Launch of Virtual Coin by "Facebook of Russia" is Highly Successful But Russia Trying to Ban Telegram!

In quick turn of events, a social network VKontakte dubbed as "Facebook of Russia" have launched a virtual currency on April 1 called VK coin.

This VK coin has become an instant success. Within 10 days of its launch, over 2.8 trillion VK coins got into circulation among more than 11 million users. Since its launch on 1^st April, this social media's internal currency was being "mined" through a virtual game on the platform.

What's fascinating is that within the matter of a few days, a complete eco-system has developed surrounding this coin. Teenagers started to transact through this coin among peers for trivial things like homework, lunch or a ride. It also started trading with fiat, mainly with Russian Rouble. But all these transactions are said to be in black market.

VKontakte's founder Pavel Durov has no objection with the development of this unofficial market and considers this wide adoption as proof of its success. Incidentally, Durov is also the CEO & co-founder of Telegram which is soon going to launch its own cryptocurrency called GRAM. Facebook is also planning its own cryptocurrency.

Russian government seems to be okay with VK coin whereas it is trying to cut off its country's internet with the rest of the world in an attempt to put a ban on messaging service Telegram.

However VK coin is probably not based on any blockchain and don't have any major use cases. Despite of this its success is very noteworthy. For a comparative userbase of STEEM, VK coin's market capitalization has reached 5-7 times that of STEEM and all these within weeks!

According to the listing on Coinlib, its current price is $0.00025598 per coin. Yesterday's high as per Yobit exchange listing is $0.00037998. VK coin has a current supply of about 2.8 trilion coins. Considering that total STEEM in supply are only 328 million currently, its market capitalization is 6-7 times higher than that of STEEM. This in itself amazes me!