Is there anything still going for this project or is it one of the many s***coins, that’s the question? Does it have a ‘weapon of mass adoption’ in its master-plan, or is it doomed to be overtaken by smarter chains and start fading out?

Well, even if a coin does have great tech (which helps) crypto is still a space where adoption is the biggest breaker, and Electroneum has always gone for adoption.

Like it or not, they’ve got a distinctive name, and have been around almost a year, where in Oct 2017 they gained $40m hard cap via ICO.

Their angle was to produce a clean mobile-wallet-plus-miner (which doesn’t actually mine, but simulates mining). This was released in December 2017.

Personally, I’ve only ever ‘mined’ ETN this way since March 2018, leaving the miner open in the background and accumulating tiny amounts. It doesn’t drain my mobile phone this way, which was a clever incentive. Yes, the amounts seem tiny, but if price and adoption were to rise then this value changes swiftly. Also, for people in some parts of the world, this becomes more significant, and this was Electroneum’s big  angle for ‘developing world’ adoption.

Taking a look on Google Play, (and despite Google’s clampdown), the ETN wallet is still there, and now has over 1m downloads. Not too shabby. [Download the app and use my code 5B872D and receive a 1.00% bonus on everything you mine.]

Recently, Instant Payment was launched, a tool to enable vendors to harness ETN more easily. The price reacted strongly.

Ok… but what exactly is ETN?

It’s a fork of Monero, but without the privacy features (privacy and adoption are not necessarily good friends). This means it’s a Proof-of-Work network that anyone can mine and secure. ETN needs miners because it needs to be fast for micro payments and not vulnerable to 51% attacks.

The focus of ETN was on mobile phone accessibility to crypto, where anyone not willing to go through Coinbase or whatever can start generating ETN and transacting without anything else required (this is still a pull for many emerging nations, where mobile phones continue to rise). On this, it seems they have won through. But what next…?

A U-turn

Unfortunately, ASIC miners are causing problems for ‘everyone’ being able to mine. It also means mining becomes more centralised by those who can gain more amounts of ETN quicker, using this hardware. Therefore, the plan was for ETN to go ASIC-resistant like many other Proof-of-Work blockchains, in order to remain inclusive for everybody. It didn’t quite go this way, and they’ve been forced to remain as before.

Would it be worth it if I still mine ETN using the mobile miner? Well, it might have been, but it’s clearly now a disadvantage, although I could purchase a (cheaper) ASIC miner and set this up.

They clearly have a strong team that’s been tested by this whole issue. They’ve opted for security in the network while still enabling it for everyone. Can this work out for ETN? You can still earn (those tiny amounts), the network is secured, but ETN could become attractive to large mining groups, especially if it makes progress with adoption. Then, the decentralised nature of Electroneum may come into question. It may or may not impact their mobile mining experience, which is soon – significantly – coming to Apple app store.

Future…

Overall it would be easy for competitors to rival ETN on a technical or blockchain level, but they have still made some progress. The key will be in further adoption, and further development, including deals with telecoms companies. For example, it would be significant to see some mobile service providers allowing users to pay for their service with ETN.

Investors would also need to watch ETN’s progress in the gaming market, where Enjin Coin (ENJ) and GameCredits (GAME) are competitors.

Also, they need more listings. They’re not yet listed on Binance, but if/when this happens this will be an extra kick to the price.

Overall, ETN has a solid presence, a strong following and have shown commitment to their roadmap but remain on some shaky ground. They will have to keep pushing.

Resources

Electroneum site
Reddit discussion
Check the chart on Livecoinwatch

Sept 2018
Update Oct 2019:
Read interesting post found here on Medium.
See also their new task-based website Anytasks.com

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