Connections
MonaCoin is accepted as a payment method by a small number of Japanese retailers, including:
- Bitcoinmall, an online market that sells a wide variety of products and only accepts digital currencies.
- Ark, an electronics store that has both an online shop and a brick-and-mortar store.
There's also a MonaCoin community platform, Monappy, that's like a cross between a message board and an online market. Users can interact with each other, buy and sell products, and tip using MonaCoin. It also has a streaming viewer with streams from users who have linked their Twitch channels. However, there doesn't appear to be much streaming activity.
Unique risks
The main problem for MonaCoin is that there's nothing setting it apart from other cryptocurrencies. The only thing you could call a competitive advantage is its appeal in Japan, but it's not the only cryptocurrency used there. Japanese stores that accept MonaCoin also typically accept Bitcoin at a minimum.
Other than that, MonaCoin doesn't have any notable advantages or reasons you should buy it. You can find plenty of faster payment coins if you want to transfer funds or pay with crypto.
There also doesn't appear to be much going on with MonaCoin anymore, so it's hard to imagine a comeback is on the way. The MonaCoin subreddit doesn't have much in the way of discussions. The MonaCoin Github had hardly any contributions in 2021 and even fewer in 2022. Its trading volume also shows a continued downward trend.
Such little activity is a bad sign in cryptocurrency. It's a competitive market, and inactive projects quickly get left behind.
Is MonaCoin a good investment?
MonaCoin isn't a good investment. It has too many red flags to recommend, and there are better ways to invest in cryptocurrency out there.
All indications are that MonaCoin's best days are behind it. After peaking near the end of 2017, the price plunged. That happened to a lot of cryptocurrencies around the same time, but MonaCoin hasn't come anywhere near its previous high.
There might be some reason for optimism if MonaCoin had unique features, a strong community behind it, and active development, but that's not the case. As we've covered already, it's a fairly run-of-the-mill cryptocurrency with little going on.
One last thing worth mentioning is that MonaCoin was never designed as an investment. It was made to be a payment coin that people can use as a digital currency. Although it has increased in value at times, that's not its goal.
Related investing topics
How to buy MonaCoin
Since MonaCoin isn't that popular outside of Japan, you won't find it on many U.S. crypto exchanges. Fortunately, there are a few options for those who are interested in it. If you're in the U.S., you can buy MonaCoin on Bittrex
Japanese crypto exchanges that have MonaCoin include Zaif and bitFlyer. Note that bitFlyer only has MonaCoin available on its main Japanese platform, not the U.S. version with a smaller cryptocurrency selection.
For a brief period of time, MonaCoin was one of the largest cryptocurrencies in the world. We're a long way from 2017, though, and MonaCoin has fallen hard since then. Although this cryptocurrency may still have some appeal in Japan, it doesn't have anything to offer as an investment.
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