LEOcoin was created in June 2014 starting with a total of 50,000,000 pre-mined LEOcoin, with 1 billion coins due to be created by 2114.
The founders of LEOcoin, distributed these pre-mined in the following way:
10 million LEOcoin were given to the not-for-profit social enterprise, the LEOcoin Foundation. This Foundation has a mandate to increase global acceptance of digital currency and LEOcoin. As a social enterprise, it must invest all of its funds in its mission and in pursuit of its Articles of Association. These Articles can be found on the links at the bottom of this page.
The remaining 40 million LEOcoin were also distributed between June 2014 and June 2015, which is when the last of the pre-mined coins was allocated. These were distributed among approximately 200,000 people in order to build a LEOcoin community from the launch of the coin.
These 200,000 people are primarily entrepreneurs and small business owners, with a geographical spread across the world, but with a heavy dominance in the Asia Pacific Region. From the beginning, LEOcoin has always aimed to be a digital currency for the mass market. Distributing 40 million coins among people who began with limited understanding of digital currency but with strong interest in growing their business was a core component of bringing digital currency to a new group of people outside the traditional world of cryptocurrency.
These coins were not distributed as part of an Initial Coin Offering, but were awarded as an educational tool to small business owners and entrepreneurs. These are people who have taken online education courses specifically for small business owners and entrepreneurs who want to grow a global business. The founders of LEOcoin believe that digital currencies are a tool to help a small business meet the needs of a global market without needing to incur the costs of old-world mechanisms.
The majority of these people who were awarded LEOcoin are not digital currency experts or experienced traders, additionally, they tend to live in non-English speaking countries. Bringing these people to the digital currency world, is precisely what LEOcoin and the LEOcoin Foundation exists to do, hence the distribution of the pre-mine to this particular community of small business owners and entrepreneurs.
The rich list of LEOcoin wallets can be seen here: https://www.blockexperts.com/leo# and on some other LEOcoin blockchain explorers.
Aside from the coins held by the LEOcoin Foundation, which must be used in pursuit of the predetermined objectives of it, we believe that the majority of the coins are held in the following places:
- LEOcoin holder wallets.
- The multiple exchanges that trade LEOcoin for other currencies
- Staking services are provided by companies that collect coins from thousands of small LEOcoin holders and stake them for those coin holders. These services are targeted at people with limited technological knowledge who want to benefit from Proof of Stake rewards without wanting responsibility for staking the coins themselves or protecting their wallets from malicious hacking.
The LEOcoin Foundation does not offer any paid for services to any holders of digital currencies.