#OneICOaWeek: What is Electroneum?

Despite all the buzz around cryptocurrency and blockchain they all miss one vital attribute: mass adoption. Electroneum is trying to change that by creating a blockchain that combines both state-of-the-art technology and ease of use. Plus: marketing is already included.

Electroneum in one sentence:

Electroneum is the first mobile minable cryptocurrency with marketing and privacy included

Electroneum is based on CryptoNote which uses the CryptoNight proof-of-work algorithm. It is the same as the one used in Monero and Bytecoin. As some of you might know, despite the designation “cryptocurrency” most coins are the opposite of "crypto". It’s an inherent feature of a blockchain that every transaction contains information on all previously made transactions. Electroneums CryptoNote algorithm uses a ring signature to hide information on where a transaction came from and what value it amounted to. The technology has proven well appreciated by the community. Both Monero and Bytecoin are among the 25 most valuable coins in terms of market capitalization.

But what really sets Electroneum apart is a clear idea on how to gain mass adoption. Though a lot of founders have claimed their currencies to be the first to gain interest by non-technical users, none of them has achieved this yet. Electroneum uses two strategies to close the gap between the crypto community and other people:

1. The total amount of all Electroneum (ETN) is 21 Billion. Thereby a typical transaction of ETN will amount to a two-decimal number maximum. Try buying a coffee with Bitcoin and you’ll pay something like 0.00000001 BTC. That won’t happen with ETN.

2. Electroneum can be mined on a smartphone. Well, actually it can’t, but they give you a wallet that “simulates” the mining experience.

The goal is to give people the full blockchain experience from the beginning on. You can own ETN, spend ETN, receive ETN and mine ETN without having to worry about GPU mining rigs, what wallet to choose or having to calculate the number of decimals when paying for your latte. That’s what I mean when I say that marketing is already included. Once the people have the app, they can start mining and soon after will own their first ETN. In marketing jargon: they are already in the sales funnel. If you want to try it out: the app is already there and running. People will be able to jump right into the experience once the token sale is finished on October 31.

Mobile Mining – How is That Possible?

Even though the CryptoNight algorithm prevents the use of GPUs and ASIC-miners, mining it on a mobile phone will drain your battery, heat up your processor and consume your data. How do we go about bringing the mining experience to your phone then? This is where Electroneum sacrifices decentralization for the sake of giving you an easy start: The blocks aren’t actually mined on your phone nor is the blockchain downloaded to it. Instead, Electroneum assigns an amount of hashing to your mobile that is equivalent to the real power of your phone. Thereby, Electroneum can be mined without overheating your smartphones' processor, draining your battery and consuming your data volume.

Cryptocurrency For The Gaming Industry

Now, who really needs another cryptocoin apart from those who just take their first steps in the cryptoworld? Electroneum states two main use cases for their coin: Gaming and gaming (yes, that’s what the whitepaper says). The first one is for online games, the second for gambling. Electroneum has consulted several big players in the online gaming industry to assess interest in their coin. If we believe what their whitepaper says, there is a lot of it. I’m not an online gamer, but judging from the explanations and examples alone, I find them plausible. According to Pocketgamer only 20% of online gamers stay with one game for more than 30 days. Almost all of these games have their own virtual currency. The big pain for players is that by switching to a different game they lose all their hard gained values. Hence, you need an overall currency, and ETN wants to be that currency. In order to make things as easy as possible, Electroneum already has their API in place. In theory, gaming studios can start building their ETN-exchange around Electroneums API once the token sale has finished.

Mobile Mining Experience over Decentralization

It seems that Electroneum is really going all in with mass adoption. They prioritize the mobile mining experience, which actually is a marketing feature, over the cult of decentralization. If it works, then we really might end up paying our coffee with ETN one day. I especially like the creative approach of simulating the mining experience. Starters will get hands-on experience without all the hassle of buying mining hardware, finding the right mining software, etc.