After the collapse of the short-lived AVLX cryptocurrency, Avalon Life rebooted as a Dash mining pool operation.

Citing an increase in “the entire network-hash rate of major coins”, Avalon Life have announced a third reboot in just over a year.

Effective July 15th, Avalon Life will no longer pay affiliates in bitcoin. The company is instead hedging its bets on Pura Vida Coin.

In a recent newsletter sent out to Avalon Life affiliates, the company claims

As a result of numerous conversations with hardware suppliers, we know that extremely high volumes of pre-orders were accepted for hardware and they will come to delivery from August on.

This will result in a massive increase in the hash rate and for many major coins in a significant decrease in returns.

Therefore, we have made the decision that in preparation for the launch of PURA-coin, our existing and upcoming mining resources will be concentrated on the PURA mining, to strengthen this network from the start.

According to a Pura Vida Coin website bearing the same name, the altcoin is

a Hybrid decentralized POW/POS Cryptocurrency hopefully accepted by the merchants specially in Costa Rica and other Latino Markets who are sick an tired about the inflationary Fiat Money.

Several developer links related to Pura Vida Coin bear the name “Avalon Life” in them. To what extent Avalon Life is directly involved in the development of Pura Vida Coin however is not disclosed.

At the time of publication there are three recorded miners of Pura Vida Coin.

Despite claims last year that ‘merchants will be setup after listing on on of the Exchanges in Q3 2016‘, as far as I can tell Pura Vida Coin is still not listed on any public exchanges.

When exactly Avalon Life will integrate Pura Vida Coin into its business model meanwhile is unclear.

Regarding the PURA-Coin, we are not yet able to announce a launch date, because this will depend on market conditions around the Bitcoin Segwit in early August.

We have already published the 2 possible dates at the end of August or at the end of October and will also take on one of these dates.

But, of course, we will only launching the PURA-coin if this is also acceptable from the market and within the advantage of the Avalon Community.

All milestones until the launch (master nodes, wallet, etc) are dependent on this date and therefore we must wait for August 1st what will happen on the market.

As you know with the PURA coin launch we have the primary goal to be the first coin which gains the mass adoption and have included many innovative and new features that are not yet available on the market in this form.

Therefore, a suitable market environment and the right timing is very important.

From the above it certainly sounds as if Pura Vida Coin is an Avalon Life in house cryptocurrency.

The company however is quick to point out that long-term it is open to mining other altcoins.

Avalon life has already started to build a profitable product range outside the mining industry for this development.

In Mining, we will continue to focus on Niche-Coins with higher yields.

In connection with these changes, the 7-day run will be terminated from July 15th and will be replaced by a new incentive program in the context of the new crypto travel portal in August.

Avalon will focus more on products that provide the use of cryptocurrencies and blockchaintechnology as well as on the development and further development of the PURA-coin.

Focusing on this core elements we find a way to provide a balance between the classic customer and the sales orientated members with an attractive new compensation plan.

These core projects for Avalon in the next few months are:

– Pura-coin with mining, ATM- and POS- concept

– Greenearth

– Kryptotravel – Portal

– payment solutions on crypto base

– Avalon-Nation

Personally I don’t see this as a sustainable business model. It utilizes altcoins as speculative investment vehicles, which is a big problem in the MLM industry right now.

So many companies are launching their own altcoins using the same “we’re gunna be the next bitcoin” marketing.

These altcoins make a ton of money for the company owners via affiliate investment but ultimately flop after launch. Affiliates who invested on broken promises are left with worthless coins that eventually approach a value of $0.

I’m not seeing how Pura Vida Coin is any different, other than the niche focus on South America and travel.

And if it flops, then what, another niche altcoin to invest in?

Sounds like a great money spinner for Avalon Life management, but how long before affiliates realize they’re being taken for a ride?