My Problem With The Electroneum ICO

in #electroneum7 years ago (edited)

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'Ello Steemians!

Before I begin:

  • 95% of all ICOs are scams
  • Blockchain technology was never meant as a "get rich quick" scheme
  • No roadmap? No invest..

So I have a problem with Electronum. It promotes itself as a mobile mining currency and has two decimal places....... THAT'S IT!

I guess these guys have never heard of MinerGate and their mobile mining app

minergate.png

Looking at the history on the bitcointalk forum:

  • 8/2015: "The team at Retortal start building their own cryptocurrency, forked from cryptonote" (start, not starts lol)
  • 8/2016: "The team choose the open source Bytecoin improvements in cryptonote as the basis for their new currency" (choose....)

Ok, so....

  1. It's a "cryptonight" algorithm coin (bytecoin, digitalnote, monero, etc.). These coins are known to have serious issues (especially Bytecoin) and have been able to be mined from phones for years.
  2. 21 billion coin supply. The only moderately valuable coin with a max supply that large is Ripple. This is obviously not a Ripple as it targets a phone and gaming audience. Every other "good" coin with a max supply this large (Verge, Stellar Lumns, Cardano, Siacoin) have never peaked anymore than a few cents per coin.
  3. Roadmap?? To me it doesn't even look like they have a product other than a mobile wallet and mining software. All development is dependent on how much money is raised. And beyond that, I still see nothing special. API, exchange (lol.. ok.. because DEX do so well), game console mining software (could easily be done with other cryptonight algo coins, would probably take one good day of coding), and "future upgrades"

Summary:

Will it make me money? Sure. So many people are on it that it's guaranteed to pump. It's selling for ~1 cent per coin right now. You could knock out probably a 5-10x profit if you catch the pump.
5-10x? Why not 100,000% like Stratis, etc. It's a cryptonight algorithm coin with a 21 BILLION coin supply..
It's not the second coming? Absolutely not. It's over-hyped by big investors on twitter with no knowledge about specifications or development. Electroneum isn't bringing anything new to the table. I see absolutely nothing that makes me desire and want this coin..
Are you going to invest? I'm not hating on this coin because I'm getting in late. I could've gotten in on day 1. Didn't see anything good then, don't see it now
Will you mine it? Probably while I'm bored at work. Who doesn't like a bag of good 'ole shitcoins?!

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First of all, thanks for the great review. I've spent some time with Electroneum myself and have a few thoughts as well. My perspective is that their primary marketing vector is the inherent privacy / anonymity of being a CryptoNote based coin combined with a viable mobile app. All others (with the recent exception of Verge) are seriously challenged on the mobile client side.

That being said, this really is a near perfect example of the power of marketing! If you do some digging, you will see that even the mobile mining isn't actual mining!!! It's a "mining experience" -- Like the Epcot version of mining, you run the mobile app and they feed you some coins generated by an actual mining pool located who knows where. My (unconfirmed) suspicion is that they are sucking sellable data out of your phone all the while.

As a technologist, there's not a lot here. But as reformed technologist who painfully learned the value of marketing, I expect that it will do better than perhaps it should. So yes, I threw a bit of money in during the earliest pre-sale.

I agree with the marketing aspect completely. Will it net some returns, yes. Is it as amazing of a concept as we're led to believe, absolutely not.

I'll have to research a little more about the mobile mining. Thanks for the share!

95% of all ICOs are scams

WRONG!!!

95% of ALL STARTUPS fail. It doesn't matter, if startup takes money in the bank or through ICO, 95% will fail. This is statistics of the last 30-40 years and ICOs are no different

Mainly due to mental worth/reward imbalances and a bazillion examples of "Lack of awareness" in action.

When the human psyche is paid and cannot draw a direct line to the work which produced the pay, there's a mental breakdown which occurs. Pre-payment, even for services which WILL generate worth, causes a lot of problems for most people's psyche. ;)

Most people grossly overestimate what they need and how much they should pay for it, when they have a significant amount of money to work with. The number of tools/resources which are purchased and never used is staggering. The number of people who find out they're not capable of finishing what they started is even more staggering. Craigslist, depending on your area of the country, will be full of grow equipment for sale by people who've spent thousands (and some millions) learning they don't know how to grow cannabis.

Crazy world we live in. I bought $17 worth of electroneum, to sell on the initial rise. ;)

hahaha. Exactly same amount as I've spent on Elactroneum :)
I've got 1741 Electroneum coins, you?

there will be NO REAL MOBILE MINING!

Viral marketing

We’ve combined a decentralized blockchain with a centralized viral marketing app that encourages the adoption and accumulation of cryptocurrency through “gamifying” the experience – we call it the Mobile Mining Experience.

Our blockchain emits coins to our mobile app users for bring a different utility to the blockchain. Electroneum full miners earn the most coins and that runs on Windows, Linux, and Mac computers. They bring the utility of blockchain administration and are rewarded with Electroneum coins. The mobile miners bring the utility of viral marketing to Electroneum and are awarded with a number (smaller) of Electroneum coins for doing so.

It’s done in a way that encourages app usage. We’ve essentially gamified the mining experience, making it appeal to mobile computer gamers (there are over 2 billion of them).

https://www.financemagnates.com/thought-leadership/industry-poised-welcome-newest-cryptocurrency-electroneum/

Ok so since there's no real mobile mining, they are basically copying Minergate. Which makes this project even more of a copy.

they're just making a game :)

It's all a game lol. Followed you.

Everything around us is a game =)

I've actually thrown some cash in this project - they have awesome marketing and marketing can make even the shittiest idea work.

nice info..voted

I also use Minergate, but i've noticed that they steal 30 % of my H rate....