In my continuing efforts to learn more about cryptocurrencies and to dabble in them, I recently bought a few thousand Verge at about $0.14, after the pullback from Verge’s all-time-high. I liked the fundamentals of Verge because it is marketed as a decentralized privacy coin with no pre- or insta-mine, and I thought it could quickly regain and overtake its recent highs (which, of course, it still very well could without my participation).
I decided to get out after playing around with the available Verge wallets, mining the coin, and ultimately losing some coins in an attempted transfer of coins from my wallet to my Binance Verge wallet.
Here’s what happened and why I soured on the project.
After seeing an opportunity to get in on a pull-back, I purchased my Verge position on Binance. Then I downloaded a number of desktop Electrum wallets from the Verge website, most of which didn’t work due to unsolvable connection problems. The desktop wallet that seemed to show some promise was the one that fully downloads the Verge blockchain (non-Electrum version). So, somewhat frustrated, I gave up and set up the Android Tor wallet, which at least seemed to open and close without application errors.
Next, I began to mine Verge with ccminer on the yiimp pool. I mined about 8.6 Verge into my Android wallet, and, though the wallet connection was very spotty even with VPN enabled, I did receive the Verge coins into the wallet. However, whenever I reloaded the application, it would sometimes take hours for the coins to reappear, so, obviously not practical for real-world use.
Still, I didn’t think this was too terrible as the dev team will no doubt, I assume, fix all of these bugs. But then I attempted to send my mined coins to Binance. I scanned the QR code for my Binance Verge wallet, confirmed my password and hit send. I was expecting a very quick transfer. What I got instead was nothing. No notice of deposit from Binance, no actual deposit, nothing. Well, other than the disappearance of my mined coins. It wasn’t user error, as I’m 100% sure I scanned the Verge QR code. Hours passed, then a day, then two. The coins are gone, and, although they weren’t worth very much, my confidence in this project is completely shot.
I’ve never had this happen with a single BTC, LTC, or ETH transfer. Even if it was my user error that caused the coin loss, the available software and support from Verge is inadequate from my user needs perspective. This doesn’t mean that Verge won’t experience another big pump, or that the project won’t be improved significantly in the future, but I personally can’t keep any allocation of my crypto portfolio in a project with which I’ve had this kind of experience.
I did learn a thing or two about mining and about blockchain in general, so the coin loss was a couple buck tuition payment which was well worth it!
Currently, my crypto holdings, from largest allocation to smallest, are: Litecoin, Bitcoin, Dash, and NAV (another privacy coin project that I think may pay off with an outsized return).
You can find more of my posts at http://mooseworth.com. Thanks for reading and take care!
Disclaimer: All data and information provided in this post is for informational purposes only. It should not be considered legal or financial advice. You should consult with an attorney, financial advisor, or other professional to determine what may be best for your individual needs. I am not an investment advisor and I do not provide investment advice.