Alpha Network is a game-like application where the user clicks on a button once a day and receives free coins for 24 hours. Much like Eagle Network and Pi Network it has red flags circling its whitepaper and anonymous creators. In this short article we investigate why Alpha Network is not worth spending 15 seconds each day to mine virtual earnings. Before proceeding, please read our disclaimer on investment related topics.
How does Alpha Network work?
Similar to gaming apps, Alpha network has a direct easy-to-use application where users can sign in using their email or Facebook account, push a button and earn 0.5 coins per hour until the 500 million coin supply is exhausted. The app also has a “boost” feature that allows users to watch 15-second ads to earn extra coins. Users can also increase their mining rate by inviting others to join.
More recently, developers added a LootBox feature allowing users to open a box with rewards and triple the reward by watching an ad.
Mining
According to the Alpha Network whitepaper, the “mining” process utilizes Virtual Mining Nodes (VMN) which requires no to little computational power. VMNs are online hardware that generate nodes on behalf of the user, such that when users push the app button, they initiate a cloud-based mining session that lasts 24 hours.
Project phases
Alpha network app was launched in April 2021 for Android devices. In the beginning, the developers aimed to expand the scope of the project over 3 phases:
- Launching mining apps for Google play and Apple store, as well as developing a wallet app within 3-6 months
- Launching the wallet app and allowing users to perform transactions. Developers also state that following steps are “big and will be revealed at the time”
- At this phase, the initial mining pool of 500 million coins will be used up as more users join, and the developers will release a physical mining node (PMN) software for PCs and the users will participate in the decision making about the project.
Current status:
- The Android app has been downloaded 1M+ times from Google Play store.
- iPhone app has been launched.
- There is an online exchange where users can buy Alpha Coins.
- Users can not sell the coins within 6 months of purchase (vesting period).
Why do we think Alpha Network is not a good investment of your time?
There are some red flags surrounding this app:
Whitepaper that lacks details
Most cryptocurrency whitepapers are initially published with common information about the currency and future, and improve as the project develops. However, Alpha Network’s whitepaper is less detailed than typical cryptocurrency whitepaper.
Mining through VMN
Similar cryptocurrency apps like Eagle and Bee network do not have an actual mining process going on. Instead, users push a button notifying a server to count session hours and the server synchronizes the balance accordingly. Alpha network developers claim that by pushing the mining button on the app, actual mining is being done over cloud-based servers using virtual mining nodes. Although there is no way to discredit these claims, it seems strange that the team is spending capital on mining hardware before launching their own blockchain. They could use open source protocols, such as Stellar, to mint and distribute Alpha tokens at lower cost.
Fixed decrease in supply
According to the published whitepaper and Google play stats:
- the currency has a limited supply of 500 million tokens
- each active user can earn at least 12 tokens per day
- the app has been installed +100k times
- the app was rated +3k times on the google play store
These statistics indicate a growth in user population and the coin supply should be reducing based on the user growth. However, an app user reported on their YouTube channel that they monitored the supply for 6 days in a row and found that every hour exactly 600 tokens decrease from the supply. This indicates a non-arbitrary mining behavior among users, which is unlikely because new users may be joining and old users may use a LootBox increasing their mining rate, or skip mining for a period of time.
What to do next?
From what it seems, Alpha Network is a project with no real value for users. It resembles a gaming application with virtual revenues and advertising, and does not provide enough details to be considered a legitimate cryptocurrency project. Even though it does not ask for unnecessary permissions on user devices and does not require upgrade payments, we still do not recommend people to waste their time on something that may never earn them anything, even if it is just for 15 seconds a day.
To avoid being scammed, we wrote an in-depth guide on investing in crypto to avoid scams & pick winners, and we’ve investigated emerging projects to help users identify good and bad investment opportunities. Feel free to read our articles to learn about possible scams:
We’ve also investigated different cryptocurrencies which we don’t believe will drive profit to their users, feel free to check out our articles on:
If you are considering investing in cryptocurrency, consider reading our in-depth articles on cryptocurrency ETFs, blockchain consulting, and review our data-driven list of cryptocurrency exchanges.
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