People in the Ethereum community seem to be hesitant with this. They view it as "questionable" and "scammy". And do not want to support it because it could give Ethereum a bad name.
Yes you are absolutely right, Elephant is Scam. The official start Elephant was December 15
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Vitaly Buterin personally helped in some areas to develop elcoin.
from Skype:
[12/14/15, 3:49:05 PM] Vitalik Buterin: ah, this is connected to project elephant?
[12/14/15, 3:49:17 PM] Vitalik Buterin: cool
[12/14/15, 3:50:07 PM] Vitalik Buterin: hehe, looking forward to seeing ethereum blockchain traffic take a permanent 2-3x jump