I just saw the weirdest fucking crypto ever, advertised on YouTube.
Have you heard of BitMinutes? No? Well, me either. But apparently, they're doing an ICO. I know because a YouTube advert told me. Now, I'm not usually one to click adverts, but hey, I like crypto, and I've never bought in an ICO before.
So I click on the advert to go to their page and start reading.
It's hard for me to put into words what I saw.
Everything about the page screamed out at me that this thing was weird!
'Proprietary "Smart Token" BitMinutes'
Wait a second? Proprietary? A proprietary crypto? And it's a "Smart Token"? They put the quotes there, not me!
Free money transfer!
I like free money transfers! Don't you? It's one of the main advantages of Steem. That's a cool thing, right? Although, after Steem, I almost expect it, and am just bummed when it doesn't have it.
Guaranteed loans
Wait, what? This part confused me from the first second. Like they have something built into the crypto to have loans? I guess that could be alright. But lets check out their YouTube vid!
Anna & Miguel, your lives are lies! You're ANIMATED!
Is it just me, or does the whole BitMinutes loan scheme sound like some sort of multi-level marketing? Yeah, we're all gonna get rich by just loaning money back and forth! Although, an easy way to borrow and loan money from friends rather than credit cards would probably be preferable if I am to be honest. So maybe it only sounds sketch.
"BitMinutes embed identity attributes"
Wait, what?
All BMT tokens include KYC and meet global Anti-Money Laundering standards.
I understand you don't want people that do things that you don't like to be able to pay people for things that you don't like but tracking every single token really worries me. It's already exceedingly easy to track other coins, and you gotta make it worse?
White Labeled?
BitMinutes can be white labeled encouraging third party issuance by large global networks such as the telecommunications carriers with over 4 billion clients.
Wait, what? So now we're going to have Verizon and Sprint coins that are actually these weirdo BitMinutes? Is this just an advertisers way ot trying to explain something like SMT's, or is this really weird?
We will lend $5 to anyone with a valid ID
So every coin is associated with your ID...lovely. I wish big brother weren't such a nosy asshole.
Top up your phone with BitMinutes
This is one thing that struck me as weird from the beginning. You can buy minute cards with any currency. Why does a crypto need to be linked to buying cell phone minutes?
I'm not saying this is a pyramid scheme...
But this is seriously fucking weird. It's like a crypto made by a porn company trying to get into the prepaid cell phone market. Like, white label, seriously?
Hey, maybe it will be alright though. Not like current companies don't violate our privacy on the daily. Our credit cards are already a treasure trove of data on what we buy. Of course, this will also have the ability to make small loans to your friends, thereby creating a list of known associates for everyone.
In two or three years, if this becomes pervasive, maybe I'll use it, or a competing coin. But for now, it seems really fucking fishy.
It is a bit disturbing to see regulatory compliance heralded as a "feature" for a crypto-asset. There is a market for "compliance"-centric coins as much as there is a market for Monero and other privacy-centric coins, though. If we don't like them we don't have to buy them or accept them as payment.
I'm not threatened by the existence of BitMinutes. I'll just ignore them. As someone who believes the movement of money is none of the state's business, no matter how vile the outcome... the technology simply has nothing to offer me.
I wouldn't say I'm threatened by it, but the fact that it's proprietary and tracks your transactions so closely does worry me. Bitcoin already tracks your transactions too much for my taste.
Perhaps you are right that we can just ignore it...but I fear that it's just a hint at what is to come.