Why I think Metal will be one of the biggest cryptocurrencies going forward
I stumbled onto Metal ($MTL) a few months ago (thanks Bittrex!) and the team has been very lowkey about the project so far. They are very adamant about not doing any PR/marketing until the product is ready to be used by the public and businesses. This is the complete opposite of what most crypto projects are doing currently. They promise the moon before the product is even ready, the price pumps to unrealistic levels, and bleeds out for weeks/months. Also, Metal didn't hold an ICO so there's nothing to worry about in that regard as far as SEC/govt regulation.
So what is it? Metal is an FDIC insured bank account that allows you to store and transact with fiat currency and crypto that is fully compliant with US regulation. This will give you access to checking/routing numbers, debit cards, etc. Your Metal account is essentially an exchange and will solve the crypto on/off ramp that so many of us have issues with right now. You will be able to direct deposit your work paycheck into Metal and buy/sell crypto within it. No need to wait for funds to clear, transferring money between exchanges, or insane Coinbase fees. Metal is curently in private alpha and supports BTC, ETH, and ERC20 but more will be added in the future. The team is aiming for Metal to become the first real cryptocurrency that the masses use. How do they plan to do that?
Enter Proof of Processed Payments, or PoPP for short. It's a consensus algorithm designed specifically for Metal that will enable anyone to participate in "mining". Basically, any transaction you make from your Metal account will be rewarded with 5% of the value back with Metal tokens. If I send $1000 to my landlord for rent I will receive $50 back in MTL. I can cash that out immediately for cash or let it appreciate. That $50 could turn into $100 or even $200 in the future. When regular people realize what is happening, this will launch crypto into the mainstream. This will be the first payment platform that truly "pays" people to use it. The same can not be said for Venmo, Square Cash, etc. This will be huge for students in college and small businesses. If they sign up for a business account they'll be able to make up to $5000/month just by using the platform and there are zero tx fees if you use MTL for invoicing. There is a pool of ~26m MTL tokens reserved for PoPP and the team believes it will take 10-20 years to fully distribute as the price appreciates over time.
Bitcoin is not accessible to the masses. The original vision for PoW was to give anyone with a little bit of computing power the ability to participate in mining Bitcoin and growing the network. Now we know this isn't profitable except for organizations with really deep pockets. It's another scenario where the top 1% are making off with all the profits. Coinbase is user friendly but the fees are high and funds take too long to clear. Coinbase was a good start but it hasn't solved the crypto on/off ramp. Gemini is a good service but is it something that will ever catch on with the masses? Probably not.
The Metal team is one of the best in the game. They have Visa/AmEx executives and ex-Apple programmers/UI designers working to make this the best payments platform the world has seen. They have several new hires that haven't been formally disclosed yet but one of them did motion design for Apple commercials. His portfolio was posted in the Slack channel and to say I was blown away was an understatement.
You can find out more at http://metalpay.com but I really recommend joining the Slack channel as the team is very active there. The website is outdated at the moment but a complete redesign is coming once the web platform + iOS app is ready before the end of the year. I tested the alpha version and was very impressed by it but the public beta will be on another level. Also, Metal has a lot of big partnerships with brands and businesses who are going to use the platform as soon as it's available.
Price prediction: $100 by the end of the year giving it a $2bn market cap.
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