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 The world’s greatest tech companies started from nothing. Giants like Apple and Microsoft were founded by one or two ambitious individuals, but their drive, vision and superior technology propelled them to market dominance. Skycoin, founded in 2013 by Brandon Synth and Houwu Chen, is still a relatively unknown player in the blockchain industry. But over the past five years, the organization has grown to over 100 employees across multiple countries. As the crypto market matures, this is an opportune time to evaluate Skycoin’s strengths and weaknesses compared to its competitors. But Skycoin is more than just a cryptocurrency. It’s a comprehensive blockchain ecosystem that incorporates a broad range of software, services, solutions, and custom hardware products. There’s no single challenger that competes with Skycoin across all facets of the platform, so it makes sense to break down the Skycoin ecosystem into each of its key elements, and conduct a competitive analysis for each.  The Skycoin Hardware Wallet So you bought some Skycoin. Or maybe you earned Skycoin by running a Skywire node. Or by creating content for the Skycoin Rewards Program. Or perhaps by building a game or app using Skycoin CX. Anyway, regardless of how the coins ended up in your possession, you’ll need to decide how to store them. There can only ever be a maximum of 100 million Skycoin in existence. That’s less than half a coin for each adult in the USA. So if you’re lucky enough to own a few, you’ll want to keep them safe! Fortunately, you have a number of options. You can keep your coins on an exchange, a mobile wallet, a desktop wallet, a Skycoin hardware wallet, a Ledger hardware wallet, or a paper wallet. Before we begin, for the sake of clarity it’s important to understand that your coins are never actually ‘on’ the wallet, despite this being the commonly used expression. In reality, your coins are always stored on the Skycoin blockchain, and the wallet simply provides a mechanism to access those coins while protecting your private key. OK, so let’s look at the six options for storing your Skycoin.  At one time or another, almost every cryptocurrency project has been called a scam. Even Bitcoin was dismissed as a scam when it first emerged in 2009. And while it’s true that there are many disreputable crypto projects, the reality is these “scam” accusations typically originate from one of three sources.
If you notice someone loudly denouncing a crypto project as a scam, then ask yourself which of these camps they fall into. Because you can be sure of one thing — they’re probably not saying it to help you or to protect you. Most likely, they’re simply looking out for their own interests. Skycoin, like many crypto projects, attracts FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) from all three sources. Much of the Skycoin “scam” allegations originate from a series of articles posted on technology blog The Next Web. These articles cite Bradford Stephens, an external freelancer who was briefly hired by Skycoin in 2017 to assist with marketing. Stephens misrepresented himself as “Skycoin COO” through his secretary and through Skycoin’s Twitter account, to which he had temporary access. Stephens had a very limited understanding of the Skycoin project, and was subsequently fired for incompetence. The FUD generated by Stephens has since been thoroughly debunked. |
