What is Enjin
From the Enjin white paper https://enjincoin.io/enjincoin_whitepaper.pdf:
"Enjin® is introducing Enjin Coin (“ENJ”), a new cryptocurrency (ERC-20 Token) and smart
contract platform that gives game developers, content creators and gaming communities
the required crypto-backed value and tools for implementing and managing virtual goods."
They are creating a decentralized platform to manage and trade virtual goods. This gives real ownership of digital items to the user as opposed to the game retaining actual ownership of any IP related to the item.
A lot of gamers have purchased in game items. For a lot of games this goes against their ToS and so gamers are dealing with shady and unreliable means to get the items. Having in game items created on the blockchain will prevent a lot of the current fraud that exists when purchasing in game items and alleviate the risks associated with it. Being in the blockchain makes the items immutable and the transactions being executed via smart contracts executed on the blockchain would remove any doubt that the seller runs off without delivering.
It's also going to enable items to have a history. You'll be able to tell and prove to people that you're slaughtering the enemies in your favorite raid with the sword that Leroy Jenkins used.
The other cool implications of this coin are endless. Like melting down your in game item to recover some Enjin coin that can be used to purchase items in your next favorite game. So you've decided your done playing WoW. Your time invested in farming isn't all lost, you can melt down your items and then use your Enjin recovered to get your new Black Desert character some gear.
Please note: Neither of these games have any plans of incorporating the Enjin as far as I'm aware, this is just an analogous example of the idea. Don't go running to twitter with false rumors :p
It doesn't end there but I don't want to get to in depth because I could go on forever. Briefly things like having characters created on the platform that can be switched between two completely different games if the developers allowed it. There's a twitch plugin so possibly another medium for rewarding streamers. Just had a baby and decided you don't have time for games anymore? Sell your items and get something for your time invested to put towards the nursery you're going to need. Developers could use it as a means to incentivize gamers to write tutorials, be mentors to new players, holiday quests. The list goes on and on, so there's real use cases here and the 20 to 40 year old generation is rife with gamers.
Where has this been all my life!
Enjin has been flying under the radar for some time. The ICO timing was right in the middle of the whole S2X commotion. Lots of ALTs were being liquidated into BTC due to people wanting the S2X coins. So the coin hit the market and tanked like many of the recent ICOs.
In the current market texture new investors are looking for the next penny stock to go 100000%. It's nuts. Enjin's supply is 750 million circulating and 1 billion minted. It's not going to see .01c again and for that reason alone being ignored by a lot of new investors.
The other big red flag is there's not actually working product yet. However! Their wallet is scheduled to be released in the 24 hours. ~~~ embed:948532929814294528. The other big thing in the very near pipeline is the minecraft integration. That's right. Minecraft. The smart contract is currently finished and being reviewed by the Ethereum Foundation team. twitter metadata:ZW5qaW58fGh0dHBzOi8vdHdpdHRlci5jb20vZW5qaW4vc3RhdHVzLzk0ODUzMjkyOTgxNDI5NDUyOC4gVGhlIG90aGVyIGJpZyB0aGluZyBpbiB0aGUgdmVyeSBuZWFyIHBpcGVsaW5lIGlzIHRoZSBtaW5lY3JhZnQgaW50ZWdyYXRpb24uIFRoYXQncyByaWdodC4gTWluZWNyYWZ0LiBUaGUgc21hcnQgY29udHJhY3QgaXMgY3VycmVudGx5IGZpbmlzaGVkIGFuZCBiZWluZyByZXZpZXdlZCBieSB0aGUgRXRoZXJldW0gRm91bmRhdGlvbiB0ZWFtLnw= ~~~
That's huge in my opinion. I have two kids. We literally have mine craft of 4 platforms because they absolutely love it. Their friends love it. My friends kids love it. My coworkers love it. My coworkers kids love it... You get the idea.
Cool so what's next
The Enjin roadmap seems ambitious but so far they are hitting their deadlines and meeting their commitments. Here's what they have planned after the wallet and minecraft integration.
First they're working on C# and Unity SDKs (software developer kits). C# is a programming language used to create a lot of games. Especially indie games right now. Unity is a game creation IDE (integrated development environment). It's also used to create a lot of indie games, especially mobile games, right now. It seems to me they're targeting the indie developers to start adoption and that's a really smart way to start. A lot of times the AAA companies follow the indie market. Look at the explosion of survival games or moba games, not to mention almost all of them have a microtransaction market to be tapped into with Enjin.
The team has a ARK Survival Evolved Plugin currently being reviewed. Ark has a player base of about 60k players at any given time. That's no small cookie.
In Q2 2018 the team is planning:
Unreal Development Kit
iOS Swift SDK
Android SDK
Escrow Trading System
PHP SDK
Again all big deals in terms of adoption and accessibility to game developers.
The team
The team has a lot of experience and have operated for almost 10 years in the gaming community space. The core team members have been with Enjin for 4+ years. This is a good sign for their team's culture and their own buy in of their product.
They have a strong set of advisors as well such as:
Trung Seng - https://www.linkedin.com/in/trung-seng-8b526554/ - Founder of Prymtech
Ryan Lackey - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanlackey/ - Security advisor for Tezos
Pat Lebine - https://www.linkedin.com/in/pat-labine-4903b41/ - 12+ years at BioWare
And more.
Where to buy
Right now you can find it on Binance as well as some smaller exchanges. https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/enjin-coin/#markets. You can't buy directly with FIAT currency to my knowledge so you'll have to use an exchange like coinbase to buy BTC, ETH, BCH or LTC first and transfer that to your chosen exchange. If you create an account on either of those platforms I would appreciate if you use my referral links, coinbase will give you an extra $10, and Binance won't cost you anything extra but will give me a portion of fees paid for trading.
Coinbase - https://www.coinbase.com/join/59c6c3b1c68c7d0307f398ac
Binance - https://www.binance.com/?ref=11267703
Good Luck!
Disclaimer
This is not financial advice. I'm not a financial advisor. Do your own research and buy at your own risk. Don't risk what you can't afford to lose.
I do have some Enjin Coin myself and plan to for a long time.
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Really excited about this project, should gain a lot of attention at GDC.