Uber’s co-founder Garret Camp made a major announcement regarding future plans. The founder of the accelerator/Venture fund Expa is launching his own cryptocurrency called ‘Eco‘ which is set to rival Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency.
A lot of different companies are turning towards cryptocurrency nowadays. Some companies such as Atari and Kodak have gotten a second chance through cryptocurrency. Many other companies and platforms have introduced cryptocurrencies in an innovative way to provide services and products never seen before. The best example of this is the VibeHub platform which aims to use the blockchain network and will provide VR streaming services to everyone. At the center of it will be its crypto token which will be used to make transactions within the platform.
Even though cryptocurrency isn’t doing as well as it used to, it’s still very popular. Garret Camp looks to follow other companies as he introduced the world to his own cryptocurrency. ‘Eco’ is intended to be used as a global digital currency for daily use around the world in multiple transactions. Around 1 trillion crypto tokens will be issued upon initial release of which 50 percent will be given to the first billion people who sign up for the project.
The other 50 percent will be divided as follows: 20 percent will go to universities, 10 percent to advisors, 10 percent to Camp’s own strategic partners, and 10 percent will go towards the newly made Eco foundation. The Eco foundation will be tasked with creating and maintaining the currency’s network. As far as funding goes, Camp stated that Expa will donate $10 million along with the co-operation of multiple partners affiliated with the company.
One interesting thing to note, however, is that according to the whitepaper for the project, there seems to be no ICO for this currency. Usually, new crypto tokens are distributed out through ICOs which firms use to get initial funding. ICOs are mainly done through the Ethereum blockchain but it seems Camp will be taking a different approach. Transactions will be carried out by verified nodes and the network will make use of user-friendly web and mobile apps in order to attract new users.
The advantage of using verified nodes is that it prevents people from being a victim of fraud. Also, it gives Eco an advantage over Bitcoin as one of the main problems of Bitcoin is regarding this. However, having verified nodes for network support comes at a tradeoff. It requires more supervision, which does not make the cryptocurrency fully decentralized, which was the whole point of Bitcoin. However, with many countries already looking to regulate cryptocurrencies, it wouldn’t make that much a difference as long as people would be safe from fraud.
Due to a large number of Eco tokens, expect the Eco to dollar conversions to be low. One of the main issues regular users have with cryptocurrency is the large prices. Bitcoin’s large price of $10,000+ turns many people away. However, seeing lower prices for Eco would bring a lot of users and the large supply of tokens makes this possible. Also, making their network and mobile apps user-friendly also makes sure every user is able to purchase Eco regardless of their skills with technology, thus making the whole process simpler.
Perhaps the main thing that sets Eco apart from top cryptocurrencies is energy management. Eco will try to be as efficient with energy as possible when dealing with token generation and transaction verification, thus making its energy consumption much less than that of Bitcoin. This will also make it easier to mine the currency as compared to Bitcoin. Therefore, making it a much more attractive option for everyone.
Garret Camp has big plans for his new digital currency and the Eco itself looks to be promising. With Eco taking the more user-friendly and energy efficient approach, it’s likely for the cryptocurrency to pose a real threat to some of the leading cryptocurrencies of the world such as Litecoin, Bitcoin, and Ethereum.