Uber co-founder announces a new cryptocurrency!

Uber co-founder Garrett Camp has been planning the release of a new cryptocurrency over the past months, in an attempt to fix technical – as well as other challenges – problems affecting the existing coins, such as Bitcoin and Ethereum.

According to a report from Fortune, his plan is to resuscitate virtual currency’s original promise and offer an actual instant, affordable, and borderless method of payment for the masses.

BTC and ETH weren’t that attractive

Mr. Camp bought his first Bitcoin and Ethereum back in May, on Coinbase, one of the most popular exchanges in the world. However, as he was looking to invest further in the field of digital tokens and altcoins, he was eventually let down.

“The more research I did, the more I was not really wanting to buy a large amount of any one of them,” Uber’s co-founder said. “I realized it might be better to release a new project from a different philosophical standpoint with cooperation from a lot of universities, scientists, and research institutes—like the Internet,” he said, in terms of its path to development.

The coin is expected to be called “Eco”, as besides being short, it’s a name easy to pronounce in many languages, not to mention that it makes reference to many concepts, like ecosystem, economics, and ecommerce.

A big focus on education and research?

“Eco seeks to create the most usable digital currency platform to date, offering users an alternative to bitcoin, gold and fiat currency at Eco.com,” according to the coin’s white paper, which wasn’t released yet. “New payment systems are needed which are not controlled by a central institution, and provide better user experiences using mobile devices.”

One of the first steps Eco will make is to team up with the top 5% universities, as well as research institutes around the world.

Uber’s Garrett Camp is just one of the entrepreneurs who has made the jump to cryptocurrency in the recent months. Telegram’s CEO, Pavel Durav, has also been building some buzz around a spectacular ICO, while other businesses are also planning to hold ICOs. Even Mark Zuckerberg announced that one of Facebook’s goals for 2018 is exploring “encryption and cryptocurrency.”