I appreciate the sentiment, but I have to protest. Don't take this personally; we are being honest and objective here. This looks like a few extra lines slapped onto the Internet Explorer "e", and the blue makes my eyes bleed against that white. It looks like a mid-1990's startup that's not to be taken seriously at all - certainly not a currency that may be worth billions one day. Is it readable at 16x16? Sure, but it's also not attractive and desirable. It also is barely distinguishable as an "ae" when it is shrunk - it looks like a bunch of squiggly lines (even to me and I'm looking for the "ae").
You say that what we are doing has nothing to do with corporate branding, but I respectfully disagree. The human brain is an association engine; this is the only reason we are still better than computers - massive, massive parallel processing. When a human sees *anything* they aren't just seeing a thing objectively; they are seeing every experience they ever had with that thing and anything like it.
When we see this:
there absolutely is branding at play. I have never been to China so I feel nothing when I look at the Yuan. It is a piece of paper to me, even though it has massive value. I don't feel like it's valuable because my brain isn't drawing any associations to any time when I found anything like it to be valuable. Now when I look at the dollar, I am immediately flooded with a lifetime of events all surrounding how good it felt to have a 20 dollar bill, find one on the ground, get them from the ATM.... there is huge "branding" at play. It's likely even something in that color scheme would activate those same pathways. The Euro? The colors not so much there, but I have taken many trips to Europe and I remember all the times those pieces of paper felt 'valuable'. These processes are very similar to the ones that activate when I repeatedly see an attractive person I like or a luxury brand that I can't afford.
Let's look at some logos of these "luxury brands" that don't scale very well to 16x16 either:
When I see these I immediately think of all the times I saw them featured in a very expensive mall, or lauded in a magazine. I think of every beautiful person I have ever seen wearing or being associated with these brands. I wouldn't know how to exchange them as actual currency but there is no doubt in my mind that these brands have value and there is value in them. They aren't pandering to me - they exist, and if I'm good enough I will attain ownership of these brands.
When I said to experiement with Aeon, this is what I meant. Let's create a brand of cryptocurrency that actually feels desirable and carries status to own. Aeon isn't just a currency - merely the act of owning Aeon should be a status symbol that is *more* than the sum of the parts (which are already significant due to this being a Cryptonote). You own a slice of bleeding future, out of the reach of most people. Let them transact in Monero, the more "reliable" blockchain. Aeon? That's for the innovators, the rule-breakers, and those who dare to do more. And even if a blockchain experiement went awry, those who hold Aeon aren't worried - no one is trying to cash out and in fact there is a certain social trust in the others who hold Aeon. We aren't here to ride some pump and dump wave; we're here to own a slice of the future.
That brings me to this son of a bitch here:
My god. It's full of stars. I think we're dangerous close. We're definitely in a zone of danger.
This is amazing. I am literally hard at work right now thinking of all the possibilities for this logo. I do think we need to try another version of this in that sexy and luxury blue we were looking at earlier. I feel like that might make it perfect. And who knows, perhaps those curves on the letters need slight tweaking.
But this is really something special.
This looks like the money of the new "1%". And what do those 1% get? The best Cryptonote innovations first, lead by the top programmers, most elite community, and most astute economists and mathematicians in the world. This isn't an altcoin.
This is Aeon.