The world of eSports has grown hugely in recent years and is now estimated to be worth over $100bn per annum in revenue.

So it is no surprise to see that with the concurrent growth in the world of cryptocurrency, the two have come together in a new ICO called Asura Coin.

It is aiming to be a fully self-sustaining eSports platform with everything from community-led events to tournament hosting, live streaming and betting all in one place.

Below we will take a look at what Asura is all about, how it will work and the details of the ICO.

What Asura Coin is All About

The domain of eSports is now massive, with an estimated 300 million viewers worldwide. It is only anticipated to grow further aswell, with an anticipated 500 million viewers by 2020. This has led to big players like Nvidia, Microsoft, Facebook and YouTube wanting to get in on the action and take a slice of the pie.

However, many of the current platforms have flaws and issues that a blockchain-based solution could solve and that is exactly what Asura is aiming to do. In essence its main features will be:-

• eSports Betting — a unique approach, allowing users to suggest their own bet types, as well as Asura setting their own bet types, which will be more game-focused and relevant than ones currently provided by most bookies.
• Live Steaming — users will be able to watch games live and free of charge. Twitch and Chinese portals will be used and replays will be available too.
• Professional Guides — top gamers will be recruited to provide advice and training via videos and step-by-step guides, so that users can learn the successful strategies and skills of the professionals.
• Community Matchmaking — platform users will be able to host their own 1v1 and 5v5 matches, with the smart contract allocating tokens to the winner on pre-agreed terms.
• Community Tournaments — in a similar manner, users will be able to set up community tournaments and decide on key details such as the prize pool, number of participants, rounds etc.
• Community Centre — an area where people will be able to catch up on the latest news, take part in discussions, read stories and content and generally hang out.

So as you can see, it will be a very comprehensive platform covering a wide variety of facets for e-Sports fans, all executed transparently and accountably on the blockchain.

Initially there will be four games on the platform: Counter Strike: Global Operations; Dota 2; King of Glory and League of Legends, with the addition of new games to be voted on by the community.

Rewards on the Asura Platform

There will be a variety of ways that users can earn rewards (i.e. tokens) on the Asura platform. These include:

• Referrals — users can earn rewards by referring their friends to the Asura platform and both will tokens from the new sign-up.
• Betting — users will be able to earn tokens by successfully predicting the outcome of matches or particular aspects of matches, which as stated above will include bespoke bets users can create themselves.
• Hosting Tournaments — by hosting tournaments on the platform users can also earn tokens.
• Community Rewards — those will contribute to the community by producing quality content or helping to ensure its smooth functioning will be rewarded with tokens.
• Professional guides — professional players can also earn tokens by producing special step-by-step guides for users of all levels to use.
• Winning Tournaments — finally, players can of course earn tokens by winning tournaments hosted on the platform.

With all these ways to potentially earn tokens, this should ensure a continuing engagement in the platform from users and contribute to its growth.

ICO Details

The public sale for Asura Coin is due to begin shortly and here is the key information for it:

· Start date: 21 May 2018

· End date: 16 June 2018.

· Token: ASA

· Platform: NEO

· Price: TBD

· Soft cap: $2.5m

· Hard cap: $12m

· Public sale: 650m ASA

· Currencies accepted: NEO

· Minimum investment: I NEO

There are bonuses available, with a 15% bonus for the first hour of day two and 10% for those who invest 100 NEO or more (max 500 people).

Token distribution

Tokens will be allocated as follows:

· Token sale: 65%

· Growth and Betting Reserve: 25%

· Team and advisors: 10%

ICO Ratings

The ICO has received some good ratings from the sites that have looked at it, but some of the main ones like ICO Drops and ICO Bazaar haven’t reviewed it yet. The main scores of the ones that have done so are:

• ICO Bench: 3.9/5
• Track ICO: 4.4/5
• Coin Launcher: 8.95/10

Conclusion

Asura Coin is a well thought-out project and the Whitepaper is refreshingly clear about how the platform will work and what their goals are.

eSports is a fast growing space and now has a huge following, which is only expected to grow over the coming years. Gaining just a small share of that huge market would make Asura a big success.

The concept is good and we can see that if they are able to attract enough players to the platform, they should be able to achieve their goal of it becoming self-sustaining and achieving a lot of organic growth.

You can check out the Asura ICO here