ION FAQLast Update: October 21, 2016Q: What is ION?
A: A hybrid clone of
Blackcoin and
Dash.
Q: What is
ionomy?
A: Mainly an online wallet for ION and an ION/BTC exchange, with some non-blockchain features such as
atoms,
electrons, and stakers.
Q: What are stakers?
A: Stakers are ionomy.com online wallets paying interest rates of 15%-50% on term deposits.
Q: Where is the staker revenue coming from?
A: Supposedly from masternodes owned by ionomy.com, however the interest rates don't match masternode staking rewards and it is unclear how ionomy.com would use excess coins (if any) or cover shortages (if any).
Q: Is there a standalone wallet for ION?
A: Yes, source and builds
available on Github.
Q: What's the connection with Paycoin and GAW?
A: ION was created by
a team that tried to prop Paycoin (XPY) up for a year after GAW's demise, XPY being the extension of the
hashlet ponzi scheme perpetrated by GAW owner/CEO Homero Joshua Garza. In April 2016 the team declared XPY dead, created their own new coin ION, rebranded
xpy.io online wallet to ionomy.com, and converted xpy.io XPY balances to ION.
Q: What's the purpose of ION and ionomy.com?
A: Mobile game development with a focus on in-game use of ION. Announcement
here, more info
here.
Q: How was ION created and distributed?
A: xpy.io users had their XPY converted to ION at a 8:1 rate. Others had a chance to purchase ION via an ICO at $0.20-0.25. ION is 100% pre-mined with ~75% of the initial coin supply controlled by its creators.
Q: What happened to the exchanged XPY?
A: Some of it has been burned however it is unclear how much has been exchanged and what happened to the rest.
Q: What happened to the BTC collected during the ICO?
A: According to unconfirmed third party claims most of the BTC has been converted to USD. There is an ICO
address provided that shows 335 BTC received and 0 BTC balance as of June 16, 2016.
Q: Did they use escrow?
A: No.
Q: What will happen to the rest of the premine that the team still controls?
A: It is supposed to be used for bounties, promotions, etc.
Q: What are the addresses for bounties and other team-controlled wallets?
A: As of October 2016 the
top two largest balances on the ION network seem to correspond to the
3.4 million ION gamer incentive fund and the
2.5 million ION dev bounty fund as outlined in the
whitepaper. The team did not provide details about unsold coins or other parts of the ICO.
Q: How is the team using staking proceeds from the bounty/incentive and other team-controlled wallets?
A: The team did not provide any details. For example the dev bounty fund previously consisted of
multiple addresses totaling 2.5 million ION, which have generated 400k+ coins via staking between May-October 2016, however these extra coins are not included in the currently known dev bounty wallet.
Q: What are masternodes?
A: Masternodes are blockchain wallets with a 20k ION minimum balance. Masternodes share 50% of all block rewards (potentially ~50% APY in the first year).
Q: How many masternodes does the team own?
A: The team did not provide any details.
Q: What are community masternodes?
A:
Off-chain project that allows users who own less than 20k IONs to pool their funds and create masternodes.
Q: Are community masternodes, atoms, or any other ionomy tokens considered securities in the US or Singapore?
A: The team did not provide any details.
Q: Why Singapore?
A: Ionomy PTE (a Singapore company) is the counterparty in
ionomy.com TOS however such company does not show up in
BizFile search.
Bureaucratic reasons are blamed for the issue.
Q: What can ION be used for?
A: In addition to the
community masternode project ION may be accepted in trades on
marketplace channel (login required) and
BilingServ offers a service to merchants willing to accept ION, however no such merchants are known.
Q: Is ION exchangeable to other currencies?
A: Yes,
ionomy.com offers an ION/BTC exchange and Yobit
has listed ION as well.
Q: How many games does ionomy.com plan to produce?
A: One every month.
Q: How many games has ionomy.com produced?
A: As of five months after the ICO
one game (Gravity) is in closed alpha testing phase.
Q: How are ionomy.com games going to generate revenue?
A:
Via in-game sales of items such as electrons.
Q: Where is the in-game revenue going to be used?
A: For games produced by ionomy.com it will be
split into three equal parts: ionomy.com (developer), rewards program (points), and ION buyback. For third-party games the split will be
determined by the developer.
Q: What is the ION buyback process and how does it ensure fairness and transparency?
A:
Bittrex has been mentioned, however ION is not listed there as of October 2016. No further details have been provided.
Q: How big is the ionomy team?
A:
5 full time employees and 5-10 part-time/contractors.
Q: Does the team plan to maintain and update the games or do they have a built in shelf life? (i.e. quality vs quantity)
A:
Some games are planned to be updated for a few years.
Q: How will the team work around
Google Play and
Apple rules prohibiting the use of third-party payment methods (such as ION) in mobile games?
A:
The team claims to have no issues with Google, and Apple will evaluate compliance once the games are submitted to the store. The solution appears to be based on using non-blockchain non-monetary tokens (electrons) in games, instead of using ION directly.
Q: How many ION team members does it take to fix the
"edgey" typo in the Urban Words description?
A: The team did not provide any details.
Q: Does the team provide any status updates or other information?
A: Some limited information may surface on
ionomy slack however due to lack of structure, required login, and limited retention it is difficult to locate and impossible to link to slack postings. Status updates are sometimes emailed to
ionomy.com users and there is a rarely updated
news page. Some investors
have claimed to have access to privileged information, including financial details and business plans by virtue of being "whales" (large investors).
