I figured since my original post has been re-posted several times, I would clean up some language and typos in it as well as expand on my fifth point. So here is the update version. Thanks everyone who has shared! Cheers.
Why I believe in Minereum
(Full Disclosure: I have gotten behind this project on a magnitude of 1000s of dollars.)
As I have written about before, assuming the developers follow through, there is a lot to be excited about with this token.
Here are the obvious strengths of Minereum:
First coin to self-mine
Releases in predictable way
Does not require energy
First to create easy token creation service
This will include tokens that use the same innovative self-mining process
Will make Ethereum token use-cases accessible to the masses
Potential world-wide lottery service
Paid into only with Minereum
Increases rate at which Minereum is taken out of circulation
Tokens received from services will be destroyed
Taking them out of circulation and increasing scarcity/value
But there is much that gives me pause for concern. The primary tenants of Ethereum are decentralization and transparency. This project does well to address the former, but severely lacks in the latter. The way the Ethereum addresses are set up with smart contracts, to release tokens at a trickle, with no outside manipulation is spot-on. The idea behind the project is good too, creating a service that will allow the masses to create decentralized tokens for decentralized services. But the elusiveness of the developers is frustrating.
The person behind the domain registration of Minereum.com is anonymous, the updates are vague and few and far between, there is no window into developer communication, there has been no mention of how many addresses the developers have reserved for themselves, there has been no public invitation to the community to test services in development or even a bit of digital evidence to show progress on future services, to name a few.
Even so, I still believe in this project. Here is why.
First and foremost, when the developers do deliver on their promises (assuming they are good products). They are going to be huge. Creating an easy to use service to create tokens will change the landscape of Ethereum and Crypto in general. Minereum in many ways will become a gateway to Ethereum (plus the whole new type of smart-contract-trickle-release-thing).
Second, this token is limited big time. There just isnt much of it. It doesnt take that many investors to raise the price. When the developers follow through with their promises, its going to head for the moon. This would happen even without the whole destroying tokens used for official Minereum services promise (So thats like a bonus).
Third, this token is out in the wild. It doesnt matter what the developers do at this point. A solid algorithm has already been set up and tied to 4000+ Genesis ETH accounts. This token is going to continue trickling into the crypto space for the next 47 years, period. This is true even if the developers do nothing, even if the developers reserved half+ genesis addresses for themselves. The worst that could happen - they slowly sell their stake as it becomes available and someone else buys into the token.
Fourth, we dont need the developers anymore. The important infrastructure of this token has been built. The tokens are in place, smart contracts have been initiated, the developers built something that cant be stopped. We have a bonafide working cryptocurrency. WE can build services that only accept Minereum, if we wanted to (well I couldnt, because I dont know anything about coding, but you catch my drift). Dont get me wrong, I want the developers to follow-through, but if they dont, we can pick up the slack.
Fifth and finally, I dont think the developers have bowed out yet or will anytime soon because the pay-off simply isnt big enough for them yet. With such a small amount of Minereum released each day combined with the small market cap, the amount of work put into this token just doesnt equal the pay-off at this point. The developers have built something that literally locks them out of cheating their followers. Their pay-off only gets better if they deliver. If they sell too much now, the market crashes and they get away with very little. If they wait a little longer to sell so they make a significant profit even though also crashing the market, then they are cheating themselves out of 47 years of price-increase. Even if this is a scam-coin, the scam-artists are playing the long game, they need this token to be a solid mover in the market. Even if the developers have half the addresses reserved for themselves, a lot more work will need to be put into the promotion and reputation of this token before they will be able to sell it at a significant profit and even then they will have to sell slowly. From what I can tell the DNA of this token just wasnt designed in a way conducive to someone trying to make a quick buck.
I dont know why the developers dont open up more channels of communication and avenues of transparency and to be frank, I find it slightly annoying as it seems antithetical to the project. But regardless of our qualms with the way the project is being managed, I think the evidence that this is a legitimate project which will benefit all participants is much stronger than the opposite. This is why I believe in Minereum and think it will succeed in unexpected and hopefully immeasurable ways.
very well said and thank you for your times to laid out the picture for new comer.