CryptoClear

Provide crypto asset ecosystem ratings and portfolio analysis as Moody’s for cryptos.

In 2021, $14B was lost in cryptos due to frauds. In 2022, hundreds of billions of dollars evaporated out of the collapse of LUNA/Terra, FTX, and so on.  As crypto comes of age, it is imperative to address the trust and transparency issues, fundamental for any community to function. For this very reason, CryptoClear is on the mission to bring science and trust to digital assets.

We are at an inflection point that innovation and value creation are marred by detrimental self-destruction. If we do not work on the fundamental pillars of the ecosystem, the blockchain community will lose ground and web3 technology cannot progress. This could put a lot of innovation and potential for global development to a stop.  

Blockchain has reached 320M people worldwide or 4% of the world population. Participants in crypto are unevenly split across continents, economies, and demographics. 

We rate cryptocurrencies on several metrics, including market risk, energy efficiency, and inequality in user-to-user interaction, in order to better inform people of which cryptos are safe or likely to be scams. We calculate these ratings using vast amounts of data on and off blockchains in real time, such as public ledger transactions, market trading activities, white papers, Github code, and social media data.

2022 was a tough year for 320M people who hold digital assets when the total market value dropped from $3T+ to $800M.  Too often people in the crypto community see themselves caught in the middle of crisis due to frauds or unsound tokens.  Our rating service is needed to help improve trust and transparency in the burgeoning Web3 economy.  Blockchain and Web3 technology can revolutionize finance, protect people from censorship, offer sound privacy online, and make creators able to benefit from their creation in the long run.  All these social benefits apply to the general public and go beyond the wealth or lives of immediate digital assets holders. 

JPMorgan’s research published in November 2022 revealed that 20 percent for millennials, 11 percent for Generation X, and 4 percent for baby boomers have crypto assets.  The younger generations are enthusiastic and substantially exposed to blockchains in terms of financial wealth.  As MIT undergrad and graduate students, we understand the favorable view towards blockchain in our age cohorts.  Our student background helps inform us of this trend for the future.  We want to play a role in inventing the path towards the future for blockchain.  That is why we are committed to bring science and trust to digital asset management.  

Jason is a data scientist at MIT and a Platinum winner of US Computing Olympiad.  He built our portfolio analysis, ratings, and network visualization models. https://www.linkedin.com/in/ja...

Anne managed $20B+ portfolios at Fidelity Investments and JPMorgan.  She advised two startups raising $25M+.  Anne has a CFA charter. 

http://www.linkedin.com/in/ann...

Lucas is a CS student at MIT. He worked at Putnam Investments and the Boston Fed. He has done algorithmic trading, built blockchains, and developed full-stack applications. https://www.linkedin.com/in/lu...

Jiageng is a finance PhD student at MIT Sloan.  His research of economic activities on blockchains was featured in WSJ and major media. https://www.linkedin.com/in/ji...

Eduardo worked as a management consultant at SINTEC and as a go-to-market strategist at Heineken Mexico. He has an MBA from an MIT Global Program and is an MSMS student at Sloan. https://www.linkedin.com/in/ed...

Weiyi is a data science expert and led ML projects at Nuance and Wayfair.  She has a PhD in CS.  https://www.linkedin.com/in/we...

Alejandro has 20+ years of experience as an economist.  He co-founded Mexico’s largest auto lending fintech.  

Angela studies MS in Engineering at Dartmouth College.  She was a consultant at EY and a product manager at KKR.  https://www.linkedin.com/in/an...

Anne, Weiyi, and Alejandro are in the executive MBA program at MIT Sloan.

Our team is mentored by renowned advisors and mentors.  

• Dr. Eric Rosengren is the former Boston Fed Governor.  He led Project Hamilton for the central bank digital currency initiative for the Fed.  

• Dr. Charles Senatore is a Fidelity Digital Asset Board member.  He was the global head of compliance at Fidelity Investments and a regional director at the SEC.  

• Prof. Roberto Rigobon is a Professor of Applied Economics at the MIT Sloan School of Management.  His research focuses on the causes of balance-of-payments crises and financial crises.   

• Prof. Huamin Qu is an expert in AI and visualization.  He is the chair professor in the Dept of CSEE at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.  He has co-authored about 200 refereed papers and published 70+ papers in the IEEE journals.  

• Prof. Leo Fan is a cryptography expert and a tenure-track faculty at Rutgers University.  He was a researcher at Algorand.

We have engaged several leading financial institutions with crypto investment funds to launch a pilot for MVP.  We are negotiating a collaboration relationship with an international bond rating agency to explore the business potential to leverage its customer base, distribution channel, and business know-how to offer our cryptocurrency ratings and analytics in LatAm.  We also have been in contact with two top crypto exchanges for offering our ratings through their platforms.  

We identified the use case for crypto investment funds and the pricing points through 70+ interviews of financial executives and received 500+ individual survey responses. 

Our data-driven and automated approach differentiates us from other digital asset ratings.  We use data science techniques to collect and screen signals from vast amounts of data on and off blockchains in real time: such as public ledger transactions, market trading activities, white papers, Github code, and social media data. The blockchain analytics market is very fragmented without a clear winner.  

We have launched our prototype portal online and in pilot with “lighthouse” players in the institutional investment space.  We have presented to the CTO of NASDAQ and showcased our product demos with Fidelity’s Chief Investment Officer and Abu Dhabi Investment Authority.  We are the winner of AWS Startup Pitch Competition in Web3 category and among the top 5 finalists.  We have been selected into the MassChallenge Fintech program, MassChallenge ES 2022 cohort, and Pillar VC’s Frequency Crypto accelerator. We have raised $100K equity-free support through grants, prizes, and fellowship.

Our three leading institutional clients indirectly serve 40 million retail investors and 300+ individual users.  We expect to serve even more people every year as we scale up and on-board more customers.  By using our service, our institutional clients and retail clients will be able to invest with confidence in digital assets and potentially feel more comfortable to invest more than before. 

Financially, we need to secure our seed round funding by summer this year to accelerate our product development in full speed.  We need full time data engineers to support our blockchain data infrastructure, which has been growing in tremendous size.  In addition, we would like to keep our graduating teammates to stay on full time. 

IBM through MassChallenge Fintech program as a corporate partner to develop crypto asset ratings and solutions for investment funds.