My Opinion
Many would not agree with me as this is my opinion and how I see things.
For me technology is worthless if there is no real use of it. Let's suppose, you have made an ultra cheap Air conditioner and people are just buying and selling it for profits, i would say WTF? Why don't you use it to get cooler air ? well that was just an example.
We do see altcoins, ICOs, smart contracts popping up everyday advertising themselves as great technologies. Great, but are they doing something real for common people? I mean why blockchain tech is there? To ease common man and to provide relieve from unjustified limitations, taxes imposed by governments and burdening common man. For richer people those limits and taxes are nothing and blockchain tech is there for a common man. I hope you getting my point now. So, an altcoin having great technology but having no real use will infact boost in its price by creating hype around the technology but the price wont be holding for longer because of no daily use, until it gets into common usage.
Coming back to the main topic, why pakcoin?
The belief is that crypto coins can replace traditional paper notes and be accountable and yet save millions if not billions in reprinting and printing of paper money cost to the national enquirer. An additional benefit to the under-banked will be that it will be much cheaper than traditional services such as easypaisa, upaisa, mobicash etc. And seeing the success of these services, pakcoin is getting primed for its replacement.
What is pakcoin?
Pakcoin is Pakistan based crypto currency (inspired by auroracoin), with primary focus on Pakistan and Pakistanis within and outside of Pakistan and international users are warmly welcome to participate in any way with pakcoin. It is based on Litecoin. Pakcoin hasn't got much innovation in the technology part but is innovative on real life usage. It's pushing on the most important part and that's adoption.
It was released in June 2015 and announced on Bitcointalk forum. 10% has been pre-mined for airdrop, development, marketing, support and merchant services.
Airdrop
First 150,000 Pakistanis will get 50 PAK per person against their NICs for free to test it out. Airdrop is going on till all quota for airdrop is finished.
Merchants
Pakcoin has got 10 merchants as of yet and educating and convincing others to join the network as well for the benefit of common people. Among them, two private hospitals, Nano industrial Tech and a Land developer are worth mentioning. Merchants map is at http://www.pakcoin.info/merchants
Tellers
Pakcoin has got tellers, they are enthusiastic people willing to help others in educating about pakcoin and providing them pakcoin against PKR (local currency). They accept bank, mobile or cash payments and send pakcoins to buyer. So the buyer is relieved of the hassle of getting bitcoins from BTC exchange, sending them to the pakcoin exchanges and then getting pakcoin. Thats the best part of Pakcoin. More tellers are getting onto this system with passage of time. That's just like BTM (Bitcoin tellers machines) but better in terms that one can deal with them online and send them online payment and get pakcoins, so no requirement of going to them physically. Similar concept is applied by Abra app. Pakcoin tellers map is at http://www.pakcoin.info/tellers
It is the second crypto currency in pakcoin which is actively traded offline as well, bitcoin being first. It could be documented if there is a platform like localbitcoins, which is in plan.
Services
Pakcoin is already providing discounted mobile credit through its e-wallet for Pakistani users. Discount is upto 15% which is unmatchable service in Pakistan and no other service is providing such discounts. Thanks to crypto price volatility. This service is also gaining popularity in Pakistan and it is the service which has much role in supporting pakcoin's price, i will explain you below.
Utility bill payments, bus tickets, Online vouchers like Google, Amazon, Skype etc and Virtual prepaid debit cards are planned.
Wallets
It has multiple wallets options available at http://www.pakcoin.info/wallets; Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, Paper wallet and E-Wallet. Do not use paper wallet if you don't know how to use it, that's same with all crypto paper wallets.
Donations
Donations can be given through pakcoin using http://www.pakhope.org compaigns, most of the donations are for Pakistani charity orgaizations. The idea behind collecting donations through pakcoin is that even a cent can be received using pakcoin and that makes it superior than any other option at the moment.
Transactions
Pakcoin's transaction fees are very much negligible, mostly you could transact for free if it's a small transaction from its native window, mac or linux client. Larger transactions could charge you upto 0.4 PAK max. Exchanges, E-Wallet and android wallet charge 0.001 to 0.002 PAK. That's nothing :)
It's transaction confirmation time is 6 minutes for 6 confirms, if compared to bitcoin, it's 10 times faster.
Supply
It's circulating supply, as of this writing, is 38,155,049 PAK and max supply is 182 million which would be mined in 100 years. It's halving is done every 525600 Blocks (Approx 3 years) and it is Pure POW (Scrypt). The halving is what predicts it's future price. If you do some maths, you could get that it's base price would be like 64x in 21 years or 16x in 12 years. Base price is the price which is the lowest you could get in the market at a given time. That's due to halving of supply and with constant demand. What would it be with an increased demand in those years and halved supply every 3 years? Time will tell that. The potential is huge. You can see that with the bitcoin which started in cents and now in thousands of dollars. Why I am referring to BTC is because it has real world usage.
Future Projects
Pipeline projects include PAK/PKR exchange for Pakistan, localbitcoins like website, remittances and easier payment with pakcoin using NFC or Visa/Master Debit cards, so no need of carrying your mobile wallet everywhere for payments :). An interesting mention is about first cross border payment from an indian guy from India to a Pakistani guy in Pakistan worth just 19 USD and that happened without any fee. Ref: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1096893.msg19156888#msg19156888
Remember that pakcoin is just two years old and there is a lot to do with it along with educating public about it, keep in mind that Pakistani people are naive in this technology and are getting aware of it now in 2017. The rest of world is already 7-8 years ahead of them. The tech will be boosted when State Bank of Pakistan would give it a clean chit, right now SBP is of neutral stance. Also, pakcoin halving would do much for it's price as well.
Freelancing market
Pakistani freelancers market is huge. They can accept pakcoins due to its negligible fee for their work.
Mining pools
Anyone can openly mine pakcoin with their hardware. Pakcoin is already on different mining pools.
- http://pool.pakcoin.org
- http://prohashing.com
- https://mining-dutch.nl
- http://pak.smarterhash.com
- http://pak.mastermining.net
Mining profitability is subject to one's electricity tariff.
Pakcoin Historical events
- Addition to online exchanges cryptopia.co.nz and yobit.net.
- Pakistani amateur traders coming in.
- Some excitement around pakcoin.
- Investors taking profits and exiting.
- Holders exited after 6 months.
- Large dump by a scammer of around 300K PAK.
- Indecision by traders about pakcoin direction, new traders avoiding entering it.
- Panic sellings.
- Bigger investors entering to explore pakcoin potential.
- Sell offs by remaining holders.
- Introduction of mobile credit topup service at discounts and addition of few merchants, pakcoin found its base price.
- Mobile credit service started to take off, increasing volumes, due to discounts and more merchants added.
- Exposure to foreign investors, pakcoin gaining trust among local community.
Pakcoin in Media
NewsBTC Pakistan – 1
ProPakistani
NewsBTC Pakistan – 2
NewsBTC
TechJuice
PakWired
MIT Technology Pakistan Review
Online Exchanges
Market Stats:
- https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/pakcoin/
- http://coingain.com/price/pak/pkr
- https://www.cryptocompare.com/coins/pak/overview/BTC
- http://www.blockchainstats.org/altcoin-market-data/pakcoin-market-data/
Block explorers
https://www.zpool.ca/explorer/PAK
http://cryptoguru.tk/index.php?Currency=PAK
https://prohashing.com/explorer/Pakcoin
https://chainz.cryptoid.info/pak/
Social
- https://www.facebook.com/pakcoinofficial/
- https://twitter.com/pakcoinofficial
- https://www.reddit.com/r/Pakcoin/
- https://pakcoin.slack.com
Educational
Pakcoin youtube channel is providing basic education about pakcoin and how it works.
http://www.youtube.com/c/pakcoin
Official site
Forums
http://www.pakcoin.info/forum
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1096893.0
Anything missing, I would be obliged to be notified through comments. Do let me know about your opinions and thoughts.