I received an e-mail today. The team says they have 100k people on the white list. But the team decided to open white list. I don't understand why?
To spread awareness of Essentia to the greatest number of potential users

The Whitelist was closed initially to help process the high number of Applicants, it was reopened today to facilitate 2,000 members, this filled up quickly.
The Team have stated there will be another window for users to apply for the Whitelist.