LEO Token (LEO)

The introduction of the first cryptocurrency, Bitcoin in 2009, heralded dawn of a new era. Since then the world of digital currencies has garnered a tremendous amount of attention and has provided numerous alternatives to fiat currencies. Owing to this, a lot of cryptocurrency exchanges started to provide incentives to their users in order to maintain their popularity. Bitfinex, a much-known cryptocurrency exchange, launched its own loyalty-building token by the name of LEO which is mainly used for discounts on Bitfinex’s platform.

LEO Token is a proprietary exchange token offered by Bitfinex. It was released in an Initial Coin Offering held by the exchange company. The purpose of this and many other similar platform-based tokens is just to provide an additional incentive to the users by offering them discounts on trading fees if they use the token for their transactions on the exchange platform (CryptoCompare, 2019).

The actual product is a loyalty-building token that can be used within the iFinex ecosystem. The token is based on the Ethereum blockchain and it benefits users across the entire iFinex portfolio. The use of the product will allow its users to redeem discounts on their transactions (Coinpaprika, 2019).

The founding company of LEO Token is Bitfinex, a reputable cryptocurrency exchange platform that has made a name for itself in the tech community. Bitfinex is owned by theiFinex Corporation which also controls different platforms like Ethfinex, EOSfinex, and other products. The token was released in May 2019 and is being aimed at being a “utility token at the heart of the iFinex ecosystem” (Peaster, 2019).

The team behind the LEO token (LEO) is mainly the development team appointed by the iFinex Corporation. They are experts of blockchain technology hailing from different countries.

The code of LEO token has been developed by iFinex’s developers. The token was issued by the iFinex subsidiary Unus Sed Leo. The development activity cannot be tracked as the GitHub repository isn’t publicly accessible. Because Leo Token is a utility token, the development of the system in which it is used should be considered. The development of the Bitfinex exchange is solid.

It’s uncertain whether or not LEOToken (LEO) will be able to grow, owing to a number of reasons. Firstly, it is owned by a cryptocurrency exchange that itself has damaged its reputation and experienced the slowest growth in 2019. People are gravitating towards different platforms that are more attractive and whose proprietary tokens offer much better incentives. Until Bitfinex releases itself from the clenching tentacles of the Tether lawsuit, its future seems bleak and questionable, for sure (Comben, 2019).

The performance of LEO token wholly lies on the performance of its platform Bitfinex, which quite frankly isn’t doing too well. Bitfinex showcased the smallest growth in 2019 compared to other popular cryptocurrency exchanges. The lawsuits against the corporation don’t seem like it would be resolved anytime soon or even be dropped. Under such conditions, Bitfinex will see resistance from the cryptocurrency community.

Bitfinex has announced a couple of future projects with the intention of enhancing the performance of its platform in order to attract users. Through their official website, Bitfinex announced a platform upgrade that will add new features and improvements to the platform. In September 2019, Bitfinex also unveiled Bitfinex Token Sales, which replaced their previous platform known as Tokinex.

The potential of LEO token (LEO) could be huge if the Bitfinex exchange would overcome the many obstacles that plague them, which doesn’t seem likely to happen soon.

The announcement for the release of the LEO token was made at a time that its integrity was being questioned. The cryptocurrency exchange platform Bitfinex had adventured by launching a stablecoin by the name of Tether (USDT) in 2014. Some years down the track, they ran into a fund embezzlement scandal in relation to Tether. It was claimed that they were short of $850 million in funds that were supposed to back/support the stablecoin Tether (USDT). It was in the middle of this controversy that Bitfinex announced the launch of the LEO Token (LEO). So naturally, the release of LEO Token (LEO) worth $1 billion was seen as a double-dealing move made with the intention of recovering the lost amount.

However, LEOToken (LEO) has still managed to make its place in the market, despite the presence of many critics and receiving a lot of backlashes. To make this stay possible, LEO Token has some interesting features that differentiate it from other loyalty-tokens. Firstly, Bitfinex has announced to buyback and burn tokens each month using as much as 27% of its revenue. This gives it an edge over Binance’s BNB coin. Binance intends to only burn 50% of BNB coin, while Bitfinex will eventually burn 100% of LEO tokens (Wheeler, 2019).

Recently, a crypto research and analysis firm, Cointelligence, has claimed that the smart contract of LEO token has been deliberately designed in such a way that it can open ways for multi-billion-dollar fraud (Antonovici, 2019).

Bitfinex, and hence the LEO token, has a large and well-connected community. Bitfinex’s official website has a blog that is reviewed and discussed by many users frequently. However, recently, The Bitfinex platform has been facing serious criticism mostly because of the many shortcomings and conspiracies; thus, it has begun to lose its integrity and more importantly, users’ loyalty.

LEO token (LEO) has a good advantage in the market as it might be able to cash the partnerships of its parent company iFinex. More users on the platform mean that there is the possibility that more LEO tokens will be traded. Recently, Bitfinex has announced a partnership with Market Synergy which will provide robust performance connectivity and security for the Bitfinex platform.

There are many substitutes that could replace LEO token. Many utility coins offer much better incentives compared to what LEO Token (LEO) offers. The most famous of all perhaps is Binance’s BNB coin. Huobi token and OKEx are also widely used utility coins.