as a trigger for the matching engine to process the order off-chain and match it against available liquidity. Once the order has been matched, the engine calls the Nash smart contract to execute the order and update all the necessary user balances. Hence, the trade history is stored on NEO blockchain, while the order history is stored in the database off-chain.

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In an attempt to increase the exchange’s transparency the team created a publicly verifiable deterministic algorithm, where a user can compare order matching history to the trades on the blockchain. In the future, Nash hopes to fully decentralize order matching, however, this is not the team’s top priority, and so is unlikely to be implemented in the near-term.

Although the exchange’s back end has some advantages over its decentralized rivals, its front end is on par with what is already available in the market. While Nash had multiple delays to the

release of its exchange, its rivals were busy improving their own UI/UX, meaning there is now little differentiation.

All things considered, technologically Nash presents a solid improvement on what is already being offered by decentralized exchanges, but still has significant limitations, especially when it comes to listing new assets. Overcoming these limitations may take a considerable amount of time, and cause Nash to lag behind its competition even more.

OVERCOMING LIMITATIONS MAY TAKE A CONSIDERABLE AMOUNT OF TIME, WHICH WOULD CAUSE NASH TO LAG BEHIND ITS COMPETITION EVEN MORE

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Ecosystem Development

Nash has been in development for over two years, but its ecosystem has been slow to develop, which likely contributed to the underwhelming user and liquidity numbers after the launch. With more established DEXs (such as Binance DEX) struggling to gain traction, Nash has to climb an even steeper slope, due to its low user awareness and lack of a powerful brand image.

The team is aiming to create an integrated ecosystem with 4 main components:

• Nash Exchange — decentralized non-custodial exchange• Nash Extension — Google Chrome extension that connects users’ wallets to websites that use Nash• Nash Pay — instant, feeless, cross-border payment settlement layer for merchants• Nash Mobile — mobile app to buy and sell cryptocurrency

Nash Exchange launched in early September, with some observers

expecting trading volume to be in the order of hundreds of thousands straight away. However, the total daily volume of $4000 reflects a very different reality. To put things into perspective, Binance DEX sees $2M in daily exchange volume.

The Chrome Extension has been available since the ICO. According to the official website, there are over 50K users. While it is plausible that some of these will funnel into the exchange, the majority of the accounts were created for ICO participation purposes, and could be dormant.

Nash Pay is scheduled to be released in 2019, allowing users to integrate it seamlessly with their wallet for payments in fiat and crypto. While the team is planning to launch in the EU and the US, so far there has been no coherent strategy for merchant onboarding. As such, there is no indication of Nash Pay becoming a major driver of adoption upon release.

Summary

• Nash’s ecosystem is lagging behind the project’s decentralized counterparts• There is a minimal set of supported cryptocurrencies and no BTC pairs

• The project is highly centralized in terms of both governance and wealth distribution• Nash’s financial resources are orders of magnitude less than those of well-established exchanges

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Similarly, Nash Mobile (also expected by the end of 2019) will be another fine add-on, but likely without much positive effect on user acquisition and trading volumes on the exchange.

The team also has fiat on/off-ramps in place through a partnership with WorldPay, the biggest payment processor with a volume of over $1T last year. However, these efforts have not yet resulted in any meaningful impact on adoption.

All of the above components are developed by a single entity. That same entity is also behind all major governance decisions, which points to centralization.

Nash is also highly centralized in terms of token ownership. The top-10 wallets holding NEX (the underlying security token), collectively own 56.1% of the total supply.

While the high degree of centralization is worrying at first sight, it might be a necessary compromise to finally create a decentralized exchange that can compete with the user experience offered by centralized counterparts.

From the legal point of view, Nash aims to be as compliant as possible. In order to develop its business operations on a worldwide

level, Nash must comply with local rules and regulations. This could help the project enter new jurisdictions with less friction.

The exchange also uses a rigorous procedure for selecting future listings. The application consists of an in-depth assessment of the project’s quality, as well as its legal compliance (which entails a $10,000 fee to cover legal costs). With such detailed application review, it may be difficult for Nash to quickly list new tokens.

Moreover, the exchange currently only supports NEO/Ethereum cross-chain trading. With well-established exchanges having many trading pairs, Nash falls behind the competition. For example, Waves DEX trading volume is dominated by BTC pairs, which account for over 60% of total liquidity. Without BTC pairs, Nash was doomed to have a slow start, having cut off a lot of potential user demand. Many community members voiced this concern before the launch.

On top of that, other community concerns included issues with customer acquisition. In May 2019, co-founder Fabio Canesin pointed out that the next two quarters will be focused on resolving technical and business bottlenecks. What this effectively reveals is that ecosystem growth may be slow in the near term. While this provides opportunities for the team to fine-tune the technological features, the time lost may end up costing Nash users and volume.

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Top-10 NEX Wallets | Source: neoeconomy.io

Wallet AddressRank NEX Balance NEX Value Supply

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

AKX1pu6rdKQ9p3575fHqL9FtgyRzHeBGd2

APxpRnLq4dZEhybPZe8AeyQH3GhfkqArDx - Nash + Stakes

AWscTcucaxp84VcSDd53exKmSbEuE75FiB

AcXNLi3E8vBbUEfwrSBF6kS9KEYpq7TxaJ

APDxyXWfSEHKcuCuxrvT36Y5hwyYQSZagG

AVk9aZaXxXj1U8r193M9Xfyk3SoXq5M4vPZL

AP7URyaxjQVOKXQWqZ49VrSoTVmkur437F

AbArung3PGYmQv4xhduTkva7r2ppUqeaDi - Switcheo V3

AH9mbJfaddNPqHGQQvaJpSjhxTgnxpvXKJ - Tokok

Ae2DKQEGPoQkS5VjdxdAAKxsq3HpBiNSHcJ

11,429,486

4,657,888

2,000,000

2,000,000

2,000,000

2,000,000

2,000,000

756,484

702,007

500,000

$16,687,050

$6,800,516

$2,920,000

$2,920,000

$2,920,000

$2,920,000

$2,920,000

$1,104,467

$1,024,931

$730,000

22.8590%

9.3158%

4.0000%

4.0000%

4.0000%

4.0000%

4.0000%

1.5130%

1.4040%

1.0000%

1,833,742 NEO

747,310 NEO

320,879 NEO

320,879 NEO

320,879 NEO

320,879 NEO

320,879 NEO

121,370 NEO

112,630 NEO

80,220 NEO

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Nash’s current community numbers across all social media are an order of magnitude less than those of its centralized competitors. This is very much reflective of the adoption gap that exists between Nash and its rivals.

As far as funding goes, Nash was able to raise $12.25M in a traditional Venture Capital round and an additional $25M in a digital security offering in Liechtenstein. Still, centralized exchanges have much larger coffers, which puts Nash at a significant disadvantage in terms of resources to fuel user acquisition.

While Nash made the decision to keep marketing and product

strategy confidential, the current marketing activities are mostly made up of a referral program. The initiative encourages users to refer others to the exchange, offering BTC and NEX prizes. Still, the effect of the program has been limited, as it wasn’t enough to cause a significant influx of users.

To sum up, Nash’s weak ecosystem development picture proves that it has a lot of catching up to do. The project was unable to reach a high level of adoption purely on the merits of being decentralized. Moving forward, the project calls for more users and higher trading volumes. However, progress on the individual USPs to-date makes it unlikely for a turnaround to occur in the short-term.

Community Involvement Comparison

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Token Economics

Nash’s token economy does not create a substantial incentive for token holders to use the Nash exchange or contribute to its wider ecosystem. Although NEX has a supply model conducive to token appreciation, the lack of trading volume and failure of NEX to encourage trading significantly hampers this potential.

NEX has a clearly defined function, namely as a right to cash flow. In return for staking, the token bearer receives a daily dividend payment, reaped from the Nash exchange fees. The payable amount is determined both by the percentage of the total token supply that the bearer stakes and the duration of the staking period. The yield is therefore dynamic and rewards long-term participants.

The staking percentage is simply the tokens staked in proportion to the total supply (50 million). This percentage is then multiplied by a value depending on the lockup period. After one month of staking, the bearer is entitled to 25% of their share of the fees. This value then increases linearly to 75% after two years.

Formula

Daily yield = 24-hour fees * (Proportion of total supply staked * Lock-up multiple)

Summary

• The utility of NEX is well-defined, granting a dividend to the holder derived from fees on the Nash exchange• The disconnect between NEX’s incentives and growth of the ecosystem significantly hinders its value capture and support for the project

• NEX’s price is currently based on speculation rather than a desire for cash flow, given the very low volume on the Nash DEX• The token has a static supply with no inflation, which is supportive of a growing token price

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For now, the exchange produces minimal fees due to its extremely low trading volumes, ranging from $3,000-$4,000 per day. With a median taker fee of just 0.19% and zero maker fees, these volumes are contributing just $2.85-$3.00 in total daily fees (assuming an even balance between taker and maker trades). Hence, at a price of $1.72, NEX is overwhelmingly driven by speculation.

As the pool of trading fees grows, token holders should have an increased incentive to stake. However, given the presently discouraging trading volumes, the token economy is unlikely to draw in many stakers. As such, with only 10.2% of the tokens staked, it looks like the investor community is more interested in speculation than the underlying revenue stream of the asset.

By offering an explicit right to cash flow, NEX is akin to traditional securities. In recognition of this design, Nash has registered the token as a Security Token Offering (STO) in Liechtenstein.Although it gives Nash’s token holders legal guarantees, it is likely that many exchanges will refuse to list NEX due to its STO status, which could hamper the token’s liquidity.

The token’s total supply is fixed at 50 million and has a relatively concentrated distribution. Each of the five founders currently holds 2,000,000 tokens. Collectively, this represents 20% of the total supply. A further 15 million were allocated to undisclosed investors and partners. Ultimately though, the concentration has no effect on NEX dividends since these are calculated according to the total supply.

The biggest issue surrounding Nash’s token economy is its disconnect from the wider ecosystem. Unlike some exchanges such as Binance whose tokens (BNB) directly incentivize the use of the exchange (by providing rebate on fees, opportunities to participate in different IEOs and more), NEX does little to push users towards the Nash exchange.

To sum up, given its current state, Nash’s token economy does not incentivize user participation. Despite some potentially positive design elements, the token is disconnected from the ecosystem, harming adoption prospects.

24-hour Fees Tokens Staked Lock-up Period Lock-up Multiple

$100,000 25%-75% (increases linearly over 2 years period)

10,000 NEX 1-24 month

Daily Yield (After 1 month)

$100,000 * ((10,000/50,000,000) * 0.25) = $5.00

Nash Fees Calculation

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Nash Exchange Staking | Source: medium.com

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Core Team

Nash boasts a large and impressive team. Its founders bring a mixture of academic credentials in related fields and entrepreneurial skills. This combination bodes well for Nash’s future success given the outstanding technical and customer acquisition challenges.

Beyond the founders, Nash has 42 other employees with a broad range of skills and backgrounds, albeit with a slight tilt towards technical and engineering expertise. With numerous technically challenging milestones remaining, the team is looking to fill nine

engineering positions. Still relative to the largest centralized exchanges such as Coinbase and Binance, Nash has a small team which limits the speed of reaching core milestones.

Nash runs a fully remote operation, something they claim allows them to hire the most talented personnel. The company also recently decided to split the existing team into six sub-teams, focused on specific products. It appears this decision has led to greater output and should prove fruitful in the coming months.

Summary

• Founders have a well-balanced set of expertise and experience in computer science, engineering, and management

• Medium sized team (47) compared to the largest centralized competitors with a broad range of skills and backgrounds

NASH BOASTS A LARGE AND IMPRESSIVE TEAM

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Fabio Canesin (Co-Founder)

Fabio holds a BA in Mechanical Engineering and MA in Computer Science, and has spent six years in the oil and gas industries. Fabio similarly has entrepreneurial expertise as a co-founder of City of Zion.

Ethan Fast (Co-Founder, CTO)

Ethan brings a strong academic and research background with a Ph.D. and B.A. in Computer Science alongside entrepreneurial aptitude. Ethan co-founded City of Zion, a development organization for NEO and founded Proxino, a technology startup funded by Y Combinator. Ethan now leads applied research at Nash.

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Fabian Wahle (Co-Founder)

Fabian combines a range of scientific and technological degrees, research experience at ETH Zurich and leadership capabilities, having founded the biotech company Altuida Inc. Fabian now leads the Nash legal team.

Luciano Engel (Co-Founder)

Luciano also brings a background in Mechanical Engineering alongside entrepreneurial experience having co-founded City of Zion and Lemonaid, a learning analytics provider. Luciano leads the trading and accounts team.

Thomas Saunders (Co-Founder)

Thomas has had a long career in software and application development, and was likewise a co-founder of City of Zion. Thomas is in charge of the settlement and portfolio team, focused on integrating new blockchains and payment methods.

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Given the lack of adoption, a substantial marketing effort is imperative. Encouragingly, one of the aforementioned sub-teams focuses on marketing alongside design and has an international presence.

Overall Nash has a team well-suited to its existing challenges, on account of its size, its range of skills and breadth of experiences. The focus on acquiring further technical expertise currently seems appropriate given the ambitious technical milestones ahead.

Nash team members around the world | Source: nash.io

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Roadmap Progress

Nash used to have a roadmap, but multiple delays appear to have forced the team to stop communicating concrete deadlines. While the project has some transparency with in-depth quarterly reports and updates, it is not enough to avoid negative sentiment and make it possible for users to time the project’s growth catalysts.

The exchange had several versions of the roadmap featured in the white paper and on the official website. In general, the team was roughly a year late with delivering cross-chain trading on the mainnet, while some features like margin trading are still to be implemented. This naturally led to some frustration in the community, hurting the project’s image.

To mitigate the concerns, the team introduced quarterly reports, in which it covers all of its progress and highlights areas it intends to focus on during the upcoming quarter. In addition, the project posts updates on YouTube and social media channels, such as Twitter and Medium.

It is encouraging that the team is working on maintaining active

communication with the community. However, in the absence of the precise roadmap and timelines, the community is somewhat left in the dark as to when the full range of products will be available.

Delivery of the important features like BTC pairs or margin trading is not defined, which is concerning. While the team stated that BTC trading will be launched soon after Nash’s launch and “Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash and other related chains will follow rapidly”, there is no concrete timeframe for this.

Interestingly, margin trading was removed from the updated versions of the roadmap, which raised concerns in the community. Given the project’s past performance it is difficult to lend much credence to the promise of key functionality being delivered soon.

Ultimately, Nash doesn’t feature a roadmap to provide a comprehensive outline of what should be expected from the team going forward. Although there is active communication from the project in the form of updates, its potential growth is limited by the absence of clear development and adoption plan.

Summary

• Given the history of delays, there are concerns about the timely addition of important functionality to the exchange and its promotion

• The project does not currently have a roadmap• The team provides regular in-depth updates about its progress

© 2019 SIMETRI and Decentral Media Inc. – simetri.cryptobriefing.com 27

Nash roadmap | Source: icopalette.ru

Token sale

Participation for lottery winners in the NEX token sale

Cross-chain token support

Release of an open source NEX web extension support for ETH and ERC20 tokens. Crosschain token conversation support in NEX extension wallet

Token purchaising

Buy and sell NEO, GAS, and RPX through banking partners

MainNet trading release

Beginning of trading operations: Matching engine and trading user interface launched on MainNet with support for NEO, ETH, NEPS, and ERC20 tokens

Staking contract release

Launch of staking contract on NEO for holders of NEX to recieve exchange revenue

Trading interface

Develop designs and architecture. Conduct usability research and information gathering from alpha testers

Matching Engine

Release of an Develop prototype capable of more than 50.000 TPS. Complete an API sketch and share with partners

Settlement Layer

Develop smart contract vaults to hold user trading balances. Formalize off-chain architecture for cross-chain interactions

API for dApps

Develop v1 of web extension dApp APIs, for integration on client websites and smart contracts on ETH and NEO (e.g. APIs that allow websites to interact with smart contracts, or request payments in NEO or ETH from a user)

Spring 2018

Web Extension Launch

Launch of web extension for dApp integration with NEO blockchain and NEX exchange

Framework release

Release of an open source framework for conducting such sales, including smart contracts, wallet and extension integration, KYC, and backend website

Banking partner API template release

Open source framework and template for interaction with NEX banking partner APIs

Summer 2018 Fall 2018

Winter 2018/2019

Trading features

Advanced trading features

Cross-chain support

Cross-chain support for trading BTC, LTC, and RPX on NEX

Index funds

Launch of cross-chain cryptocurrency index fund, supported by the exchange and extension

© 2019 SIMETRI and Decentral Media Inc. – simetri.cryptobriefing.com 28

Token Performance

NEX has experienced two periods of growth during Summer 2019 fueled by the excitement from the project’s quarterly reports. However, the sentiment was not stable and prior to the exchange’s launch the price started to plummet. Apparently, the final product did not meet users’ expectations and the decline only accelerated after Nash’s

launch on September 9, 2019. As a result, the token has lost over 47% since its ATH on August 5, 2019.

In general, NEX has been outperforming most of its rivals during the first half of 2019, due to the expectations of the trading platform launch.

Summary

• The recent performance of NEX is poor• In the first half of the year, the token outperformed its competition

• NEX is not currently listed on any large exchanges and this is unlikely to change anytime soon due to its status as an STO

NEX HAS BEEN OUTPERFORMING MOST OF ITS RIVALS DURING THE FIRST HALF OF 2019

© 2019 SIMETRI and Decentral Media Inc. – simetri.cryptobriefing.com 29

Price Comparison with Blockchain Competitors | Source: www.coingecko.com

© 2019 SIMETRI and Decentral Media Inc. – simetri.cryptobriefing.com 30

Market Cap Comparison with Altcoins | Source: coingecko.com

Similarly, the project has outperformed the rest of the altcoin market in the first half of the year.

© 2019 SIMETRI and Decentral Media Inc. – simetri.cryptobriefing.com 31

Price Comparison NEX/BTC | Source: coingecko.com

However, like the rest of altcoins, NEX lost significant value against Bitcoin.

© 2019 SIMETRI and Decentral Media Inc. – simetri.cryptobriefing.com 32

Volume Comparison | Source: coingecko.com

The trading volume of NEX was generally increasing from the beginning of 2019 until the end of May. Currently, it is in the same range as KNC and LEO.

© 2019 SIMETRI and Decentral Media Inc. – simetri.cryptobriefing.com 33

30-day Volatility Comparison | Source: coingecko.com

NEX volatility is not the highest compared to its competition and generally stays in the range of the rest of its rivals.

Thus far, Nash has failed to get listed on reputable exchanges. The current volume is generated mostly by two exchanges MXC and

TOKOK. MXC was accused of having fake volumes and TOKOK received only 4/10 Trust Score on CoinGecko.

Since NEX is a security token, its listing is likely to be avoided by larger exchanges in the near future due to regulatory compliance.

© 2019 SIMETRI and Decentral Media Inc. – simetri.cryptobriefing.com 34

NEX Volume Distribution | Source: coinmarketcap.com

Essentially, this means that in the short-term perspective the liquidity of the token would remain low.

All things considered, NEX enjoyed stellar gains in anticipation of the exchange finally going live. However, since the team launched

its product, the sentiment has turned negative and the token performance has suffered. BTC dominance is likely to continue pushing NEX price even lower and in the absence of large fundamental catalysts and exchange listings, the token is not well-positioned for recovery.

Source Pair Volume (24h) Price Volume (%)

MXC

Switcheo Network

Aphelion

TOKOK

TOKOK

Switcheo Network

54.61%

3.55%

0.04%

41.24%

0.56%

0.00%

NEX/ETH

NEX/NEO

NEX/NEO

NEX/BTC

NEX/ETH

NEX/SDUSD

$1,663,054

$108,117

$1,137

$1,256,052

$16,982

$3

$1.37

$1.40

$1.36

$1.47

$1.42

$2.03

#

1

3

5

2

4

6

Category

Spot

Spot

Spot

Spot

Spot

Spot

Fee Type

Percentage

Percentage

Percentage

Percentage

Percentage

Percentage

Updated

Recently

Recently

Recently

Recently

Recently

Recently

© 2019 SIMETRI and Decentral Media Inc. – simetri.cryptobriefing.com 35

Since its launch, Nash has struggled to attract any meaningful trading volumes to its DEX. Moreover, it is still unclear why users currently using centralized alternatives would make the shift to the Nash exchange, which offers little in the way of advanced product types or the liquidity of larger traders.

Although the project has good technology and a strong team behind it, its growth is largely hindered by weak adoption and ongoing delays. Nash still lags behind its centralized counterparts, especially when it comes to its range of trading pairs.

Given the dominance of the large centralized exchanges, Nash will struggle to attract users. The project needs to improve its product’s

functionality and work on attracting more volume to become more competitive, but the rate of progress so far does not instill much optimism.

With this said, there is little evidence that the exchange’s anemic volume will increase anytime soon and thus NEX continues to lack fundamental value. For these reasons, Nash receives a grade C.

The author(s) of this report is/are invested in the following coins: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Stellar, Binance Coin.

Conclusion

NASH RECEIVES GRADE C

© 2019 SIMETRI and Decentral Media Inc. – simetri.cryptobriefing.com 36

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