It seems virtually every person and company aims to create their own cryptocurrency. While that is commendable, it also raises the question as to how viable all of these projects will be in the long run. The co-creator of Uber has officially announced the Eco cryptocurrency, although it remains to be seen who will use it.
What Purpose Does Eco Serve?
It is always interesting to see what newly-announced cryptocurrencies bring to the table. Garrett Camp, the co-founder of Uber, is launching Eco as a way to deal with the shortcomings cryptocurrencies face right now. His approach is to create a global digital currency which has daily use. It’s an interesting approach, although it is not entirely uncommon for people to look in that particular direction right now.
While most cryptocurrency enthusiasts would prefer to see Bitcoin rise to that level of acceptance, the chances of that happening appear rather slim right now. That’s because Bitcoin lacks a lot of the traits required to make it a commonly used global digital currency in its current form. It is not fungible, its transaction throughput is far too low, and its volatile nature makes it unsuitable for both consumers and retailers.
Whether or not Eco will solve all of those problems is a different matter altogether. Since there will be one trillion tokens issued initially, this project is a bit different from what most people would expect. Half of these tokens will be given away to people who sign up for the project. A soft cap of one billion users is envisioned initially, although it remains to be seen if there will be that much interest in this project.
A large portion of the tokens will be distributed to universities running trusted Eco nodes, which is rather interesting. Advisers will also receive a portion of these tokens, as will the strategic partners of this new venture. Last but not least, 10% of the tokens will be kept by the Eco Foundation, which is tasked with maintaining the network as a whole. It seems none of these tokens will be sold through an ICO, which is a more than welcome change.
The big question is who will use this token for the purposes envisioned by Camp. Considering these tokens have no value by default, and the supply is pre-existing from day one, there is no real value to be attributed to Eco as of right now. That doesn’t mean this new token can’t become valuable in the future, but it remains unclear how this will be achieved exactly. With so many valuable digital currencies existing already, there is nothing new that sets Eco apart in any way.
For the time being, we will have to wait and see how things evolve in this regard. Camp’s concept is certainly interesting, and his networking skills in the technology sector may have a positive effect on this currency in the long run. For now, however, there is no reason to think this airdrop will become even remotely valuable in the future, but stranger things have happened in the world of digital currencies.
