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What is Electroneum?
Electroneum (ETN) is a pretty new coin on the market which completed its initial coin offering (ICO) in October 2017. This was one of the largest token sales by user numbers of all time. This coin is the first coin to be designed around the mobile user base. ETN was founded by Richard Ellis, who has more than 20 years of experience in the digital space.
This has the potential to bring people to the crypto space who haven’t been previously involved. One of the most exciting things about this coin is the mobile app and mobile mining aspect and how everyone can be involved without technical experience surrounding blockchain. This coin is breaking down the technical barriers of the cryptocurrency market and allowing mostly new users an easy-to-grasp concept.
People with more technical knowledge surrounding cryptocurrency might find that there is no unique technology about electroneum.
While this might be true, electroneum is aiming towards the “mass adoption” aspect. They are trying to get new people involved with cryptocurrency by making it a very user-friendly experience.
I have gone over some pros and cons of this coin. Please leave any comments, questions, or concerns down below regarding any information about this coin. I have put together this list to help the majority of people understand pros and cons associated with this coin and some of my pros and cons will be arguable.
Electroneum Pros
- One click install app. Electroneum released their app that allows any person to easily download and start diving into the cryptocurrency world. They by far make it the easiest and most seamless user experience which makes it very practical for anyone just starting. Their app also acts as a mobile wallet to which you can store your coins.
- Enormous market. Their market of users with smartphones is currently over 2 billion and counting.
- Mobile-based mining! This is probably the most interesting and exciting point about electroneum. They are going to rollout mobile mining through their app which is the unique aspect of the crypto. Users will be able to mine electroneum and store it on their mobile app. It takes up very little bandwidth, so it won’t cost much for users running on 3G or 4G data.
- The team has over 40 developers and advisors really understand the marketing aspect. They have created a huge hype over the cryptocurrency which has got many people involved in the crypto world.
- Fast microtransactions. This isn’t unique to the cryptocurrency market, but it is definitely very useful.
- Two decimal based cryptocurrency. Electroneum’s big concept here is that more people will buy and use this coin because psychologically, it looks and acts just like fiat money. As you know, you can buy .00000013 of Bitcoin (BTC) for a few dollars, but many people don’t like or understand this. ETN has the psychological aspect that regular people with no crypto knowledge will understand. You could buy a pizza in bitcoin for .00000342 bitcoin or for 3.12 electroneum. Which one looks better?
- Marketing and mass adoption is what the cryptocurrency market needs. ETN is leading the marketing to the general public. There were big referral bonuses for people to get out and push this coin to the masses which caused its popularity to soar.
- Electroneum is being accepted in over 20 stores so far.
- 4 MOUs (MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING) signed, and more in the pipeline, one being Effortel. Effortel is a Tier-1 Mobile Virtual Network Enabler, headquartered in Brussels, Belgium. Effortel develops, deploys and runs MVNOs for large non-telecom companies such as retail chains, post companies, ISPs, and banks.
- Electroneum recently hired Hackerone to help improve their security on their site and app. While this did put their website down for over a month, it recently came back online with added security features which really set Electroneum to be one of the most secure cryptos currently on the market.
Electroneum Cons
- This is not an open source model project. Their blockchain has been specifically chosen and modified to limit the ability of ASIC and GPU miners, allowing the 2 billion + smartphone users to run the blockchain. This can be seen as a negative for some people.
- Currently only listed on one exchange. Electroneum is currently only listed on the Cryptopia exchange. They claim they have applied to many prospective listings, but one they failed to even mention is Binance. Binance is one of the biggest exchanges on the market and has an exceptional list of coins to choose from. I’m not so sure why they didn’t apply to them.
- Whitepaper issues. While the coin does have the mobile app and mobile mining aspect, the whitepaper is truly fluffed with filler information. There are very few hints of technical jargon within their whitepaper.
- One month website outage and discontinued first mobile app. I claim this as a negative because Electroneum built up a lot of hype for its ICO. When the website and app went down for over a month, it made many people start to doubt electroneum. This caused many people to sell their coins once they were given the opportunity.
Both Pro and Con
- Mining – While the mobile mining is a major unique identifier in this coin, the mining isn’t actual “mining”. Users will not be adding blocks to the blockchain, but “simulating” the process. As they have the mining application open, they will be rewarded over time for using the mining app thus receiving electroneum as a reward. Many people do not understand the specifications of the crypto mining industry so this isn’t a very big concern, but some technical crypto enthusiasts might find this information as a con. Also, mobile mining can decrease battery life in mobile phone users and shorten them.
- Team – Their team has a very solid background in marketing. Most of their team members are displaying that they have exceptional marketing skills but nothing technical. While this helps bring mass adoption, the lack of technical experience is kind of concerning. For more technical crypto enthusiasts, this is deemed as a negative. This may also be seen as an additional marketing tactic to help people better familiarize themselves with the team.
How to buy Electroneum?
Currently, Electroneum is only listed on Cryptopia exchange. You can download their app and find the cryptopia exchange there. Then you can set up an account and buy it.
*NOTE* If you are looking for a cryptocurrency exchange providing the best crypto-to-crypto rates on the market, check out Changelly. Note that exchange times may vary depending on network congestion.
Conclusion
There is a lot of hype surrounding electronuem. While most of the hype was due to the team’s exceptional marketing techniques, electronuem will most likely increase in popularity. This is due to the fact that their whole mission is to allow easy access to cryptocurrencies in which they are leading.
The increased demand for cryptocurrencies has taken off and is in no signs of slowing. New users want to join this crypto revolution as soon as possible and are looking for easy accessibility.
Overall, electroneum is in a prime position for mass adoption. Just don’t expect any revolutionary or life-changing technology in the field of blockchain from them. The ETN team is currently raising money via the ICO, so time will tell the fate of this new coin.
Currently, mobile miner app is available on Android devices and is awaiting approval from Apple to become available on iOS devices.
If there are any details missing, incorrect, or you just want to discuss this coin, please leave a comment below, thanks.