Bee Network – Digital Currency Review: scam or not?

The Bee Network is a cryptocurrency or ‘token’ that you can earn using your phone. It sounds simple and, with digital currencies being more popular than ever at the moment, it could have huge potential. There are now over 8 million people mining it on their mobile devices!

But if you’re wondering if the Bee Network is legit, you’re not alone. Plenty of people have debated whether it’s just a fantasy get-rich-quick idea, nothing more than scam. In this article I’m going to take a more detailed look and see whether it’s something worth taking a chance on.

I’ll do my best to give an honest review, flagging the risks, and also tell you how you can get involved. The bottom line is it’s free to do so, and whilst it’s not going to make you money in the short-term, it might be worth a gamble in case it really takes off!

(A quick note here: We have been mining Bee on our phones for several months to test it out and check we know what we’re writing about. We have no other relationship with the Bee Network and the below article represents our honest view of it)

Some of you have come here looking specifically for a joining code (the Bee Network is referral only). If you don’t already know someone on the network, you can use ours: cpb81
(Top tip: Use any code you want but make sure that person will be active on the network, as this will improve your own earning rate)

What is Bee cryptocurrency and how is it different?

Crypto and digital currency used to be the domain of specialists. To mine Bitcoin, for example, you really need to know what you’re doing and have a computer which will constantly run, consuming an unbelievable amount of electricity (in total, Bitcoin’s power usage is higher than a country like Chile – which has nearly 20 million people!).

In recent years, however, cryptocurrency has gone mainstream. It’s no longer the preserve of those in the know. Even your mum and dad have heard of it, and trading it is almost as easy as setting up a Facebook account.

As word spreads about cryptocurrency, so the value seems to be going up. With the technology advancing and possibilities growing, it seems there are new entrants popping up all the time.

So what is the Bee Network, and what does it bring to the cryptocurrency table?

The Bee Network website – Bee.com – tries to explain what it’s all about but doesn’t exactly make it crystal clear. Essentially this is an early-stage cryptocurrency that you can mine using an app on your phone.

It selling points claim to be:

1. Having a decentralized mining system
2. Being fair for everyone – no supercomputers are needed to mine Bee tokens
3. Offering an ‘exciting’ game experience that rewards you for your participation.

We’ll look more closely at the possible pros and cons below, but their claim about it being easy to mine is absolutely right. Anyone who has a smartphone can do it, just by downloading the Bee app (available on android or iPhone) and simply checking in once a day. There’s more advice later in the article on how to join a mining network and get started.

Here’s what the Bee Network App looks like in the Android store

What is the value of Bee Network Tokens and how can I spend them?

Ok, hold on a minute there – you’re getting carried away. We’re a long way away from hitting the tens-of-thousands a piece that Bitcoin trades at.

The truth is, Bee cryptocurrency tokens aren’t really worth anything at the moment. You can earn it, but you can’t yet use it for anything.

According to the anonymous team behind the Bee cryptocurrency, we’re going to have to go through a number of phases until Bee is operational as a working currency with any value.

First is Phase 1, where 1 million users need to be signed up. We’ve already done that.

Phase 2, where they are now, needs 10 million users to get on board. In this phase they will:

• Launch a KYC (Know Your Customer) practice to verify users (beyond the phone number of facebook profile you use to initially register).
• Develop the network further including a “Node and Dapp ecosystem” – some sort of technical jargon they claim is necessary for sustainability.

Phase 3 will be going from 10 million to 100 million users and during this phase (although it’s not clear when) an exchange marketplace will be launched where hopefully the Bee tokens we’ve all been mining might finally be worth something!

So, it might be months or years before this is even worth anything. And frankly, there’s a chance that it never amounts to anything at all.

Reasons to ‘Bee’ skeptical

I hope you enjoyed the atrocious pun there in the heading – let’s be honest, we both knew it was coming at some point.

As I said in another article, I’m always skeptical when it comes to digital currencies. The idea that a currency can be conjured out of thin air, exist electronically, and then suddenly worth real money seems like pure alchemy.

So I’m similarly cautious about Bee. Months ago I stumbled across a very similar phone-mined cryptocurrency called Pi (check out this article if you haven’t heard of it) and Bee seems to be a very similar clone of it.

In the case of the Pi network, there are 3 clear individuals behind it – all Stamford University graduates. In the case of the Bee Network, we’re only told that “the Bee Network core team is composed of top-tier experts with specialism in internet & blockchain technology, mathematics & cryptography experts and community volunteers.”

Sure, it sounds impressive, but it would be a lot more reassuring if someone was actually putting their name to it. How are we to know that it has a credible team behind it?

Like the Pi Network, the Bee Network also has a white paper, setting out information on the network and its development plans. The Pi paper was dozens of pages of detailed information, but the Bee Network is alarmingly short and a third of the entire paper is dedicated just to explaining how the currency got its name and then going off on a tangent about how actual bees behave.

There really is very little to go on, and there are some enormous gaps in the explanation of how this will ever become a real currency and one day be worth something.

The final thing that irks me about this app is how they describe it as an ‘exciting game experience’. If your idea of an exciting game is just opening the app once a day and pressing the ‘mine’ button then fair enough. It’s not my idea of a good time, and is more of a chore if I’m honest.

I don’t even want an exciting game experience. If I wanted that, I’d play Candy Crush or something. What I want is to feel that the app has the credibility that one day my Bee Tokens will be worth something. For now, it feels like it’s a shot in the dark.

But is it worth giving it a go?

Despite a lot of reasons to be cautious, there are some reasons to consider giving it a chance.

Firstly, the App is free and appears not to drain data or battery in order to mine Bee Tokens.

The reviews are decent on Google Play, which is always a good sign. Of course there are lots of 5* reviews, and also some 1* ones too. That seems to be the world in which we live today: there is no room for nuance or middle ground in the world of crypto. You are either Coca-Cola or Pepsi, you can’t like both.

It’s also clear that the platform is growing fast in terms of the number of users. The platform is quickly hurtling towards 10 million users, and that’s quite an impressive achievement for something that’s mainly spread through word of mouth. With that energy behind it, it would be a shame if this failed to materialize into something decent.

Ultimately there are no certainties when it comes to cryptocurrencies. True, this is a long way off being anything that has any value – and I’ve given you many reasons to be doubtful – but there’s always the chance that this does turn out to be something workable, and none of us want to miss out on the rewards that might come with that.

How to Mine Bee Cryptocurrency – including using referral codes

If you’re buzzing to give Bee a go, then mining it is a matter of downloading the app on android or iPhone and simply checking in once a day.

I danced around getting involved for a while. I’d heard rumours that it was a bit “spammy,” but dear reader, as we have been doing on this site since day 1, I dived on that grenade for you and have given it a go.

Having used the app for a while, I haven’t had any issues with it. My battery needs charging once or twice a day depending on what I’m doing the same as it always did. I’ve seen no excessive data consumption and I’ve not seen any uptick in spam on my email account or on my phone i.e. via text. So far, so good.

When you first get the app, you’ll need to log in using Facebook or your mobile number (I went for the latter) and then pretty soon you’ll hit a screen saying this:

You need a referral code to get onto the Bee network. Don’t just guess a code because you might end up connected to someone who is not active on the app, and that will slow down your earning progress.

If you don’t have anyone else to join then you can use my code cpb81. Please don’t feel under any obligation to do this, but if you joined then we become part of the same team. You will benefit from my active mining and I will benefit from you.

If you then refer people yourself with your code, you’ll earn additional Bee tokens when they’re actively mining. This referral system is no doubt one of the reasons behind the active spread of the network.

This is going to be a turn off for some people who will feel it’s a bit like a network marketing scheme. However, that you only earn from your direct network, you don’t get credit from other people’s network. So I referred you, then I don’t earn anything from the people you then refer. It’s not a digital multi-level marketing scheme.

You are able to refer an unlimited number of people and this can boost your earning rate considerably. It makes sense that they are trying to grow the network by rewarding those who help it spread.

Join early, mine faster

One thing is worth emphasizing about Bee: the rate at which we’re all earning Bee tokens will periodically halve as new user milestones are hit:

Back in the good old days, early adopters were earning 1.6Bee/h. That halved at 100,000 users and halved again at 1 million.

Here comes the really important part.

ON 18th January 2021 they reached 2m users, on 26th January they passed 3m users. On 8th February, the passed 4m, so the amount of users is growing rapidly.

The next halving is at 10m (drops to 0.2Bee/h), so if you want to earn at the highest possible rate, you need to get your skates on!

Summary

Bee, like Pi, it’s growing at a rate that can’t be ignored. It’s free and easy to start earning it, and for us that’s made it worth giving it a go.

Apart from some wasted time, you’ve currently got very little to lose. There’s reasons to be cautious with this, and it might amount to nothing eventually, but it would be very exciting if it did.

This is certainly an opportunity to monitor for now. There’s no harm in getting involved at this stage – although we’ll have another think when KYC eventually comes about what personal data we might be asked for.

For now, we’re happy to be part of the hive, let’s just hope that one day our Bee cryptocurrency efforts yields some honey.

Let us know what you think about it in the comments below. Be warned, though, if your comment is simply a referral code and doesn’t add anything else to the conversation, it probably won’t get approved.

OTHER THINGS TO CHECK OUT: If you want a way you can start making actual money today with your phone then you might want to consider an app called Honeygain (see our review here). If you like the look of Pi, check out our article about a similar idea Bee Digital Currency.