JioCoin Doesn’t Exist Yet, But If / When It Does, Here’s Why It Might Be a Great Cryptocurrency Investment

I spent much of the early part of 2017 in Northern India — roaming from Delhi to Jaipur, out to Udaipur and Ahmedabad, and anywhere/everywhere in that general vicinity of the country.

When I got there, I needed decent internet access, which I’ve had sporadic luck with in India in previous trips. But, at the time, the Reliance company was just launching its “Jio” product. So, I purchased a little Jio device that served as a personal wifi hotspot — and it worked great pretty much anywhere I traveled.

So, it caught my eye here in the states when I read news of there possibly being a JioCoin ICO coming at some point. Unfortunately, according to the parent company (Reliance), JioCoin is not a real thing at this point. Whether Reliance Jio will launch an actual cryptocoin remains to be seen, but the company issued this statement about a month ago warning users not to fall prey to scams touting JioCoin investment.

I’ve setup a Google Alert for the term “JioCoin” and get reports near daily of activity on this term. Quite regularly, Google manages to pick up links of sites offering investment opportunities with this non-existent cryptocoin. So, yes, the scams are out there, and will likely continue to be.

Normally, I wouldn’t spend much time writing about a specific crypto coin because skeptical readers tend to respond to those pieces by accusing the author of shilling for that coin. And, sure, sometimes they are shilling to try to increase the coin’s price, thus making a profit from their early buy-in. Other articles on specific coins strike me as part shill / part actually helpful information to help would-be investors learn more about a given coin.

In this case, though, the coin doesn’t even exist. So, there’s no way I (or anyone) can profit from it (currently). That said, though, if and when Reliance Jio comes out with a cryptocoin, it would be something I would very strongly look into investing in. My primary reasons would be a trickle-down piece of logic like this:

• Their marketing is outstanding. When I needed internet access, running into Jio over other solutions while in India was unavoidable. That company knows how to absolutely saturate an entire region in marketing materials. Everyone I met, into the remotest villages I visited, knew the brand name, and were also mostly pretty excited about it.
• With good marketing comes high adoption rates. An insanely high percentage of people I met in India had purchased a Jio data product, especially in light if the initial launch campaign they’d had running at the time. I don’t have scientific data, obviously, to back that up. So, this may be a weak argument for some to put faith into.
• It also worked everywhere. Granted, data and wifi are different technologies than crypto / blockchain. But, they’re both technology products and, at least as far as the data / wifi product went, the performance was super. It worked as advertised, and it allowed me to roam around the country and stay connected. As such, my personal confidence in the company is very high.

My own visit and tour of India was in 2017, well before the crypto craze. So, Bitcoin existed, for sure. But, at the time, relatively few people there were paying attention to it.

Back then, the big currency issue in the country related to eliminating old, legacy high-value currency. People everywhere were scrambling to cash in their old large-denomination bills, or risk losing their money’s value forever.

That’s an important point because money is of course a store of value, just like cryptocurrency, and here was a country of 1.3 billion people where the government suddenly said, “Anyone holding Rs500 or Rs1000 notes (worth about $7.50 to $15 each in USD) needs to deposit them or they will be worth $0 after December 31.”

Of course, that all related to fighting corruption and other issues. But, it wasn’t uncommon for people to have these notes stashed away somewhere and miss out on a chance to deposit them. I stayed with a guy who’d been in the U.S. for an extended stay and missed the window to deposit his large notes. His personal stash of cash became worthless, and that was that. (He appealed it, and lost. I believe it was a few thousand dollars, in U.S. money. And that’s just one guy.)

So, when you take a combination of (1) a country of 1.3 billion, who are (2) concerned about long-term value storage, many of whom (3) might well like the idea of not having everything in bank accounts, amid a culture where (4) emerging tech is being embraced exponentially, and (5) the possibility that a proven tech market leader might issue a cryptocoin that could provide a store of value, investment opportunity, and also a practical means of transacting business with others … well, that’s a pretty potent combination for a winning cryptocoin (provided the tech and details are solid).

Needless to say, I’ll be monitoring my Google Alerts for news of any legitimate developments regarding this coin, and hope to invest in it if it becomes a reality.

✍🏻 Jim Dee maintains his personal blog, “Hawthorne Crow,” and a web design blog, “Web Designer | Web Developer Magazine.” He also contributes to various Medium.com publications. Find him at JPDbooks.com, his Amazon Author page, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Medium, or via email at Jim [at] ArrayWebDevelopment.com. His latest novel, CHROO, is available on Amazon.com. If you enjoy humorous literary tales, please grab a copy!