What Is AirDrop? How Does It Work?

AirDrop is a feature that lets Macs and iOS devices share files wirelessly with a minimum of fuss.

David https://markethive.com/david-ogden

What Are ICO Air Drops and Where to Find Them

A recent phenomenon in the cryptocurrency economy

has been the incidences and instances of cryptocurrency token airdrops. This has been particularly pronounced with Initial Coin Offering (ICO) projects. Airdrop events have become such a ‘craze’ that people have turned up in their numbers on the internet seeking how to make some free tokens from airdrops.

What is an Air drop?

Air drop is just another way of distributing cryptocurrency tokens to help with the process of adoption for the particular token. Some ICO projects choose to give out their tokens practically for free to members of their community as a means of encouraging the token’s adoption and usage with the hope that in the process, there will be increased demand for the token which will in turn help to drive up its value. Usually after the main crowd sale events, a small percentage of the total tokens are set aside for air drops.

In as much as these air drops seem to be free, beneficiaries tend to be community members of the ICO project who have made efforts towards the development and growth of the community. Air drop beneficiary efforts are usually gauged by the consistency and quality of their contribution to topics that relate to the project. The duration of community membership is also a parameter often used – older members of an ICO project’s telegram, Slack, Discord or other communal social media platforms tend to be candidates for free tokens by way of airdrops as compared to newer community members.

Changes in the ICO Game

Just like the blockchain technology that runs it, ICOs keep changing by way of operations and execution. As the months go by, a lot of dynamism and improvements are introduced. A lot of these innovations in the ICO space are attributable to the Ethereum blockchain which is the leading blockchain by way of ICO token development. Majority of the token airdrop have been linked to ERC20 tokens. The flexibility and freedom that the Ethereum network gives entrepreneurs and developers has been a catalyst in the dynamism being experienced with the way ICOs are run and this same dynamism has inspired the recent airdrop events we are currently witnessing in the blockchain and ICO space.

Article Produced By
Emmanuel Darko

https://icowatchlist.com/blog/ico-air-drops-find/

David https://markethive.com/david-ogden

Everything You Need to Know About Airdrops, Hard Forks, & ICOs

Basic Returns vs. Premium Returns

Although investing in cryptocurrency looks complicated to the untrained eye, it is astoundingly simple.
Too simple, in fact.

Here’s a real life example.

One of my friends bought $1,000.00 of Ethereum (ETH) at the start of 2017. When he wanted to calculate his earnings for that year, he looked at how much prices had changed over the course of 12 months. A quick bit of arithmetic showed he had made $91,620 in profit. This is a jaw-dropping return by any standard, but here’s the kicker — he actually underestimated his own returns.

You see, cryptocurrencies have hidden properties — airdrops, hard forks, ICOs — that may boost their long-term value. Last September, Ethereum had an air drop that could have added upto $77,890 to my friend’s earnings. But his simple view of investing in cryptocurrency ignored these hidden riches.

Even so, my friend was lucky. Despite his ignorance about airdrops and hard forks, he still walked away with his pockets full. But imagine if the situation were slightly different. Imagine that Ethereum prices had stagnated rather than skyrocketed. Would my friend still have invested? Probably not. He would have thought it wasn’t worth his time, and as a consequence he would have lost out on a small fortune.

Why Does No One Talk About Airdrops?

Initial coin offerings and hard forks are well known. In 2017, there was a minor ICO craze after investors first discovered them, and hard forks slipped into the ether when Bitcoin Cash split from Bitcoin. Very few people understand them, of course, but at least you can articles about them in financial media. Airdrops, by contrast, are virtually unknown. Why?

That’s a hard question to answer.

One explanation is that cryptocurrencies are relatively young. Investors have not had enough time to study their eccentricities, nor have analysts had much time to communicate their technical aspects in normal language. Another is the business of news. Mainstream outlets are incentivized by Google and Facebook to publish clickbait rather than nerdy stories about airdrops. But it hardly matters. Regardless of why investors are ignorant of these subtleties, it’s important for them to understand these features. Can you imagine widespread ignorance about share buybacks or dividends? It’s inconceivable! With that in mind, let’s jump into the details.

What are airdrops, hard forks, and ICOs?

For the benefit of those who are unfamiliar with these terms, I’ve included a list of working definitions below. Underneath each definition is what I’d consider an equivalent event in the stock market. Hopefully, that will illuminate how these forces affect cryptocurrency returns.

AIRDROPS
Airdrops are essentially free handouts of cryptocurrency. They occur when a blockchain startup is looking to gin up attention their new token. When one public company buys another, investors can either receive a payout or equivalent shares of the buyer’s stock. Theoretically the merger is supposed to create extra value, thus increasing the value of the stock. Likewise, the idea that airdropped tokens have value rests on the assumption that you can sell them to willing buyers.

HARD FORKS
Hard forks occur when a blockchain splits in two. These forks often result in airdropped tokens, although it’s important to distinguish between the two terms. Why? Well, because hard forks suggest internal conflict among the blockchain’s developers. Two factions that cannot agree eventually lead to one group splintering off from the other, thus creating a second cryptocurrency.

This comparison is a bit of a stretch, but the Bitcoin/Bitcoin Cash fork resulted in investors getting another $200.00 airdropped into their wallets. In a way, this is like a company deciding to return cash to shareholders. Sure, investors get a sudden infusion of new money, but it’s a bittersweet because it means that company is not investing in research, development, or acquisitions. It isn’t growing, in other words.

INITIAL COIN OFFERINGS

Initial coin offerings (ICOs) offer startups an alternative way to raise money. Rather than begging venture capitalists for table scraps or going public via an initial public offering, startups can simply issue their own cryptocurrency. This offers tremendous upside to the startup, since they forfeit no equity in the company. However, they need to ensure the token offers some value or else investors and regulators can take legal action.

In the first quarter of 2018, the music streaming service known as Spotify filed for a direct listing on the New York Stock Exchange. This means that Spotify will circumvent the normal process going public, such as wooing institutional investors and paying investment bankers outrageous fees. It is a bold move that removes the middlemen of finance, much like an ICO.

Let’s Talk About Risks and Rewards

In terms of outcomes, the upside potential of airdrops, hard forks, and ICOs is well established.
Consider the following examples.

Stellar Lumens (XLM) airdrops 16 billion tokens.

If you had been holding Bitcoin on June 26, 2017, you were eligible to claim free money that Stellar Lumens would airdrop into your account. The good folks at Stellar say that “Bitcoin acted as a profound inspiration” when they were creating their cryptocurrency, and that’s why they want to share the love. Whatever their reason, the important takeaway is that XLM coins appreciated by more than 1,000% from then to the end of 2017. (Sidenote: Bitcoin holders could only claim the same percentage of the airdrop that they owned of the total Bitcoin supply. So, if they owned 0.002% of all Bitcoins in existence, they could only claim 0.002% of the air drop.)

Bitcoin Cash (BCH) forks off Bitcoin (BTC).

In August 2017, a group of dissident developers broke off from the Bitcoin community, splitting the blockchain in two. This hard fork resulted in every Bitcoin holder getting Bitcoin Cash tokens at a rate of 1-to-1. At the time, the price of one Bitcoin was $2,750. By comparison, BCH traded at approximately $200.00, although it would later skyrocket by more than 2,000%. Anyone holding Bitcoin at the time of the hard fork would have received this unexpected boon.

Golem (GNT) becomes a golden goose.

One of the earliest high-profile ICOs was held by Golem on November 10, 2016. This startup gives everyone access to immense processing power by connecting them to a network of computers around the world. The only catch is you pay for those resources by way of GNT tokens. What this does is effectively put the idle computing power of the world to good use. Investors thought this was a solid business plan, so they went long on GNT. Those that did would have made more than 3,000% returns by the time this article went to press.

So what are the risks?

One,
regulators will decide these are financial products which need to be overseen and taxed.
Two,
someone is scamming you.

Both risks are pretty serious.

China and South Korea have banned ICOs already, proving that regulators are capable of coming down hard on the industry. The European Union, meanwhile, demands that ICOs meet anti-money laundering and anti-fraud compliance regulations. Canada deems them securities. The U.S. is similarly tough, and many other places have not yet established rules, but are in the process of doing so. With all this regulation coming down the pipeline, it’s easy to forget why regulators are worried. Namely, that cryptocurrency scams are dime a dozen.

From pump and dump scams to price manipulation, the industry is overpopulated by bad-faith actors looking to take prey on retail investors. So even while the upcoming regulation is burdensome, it is necessary for the industry to succeed.

Verdict: Big Cryptos Are Often The Best

Some readers might rush off to invest in small, unknown ICOs after reading this report. That would mean I failed to communicate the dangers of ICOs or that they did not grasp the significance of airdrops. The same goes for hard forks. Building an investment strategy around these features is a high risk, high reward approach. But airdrops, on the other hand, are a relatively risk-free way to line your pockets. That said, the million dollar question remains: Which cryptocurrencies are best for airdrops? My advice is to go Big. Airdrops benefit larger cryptos, such as Ethereum and Bitcoin. Not the no-name cryptos with $100,000 in market cap. Here’s why.

The purpose of an airdrop is to gain attention by leveraging the liquidity of a popular cryptocurrency. OmiseGO and did not search through the bargain bin for its airdrop destination — it chose Ethereum, in the same way that Stellar Lumens chose Bitcoin. I want you to remember this, because cryptocurrencies are built on shifting sands. Some of the crypto — most of them in fact — might not be around in a few years. The ones that will, however, could be worth a fortune.

Article Produced By

G. S. Iyer
Senior Tech Editor @ Lombardi Publishing. Columnist @ Profit Confidential.

https://medium.com/@iyer_gs/airdrops-hardforks-icos-63e1efaf16a7

David https://markethive.com/david-ogden

What Is EON? Why Is It So Popular Among EOS Investors?

With EOS mainnet launch, airdrops to EOS users are increasing rapidly.

Among these airdrops, EON is the most valuable one. Many EOS investors refer to it as “the most expensive crypto candy in history”.

This article will discuss what is EON and why it is so popular.

The most revolutionary technology:
up to 100,000 TPS solving the biggest problem of EOS

According to its website (https://eon.org/), EON is an intelligent high-speed blockchain operating system. By intelligently allocating the entire network computing power to synchronize the node load with the cloud network in real time, it can make the average TPS of the entire network reach more than 100,000. All network requests can also be completed almost simultaneously. This fundamentally solves the problem of a mere 4000 TPS caused by numerous network requests generated in a single EOS transaction.

TPS (transaction per second) is the number of transactions system processes per second. It is the core performance of a public chain and the basis for determining other functions and visions of the public chain. EON’s realization of 100,000 TPS undoubtedly addresses the biggest pain point. As the number of global nodes increases in the future, EON's TPS will eventually reach more than 1 million.

Currently many blockchain projects are in the conceptual phase and haven’t been commercially implemented. As the world's leading blockchain project, EON has begun to be put into practice. On the basis of EOS, EON integrates distributed computing with traditional technologies such as network storage, virtualization, load balancing, and hot standby redundancy to upgrade the existing EOS network. It not only inherits the advantages of EOS, but also achieves an evolution of EOS ecology. EON is the next-generation high-speed blockchain system that has fundamentally solved the biggest pain point of EOS.

The latest development: EON Editor

With the world's leading R&D team, EON is committed to changing the current blockchain value ecology and redefining the blockchain value standard from its inception. On 2nd June, EON launched the world’s first cloud-based smart contract editor EON Editor (editor.eon.org), which is eagerly anticipated by the global blockchain enthusiasts.

EON Editor provides developers with a more secure and reliable development environment by integrating development environment in the cloud. Cloud-based development environment means that developers can connect to the network from anywhere to complete projects, easily define resources, debug, and quickly share the development environment. Developers only need a computer connected to Internet to access the web browser instead of installing files or configuring development computers. They can use EON Editor to easily complete the development, debugging, and compiling of smart contracts in the cloud.

Roughly speaking, EON Editor has four core advantages: First, developers do not need to configure the development environment, but can complete smart contract development on the browser. Second, real-time collaborative writing code and shared development environment achieves telecommuting. Third, it lowers the threshold for the development of smart contracts so that new projects can be quickly built. Fourth, developers can easily implement DApps based on EON super ecology.

The launch of EON Editor will greatly increase the efficiency of developers, fundamentally promote the development of the entire blockchain industry, and redefine the standard of blockchain value. Blockchain technology has many advantages, but novice users face many difficulties to develop their own blockchain products. This has been changed by EON Editor. It is the realization of the genius design of EON project "EON=EOS+NETWORK" and will definitely redefine the blockchain development standard.

Strong team

EON announced its partnership with the world’s top blockchain information security team on 5th June. They are committed to enhancing the overall safety, privacy, and usability of the blockchain ecosystem by publishing industry trend reports, real-time monitoring of ecological security risks, responsible exposure of vulnerabilities, and providing relevant security solutions and services to help communities defend against emerging security threats.

Another team working with the EON project is Armors Labs. As the world's top blockchain security laboratory, Armors aims to focus on the blockchain security cloud ecosystem. Their team members mainly come from Apple, Google and other world's top Internet companies. At the beginning of this month, EON team revealed that they had received investment from INBlockchain Capital founded by Li Xiaolai, Consensus Labs，CollinStar, Horman Capital, as well as OldDriver and Zenix from South Korea. These investors are influential in blockchain industry and have already invested in a large number of popular projects.

The potential of EON

We all know that as one of the most famous blockchain projects, EOS has far more investors than others. EON can directly reach EOS users by its airdrop to them. Increasing the liquidity of EON and getting listed on exchanges has always been a concern for the project team. EON has already been listed on Coinoah and Coinw, where its prices have been steadily rising as of press time. Its price hit a peak of $1.56, which fully demonstrates the wide recognition of EON’s value. At the same time, EON is promised to list on more global mainstream cryptocurrency exchanges in 2018. To sum up, driven by the strength of capital and its increasing influence, EON's price is reasonable to rise by three to five times in 2018. If listed on large exchanges, it is very likely to jump sharply.

Of course, the price may be affected by positive news in the short term. However, in the long run, it must reflect the practical value of the project. Now it is the moment when EON siphons other public chains, and its price is ushering in a solid support. As the next generation of blockchains, EON is very likely to lead the development of global public chains in 2018 and create a new era. The future of EON is coming. You might have missed buying pizza with BTC, ETH's crowdfunding or the early EOS… But don't miss out on EON!

Article Produced By
EON.INC

http://eon.org/
pr@eon.org
https://cointelegraph.com/press-releases/what-is-eon-why-is-it-so-popular-among-eos-investors

David https://markethive.com/david-ogden

Upcoming EOS Airdrops in June

June is proving to be a busy month for EOS.

First came their much anticipated mainnet launch and the 20% market growth which accompanied it. Then the mainnet launch stalled, and this was accompanied by the sudden global market dip of ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’; which saw EOS lose 30% of its value. The mainnet launch attracted a lot of attention over the course of the last month, with much of it being positive. But now the headlines have soured, and questions are being raised about the team’s ability to clean up the hundreds of bugs still plaguing the platform; as well as the failure to reach a consensus among the platform’s block producers.

Regardless of the furore of the last couple of weeks, EOS remains a much hyped blockchain operating system, and it has a host of projects looking to launch themselves to success by starting on the EOS launchpad. EOS is host to 18 projects who have announced airdrops for the month of June alone. Some of these have already passed, while some have gone relatively unnoticed. But there’s still plenty to come, so let’s take a look at some of the tokens are going to be airdropping to EOS holders before the month is out.

Lab Ledger (LAB)

Lab Ledger aims to corner a very specific market – the scientific journal industry. According to Lab Ledger’s problem-statement, they are seeking to redress the imbalances of the peer-review journal industry, which have seen subscription prices rise 251% in under twenty years. At the same time, leading scientific journals have become unbelievably money-makers, and can afford to charge what are unreachable prices for many scientific researchers. This oligopoly which has emerged threatens to shut out serious scientific voices, simply because they can’t stump up the bribe required to have their research seen.

At least this is the picture painted by Ledger Labs, who aim to circumvent the ridiculous pricing of journal industry by moving the process over to the blockchain – in this case, the EOS blockchain. While the idea may seem incredibly niche, this is one of the few attempts to transfer an industry onto the blockchain that actually seems to have some merit. The main obstacle for Lab Ledger will be adoption. How many scientists will publish their papers on a platform which no one knows exists? But that’s the same problem which faces many blockchain services, so Lab Ledger isn’t alone on that front.

LAB airdrop date: June 21st

Atidium (ATD)

Atidium are airdropping 900,000,000 ATD tokens on a 1:1 ratio for EOS holders.This amounts to 60% of their total token allocation, with the rest being split among the team and the marketing department. Atidium aims to provide a cryptocurrency that will help users keep track of their finances, and includes a few unique features to help with general financial management.

One example is the proposed ability to ‘color’ coins – that is, to mark them as being for a very specific use. At the same time, Atidium proposes a shared wallet system, where you could allocate your son a token amount which could only be spent in a certain place. The Atidium roadmap is still a long way from completion, and their level of ambition would require untold amounts of work; both technical and social. For Atidium’s application to be worth anything, it would need to secure adoption by hundreds, if not thousands of real world vendors. It’s not impossible, but certainly ambitious.

ATD airdrop date: June 28th

HorusPay (HORUS)

HorusPay is an upcoming EOS project which aims to provide a platform for payroll services. According to HorusPay’s website, typical payroll vendors charge up to 40% for their services, and HorusPay wants to cut out the middle-man and provide an automated system for the management of payrolls.

Users would presumably benefit from the core blockchain values of security and decentralization, and while the transfer of financial services to the blockchain is a viable idea, there are also many crypto projects looking to invade this space.

Blockchain platforms which focus on purely financial services tend to miss out on much of the typical cryptocurrency hype. The average crypto investor can’t tell the difference between the hundreds of ‘decentralized payment and remittance platforms’ which pop up every year. For HorusPay to make an impact, one would think they’d have to either show up with some kick-ass technology in tow, or ramp up the hype train with some partnerships or similarly promising announcements.

HORUS airdrop date: June 30th

Prospectors (PGL)

Prospectors is what’s known as a Massive Multiplayer Online Real Time Economic Strategy (MMORTES) – a game which focuses resource management and economic strategy. The gameworld models the economic situation of the late 19th / early 20th century, and players must compete in the process of mining for gold.

The game has been alpha-tested for a while now and the team recently announced the transition to beta-testing towards the end of May. Gameplay videos can be found on YouTube, and Prospectors seems like it may have the potential to do well, even among the currently saturated blockchain-gaming ICO market. By all accounts, Prospectors appears to have more going for it than the many CryptoKitties knock-offs that appear on a daily basis. While the game does involve buying assets and selling them on (the entirety of CryptoKitties), it also involves the extra layers of strategy afforded by the requirement that you actually set up a prospecting business.

This means that before you get to the gold mines, you’ll need to get your tools, resources and team all in order. PGL tokens represent said gold and fuel the in-game economy. The marketing materials for the game claim that it operates on free-market principles; with in-game prices being reflective of the supply and demand of its user base. If previous blockchain games are anything to go by, this probably means that game items will be priced exorbitantly upon launch, when there are too few players to make up the economy. However this is speculation, and Prospectors could yet prove to be the blockchain game that bucks the trend.

PGL airdrop date: 30th June

And a few more…

Many EOS airdrops are scheduled for the month of June, but some of them have undefined dates. CETOS, for example, is a blockchain project which aims to become a facilitator for day-to-day healthcare services. They’ve set an airdrop date of ‘June/July’. EOS Cafe aims to airdrop its BEANS tokens to users some time around June, but no clear date has been set. EOS Cafe has the long term goal of setting up EOS-focused coffee-shops and hack-spaces.

Another undefined airdrop date in June belongs to EOX – a proposed global crypto commerce platform where everything can be bought with cryptocurrency. While the ONO Social Network rounds off those airdrops listed for unspecified dates in June, and will release their tokens in a 1:1 ratio against EOS tokens.

Going, Going… Gone!

Many tokens have already dropped this month, with projects such as Tokena, Evolution, EOS Sports Bets, EOS Classic, and EON releasing tokens to registered EOS holders. Several are launching right now, or are due to launch in the next few hours, such as Chaince, Everpedia, KEOS and Scatter.

Article Produced By
Greg Thomson

4.5 stars on average, based on 9 rated posts Greg Thomson is a full-time crypto writer and digital nomad. He eats ICOs for breakfast and bleeds altcoins. Wherever he lays his public key is his home.

https://hacked.com/upcoming-eos-airdrops-in-june/

David https://markethive.com/david-ogden