This week on the 17th of June, Status will host their ICO. The amount of ICO’s in the last few weeks have caused a lot more noise but Status is something special. The founding team already have a product and have been working on the project for months before the ICO was announced.
What is it?
Status is a decentralised open source messaging application which allows smartphone users to access the Ethereum blockchain and the smart contracts & dApps which live on it. You can send messages, access dApps and send Ethereum and tokens through the app. The most similar comparison I can make is China’s WeChat which has widespread use throughout user, apps like this have not taken off in the Western World but Status in my opinion will change that.
Why is it worth it?
You own your information, so contrary to many large popular social media services in which the user is the product in Status you as the user are given the power over your own information as it is both open source, decentralised and it is powered by the SNT token and Ether you hold.
In comparison to a lot of larger initial coin offerings which have no working prototype Status has a working prototype for both Android and iOS with 6000 users and even more waiting. They’ve also built a strong development team and implemented a working implementation of go-ethereum which is a feat in itself syncing the Ethereum chain quickly on mobile.
How to contribute?
I’d like to stress in this section that you should not in any situation contribute through an exchange. This goes for any ICO. If you do this you will lose your money. In order to gain the SNT token Status is offering you should follow these steps.
- Download the Ethereum Mist browser and get a wallet address. Make sure you remember your password and backup your private key!
- Send Ethereum to your address
- During the contribution period you should send Ethereum to the token address Status will list HERE.
Also in terms of cost:
1 Ether = 10,000 Status Network Tokens(SNT)
Some additional resources I would recommend reading and visiting before the day would be here:
- Whitepaper - https://status.im/whitepaper.pdf - Make sure you read this as it describes what Status is doing and why. You should always read the whitepaper of a cryptocurrency to find out what is it about and what are it’s goals.
- Website - http://status.im/
- Slack channel -https://slack.status.im/ - A great place to ask questions and speak with the community surrounding Status.
Thanks for reading, I’m a regular poster on steemit. If you’d like to get in contact check out my profile link where I provide a link to my website.