The spectacular growth of bitcoin in the last few years has caught plenty of people’s attention, and apparently, governments are no different. While some governments are working to limit users’ access to these new items, some are instead trying to get in on the action. Estonia is one such country working to get a part of the cryptocurrency run, and may be offering estcoin soon enough.
Estcoin—a portmanteau of “Estonia” and “coin”—isn’t the first such currency advanced, but it may end up being the first to market. China and Russia are both actively considering cryptocurrencies of their own. Yet there’s some word to suggest Estonia may have a leg up on its quasi-communist contemporaries.
An already-established digital infrastructure as part of its public-sector operations, as well as its internal philosophy that such a currency would allow people all over the world to effectively invest in Estonian digital development, may be giving the country an edge in a cryptocurrency release.
Estcoin may ultimately launch through an ICO, or Initial Coin Offering, that gives investors access to the coins similar to how an initial public offering of stock offers shares. Those hoping to get in on the action will have a while to wait, though; it’s still in the very earliest stages. Reports suggest that the project is currently gathering feedback ahead of the writing of a whitepaper on the subject, which itself precedes a demand assessment.
So you can probably forget about seeing estcoin in your digital wallet for the rest of 2017, bare minimum. The question is, would anyone jump at this offer? Who would own what amounts to Estonian bitcoin? The answer is probably a lot more people than you’d think. Most who follow the cryptocurrency market remember bitcoin’s staggering run up from the point where you needed 10,000 of them to buy two Papa John’s pizzas to today, where one such coin would be enough to buy about 200 or so such pizza
The next bitcoin could literally come from anywhere. Would people throw a few bucks behind the Estonian bitcoin in hopes of catching the next run up? It’s entirely possible, though with so many such coins out there already, the chances of actually hitting such a run are very slim.