Spheron (previously ArgoApp) DIGEST 12

SPECIAL EDITION

7 min readJul 9, 2021

ArGoApp: A complete overview

Our democratic and straightforward approach to cloud services offers a refreshing, enterprise-friendly experience for a technology that will disrupt the focal point of individual lives. The current cloud market is marred with challenges ranging from price to data permanence. Centralized solutions are only providing services that are profitable to their platforms, ignoring the dynamic market demands.

We step into the cloud market, understanding that the most critical aspect of this market is the user. Thus, our products are inspired by our user’s demand for service provision and product delivery.

Problems Tackled

Over the years, the importance of storing data immutably has become clear; however, existing solutions such as AWS and Google Cloud are inherently centralized leading to a one-shoe fits all policy, while failing to adequately implement the main requisites of decentralized data collection and storage. Blockchain technology has provided a platform through which data can be stored long-term in its original form. Various platforms provided decentralized opportunities that were only tailored to specific forms of data storage and a particular market while requiring complicated and a lack of user-friendly deployment solutions for web apps. Spheron (previously ArgoApp) addresses key challenges relating to decentralized blockchain hosting and storage services.

Solutions

We tackled the problem of decentralization by using blockchain technology. Immutable and long-term data storage becomes possible through our partnerships with other cloud service providers such as Arweave and Skynet. On price, blockchain created benefits that we passed on to the consumer as affordable cloud solution services. Our cloud storage option currently charges a one-time fee for immutable permanent data storage. Spheron (previously ArgoApp) was also designed to address censorship as an impediment to data access in its original form.

Development of Core Team

To innovate solutions such as those listed requires both a creative and an experienced team. Our talent pool boasts of industry specialists that undeniably serve to achieve our mission. The core team is comprised of two founders, a smart contract developer, a full-stack developer, and a marketing lead. This team has worked for big tech, provided blockchain solutions to other platforms such as Arweave, and demonstrated their expertise in blockchain by actively participating in and winning hack-a-thons.

Combined, we have over 30+ years of experience in our respective fields. Our core team thus covers all facets of our services. We also have an expansive support team that keeps the cogs turning by providing expertise in other less visible important roles that take our project to the next level.

Funding Round

Spheron (previously ArgoApp) closed our initial seed funding round on April 15th for $1.5 million, at a valuation of $12.5 million. Some of the VCs who invested include Ascensive Assets (round leader), Alpha chain, Onchain Capital, Master Ventures, X21 Digital, Seven X & Innovion. Our IDO took place on May 12th using a pioneering new token distribution method, with $ARGO tokens peaking at 10x on launch.

Progress to date

Because of high levels of dedication and professionalism, we have deployed our cloud hosting services. Our latest V2 update introduced and improved on features to guide our services towards a more enterprise-focused direction. This included using the $DAI token as payment that will help users to easily ship their web app by just using a single token for deployment. We’ve also deployed our smart contract on the Polygon network for a better user experience with blockchain onboarding due to unexpected high gas fees on the Ethereum network.

We introduced the Spheron (previously ArgoApp) default domain and the user-level to the organizational-level wallet to enhance our service provision to institutions and collaborators. In addition, access and use of our services were improved by the token integration in our V2 update. Our users no longer have to hold $AR tokens to access our services. Moreover, the update saw bug fixes and log streaming enhancements for a better overall user experience.

Differentiation from competition

We acknowledge that our competitors provide exemplary cloud services that validate their current success. Nevertheless, their shortcomings are evident, allowing us to better their services through our elaborate platform.

One key piece of information that is vital to elaborate on, is the fact that Spheron (previously ArgoApp) -by nature- is fully decentralized. The process which allows for such fundamentals is the deployment happens through our worker node and anyone in the Community can run the node by staking ARGO tokens. These worker nodes are incentivized by the Spheron (previously ArgoApp) ecosystem for working trustfully. But we are not only focused on node development but user experience so our platform is connected with these nodes to help users deploy their web applications. In case our platform is down or the Spheron (previously ArgoApp) platform is no longer available, then other developers can also build their own platform using the node providers that are already running by the community. We also provide extensive open source tools to help developers build any innovative idea that can help the community as a whole. And governance takes a big role in deciding many things in the platform like price rate, maintaining nodes trustfully, etc. So with all these characteristics of a decentralized organization, we feel like we can grow faster than any hosting provider in the centralized space.

Pricing in comparison to competitors

One of the key areas that allow us an advantage is pricing. As previously mentioned, we offer a one-time payment requirement for all cloud storage needs. No future payment updates are required. Once uploaded, your data is immutably stored in our partner storage services. In the decentralized industry, we provide extensive services in cloud storage that accommodate both short-term and long-term storage with ease of accessibility at a user’s convenience. In addition, our growing service covers current and emerging cloud storage needs.

How the product and platform works

For easy onboarding of cloud hosting services, we opted to provide a frontend solution that gives our users access to cloud services in just a few clicks. Users should also expect the same simplicity in adopting our services as we continue to expand the Spheron (previously ArgoApp) Platform. This will be especially useful for developers as it negates the need to learn new programming languages & decentralized cloud protocols for hosting dApp.

Using our platform is straightforward. Users can sign up with GitHub and start deploying their applications directly from the GitHub repository on our web app. Future updates will see users fully automate the deployment process with GitHub commits by introducing CI/CD.

Tokenomics

$ARGO, our native token, powers services in our ecosystem. It also acts as a means of rewarding participation and service provision. For example, users can get rewards by participating in yield farming using $ARGO tokens. To participate in decision-making, users will also be required to hold $ARGO tokens.

55% of the total token supply is dedicated to the long-term success of the platform. For initial funding, 14% of the total supply was reserved for private and public sales. Our treasury holds 10%, while our team is motivated by 10% of the total supply.

Roadmap

After several months of planning and finally deploying our platform, we believe we are heading in the right direction. Our focus now is to deliver cloud hosting services. We will continue to update our platform for better services as we plan for more major upgrades to come.

Our roadmap covers the steps we are taking to achieve a fully functional serverless deployment platform. The critical areas of focus are on:

Platform performance
Releasing the testnet
Optimizing user experience
Token functionality

Each developmental step features new integrations into the Spheron (previously ArgoApp) platform that lay the foundation for future software upgrades. The last stage of the roadmap is testing the performance of the enhanced platform.

What Spheron (previously ArgoApp) does

ArGoASpheron (previously ArgoApp) pp makes front-end web deployment easy, effective, and efficient through its blockchain-based platform that takes your web app to the DSN (Decentralized Storage Networks). Spheron (previously ArgoApp) removes the hurdles of centralization and censorship through blockchain, ensuring that your web app is permanently deployed and experiences 100% uptime throughout its life.

$ARGO ERC20 Contract Address:

https://etherscan.io/token/0x28cca76f6e8ec81e4550ecd761f899110b060e97

Spheron (previously ArgoApp) CoinMarketCap Link:

https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/argoapp/ico/

Spheron (previously ArgoApp) DEX Tools:

https://www.dextools.io/app/uniswap/pair-explorer/0xd5fc1a6f75cd465c46e2f15f74b9ac0016b18386

Spheron (previously ArgoApp) CoinGecko Link:

https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/argo

Spheron (previously ArgoApp) Tokenomics Link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1R2RURGtsJcp0fK4elikgyeiEQwlShy5aiW75JOzmRsA/edit#gid=1913920126

You can find $ARGO tokens only on:

DFYN: https://info.dfyn.network/pair/0x643a31689bac403cf5854722e418d3949dc62976

Uniswap: https://v2.info.uniswap.org/pair/0xd5fc1a6f75cd465c46e2f15f74b9ac0016b18386