For cryptocurrency investors, bounty hunters, and airdrop participants, there is nothing quite like the feeling of checking your wallet balance to find that a new coin has been added to your portfolio.
On Saturday morning (6/16/2018), I logged onto my account to see that I had received 911 HEALP tokens. Excited and confused, I began researching the project that these tokens were attached to and why I had received them. Since I have participated in well over 100 airdrops and bounty programs, it's not unusual to forget about a project.
From everything I could find, there was no "HEALP" token, but there was a "HEAL" token. HEAL is the official token of Etheal, a project that I have heard of and am familiar with. Etheal is "using AI to show the best medical treatment, in any country."
Sensing some connection between "HEALP" and HEAL," and also the use of 911 tokens, which is a number synonmous with emergencies and healthcare, I ventured to see if the token distribution came from Etheal. I joined the official Etheal Telegram channel to learn more. Looking through responses from administrators, it was clearly stated that the official Etheal token is HEAL, and that there is no real value to the HEALP tokens. However, an administrator stated that these tokens could be used for a 5% bonus during the Etheal ICO.
One community member asked if the owners of these wallets were notified that they would be receiving HEALP tokens. The admin stated that they did not have contact information for the more than 400,000 wallets they sent these tokens to.
To get clarification, I asked administrators if indeed there is no value to these coins, and if this effort was done to market the Etheal ICO. I'm pretty sure you know what happened next -- I was banned from the Etheal Telegram channel.
For a company that is trying to "bring transparency to $100B+ medical tourism" industry, this move is in very poor taste. If their marketing team was simply looking to raise awareness -- they accomplished that. They have also irritated their potential userbase and left a poor impression in the minds of over 400,000 cryptocurrency participants.
I was aware of this project before this stunt, and I had a favorable opinion of the team and what they are trying to do. A 4.5 rating on ICO Bench with over 50 reviews from experts will make the average investor trust this project. This shameless marketing stunt has evaporated every bit of my trust and interest in Etheal
What do you think of this stunt? Was it brilliant or terrible? Please comment below!