I am not a fan of investing just for the sake of it, to see if that currency works, or to buy and dump post ICO. I want to invest for the long term (honestly, this is my second ICO so it’s not as if I am an expert in the subject).
I have set aside a small amount of my monthly income for crypto related investments (being adding on established coins (my picks: BTC and LTC) or investing on an ICO), and this month I took the plunge and invested in an ICO: EnjinCoin. I like understanding what I am investing in, and gaming is something I understand so this encouraged me to read their whitepaper. In a nutshell, EnjinCoin is “customizable cryptocurrency and virtual goods platform for gaming.”
Something very appealing is that EnjinCoin (ENJ) is powered by the Enjin Network which is one of the top social gaming website platforms in the world. This means that you are not investing on something that is just getting started, you are investing on improvements for something that already exists and happens to be successful. They already have over 18 million registered gamers, and have millions of monthly sales of virtual goods.
It also has the qualities I look for in an ICO:
- Solid team
- Concrete idea (I prefer if it is a product / project that is already out there)
- Token applicability, preferably outside of their platform (or if there are plans for that).
Their pre-sale sold out (USD 12,000,000), and their crowdsale started on October 3rd 2017 @ 5:00 am PDT (at the time of this post it had already sold 648Million of the 800 Million ENJ available (80.99%), so if you are interested you might want to act fast).
However, when a product is that solid and has the possibility of selling out super fast, scammers will appear everywhere, and in the crypto-currency world it’s even easier to get scammed (have you read my post about my experience?)
The official site for Enjincoin is https://enjincoin.io/ … but, at some point during the ICO a website called enijncoin . io appeared (note that instead of enJin it was enIjn). The site was identical, and several people fell for the scam. There was also a site from google ads that apparently re-directed the user to enjincoin . me . Unfortunately, some people fell for the scam and about USD 162K were sent to one of the fake addresses.
(picture by KoroNo HaHa, was shared on etherscan)
As of now, these sites have been taken down, which proves the Enjin team is working hard at protecting their investors, but you always have to be sure you are visiting the correct website, don’t just click on the first google link that shows up (did you know that many people pay for USD 84 for an ESTA – a visa waiver – instead of USD 14? This is because they click on the first link that shows up, most likely an “ad” which ends in .com / .net / .us , instead of .gov , so they end up paying an “agency” an extra USD 70 for submitting it on their behalf).
If it is an ICO you have been researching for a while, bookmark their official website, Facebook, Twitter, Bitcointalk, etc. so when the ICO day comes around you are certain you are sending your hard earned crypto currency to the correct address, and you will get your tokens. If you are visiting the website for the first time, make sure to visit their social media sites to make sure you are at the correct page (but to be honest, you shouldn’t be investing on something you are seeing for the first time and haven’t researched, but to each their own).
As always, remember that investing on any ICO or crypto currency is risky (as is any type of investment), and there is no guarantee of returns. If you do decide to invest, never invest more than you could afford to lose, and before you do it, be sure to visit the company’s website, check out the team and read their whitepaper.
Happy ICOing! ... but remember:
Ally
PS. Links to some of my previous posts: