There are thousands of alt-coins (Tokens other than Bitcoin) in the cryptocurrency world. Altcoins come in all varieties. Some are professionally developed and attempt to solve, real world problems, or compliment Bitcoin’s concept. Others are clearly experimental, and don’t seem to intent, on solving any problem or providing a service, which is also fine.
A few years ago I became interested in Bitcoin and its network, and eventually in most cryptocurrency in general. I began mining different algorithms, with Antminer S1’s, and some scrypt mining Gridseeds. Before choosing a coin, I’d check out sites like Coinwarz.com or Whattomine.com to find the most profitable algorithms to mine. A lot of the time, what I saw was overwhelming and would put me into a head spin. Having so many coins to choose from, but not understanding them, let alone cryptocurrency in general, caused me to immediately dismiss most of them, and mine the “most profitable” ones. What I did not realize was that, this “most profitable”, projection was not a direct reflection of that coin’s true value, or its potential.
The lack of interest, would lead me to not do my research, which in hindsight contributed to many grossly missed opportunities. I would simply mine the, “most profitable” without really looking into them, and their communities. Admittedly I was new to crypto, and missed out on the “Innovator Stage” which would have been even more rewarding today.
Some of the random coins I remember, from back then where some like: SysCoin, FeatherCoin, PotCoin, DarkCoin, Monacoin, Dogecoin and many, many, many others. There was no reason to dismiss these coins, besides pure ignorance. Eventually I ended up solely devoting time to Bitcoin, and Litecoin. This created a sort of tunnel vision focused on the two prior coins, which led to so many missed opportunities.
During the last few months of 2014 the hash rate for Bitcoin started increasing exponentially. Mining difficulty went from about 30 billion to 49 and up. From the consumer miner perspective, I saw bigger players like Bitfury, Bitmain, and many other Bitcoin companies on their way into the space. It seemed to me, like this is when a great influx of alternative coins began to hit and somewhat saturate the markets.
Coins and projects where forked or copied over, and redone in some other way, adding, subtracting, or refining certain features. This is how a lot of the coins on the market today came to be. Developers changing projects, projects changing hands, and new faces entering was the new norm. Now there are Ethereum ICOs that make creating an alt token easier than ever.
Here are some of the things I now look for before spending time involved in a cryptocurrency:
• Fair launch or deployment of tokens (No Pre-mining, Instamine or any other unfair distribution of tokens)
• Fair and healthy incentives for all users and developers (For miners, end users, masternode operators, and developers)
• Safe and consistent way of providing security, for transactions on the network (Masternodes and Miners POW/POS/or Hybrid?)
• Good standing history is preferred (Name changes and changes to algorithm structure are confusing to users)
• Community presence (Strong or not, a real community must be present)
In retrospect most of these coins I dismissed, where quite viable, some were not. One good example, MonaCoin, was a very obscure coin. At the time, I couldn’t find much information about it, but was intrigued enough to try mining it, on Multipool.io.
For most of its life, it was traded around the 5 to 18 cent range, but exploded in April of this year, to nearly 75 cents. That’s a 1500% gain in a few months. Japanese culture seems to have adopted this coin. So many other, once obscure coins, had similar rises in volume and price, this year. Currently its market cap is valued around $25 million USD.
Another token, Dogecoin, was created from a meme of a Shinu Inu dog. This coin was never valued more than 500 satoshis per coin, but jumped to a high of nearly 4000 satoshis per coin in late June of this year. When I began, I overlooked this coin and its value, and I missed out. Dogecoin has grown into an absolutely fantastic cryptocurrency, with its huge community, ease of use, and easy onboarding. Currently its market cap is valued around $200 million USD.
Another great example is XCoin. XCoin became DarkCoin, which was then rebranded as Dash or “Digital Cash.” DarkCoin had a value of less than 1 cent per coin, for nearly all its life, then Dash hovered around the few dollar range, eventually breaking out and becoming one of the most popular, useful, and profitable cryptocurrencies to date.
This cryptocurrency provided useful features like Instant Send, where a transaction would be routed to the receiver instantly and with zero confirmations needed. Private Send, another feature, delivers a coin-mixing service provided by the masternodes.
All Dash really did was rebrand themselves, the original underlying features, of DarkCoin (XCoin), where still there.
Dash provided its users, with healthy incentives, by rewarding a portion of the block reward, to its developers, masternode operators, and miners. These incentives are crucial, in that they keep miners on the network, which process transactions, and with masternodes which provide the important features. Masternodes are periodically given a portion of the block reward, for their contributions.
When I finally began to mine Dash in late 2015, through Genesis Mining X11 contracts, it was too late. When I received my first payout, I realized it was not in my best interest to continue. Because of the increased difficulty and low price, the payouts were too minimal, and not worth it. I had missed the boat, completely.
Obviously if I had just purchased some early on, in 2014, I would be in a better position today. My pure ignorance, and tunnel vision kept me away from the altcoins.
Unknowingly, I was missing opportunities left and right, while inefficiently collecting Bitcoin. Although I did mine a few blocks, the opportunities I missed became much more attractive, and would’ve eclipsed the value of the blocks mined.
Today I give most coins a fair chance. The criteria are still a requisite, I have, for choosing tokens. If most are not met, I move on. In the crypto world computers and code handle most things, but when human emotions run high they create issues in areas such as: choosing a token, deciding how much to own, or allocating resources in order to receive them. Many of those coins I mined are now little seeds I put into different projects, to watch them grow, Chaincoin for example is one of them. After doing extensive research, I decided to dive in head first. My perspective on alternative coins has changed dramatically.
Chaincoin is another cryptocurrency with a strong foundation, an unbelievable history, and engaged community. Its inception dates back to early 2014, and it boasts its own custom C11 hashing algorithm. Because the algorithm is custom, it greatly decreases chances of a 51% attack, which creates a more secure network, The algorithm is also what Dash’s popular X11 algorithm was based on.
Chaincoin operates just as Dash (XCoin/DarkCoin) does, in that it uses a 2 tiered network layout, as well as providing most of the same features, and functionalities. One network tier contains the proof-of-work miners, who mine transactions and secure the network, while the second tier provides crucial services like Instant Send, Private Send, as well as a decentralized governance system. This second tier also maintains the proof-of-stake portion, which allows for voting rights on certain initiatives or proposals.
Chaincoin’s launch was very ordinary, as coins were deployed at a fair rate (16 coins per block, 1 block every 90 seconds, halving every 700800 blocks). There was also no premine, or instamine. It also has a very active, and engaged community.
As it stands today, developments on the coin’s code are very active, albeit there was a few year hiatus, from late 2013 up to early this year(You can look at the graph on Github). One reason for this was due to immense popularity of Dash, Chaincoin was overlooked, and missed by some. When looking at the history, it appears to me, that many developers went onto other projects, leaving Chaincoin alone, in working order, and ready for use. The coin has recently been relaunched, earlier this year, with a added developers and marketing team.
I am looking forward to seeing my seedlings grow into healthy and stable coins. Growing anything takes time and patience, which translates roughly into the crypto world. My view and perspective on alternative coins has changed dramatically, and yours should too.
Sources:
https://www.coindesk.com/why-japan-fell-love-monacoin-cat-meme-cryptocurrency/
https://www.scribd.com/doc/241012134/Transaction-Locking-and-Masternode-Consensus-A-Mechanism-for-Mitigating-Double-Spending-Attacks
https://www.dash.org/forum/topic/official-announcements.54/
https://www.coingecko.com/buzz/darkcoin-to-dash
https://cointelegraph.com/news/darkcoin-is-now-dash-and-not-a-moment-too-soon
http://www.chaincoin.org/the-vision/
https://cryptocurrencytalk.com/topic/3382-chaincoin-chc-information/#comment-30032
https://cointelegraph.com/press-releases/chaincoin-hodlers-cryptocurrency-revolution