What is Electroneum?

Electroneum is an egalitarian proof-of-work public blockchain focused on providing consumers with an easy avenue into the blockchain and cryptocurrency industry. To achieve this, Electroneum is compatibility with and geared toward mobile devices. Although Electroneum is a fork of the privacy-focused Monero, many of the privacy features of Monero were removed in Electroneum so that Electroneum could operate in regions that adhere to know your customer (KYC) laws.

While some crypto economic models have a focus on scarcity, the Electroneum project seeks to invert this notion and become one of the most widely available cryptocurrencies. The Electroneum team is hoping that they can do this by leveraging the smartphone user market that consists of over 2 billion mobile devices and using that as an entry point into blockchain and crypto.

Electroneum mining

There are two different ways to mine Electroneum, via the desktop mining client available for Mac, Windows, and Linux and via their mobile miner. Electroneum’s full mining client uses CryptoNote’s mining algorithm — an egalitarian proof-of-work mining algorithm — and their mobile miner uses a centralized, simulated mining experience.

CryptoNight was designed to make CPU’s and GPU’s practical for mining and to deter the use of ASIC miners. Compare that to most blockchain networks that require you to use ASICs, GPUs, or expensive mining rigs to even stand a chance at mining a block and you see that Electroneum gives the layman a fair chance at securing the blockchain. However, Electroneum has since forked to allow the use of ASIC miners on the Electroneum network.

Electroneum’s mobile miner also makes mining cryptocurrency highly accessible for the layman. Electroneum uses an emission algorithm that merely simulates the mining experience for smartphone users instead of actually adding new blocks to the blockchain, validating transactions, and keeping a copy of the entire ledger. Electroneum’s mobile miner does this to prevent smartphone processors from going into overdrive and overheating; instead, Electroneum’s emission algorithm inspects a smartphone’s processor, assigns it a hash rate, and then rewards it with ETN tokens accordingly. Outside of mobile mining, the Electroneum blockchain is completely decentralized.

The current block reward on the Electroneum blockchain is 8,941.75 ETN per block, and the average block time is about two minutes.

How Electroneum works

Electroneum (ETN) is an egalitarian proof-of-work blockchain that uses the CryptoNote algorithm —the same algorithm used in Monero as well as Bytecoin. There are three key components to CryptoNote technologies: scalability, untraceability, and unlinkability.

Electroneum’s version of CryptoNote differs from the versions used in Bytecoin and Monero when it comes to calculating block difficulty and block size. Electroneum aggregates the time it takes to complete a 720 block period, throws out 20% of the outliers, and then divides by the time spent mining those blocks to come up with the block difficulty.

And when it comes to calculating block size, The algorithm takes the median value (M) of the last number of blocks (N), and multiplies that number by two to get the max block size possible on the network — in other words, MN*2 will give you the max block size allowed on the Electroneum network.

Target markets

Electroneum is looking to establish themselves in two gaming industries: mobile/computer games and gambling. Mobile/computer games typically have low retention rates/ high turnover rates, and Electroneum is hoping that gaming companies will implement an Electroneum exchange onto their platform so that users would be able to use their Electroneum to purchase in-game currencies and items as well as cash out their in-game currencies and items for Electroneum. This would allow individuals to seamlessly switch between games while retaining the value they reaped in the previous game(s) they played because users could easily transfer all the hard work they have done in one game, into another game via Electroneum–this is especially useful since users drop/pick up new mobile games frequently.

Companies that choose to utilize this protocol would receive a commission on the purchase of Electroneum as well as the purchases within their game — in other words, the purchases players make for in-game items, as well as the entry and exit of players leveraging Electroneum to get into and out of games.

And due to the KYC and compliance features of Electroneum, the team at Electroneum is hoping they can tap into the gambling market and serve as an avenue for underbanked regions of the world that are densely populated with smartphones to access gaming offerings.

Electroneum price

Electroneum hones in on the mobile phone market and uses mobile phones as the primary entry point to blockchain and cryptocurrency. Through Electroneum’s Android app, individuals can store, send, receive, manage, and mine Electroneum all from their mobile phones; and the fact that there is a supply of 21 billion means that this widely available resource can easily be acquired for a relatively low price.

In terms of use, Electroneum can be thought of as trying to achieve similar goals to Bitcoin, a peer-to-peer electronic value transfer system that companies can find unique ways to leverage.