Spending crypto coins is pretty easy, especially for international payments. Those types of transactions work like a charm! But the biggest problem is how to spend an asset that constantly shifts its price. Amon wants to encourage users to use multiple crypto coins, by using an AI-powered system to optimize coin spending.
Currently, there are many options allowing users to spend any coin they choose – so Amon goes a step further by trying to offer a better choice. Crypto coins are volatile when measured against fiat currencies, fluctuating by as much as 20% in a day or 65% in a month. When is a good time to spend your coins? When is the exchange rate in your favor? Some coins trade with an almost unchanged rate for years, while others spike 10-fold in a month. Hopefully, Amon would tackle all those issues.
What is Amon?
- Amon
- Amon White Paper
- Country of origin: Estonia
- Ticker: AMN
- ICO Dates: 1 March – 4 April
- Hard Cap: $25 million
- Funds raised: Unknown
- Industry: Fintech
- Funds accepted: Ethereum
- My Rating: 4/5
Amon Social Media
Amon Overview
Right now, the token sale is in the pre-registration and whitelisting phase, offering a bonus of 25% plus early access to the up and coming card, aimed at competing with TenX and Monaco. On March 1 and 2, even small-scale early buyers would get the Amon Gold card, and later, there is a requirement for a minimum investment of $100.
The utility of the Amon product is straightforward: hold crypto coins on a mobile phone, and spend them any time by getting a fair fiat exchange rate. The AI algorithm suggests the best coin to spend based on price strength. So users would be mostly spending coins going upward at the moment. For coins losing value, the user would automatically be advised to “hodl” the asset until better times.
The Amon app would also allow instant conversion and let users invest in other assets as well.
Users would have options to spend either their preferred currency manually by selecting a coin, or let the in-built AI decide for them.
The Amon team has already partnered with the Ixonn security company and has a wallet ready as an alpha version. This is encouraging, as it speaks of some work done before the token sale. The project's GitHub repository shows serious work on the wallet and, of course, the creation of a simple smart contract to distribute the tokens.
The Amon Team
The Amon team is transparent and open to communication, with regular updates on key issues of privacy and the capabilities of AI technologies. The team has noted the problem of Wavecrest, and its task now is to find a better card intermediary.
The team of co-founders includes Daniele Izzo, Christian Izzo, Valerio Sudrio, and Samantha Jewel, who also serves as large investor and advisor.
The team seems knowledgeable of the logistics and is ready with developers waiting to improve on the wallet and all the elements to make Amon viable. Based in Europe, the team also relies on several advisors both in terms of finance and in technology, and marketing efforts are reasonable, mostly contacting the community directly through social media.
About Amon AMN Token
The Amon AMN digital asset would be an ERC-20 token based on Ethereum. Beyond distributing 30% of all tokens in the crowd sale, this asset would serve several functions. The Amon Gold card would carry rewards and award tokens for purchases and loyalty. There are other preferences for token holders, such as staking rewards, and a faster access to a customer service line.
Thus, AMN is categorized as a “utility token”.
After the crowd sale, the founders and the developer team would hold at least 35% of tokens, more if the crowd sale meets a lower target and the unsold tokens are burned. The founders' vault, however, would remain locked for a while, releasing the tokens over a period of six years. For the developers, there is a one-year lockdown. Given that tokens take a few months to set the price, this may not bother the token holders at all.
Investing in Amon: The Pros
Established in Estonia, this project will have all the advantages of the rather liberal Eurozone policy when it comes to crypto coins. Also, the country is one of the low-tax, crypto-friendly places of Europe, complete with significant developer talent. Despite the fact that Estonia has not yet established a national cryptocurrency, there has not been any talk of restrictions and this ICO is happening in one of the most liberal zones of the European Union.
Also, there may be a hunger for more card providers, as card projects are unrolling rather slowly and people who want to spend crypto coins may be interested in yet another possibility.
The Risk of Amon
The risk of card issuers lies in the relationship between VISA and the company. Usually, intermediaries will help the payment logistics, and in the case of Wavecrest, the relationship with VISA fell through, leading to a freeze in the cards. Luckily, not all cards were affected – but the case was a blow to the sector. So the success of Amon depends on the intermediary and the smooth connection with the VISA network.
The other risk is that people would simply continue not to spend crypto coins, because of the fear for their value.
The third biggest risk is that Amon faces significant delays, much like other card-provider startups. Users are kept waiting for months, and sometimes end up with inconvenient deals. Despite promises, exchange rates on those cards may not be as good-looking as advertised.
While a KYC procedure is in place, the Telegram team has encouraged users to send in ETH as the token sale starts, and perform the verification later, which is slightly concerning. In any case, whitelisting an email and an Ethereum address are a good start for the upcoming ICO.
Final Thoughts on Amon
Amon, with its hard cap of $25 million, sets out as an ambitious ICO with a higher potential budget. The 25 millions quite enough to unroll a high-quality product. The Amon team has already produced an alpha wallet, and while the young tech holds risks, this is an encouraging sign. Even better-funded ICOs have failed in producing anything for months after the token sale.
Amon works with the Daneel project, basing its market signal and sentiment analysis on the IBM Watson artificial intelligence. And while it is unknown whether those approaches can predict the market, it shouldn't be a problem judging whether to spend a coin or hold it for the time being.
The startup team has already delivered some work on the cryptocurrency spending ecosystem, so this ICO would deserve MyRating of 4/5, and the minimum investment of $100 may be a good idea, ensuring access to a card, as well as future preferences.
Should YOU Invest?
Honestly, most people looking to invest in altcoins, tokens, and ICOs are hoping they discover the next Bitcoin or Ethereum. The chances of that are rare.
So where is your money best invested? My recommendation might surprise you. It's free to join, and won't require that you invest in risky cryptos!
Nathaniell
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