e-Chat ICO Review

Not long ago I’ve stumbled across a new ICO which might be interesting for you guys. I took some time researching about it and it looks quite legit – the project, the team and the working product they’ve already got to offer.

e-Chat is a mobile chat app just like WhatsApp or Telegram. Its founders have already released the app both on the play and app stores. As for today, the app is basically a clone of Telegram that allows you to send and receive encrypted messages across a decentralized P2P network. Quite cool, but according to e-Chat devs, this is just the beginning.

The team behind the project got quite amazing plans for e-Chat. If all goes as planned, e-Chat might become the next big thing. Let me explain why by comparing it to Telegram first.

e-Chat vs. Telegram

You probably know and maybe even use Telegram. Telegram is the WhatsApp for people who like privacy and decentralization. Telegram encrypts messages on both ends, allowing users to enjoy private conversations without anyone spying on them.

e-Chat offers the same kind of service with a twist. You can say that e-Chat is Telegram with a bunch of additional functionalities (most of which are still under development), making it an all-in-one solution for day-to-day tasks, once the app becomes what it is planned to be.

The ICO is aimed to (a) raise the funds to allow e-Chat team further develop the app and (b) release ECHT tokens to the public that are essential for some of the most important e-Chat functions to work (more on that in a bit)

Here is what e-Chat aims to become in the next 12 months:

– Decentralized encrypted messenger. This is something e-Chat already is – an app that allows you to send and receive messages while enjoying full privacy. The network is P2P, which means that no government or hacker can shut down the servers and kill the app or steal sensitive user data by hijacking one of the servers.

Decentralized encrypted messenger video calls

Decentralized encrypted messenger

– Personal finance center, allowing you to send, receive and exchange multiple currencies. Say, you want to send some cryptos or fiat money to the person you’re chatting with. e-Chat will allow you to do that directly from e-Chat interface. You can attach your credit card to it to be able to purchase products too.

– Multi-Currency Crypto Wallet. To make the previous feature possible, e-Chat messenger includes a multi-currency crypto wallet that is, of course, totally private and not monitored by anyone but you.

e-Chat Money transfers and cryptocurrencies

e-Chat Built-in payment system

– Content browser. E-Chat allows you to create your own chat groups and join existing ones. The innovation here is that e-Chat provides with a rating system and multiple group options, making it easier for people to find the best content. You can also customize your feed by following the content creators you prefer.

– Social Media. The above means that e-Chat aims to become some sort of social media, where people can choose how they share their content. This will create a system that will make it easier for content creators to get followers and profit from it:

– Income Generator. People get paid for posting great content on YouTube, Blogspot and other sites. However, it is no secret that for each word we write on a blog, there are thousands of words we write in the chat window. What if we could monetize what we write on chat? E-Chat allows you to monetize your greatest chat messages by letting you receive tips.

e-Chat Paid channels for bloggers

e-Chat Stream with photo and video

Basically, any great joke or useful comment in a chat group can potentially result in some extra cash. Any great photo or video you share with your contacts will potentially lead to income.

Also, since e-Chat will become a sort of social media, your followers will be able to support you without the need of using Patreon or any other third-party services. In brief, thanks to the personal finance center functionality, e-Chat makes it easier for you to be rewarded for posting quality messages and content.

e-Chat Coin (ECHT)

Why Would e-Chat Need Its Own Token?

According to e-Chat website, “All tokens holders get additional space in the distributed data store (IPFS), due to which correspondence and user content is not stored on the device and does not have a central server.”

So this basically means that all of your e-Chat conversations and shared files are not stored on a dedicated server. Instead, the information is encrypted and scattered around other users’ devices. Tokens are meant to control the amount of data every user has the right to store through IPFS.

Every purchase is eternal, which means that the right to use certain amount of storage space does not expire with time. Every time you buy certain amount of storage, an equivalent amount of tokens is destroyed.

e-Chat ICO and Investment Prospects

e-Chat ICO is on its first stage, during which you can get tokens at a huge discount. I will get back to it in a minute. If you are a person who would use e-Chat on a daily basis, you will be probably interested in getting your hands on some ECHT tokens while those are quite cheap.

However, is there a way an investor can profit from the discount?

From what I know, ECHT tokens might be quite a nice long-term investment. The reason is simple – over time, the tokens will experience severe deflation. Combine that with the increase in demand of the token with every new e-Chat user and as a result we get a token that naturally rises in price every month.

Now, What about the ICO?

e-Chat ICO is on its first round. Contributors enjoy a whooping 25% discount – the token, being originally priced as $ 1 USD per ECHT, is now priced at only $ 0.75 USD per ECHT. Round 1 will last for another 22 days, after which the discount will be decreased to 20%.

There is another way of getting your hands on some ECHT tokens, which is by mining. Mining ECHT is about lending your free HDD space to others. If you’ve done SIA or Storj mining before, you know how it works. The only difference is that here, every gigabyte you allocate increases the chances of you getting a reward. This algorithm is called “Proof of Replication”.

In Conclusion

Is e-Chat a viable project? In other words, are ECHT tokens worth your money? While only time will show, it is obvious that e-Chat will probably attract a wide auditory thanks to the wide array of solutions and tools they offer. The app is already available on the app stores both for iOS and Android and it got quite nice reviews.

This makes me believe that the project got some potential and might become the second Telegram someday. Or maybe something even bigger and more mainstream. After all, the team behind e-Chat is quite solid and their idea does make a lot of sense.