ICO Review: Etheal

Etheal is a blockchain-based global health platform with the goal of bringing more transparency to the healthcare industry.

Healthcare and blockchain have both been sectors lauded is a match made in heaven. For the healthcare industry, blockchain provides a transparent, secure system for patient data; and of blockchain enthusiasts, it’s the perfect use case of a massive industry being entirely transformed by the practice. However, this is the goal Etheal after.

With a crowdsale that starts June 25th and a hard and soft cap at $10,000,000 and $4,800,000, respectively, we decided to take a look at what Etheal is offering in their whitepaper for their healthcare blockchain. Here’s what we think:

The Problems Etheal Looks to Address

Etheal outlines a few different challenges including:

Patients are having difficulty finding a trusted and affordable care provider, especially with rapidly rising prices and waitlists.
Care providers are having a difficult time reaching relevant patients and building trust/a reputation with them.
Suppliers have a hard time reaching patients and care providers globally due to high marketing costs.

How They Aim To Solve Them

The Ecosystem

Etheal’s ecosystem starts with it’s blockchain-based incentivized list of healthcare professionals and content, which patients will use to research and book specialists that are indexed for their area, as well as peer-reviewed in their native language.

Smart Contract Structure

The smart contracts for Etheal are primarily based upon their trust and review system, which includes:

Etheal Trust Score (ETS) which reflects the general reliability of a wallet address, including how early and well a specific wallet upvotes important and popular content.

Etheal Rank Score (ERS) reflects the total value a user has generated in the ecosystem, such as writing useful reviews, showing up to appointments on time, and receiving good reviews.

As each transaction will be recorded on the blockchain, both parties can write a review of a transaction. Disputes will be settled with an external intervention which will be incentivized.

A Great User Experience

Finally, Etheal believes that their UX which will feature the ability for patients and care providers to opt-in to earn HEAL tokens by interacting with ads, surveys or other communications. They also hope to create Dev Tools for healthcare providers to run on top of their platform.

Business Model

Background Story

Etheal’s initial efforts begun with Doklist.com, the world’s first medical service comparison website. Doklist.com would compare physicians by treatment methods rather than just specialty, which is important as some people require a specialist for pretty specific services. They instantly found a product-market fit, which was validated by their users, reaching approximately 154,500 unique visitors each month.

Through time, Etheal’s business model was validated via a consistent user base, as well as winning projects with Deloitte and awards as well. However, they still felt that the healthcare industry needed a system that provided incentive for engagement.

Why Blockchain?

Etheal believes blockchain solves three important issues for incentivizing healthcare reviews, including:

Accepting payments and paying users for their contributions globally.
An incentive for signing-up medical professionals and creating easy-to-digest medical content.
Incentivization of review writing.

Furthermore, their plan for expanding upon these principles include:

Creating a strong local supply
Expand country-by-country
Monetize and dominate cross-border medical tourism
Dominate adjacent markets

Architecture

While Etheal notes that their architecture could change before final release, here’s what they’re currently thinking:

Decentralization Layer

The decentralization layer will be used to store permanent information in the blockchain to automate incentivization and the payment layer, as well as store larger quantities of data in the IPFS (InterPlanetary File System).

Backend Off-chain Layer

Used to cache and hold data/changes which don’t need to be stored on the blockchain.

Etheal Platform Layer

This consists of a simplified UX and mobile-friendly front-end where stakeholders can interact with the ecosystem.

Furthermore, the three cornerstones Etheal hopes to implement includes:

1. Quality supply of medical info, which incentives global doctor list and content.
2. Universal review system, which is a smart-contract driven transparent, translatable, and transferable healthcare trust/review system.
3. Open, decentralized healthcare, which is a UX friendly global blockchain form of distribution.

These components Etheal does an excellent job outlining in their white paper, including how these programs will work in detail. I’ll note that their logic, outlines, and programs are sound, which you can read more about in the link for their whitepaper above.

Our Thoughts

Etheal has a pretty massive task ahead of them in attacking the healthcare industry. Remember, this is considered a coveted prize, something that a lot of people in blockchain are going after. However, even with such high stakes, there’s plenty Etheal is doing right.

It’s rare for a blockchain project to have an established customer base and market already, but taking on their transition from Doklist has proven market value. Furthermore, Etheal does a great job in outlining their roadmap and how this project will develop. Overall, with a lot of buzz behind them and a pretty solid foundation already built, this is a great token sale to buy into.