The coronavirus has taken the global news spotlight for the past couple of weeks. However, as growing fears over the virus spread, one bizarre cryptocurrency – CoronaCoin – allows users to gamble on the coronavirus’ spread.

Bizarre CoronaCoin crypto let’s you bet on coronavirus infections and deaths

Put simply, the CoronaCoin allows users to speculate on the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus. In truly morbid fashion, CoronaCoin claims to award investors if the number of coronavirus deaths and contagions grow.

Unlike Bitcoin, CoronaCoin is based on the ERC-20 protocol. Moreover, the only backing that’s propping up the CoronaCoin is the COVID-19 virus. Although cryptocurrencies prove that traditional “backing” of currencies isn’t necessary, CoronaCoin takes this to an extreme.

“The mother of all shitcoins”

In fact, some news outlets have already taken to labeling CoronaCoin “the mother of all shitcoins”. It certainly seems that the CoronaCoin is nothing more than a quick cash-grab looking to profit on the coronavirus.

The coin’s ethical issues does not stop with simply using the coronavirus for its own gain, however. Its very design is also deeply macabre. For example, CoronaCoin’s total token issuance amounts to roughly 7.6 billion. As some may already suspect, the tokens represents the global population.

Every two days, CoronaCoin will burn tokens in accordance with new death and and infection numbers. As such, the supply of CoronaCoin tokens will be finite and deflationary. At the time of writing, a total of 92,013 tokens are already burnt.

“The world’s first crypto backed by proof of death”

According to Sunny Kemp, a user who is supposedly developing CoronaCoin, this is part of the allure of the coin. “Some people speculate a large portion of the supply will be burnt due to the spread of the virus, so they invest,” Kemp says

As the official CoronaCoin website – tastelessly – puts this, CoronaCoin is the world’s first crypto with“proof of death” backing. Many observers decry the advent of the morbid cryptocurrency, calling it “amoral”, “tasteless”, and “why we can’t have nice things”.

Although it is hard to defend the CoronaCoin, Kemp argues that it is not as singular as it may seem. “There are currently active pandemic bonds issued by the WHO. How is that different?,” Kemp said to Reuters.

Other parts of the crypto community are responding in other ways to COVID-19

However, there are attempts by other parts of the cryptocurrency community to use crypto for good. Back in January, cryptocurrency and blockchain firms began taking up the fight against the coronavirus. This came in the form of donations and medical supplies.

Notably, the cryptocurrency community’s actions came before the WHO began declaring the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak a “global health emergency”. Nevertheless, this most recent ”CoronaCoin” seems a stark departure from previous crypto community efforts in relation to the coronavirus.