We've all been in a situation where we are standing in a shop looking at an advert for a fancy summer beach holiday, in an exotic faraway land, and thought to ourselves "I wish I could pay for that in crypto", I know I have at least.
Well, now you need not stand at the cash register dreaming of a world where your hodled crypto can buy you the holiday of your dreams with about as little hassle as paying for the tube to work. Let me introduce you to Amon. Amon are a brand new cryptocurrency startup who are planning to allow their users to do exactly that - pay for real-world items with the cryptocurrency of their choice.
While there are currently operators, such as Ten X, Centra and Monaco, who offer crypto credit cards, all of these platforms have been having quite a hard time as of late - Ten X going as far as disabling their card's usability meaning holders paid $15 for a debit card which does absolutely nothing, and Monaco card wannabe users left waiting in what would appear to be a vat of redundancy since October 2017 as the issuer continues to fail to process their order.
This is where Amon can really take the crypto card market by storm. Having already secured contracts with the credit issuers Mastercard and Visa prior to their actual release, they will not be affected by huge backlogs of orders which have to await clearing like their predecessors. What's more, if their proposed wallet (they already have a live Alpha version for testing which you can view here) works as intended they will be allowing people to pay in stores with their phone in an ApplePay-esque manner, in any of the supported crypto currencies.
That last phrase "supported crypto currencies" is an important one and is where I believe that Amon will really force their competitors to relinquish control of the crypto card market. As it is, there isn't a crypto card which allows a user to pay with anything other than Ethereum, Bitcoin or Litecoin. Ten X said they would incorporate it but literally took three months to enable Ethereum (in the EU) and then withdrew all functionality of their cards.
Amon are proposing a system which will allow a user to literally use any altcoin they wish, and at the best conversion price from crypto to fiat possible. The way in which they are proposing to as such is via the utilisation of a specially designed AI program which will handle the conversion.
They are proposing an AI bot which can inform you of your best value for money conversion to make. This means you would not have to spend an age while at the checkout, trying to figure out which currency to use to pay for your shopping. Their AI bot will automatically cycle through all the currencies you have stored in your wallet and pick out your best performing crypto at any given point in time. Can you imagine?
Let's put this into a real world scenario: Johnny spends most of his days joining airdrops and completing bounties as he cannot afford to invest much money of his own money into crypto. One day he goes to a shop to buy a pair of trainers he likes with the little bit of Ethereum he has managed to accumulate and, when at the point of sale, his Amon app informs him that an airdrop he received a month ago (and forgot about) has increased in value enough for him to save his Ethereum and use the airdropped currency to pay for his new pair of Nike Air Max 95's. In Johnny's mine he just got a new pair of trainers and still has all the Ethereum he he had when he left in the morning. Amazing.
What's more is the fact that Amon are proposing an in-app exchange which would allow users to conduct exchanges within their wallet. Let's use this for another example: Johnny just received another airdrop but wants all his crypto to be in Bitcoin, now, Johnny could send the altcoin to an external exchange and pay a number of transaction fees, along with a deposit and withdrawal fee for using an exchange, or he could just use the Amon wallet to instantly convert all his airdropped coins straight into Bitcoin, eliminating the fees he would have had to pay to use an exchange. Win win.
As if the crypto related transfers and transactions wasn't enough, the Amon wallet/card system would also eliminate the need for holiday makers to have to exchange their money, or pay the extortionate fees for using their traditional credit card when abroad. As the Amon model plans to be compatible with a number of fiat currencies the money saving possibilities are absolutely endless.
If all this sounds good to you make sure you have a read of the Amon whitepaper and have a read of the details for their ICO below.
Click here to read the Amon whitepaper
Currently Amon are gearing up for their private pre-ICO sale which will start on March 1st. As you can imagine they have some considerably generous bonuses for early adopters of the platform and those who get involved on the first day of the pre-ICO will also benefit from the extra incentive of no minimum investment. Full details of the pre-ICO are below.
| Pre-ICO Runtime: 1st March 2018 - 2nd March 2018 | ||
|---|---|---|
| Free Card | Bonus | Min Investment |
| Gold Card | 25% | N/A |
Registrations for the pre-ICO of Amon close on 28th February 2018 and you can join the whitelist on their home page at Amon.tech.
If you fail to join the pre-ICO whitelist you will still be able to get yourself some AMN tokens at a discounted price, and get yourself an Amon card, however the bonuses issued will be less than in the pre-ICO and will decrease the longer you leave it. Other things to consider are the fact that in the public sale you will have a minimum investment of $100 USD and that you will need to purchase a minimum of 20,000 AMN tokens to receive the free card. Full details of the public ICO are below.
| Public ICO Runtime: 4th March 2018 - 4th April 2018 | ||
|---|---|---|
| Free Card | Bonus | Donation Period |
| Gold Card | 15% | March 4th - March 11th |
| Gold Card | 10% | March 12th - March 19th |
| Gold Card | 5% | March 20th - March 27th |
| Gold Card | N/A | March 28th - April 4th |
If this all sounds good to you I recommend you do your own further research before investing and follow Amon on the links below. Personally I can see Amon being an extremely disruptive ICO which, if everything goes to plan, will completely revolutionise the crypto industry. Keep an eye on this one!
Amon Website
Amon Twitter
Amon Facebook
Amon Telegram
Amon Reddit
Amon Medium
Amon YouTube
Amon Bitcoin Talk
Amon LinkedIn
Please remember that this article is not to be taken as any form of investment advice and that you should do your own research before investing your hard earned cash into anything.
