How and why analyze a crypto project team? Using Sui as an example
In this article, we will discuss such an important point of analysis as the project team. We will look at what parameters are worth paying attention to, and I will show on the example of one of the projects how I conduct and evaluate the results of this analysis.
But first, let’s talk about why we need to analyze the team of a crypto project.
First, we will understand what people are behind the project. This is very important. After all, it is these people who determine the fate of the project, its development and ultimate goals.
If the team consists of businessmen, managers and programmers who have created or worked in successful companies related to the crypto sphere or worked in large international companies such as Apple, Google or investment funds, for example, then the project we analyze will have a better chance to become successful.
Secondly, we can trust such people more than just unknown characters.
Thirdly, such people have more connections and experience, which also has a positive impact on the success of the development and launch of the project.
But there is one point to remember. Media people like bloggers, actors, musicians and the like who have a large audience of fans can be ambivalent.
Yes, these people will have a good track record in their business, and they will probably inspire your confidence, but the bulk of them are likely to be just bait for a large audience of users.
And it is possible that projects with such individuals at their core may have a pyramidal development pattern. In this connection, the early participants, and usually they are the founders and people close to them, will get almost everything, while the bulk of the users will get nothing.
Therefore, such projects should be treated with caution or avoid them.
It is also important that the project does not hide the names and faces of its members, so they can be easily found on the official website or in social networks. If the team is publicly represented, it’s already a small plus to credibility, because why hide faces if you’re not going to cheat people.
In general, when analyzing the team members, I identified the following main parameters:
- Previous work experience
- Total work experience
- Age of the participants
These are the main criteria to look at.
Next, for an example, let’s look at the Mysten Labs team, which is developing the Sui blockchain project.
First, let’s go to their website. Here we see the main members of the team with pictures and names. This is a very good thing, because the company does not hide its organizers.
The project has five co-founders, they are:
- Evan Cheng — Co-founder and CEO
- Adeniyi Abiodun — Co-Founder and Director of Securities
- Sam Blackshear — Co-founder and CTO.
- George Danezis — Co-founder and Chief Scientist
- Kostas Chalkias — Co-founder and chief cryptographer
In this example, we will only look at the co-founders of the project, the rest of the employees you can look at on your own.
Let’s start with Evan Cheng by going to his Linkedin page to see all his work experience.
His work experience starts in 1997 and is currently 25 years old.
From 1997 to 2005 he worked as an engineer in two companies, then from 2005 and for ten years he worked as an engineer at Apple, optimizing software codes and managing several development teams.
He then worked for about three years at Facebook, as director of development, programming languages and runtime environments.
He then spent three years at Novi Financial as Director of Research and Development, and after that, he started his current job at Mysten Labs in 2021.
Based on all of this information, we can conclude that the team member we are considering has extensive experience working for major global companies and most likely has good connections that he can apply to the development of the current project.
Let’s take a look at the next member, which is Sam Blackshear.
According to Linkedin, his work experience began in 2010 with the University of Colorado, where he worked for about five years as a researcher.
Along with that, he worked for a total of six months as a research intern at Microsoft.
Then, starting in 2015 and for about three years, he worked at Facebook as a staff engineer.
Then, like Evan Cheng, he worked at Novi Financial before moving to Mysten Labs.
As we can see, Sam Blackshear, has less experience than Evan Cheng, but his technical skills are just as important to Mysten Labs, which is why he is the technical director of this project.
Next, consider the next member of the team, which is Adeniyi Abiodun. According to Linkedin, his work history begins in 2005 and through 2013 he worked as a programmer, software engineer and engineering manager, at several companies, one of which was J.P. Morgan.
He then founded CloudHashing and worked there for a year and a half, after which he was co-founder and vice president of product development at PeerNova Inc for three years, then worked at Oracle, where he developed and managed the Blockchain Cloud Service platform.
He then worked for eight months as director and product manager for VMware Blockchain, before working for more than two years at Meta, where he was the lead product specialist, Novi, related to cryptocurrency and blockchain Diem (formerly Libra).
And already after that he became one of the co-founders of Mysten Labs, where he holds the position of Director of Securities.
Based on the reviewed information, we can see that this team member has a long work experience, including in several large organizations, as well as good programming experience and was previously associated with several blockchain projects, including the Diem project from Meta. All these factors are a worthy indicator.
Now let’s move on to George Danezis.
According to Linkedin, his work history begins in 2004, with the University of Cambridge, where he worked for two years as a researcher and researcher.
He also worked for about seven years at Microsoft Research Cambridge, where he was a cryptography researcher.
Then, for more than a year, he was an advisor to the Vega Protocol project.
He spent two and a half years as a researcher at Facebook, where he was part of the Novi team that was developing the Diem (formerly Libra) payment network.
Parallel to this, he is a professor at University College London, a research fellow at The Alan Turing Institute and an advisor at Privitar.
He is currently a chief scientist at Mysten Labs.
I think you can already see for yourself that this team member is an interesting person, as are his colleagues. He has worked and is working in major organizations, including academia, plus he has been studying blockchain technology for many years.
Moving on to the latest co-founder, it’s Kostas Chalkias.
According to Linkedin, his work history begins in 1999. He has worked as a computer science teacher, security and cryptography engineer, web designer and administrator of more than 40 corporate websites and databases.
He worked for seven years as a cryptography engineer at the University of Macedonia.
Developed algorithms for soccer game prediction for sixteen years.
Founder and co-founder of several crypto-related projects.
Worked as cryptographer and software engineer for Corda blockchain for over two years.
After that he worked for three years at Meta, where he was the lead researcher in cryptography for Diem (Libra) blockchain.
And is currently the chief cryptographer at Mysten Labs.
Based on this information, we understand that this team member is not some rogue, but has extensive experience in cryptography and programming.
As a result, we have analyzed the founding team of Mysten Labs and we can conclude that if the development will go in accordance with the roadmap and plans of the founders, the project most likely has great prospects in the crypto industry.
In my opinion, this team, deserves the highest score in the analysis and I have it at three points.
I will not give you any clear gradation to evaluate the team, because it is quite a fine line, but an example of a great team, I have given you.
Let me just say that I rate on a three-point scale, where zero points is a complete absence of information about the team, I put one point if there is information about the team, but it is not enough to make any analysis.
Two points I give if there is enough information to analyze, but the project participants are young and naturally have little experience.
And I give three points to such experienced teams as Mysten Labs.
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