In today's crypto reality you can wait several minutes, sometimes hours until the transaction is approved. This is a huge problem to solve if we compare it with traditional banking.  Amp wants to solve this problem. In this article, I'm going to explain the main characteristics of this project and the potential that I see in it as well as the potential risks. In my opinion, this is a promising project that you should be aware of.  Before we start, remind you that is not financial advice, that you should do your own research, being you the one that makes the decision and by your own responsibility, you should never spend money that you can't afford to lose.  


What is AMP? 

If we go to the fundamentals, Amp is an Ethereum token that aims to “collateralize payments on the Flexa network, making them instant and secure”. But what do we do if the transaction fails due to unconfirmed or long transaction times? Well, that’s when the amp token comes in. All the losses will be covered by the Amp collateral. For example, in a transaction that has Amp as collateral, the receiver of the transaction can use the funds immediately although the transaction isn't approved. This is called an instant guarantee.  

To understand Amp and its potential we need to talk about Flexa, the network where Amp wants to collateralize payments. This network is a cryptocurrency payment network that aims to make it easier for merchants to accept crypto payments. Transactions via this network occur instantly and have small fees, a huge advantage over other cryptos. We could say that Flexa decentralizes transaction insurance, providing immediate payment as a service. Flexa does this through Amp. 


What problem wants Amp to solve and why does it have potential? 

In order, to understand the problem that Amp wants to solve and its potential we need, first, to define the following concept: instant guarantee. In today's crypto world a transaction can be processed in several minutes, sometimes hours if the chain is very busy. This is very problematic from the point of view of a vendor/merchant. No one wants to sell a t-shirt to a client and wait several minutes for the transaction to be approved or be afraid of the transaction failing, losing all the money. This can be avoided by using Amp, as explained earlier, the Amp token works as a safe deposit. If something goes wrong during the transaction the amp token kicks in and the losses are covered by the deposit, that’s why the transactions are instant, this immediate transaction using the amp as a deposit is called instant guarantee. With this explained we can say that the time problem is solved but what about the fee problem?  

On the Ethereum network, the high fees in the transaction are a huge problem, it becomes more important when we are talking about small amounts of money, maybe $10 or $20 for a t-shirt. There is not a single customer that wants to pay a $20 fee for the purchase of a $20 t-shirt. The same thing happens when we talk through the selling company's point of view, they are not going to take care of the fee because it just doesn’t make sense in a business view.  The actual fee system just doesn’t work for small businesses. The Flexa network, as explained before, is a network where transactions have small fees, this makes selling products to customers possible and affordable. 

Solving these two problems is vital to make cryptocurrencies a normal and day-to-day thing. That’s why I see a lot of potential in Amp. With the growing interest of people in acquiring cryptocurrencies, businesses have to adapt to the different forms of payment.  

 

How can I get AMP? 

There are a lot of forms to get Amp, but there is one especially interesting, through Coinbase you can get some Amp for free, specifically $3 of Amp. Why is Coinbase giving free Amp? Well, this is part of a learning program, Coinbase earn, that Coinbase has, you only have to read some information about Amp (the total read is 3 minutes long). After each lesson, you will have to answer some questions, to see if you have paid attention (the questions are easy). After each lesson, you will get one dollar on Amp. As you can imagine there are three lessons. 

Now let's talk about other ways of purchasing Amp. Through Coinbase you can buy Amp using its trading option. Another platform where you can buy Amp is Binance, this is a very good platform with a lot of options and in my opinion is one of the best platforms out there. Other platforms where you can buy Amp are Gemini or Dharma, these platforms are very straightforward and easy to use.   


Risks 

Cryptocurrencies come with a high volatility risk; this is something inherent in the crypto world. This is why almost all the projects have high risks, but this risk can vary depending on your strategy. Let me explain, for example, if you want to buy a token with the hope of selling it in the short term to make a profit you would face a high risk, in a short time the price can drop a lot. If your point of view is oriented in the long term if you have studied the project and belief that it has a future, high drops on the price should not bother you as much and the risks dilutes.  

In regards to the Amp project, we need to have in mind that this is a new project. This means that this project has a lot of work ahead, this long journey ahead is always a risk. Notwithstanding that I have stated that this is a very promising project there are technological barriers still ahead. 


Conclusion  

To sum up, this is a very promising project that I'm very excited about, this project has the pretensions to solve the time problem and the fees problem of the cryptocurrency's transactions. These two problems are the big barriers that the DeFi has to solve to reach the day-to-day people. We have to remember that this project like many others has a level of risk and that this article is not financial advice, you have to do your own research at your own risk. I hoped that you liked this article, if you have any questions about this project, you can leave them in the comments section.