It was my first ICO as I began getting involved with Cryto. I set up my exchange account, traded my Euros for Ethereum and then went ahead and bought just over 30,000 coins. I had unfortunately missed the bonus schemes so got my coins at the price of $0.01 each.
But why did I decide to go in on this one as my first? well...
If you are not familiar with Electroneum, then where have you been! the hype surrounding this first British crypto currency has been astonishing! From the regular video updates from the CEO live from the office, the Facebook campaigns, the chats, the telegram group etc, there is some serious interest in this coin.
The ICO closed 11 days early having reached the hard cap of $40m USD. Not pushing for more profit while time was left gave a feeling of trust between the investors and the company.
The beauty of this coin is the level of organisation, they ICO was not to raise funds to actually develop the product, because that is done!!!! Before the ICO, they have a working blockchain, they have an app that acts as a payment gateway and mobile wallet right there on your mobile, meaning people that have no idea about cryptos can get involved and actually experience mining from their handset.
Now obviously mobile phones are by no means capable of truly mining a blockchain, so Electroneum have come up with an idea, a mining experience that will still provide you with some coins, but does not require your handset to give up all its power to work.
This is huge! every day people can for the first time get into crypto in a familiar way to other things they regularly do.
Furthermore the app has a game in which you actually mine coins on the screen, but while being taught about crypto currencies and how block chain technology works. Talk about bringing it to the masses quick and easy like!
So what is the money raised to be used for? Translation into multiple languages to allow the app to become global, and then advertising and marketing in the general media across the world, I think this is a first for a crypto currency.
The android app is available on google play now, the wallet is there but the mobile miner and game don't become available until November 1st when the blockchain goes live. There will be an iOS app coming, but as Apple wouldn't play ball until the coin is on the markets, iPhone users will have to wait a little longer to get it. There will also be a windows based mining app.
They aim to get into the gaming markets such as mobile games and online gambling, opening up the possibility of cashing out from mobile games and gambling apps/sites in Electroneum which cam then be used to buy or transfer into other games or sites. This would offer the game companies an opportunity to charge a small fee for transfers in and out so is likely to be seriously considered for adoption going forward.
Here is an interview with Richard Ells, the leader of the Electroneum team. This was conducted during the ICO
So now it's a waiting game. The blockchain goes live on the 1st of November and at that point the team will be applying to be listed on a number of exchanges. Some agreements seem to already be in place, but in light of the huge amount of people either holding these coins or wanting these coins, it's likely the markets aren't going to mess around getting on board, and especially as it seems many new people have jumped into cryptos because of this particular coin, me included!
You can read more about Electroneum including the white paper that details where they are and where they are going, here http://electroneum.com/