I think it's gonna be the gateway to get the public accepting crypto and actually using it, unlike bitcoin which is basically like "gold", Metal aims to take over payment platforms like square/paypal. It's unique form of mining tries to get distribution of crypto among the public (you "mine" from a locked pool of MTL coins by sending or receiving MTL, up to $1000 in MTL per month at a rate of 5% back).

Best explanation start in this video at 21min:

swap the majority of MTL for NEO and I think you're fine for a long-term, volatile, very high upside portfolio.

(no one is going to uproot paypal anytime soon).

Awesome video, thanks for sharing it. Sounds like a pretty promising project. I like how they addressed all the bs icos.



edit: Poloniex subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/PoloniexForum/


stickied thread on sueing them and just about 100% of the topics are about missing coins, stuff not being sent or frozen accounts. No idea what my friend was thinking using them. I'd advise staying away.

So I just buy $100 of MTL and send it back and forth to a friend 200 times to earn $1,000 for the month? What am I missing?

You get shutdown pretty quickly if you do that afaik per what the CEO has said. May be some ways to game it and "churn" the reward, we'll see.

A new blog post was written on it today. https://g2.ventures/blog/metal-pay-u...he-microscope/

So how does sending transactions.. "mine". Mining in general is what verifies transactions and what secures the network. I don't see how sending a random transaction to my pal, replicates mining.

I'm asking out of curiosity to see why a couple people think this is a legit system, because honestly I don't see it at all.

Is this centralized?

Just read most of that link.. MTL is ****.

"Currently most cryptocurrency exchange services charge between 5%-10% converting Fiat to BTC." I can convert fiat to crypto with 0% fees on GDAX. And all major exchanges charge .3% MAX.. where the **** do they come up with 5-10%.

MTL does absolutely nothing any other crypto doesn't do. It allows you to send money to someone else.. but somehow this magical crypto lets you earn cash back. Sounds about right up their with the BTC loan companies that promised 30% APR.

And somehow they are going to have a team making sure/detecting people aren't just making fake transactions to earn 5% back?

I believe it is centralised, yes.

I think they are attempting to become an alternative to paypal, not BTC. They process payments, charge a lower fee than other methods like credit cards / paypal, and reward both customers and merchants in MTL, pretty much like air miles.

Don't see how that makes them awful? Just different. No idea if it will be a success or not.

I have no clue where they came up with 5-10% either. It's wrong for sure.

Don't underestimate the cashback... gonna attract a new audience of ppl into crypto scene i think. or im wrong and it goes to 0!

The math doesn't add up. How do they pay 5% cash back yet charge lower fees? Where is the money coming from?

They have a large reserve of MTL to use for 'cash back'.

Although if the price of MTL drops too low this reserve won't last long.

I can't remember what their strategy is when the reserves runs out.

So how does this seem even remotely like a good idea? I know the word ponzi comes up a lot in crypto, but if this doesn't fit a ponzi scheme, I don't know what does.

Yea I'd be wary of anyone using the argument of 5-10% for conversions.
Even this weekend on Coinbase if you were doing insta fiat to crypto buys you were paying like 2.5% max.

I talked to the author of the article. He changed it to "as high as 5-10%". Still seems to be a stretch to me as most people just use GDAX/Coinbase, but I guess it's no longer non-factual. Just maybe a mis-representation because who cares if fees are as high as 10%, most people are paying 0-3%.

?

It's simply a new form of payment processor.

Are airlines ponzi schemes because they issue air miles?

so buying MTL is like pre-buying reward points of a company?

I'm not an expert on them, but yes I think so.

It's like buying air miles (which you actually can in third party markets), but instead of only being able to purchase travel you can purchase anything. And when you do purchase something you will receive 5% MTL 'cash back'.

The merchant doesn't have to know that you are paying in MTL if they aren't signed up, it's all done on the backend.

When a merchant accepts MTL the customer doesn't need to be signed up or know anything is going on either. The transaction will be customer $ > MTL payment processor > merchant receives MTL + 5%.

At least I think that's how it works. Not saying it will be a huge success but I don't see it as a ponzi/scam.

Airlines make money. They use a portion of the profits they make which is a number far less then total profits, to give back to people to entice them to use their airline regularly.

What this means, is MTL needs to be making more then 5% on any transaction they are giving 5% back on. That is where it makes no sense because where does that 5% come from????

Credit cards offer 1-3%. They make their money from charging vendors and annual fees and late fees and 29.99% interest charges.

So once again.. where does the money come from? If it's strictly just premined coins, obviously that only lasts until those coins are gone then everyone is left holding the bag on their MTL because nobody is going to want to use it with no cash back. So everyone sells and the market price goes to 0.

Hey guys, apologies if this is a little off topic but if we're discussing alts, anyone going in on Electroneum?

Brief check looks like trash with a scammy referral scheme to create noise.

Same. I've had buddies ask me about what I've thought about certain coins and so many of them seem to be like apps that "make crypto easier to use". That's essentially what MTL is, and there's 100 others like it.

Crypto isn't that hard to use now, and it's getting easier everyday. It will become easier and easier without some **** crowdfunded worthless token.

I compare those tokens to something like this.

Gold comes out and everyone loves it, it becomes a store of value. Then some guy makes a gold chain and is like.. hey look, I made a new product!

I agree that it isn't likely a long term hold but with the buzz around it and the investments so far could it be worth a small investment with a view to a quick sale post ICO? I'm not considering anything heavy or material to my portfolio but it seems to have attracted some investment from some knowledgeable people.

This paragraph can be copy + pasted for most ICOs coming out...

Fair enough, I'm new to the whole ICO situation. I've been holding the traditional coins as a long term buy and forget kind of speculation but have considered taking a more active interest. Maybe I should just focus on BTC/ETH and let those cleverer than I get on with the day to day stuff.

EDIT: I guess my thinking was the level of interest and investment so far might carry it for a short time post ICO to drive the price up enough to give an exit opportunity.

with some of the Euphoria finally fading from alt-coins/ICOs we're kind of seeing the newer ones not reach their intended/touted price ranges post ICO (whereas earlier in the year you could buy every single ICO and make $ being long).

Check out SALT as an example

Peeps are going to have to actually research / do some actual trading of these ICOs to make $ going forward.

I agree with what you're saying, but I think it might be too early to say that definitively. A lot of what is going on could be due to other factors and a lot of those icos could bounce back up pretty soon.