Another day, another Altcoin IPO. Futurecoin is the latest altcoin looking for victims investors. Yesterday, 23 BTC were flushed down the toilet by people investing in the dubious EmiratesCoin. Futurecoin does have one advantage over that fiasco. Futurecoin is using an escrow service from ‘Anon136.’ He’s been around since 2010 and lasted through the entire ‘EdgeCoin‘ debacle, so using his escrow service should alleviate some of the normal risk associated with an IPO on a forum.
What’s Futurecoin All About?
Futurecoin makes a few bold claims in their ANN thread.
“Futurecoin is a fundamental change in the design of a typical cryptocurrency. We have adopted a proven model found in many publicly traded corporations across the world in it that our longterm block maturity is designed to simulate the characteristics of graded vesting, such that we would create an environment of miners working to improve the coin and thus the coins value, whilst still stalling the desire to immediately dump. The nature of this model also gives rise to a litany of services that would be central to the coin, such as a strong futures market that would mitigate the risk of all investors and miners that hold the coin, and a new pool design for those that need Futurecoin immediately.”
If that statement seems like complete B.S. to you, you’re not alone. Clearly we’re not dealing with the ‘futures market‘ when we’re talking about cryptocurrencies. Despite having exchanges that look sorta like real stock market exchanges, there are many dissimilarities between stock or futures trading and the trading of altcoins. Personally my scam detector starts ringing loudly when a ‘Dev‘ uses this many analogies to institutional grade investments in a forum post.
But that’s just me.
In order to accomplish the stated goal of getting miners to stay ‘vested‘ in the coin, the ‘Dev team‘ introduces the concept of super-long block times. They’ll force miners to hold the coin for two weeks, in order to ‘stabilize‘ the price.
The Goals Sound Dubious To Me
The level of convolution needed to concoct an overly complicated coin like this is astounding. Can we be serious for just one minute? Since when did ‘miners dumping‘ become a major problem in the altcoin market? Let them dump. They paid for their electric or rig rental and they want to get a fast return. That’s completely understandable and not at all a problem. Why anyone would need to force initial people to hold for two weeks is beyond me.
Other Red Flags
It’s A Clone:
Again, even though this altcoin claims innovation, there isn’t much of that to speak of. The code is a clone of Myriad, which begs the question, why not just mine and buy Myriad instead? There’s no way around asking that question when a new clone is introduced. Why is a new coin needed if the functionality already exists in an extant coin which is already better situated for acceptance in the broader marketplace.
This question is never answered by Devs of new altcoins. Instead, they seek to justify the existence of their clone with whatever hyperbole they can muster.
The Dev Has Ignored Occam’s Razor:
Almost all globally accepted tech products are succinct. The developers of world class tech products do not add unnecessary complexity to a project for the sake of making things complicated. This one is so complex, problems seem likely.
Only A Pool Run By A Fool Will Help With This One:
Miners don’t like waiting 60 seconds to get paid by a mining pool. In fact, they will call scam at 61 seconds in most cases. Running a mining pool for Futurecoin means the pool operator will be fielding questions and complaints for TWO FULL WEEKS before the first payment goes out!
Two Weeks In Atcoins Is Like A Thousand Years In The Real World:
Most altcoins have come and gone in a two week timeframe. The attention span of the average miner and speculator is similar to a mosquito’s. They think in terms of milliseconds, not in weeks.
We’ll be keeping an eye on this launch. I’ll give the Dev credit for trying something ‘sort of’ original. He seems to have defied all of the most common conventions with this plan, so he will be flying in the face of ‘what works’ right now in this industry. I guess the name Futurecoin really makes sense, because that’s when miners will be getting paid, way off in the future. The Dev has already been paid, in the form of an IPO, so the only ones waiting for compensation will be the miners.
Update: as ‘The Dev‘ pointed out to me, he isn’t actually going to be paid immediately since the funds are being held in escrow. They won’t get paid until investors are satisfied they’ve met their objectives.
This should be interesting!
