Let's dive in.
About:
Here we have Linx, which is currently being promoted on its website as
A mineable Block Chain based digital currency for the electronic music community.
This in itself is a small green flag to me, as they have a specific niche, a target audience, in the vastness of both the music industry, and music industry applicable blockchain technology.
This will allow for focused efforts, promotion/marketing, and product development, which I believe is a key factor for investing amid the current "cryptomania." A source of drive that will keep the project going amidst a bear market, or an SEC crackdown, or any other black swan event that could hit crypto.
Linx is, at it's core, like bitcoin, a tool for storage and transfer of wealth, touted to also be designed for use as an alternative means of payment for the electronic music community, including but not limited to artists, producers, DJ's, venues, radio stations and fans.
The intent to allow fans to make use of this platform is another little green flag for me, as fans have a strong connection to music, and the artists that make it. Allowing them to make use of this platform to express that will be great for the valuation of the asset over the course of the next 6, 12, and 24 months, as fans love to feel evermore connected to music, artists, and the personal lives and lifestyle of said artists & musical communities.
They currently claim to be in the process of reaching out to and connecting with leading digital music stores about the future integration of Linx into their platform. The biggest digital music providers currently are, Apple Music, Spotify, Amazon MP3, Google Music, eMusic, Napster, Rhapsody, Tidal, Youtube (Red), Bandcamp, iHeart Radio, Pandora and more. There's also music equipment providers such as Sam Ash, Sweetwater, and Musicians Friend that could fall under this category.
Currently integration and partnership has been confirmed with D3EP Radio, an underground online radio station focusing on house music, a positive sign, as they're sticking to the aforementioned target audience. Consistent exposure to a specific market audience allows for the development of familiarity, a major decision maker in the average persons purchases.
The full integration of this asset into one or more of these mainstream platforms would push the value of this asset up 5-10x easily. There are plans to develop a software suite to allow stores to calculate and display a real time Linx value against USD, with the option to weight the price against market volatility, or exchange it for BTC.
I'm a bit neutral on this, as the need to implement new infrastructure creates delays due to natural bugs, re-designing and re-working the software to it's full capabilities. If this is handled in a messy manner, or isn't successful, there could be strong devaluation of the asset due to uncertainty in holders over the future of said asset.
However, should this implementation be carried out successfully, it would be a landmark step in cryptocurrency as a whole, by cleaning up some of the messiness that still exists between cryptocurrencies and their fiat counter parts that they seek integration into.
At this point, I'd like to diverge into some of the more meaty FA around Linx.
Currently, the total supply stands at 100,000,000 Linx, with 5,990,850 currently mined, or created and 4,990,850 in circulating supply, and a 1% premine of 1,000,000 Linx, giving us a current market cap of roughly 450,000 (ATH 540k), with the current USD/BTC value of Linx being $0.090322/0.00002080 BTC, with the last Linx being mined sometime in the year 2024.
Linx also claims to provide much faster transactions than bitcoin with one minute block times, and uses Dark Gravity Wave 3 retargeting (a multiple simple & exponential moving average system for block difficulty) to defend from multi-pool attacks, allowing for a safer and more secure network. This is good for early coins that may not yet have a network hash-rate high enough in itself to deter attackers, such as Bitcoin or Ethereum. Linx is a Proof of Work coin, meaning that the mining is done via the expenditure of time and computing power, like Bitcoin, using Scrypt (an algorithm specifically designed to make it costly to perform large-scale custom hardware attacks by requiring large amounts of memory), as it's algorithm.
It can be mined via both GPU and CPU, though I can't specify whether or not it is currently possible, logical, or profitable to mine this coin outside of a mining pool, though they do have their own mining pool set up at http://pool.mylinx.io/, for both types of mining.
There are currently four wallets available, for Windows, Mac, Linux, a web wallet, and it's also available on Coinomi.
I have personally enjoyed the use of the Windows desktop wallet, due to it's simplicity, the speed at which it synchronized with the network (indicating a very healthy/active blockchain & mining community), and the speed of the transactions, which indeed were much faster than BTC transactions. The desktop wallets have standard encryption available, while the web wallet also makes use of 2FA (Two factor authentication) for an additional security measure, and there's a working block explorer for checking on transactions.
Linx also sports a healthy social media presence, with accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Slack, Bitcoin Talk, and an open source github account for developers who would like to get involved on that level.
Currently, the developer remains anonymous, though they have stated that they plan to reveal themselves, at the right time, most likely once they know the Linx project can stand without them, or in the face of attacks due to it being a disruptive technology in a very archaic, staid industry. He claims to be an internationally renowned figure in the world of electronic music for over twenty five years, bringing an un-paralleled network of contacts to the table, as well as an experienced full stack developer. A full stack developer is someone who is considered to have reached a specialists level of knowledge of all stages of software development.
In addition to this, the also anonymous head of finance (a pleasing position to see them with, knowing that cryptocurrency projects can get flooded with money, or see extreme increases in valuation out of nowhere, and with the SEC potentially looming, crypto projects need someone skilled in the field of handling large amounts of capital), claims to have been a successful record label owner since the mid 90's, over two decades to date, and has extensive experience and knowledge in the realm of music business and legality, with an address book full of industry specific corporate contacts.
Along side this, they claim to have an in house group of beta-testers, with large amounts of experience in music industry and music business, along with a large amount of contacts from this experience.
It is, according to them, this closeness to the community and market, that gives them an edge over other crypto projects reaching to tap into this market, or any other crypto for that matter.
I have to take this with a grain of salt, as an investor, as my number one goal is capital preservation, low risk positions, and high reward probability. I would be remiss to not acknowledge the potential risk of investing in projects that make very impressive claims such as this, without any solid proof to back it up. The red flag nature of it can not be ignored.
Wait I am certainly not doing is FUD'ing, or screaming SCAM DEV, as plenty of crypto projects are ran anonymously, or by a community, or by people only known by screen names, and are fully legitimate projects. Rather, I am putting safety first, by preparing for the worst.
My hope for the best, is that every single one of these claims made by these individuals is true, and that we see that reflected in the growth, development and release of Linx products, as I do believe this project has potential to be a game changer in the music industry, and I would also be remiss if I didn't add that so far, some of these claims have reflected themselves in the quality of the website, the choices made in the development of the coin and blockchain, and the plans and sequencing of said plans for Linx.
Currently I don't doubt at all that the people behind Linx have the skills, acumen and background that they say they do, and am quite eager to see the applications of these skills and talents to the project, and music industry as a whole.
Future notable plans include twitter powered transactions (think Reddcoin, Artbyte), Android/iOS wallets, and a messaging/ meet up app. Linx is currently trading on Cryptopia, Coinexchange, Novaexchange and Bitfish. Of course the mainstream site addition is what some people need to validate this coin for them, and I believe we could very well see that within the coming months, but it is certainly not a deal breaker for me.
Overall I'm going to hold this coin until the roadmap is complete, buy the dips, and continue to watch the project as it hopefully develops into a robust and complete aspect of music as we know it.
If reading this has made you bullish on Linx, I still recommend you DYOR, and come to your own conclusions, as my trading and investment plans, thoughts, feelings and points of view aren't yours. This might not be the investment for you.
But if you think it is, here you go:
Website: https://mylinx.io/
Bitcoin Talk Announcement Thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1944710.0
Check it out, and tell me what you think about Linx.