ionomy, a gaming and blockchain cryptocurrency startup, earlier this month announced its new gaming, investment, and digital currency platform, ionomy.com.

In addition, ionomy has announced an initial coin offering (ICO) for the new blockchain based digital currency, ION, and seeks to raise approximately $500,000 of additional funding for a new round of development and deployment, which includes new game releases for mobile platforms, deployment of the trading and earning system (Stakers), and deployment and support of the core blockchain cryptocurrency, ION.

After securing initial funding of $125,000 through an initial crowdsale offering in November of 2015, the company built the foundational ionomy.com platform and developed the new blockchain based digital currency, ION. The new digital currency is built upon the latest proof-of-stake 3.0 technology based on Blackcoin's core and innovates by adding masternodes (transaction facilitators) similar to Dash.

Launched on April 4, 2016, the ICO campaign has already sold over half of the initial 5 million ION that have been offered at a starting price of $0.20/ION. The price of ion is on a rising scale and increases in increments of $0.01 weekly until the conclusion on May 16, 2016.

An initial supply of 10.9 million ION (total supply 55 million ION) has been established with 5 million dedicated to the ICO, the remaining divided between platform and development incentives, and bounties:

• 3.4 million ION: participation incentives given away by ionomy.com
• 2.5 million ION: bounties for coin development

"By starting semi-centralized with ionomy.com, mobile games, and social activities, then development tools and crowdfunding, we're giving the currency a real chance to establish a foothold before being adopted outward," explained Adam Matlack, COO of ionomy. He continued, "The coin is open source, but ionomy is funding development through bounties and incentives; a large portion of ICO funds are set aside just for development of ION itself."

The platform and coin will launch at the conclusion of the ICO on May 16. All coins sold in the ICO will be distributed and the blockchain will be live. Shortly after the platform and coin launch, the company's first game "Gravity" is scheduled to be released on mobile platforms.

Gamers can receive substantial financial advantage in the ionomy by using ION. When purchased with ION, all in-game purchases are 50% off for every game published by ionomy.com. Gamers can spend the tokens they earn through game play throughout the ionomy.com ecosystem.