Bitcoin Forum

To be completely transparent, a fair amount of my portfolio is invested in XSPEC. Of course this means I may not be the most unbiased source, but I've done my due diligence by doing a fair share of research and felt that it might be appreciated to give it a nice overview for those who are new with Spectre. It would actually be alarming if I didn't have anything invested after writing a post like this.

 
Another privacy coin?

I won't repeat all the reasons why privacy coins are, and will increase to be, an important part of the cryptocurrency market as I assume most people here will be well aware of this fact. Currently, we have a couple of big players such as Zcash, Pivx, NAV and more, with of course Monero at the very top. All these have their own nice characteristics where other coins may be lacking, so this is not to say these coins are not good. However, Spectrecoin is in my view one of the privacy coins that has one of the most potentials to become part of the leading privacy coins. Let's see why:

 

What is Spectrecoin?

To quote directly from the /r/XSPEC page, as they are definitely more capable to explain their own product:

Spectrecoin (XSPEC) is the premier privacy-focused cryptocurrency, featuring an energy-efficient proof-of-stake algorithm providing fast transaction confirmations, and a fully integrated Tor+OBFS4 layer for network privacy. Spectrecoin is actively developed, with an ambitious roadmap that prioritizes privacy, security, and true decentralization with innovative features such as low-power mobile wallet staking in our upcoming Android wallet

20,000,000 XSPEC was created in a genesis transaction and 95% of the XSPEC supply was sold to investors in late 2016. As of mid 2017, this ICO ranks as the *5th best performing ICO in history in terms of return on investment for our investors. Our ICO performance earned us a mention in the New York Times.

 

Stats

Current market cap: $61.753.020 / 5.318 BTC

Price per coin: $2.97 / 0,00025585 BTC a pop

Current markets: mainly Cryptopia and Livecoin

 
Consensus: Proof of Stake 3.0

Ring signatures

Stealth and regular addresses

A minimum of 5% yearly interest

Block time: 60 seconds

Tech overview and comparison

 

What sets XSPEC apart from e.g. Monero, Zcash etc?

Okay, so the two things that excite me most is the ability for stealth staking and the fully integrated Tor+OBFS4 layer. Other things like ring signatures and stealth addresses are of course very nice safety features, but this is nothing new (e.g. Monero and Zcash both use ring sigs, Monero also uses stealth addresses).  

So Spectre uses proof of stake as a method of consensus, which is a much more energy-friendly method to do verifications on the blockchain. Individuals don't mine, they stake based on the amount of XSPEC in their wallet which in turn decides the likelihood of receiving the block reward. Monero is an amazing coin and valued so highly for a reason, but the fact that it uses proof of work is still quite problematic as it simply wastes tons of energy.

 
Stealth staking

As of yet, stealth staking is in development. Version 2.0 will feature default stealth staking (set to launch Q2 this year). This is huge. First of all, to my knowledge there is no other privacy coin that has this possibility. Stealth staking means that an individual's wallet information will remain anonymous even if one is using the contents to stake. This used to be quite a hurdle for all PoS coins out there, and of course brings into question the true privacy of a privacy coin if individuals cant stake their coins anonymously.

 

Tor+OBFS4 integration

I'll admit, at first I had to google the OBFS4 part. What this basically means though, is that IP activity is untraceable by means of the Tor network, which means that the coin can safely be used in countries that tend to ban traffic from and to certain IP's (China, Russia). Its safe to say these are big markets, where internet freedom will be greatly appreciated. Thus since Spectre runs over the Tor network, IP addresses are safely obfuscated. If this would not be the case, you could get into some nasty problems with service providers monitoring your internet traffic to determine the origin of your transaction. With net neutrality you can imagine that this is a problem more than ever.

 
Current standings

As mentioned above, the current market cap is around 60mill. This is incredibly low, especially when taking into consideration all the impressive tech and its unique contributions. The roadmap is worth a read, and it must be a more-than-good year if everything is achieved. They already have one of the better wallets that I have seen so far, with an integrated anonymous chat.

The lead developer, jbg, is very open to any kind of input and is happy to share any information about the entire project. Just ask him in the slack channel.

Oh yeah, just to mention it again, it is currently the fifth best returning ICO ever, just behind Ethereum. So if you're only in for the money you are definitely not too late yet, although hopefully you'd also be in for the promising tech.

 
Some questions I frequently ran into

Q: 'Its a privacy coin, but it has a richlist? What gives?'

A: Yes there's a richlist, but this has been obsolete for quite some time now. Spectre was created based on ShadowCash which used to have no ring signatures. Stealth transactions have been supported for a long time now, and will become the default option in v2.0.

/u/Trainasauruswrecks explained this quite nicely

 
Q: 'If it's so great, why isn't it at e.g. > 200M yet?'

A: Of course there can be many reasons why this is, first of all its a relatively new coin and this entire market is in its baby shoes. Personally, I think a big part of this also comes from the fact that it appeared to me that jbg (lead developer) prioritized the tech much more than the marketing.

Of course this is not a terrible attribute in a developer, but you can have a fantastic product which still nobody will adopt if they don't know about it. This may have been my only worry up until recently, since it's become quite clear that he listened to supporters in the Slack channel as there is clearly someone marketing going on since not too long ago. The website just got a big overhaul and the Twitter account is clearly more active.

 

Q: 'why is there no information about the team on the website, seems sketchy?'

A: No idea why this is asked regularly, but obviously creators of a privacycoin do not want their faces on the internet associated with tech that allows you to e.g. circumvent Chinese and Russian internet laws.

 
 Finally, as most people here I am probably not quite the privacy expert. I simply read as much as I could find about the project and general principles in the market. Therefore, if I missed anything or if there are certain claims that are faulty, please let me know. I am very open for discussion and will obviously change anything that may be wrong.

https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/spectrecoin/#social
https://spectreproject.io

 

Thank you very much for sharing this information - very well written article.

You keep opening new post about xspec , as i investor of xspec , it makes me pist off since people will think  this is a scammm coinnnn.stop creating new posts use old post for explanations.

Nice write up, XSPEC is a very interesting project. I'm excited to see how well it does this year. After default stealth transactions and stealth staking is released I think it will explode.

Xspec = all the promises in the world like stealth staking yet not a single white paper to back anything up.
Be careful, they are offering the world with no proof, if they don't come through on these offers it'll become a dead coin real fast.

Also the spamming on the forum is concerning, it's the most noob spammed coin out there.

If this coin was legit in delivering what they are claiming, it's market cap would be much higher than 60 million, we've all been hearing about it for months now, it's not flying under the radar, just the big investors are smarter than to be taken for a lie.

I could take any coin right now, make a nice website, make a ton of claims, promise it'll solve some big issues while providing no proof, would you buy it? this is xspec.

And you say xspec is a scam ?

Hes just a troll!
this (https://altcoinwiki.org/en/SpectreCoin) is nearly like a whitepaper.
And jeah sure, xspec has a shiny webpage and only does claims  ;) get real!
Jbg is a genius and is doin all the work on his own - This project is legit as it gets, you can go and ask them about everything on slack!

LOL what you say about Tron (trx) ? 10b market cap in best time but trx not have nothing.

Xspec not scam, you know that xspec have working wallet, big update on february and q2 2018 ?

I m truely believer of xspec!!!

How on earth do people consider whitepaper as some sort of "must have" for a coin to be real, not fake. It just seems like much of the market is made up by people who are going to get hurt, seriously. Funniest thing about it? You (#whitepaperislambo) rather take this as an assault rather something to think about & maybe learn?
Cheerio!

This guy always spams topics about XSPEC.  Scam or not, stop spamming the forum up.

I really like this coin, I am regret very much that I did not buy it in early December, although I planned it. Now the price is too high, despite the correction. Although after adding to the serious stock exchange growth will continue.

Its currently <50% from ATH so not sure why you think the price is still too high...

HODL

I'm very interested in this project so i bought some xspec a months ago. I hope that when this period of corrections will end xspec can explode!!!

Whitepapers are not important? I can't say for sure if xspec is a scam but let's be real, no one yet has a solution for anon POS yet xspec are claiming it's around the corner, this isn't just a simple bit of functionality which can be done easily, no proof = how gullible are you?

Honestly guys, any one could take an open source anon coin, build a wallet and make a ton of claims, if a company came about claiming to do something unique investors would want proof they can achieve it.

Why is it so hard to understand why some won't go near a promise the world with no proof coin.
Also it's the most shilled coin on the forum.

If you want to argue it, explain please why my points above aren't logical... rather than just spitting bs.

Current price level is extremely cheap imho. If you are not yet in, I would recommend to buy or if you already bought higher you should average down now.

I think stealth staking feature will kick this coin at least x10.

If they pull this off I agree, 10x easy.
I don't have faith in them pulling it off, think about it, if you wanted people to invest in your product, you would provide all information possible to make it happen, they're providing nothing but "It's coming"

If I had even the slightest solution to stealth staking I would provide info knowing the outcome will be very positive for my product.

You're wrong, and here's why: Its a team of two people. If you don't want to invest in the project because you don't think its possible, thats one thing. However, saying that if you "had the slightest solution to stealth staking you would provide info" is a horrible idea with a small team. So lets get this straight. You basically want a team of TWO developers, only one of which who is mainly in charge of developing Stealth Staking, to release exactly how to implement Stealth Staking, essentially 5 months before they hope to release it? Why on earth would you do that? That basically gives any better funded privacy coin project a chance to attempt to implement it first. Implying they're lying about stealth staking because they don't wanna give up their main differentiator is illogical.

They already said a Whitepaper or quasi-Whitepaper will be released with the feature.


Very similarly worded to Monero shills that generally shit on XSPEC  ??? ??? No one on the XSPEC team has said "its a simple bit of functionality that can be done easy." Brycel, the developer in charge of SS, has figured out a solution for it and its getting ready to start implementing and testing within the XSPEC code. I really will never understand the argument "its never been done before so how on Earth could these people do it?!"

2 developers are suppose to solve one of the biggest problems in crypto in 5 months with no evidence?
Even more reason to stay away, I'm not sure you understand how complex stealth staking is :)

Also what sort of stealth coin offers a rich list:
https://chainz.cryptoid.info/xspec/#!rich

atleast Monero has this area covered, yet you still have faith in stealth staking which is FAR more complex than hiding a wallet from a rich list.

Let me guess, this was intentional for ICO validation?

Stealth + rich list = bs.

By the way, I hold no Monero.
But hey, at least Monero is a functional stealth coin rather than a promise coin.

SPECTRE is going to be a powerful competitor to Monero,Dash,ZenCash! I think, it will be interesting if anybody will compare SPECTRE with MONERO. :)
Here is an interesting article about comparsion of anon/secure coins (Monero vs DASH vs Zcash vs Verge vs Bitcoin Mixers): https://moneroforcash.com/monero-vs-dash-vs-zcash-vs-bitcoinmixers.php

It only takes one person to figure it out, someone with far more cryptography knowledge then you or I. But like I said, just wait and see. One of us will be eating our words by the end of the year.

Ooo boi, another parroted talking point from someone who hasn't researched XSPEC enough. XSPEC has a richlist because it doesn't have privacy as the default option YET. That's on the roadmap for 2.0 release. Just makes you look uneducated about XSPEC when you think that because they haven't implemented default stealth that it somehow relates to them not being able to do Stealth Staking.  ??? ??? What are roadmaps for? XSPEC is a young coin, and its already more private than some similar coins. Once stealth is the default in 2.0, even WITHOUT stealth staking, it'll be one of the better privacy coins on the market, aside from Monero.

BitcoinSkull, you gave me shit for my prediction, but it's spot on so far.  This coin has only $56,000 volume per 24 hours and I have no clue why it's still listed on exchanges.  It's nothing more than a coin that markets itself wrong and should expect it to be delisted soon?  What is your call.


This coin has crashed to almost $1.10  Well within the average of the values that I gave and on course. I expect this coin to hit close to $0.90 within the next month or two and $0.40 cents within 6 months, while crashing to a few cents in a year.  Here's the equation I came up with in Excel really quick.  Fill in X with the number of months and you'll get the value of this coin.

y = 0.0103x^2 - 0.2453x + 1.4574
R² = 0.9921

Lack of volume from XSPEC is from people hodling and staking, and from people waiting to see the next few updates from XSPEC before they decide to invest.

But yeah, I guess we should give up on all the coins that dropped during the last few months. Just for appetizers, I've been watching DRGN and NXS the past few months and they've all had the exact same drop yet they're still really promising projects. You're full of it.

DRGN high: $5
DRGN now: $1.25


NXS high: $12
NXS now: $1.72


XSPEC high: $5.51
XSPEC now: $1.13

IMPORTANT UPDATE

After having some extended discussions with @jbg, @beachguy and @RKh it has become clear
that @jbg does not support the upcoming XSPEC update and the changes it brings to the
network. @jbg has therefore stated that he will only support the “old” version of XSPEC and
collaborate with others and continue development on the “old XSPEC” which will be done under
the name of WISP. That means therefore that @jbg effectively leaves Spectrecoin (XSPEC) and he
is no longer the lead dev, manager or a spokesperson for Spectrecoin (XSPEC).


@jbg has stated that he will continue the work he has promised to the community (v 1.4) but this
will now be published under the name of WISP based on the “old XSPEC blockchain”. Please see
statement from @jbg when this is published. As the updates promised to the community by @jbg
will be pushed to a new GitHub open source repo, the official Spectrecoin (XSPEC) will be free to
work downstream from the new @jbg repo and implement the improvements coded by @jbg for
WISP as we will share the same code base, if this is deemed beneficial at the time of when the
code is released by @jbg. That means that supporters of the official XSPEC will get all the
improvements promised by @jbg although he no longer works for the project.


XSPEC will continue to develop with a vision of becoming a superior privacy coin and this split
will not detract from that mission. It is therefore possible that XSPEC and the @jbg version will
share code for a while but are likely to diverge as the code will be developed independently in the
future.


Therefore, there will be the official Spectrecoin (XSPEC) continuing as announced in a previous
statement with @mandica, @beachguy and @RKh as the core team and a new blockchain named
WISP where @jbg will the coder. @jbg will make an announcement around how this will be
implemented from his side.


Whilst we are in the process of hiring a full time professional developer for XSPEC, @mammix2
will step in as a developer and consultant and code the next version of the wallet as stated in a
previous announcement. This new version of XSPEC (likely to be known as v. 1.3.7 to bring it in
line with the latest Mac release) will bring the following two major changes to the network:
(1) 5% of the generated output in every block will be directed to a development fund.
(2) The PoS reward will increase to 5.25% per annum to compensate stakers who will not notice
a drop in the number of coins they receive.
(3) The donation slider will still be in effect and stakers will be able to contribute additional funds
to the project if they choose.


This will achieve a minimum of funding for development and contribute to a more professional
structure and work practices for the XSPEC core team. The accounts will be open and
transparent and the development work will be managed and checked and updates will be
provided. Once we are past the interim wallet update we will be able to finalise an updated
roadmap for XSPEC. There should not be any disruptions to the network. Simply download and
run the updated wallet when it is released.
The update will be in two stages:
(1) Upon new wallet release older wallets will be excluded from the network but enough time will
be given for everyone to update.
(2) At a predetermined block height the changes will activate with regards to the dev fund.


Make no mistake, Spectrecoin (XSPEC) is still XSPEC. The upcoming update is the official version
of Spectrecoin (XSPEC) and it is @jbg who has chosen to leave the project to start coding for the
new project known as WISP.
XSPEC will keep the official resources and forums for updates and information and the artwork
and other assets.



For every 1 XSPEC held at the moment of the fork, the holder will have 1 WISP
(the new name for that XSPEC) and also 1 XSPEC (of Mandica's new fork). You can
continue to use your existing XSPEC wallet to access your WISP, but we will
release an update that will include the new name and branding. To access your
XSPEC of Mandica's new fork you will need to download their forked wallet.

Statement xspec (https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/uploads-eu.hipchat.com/174406/5248110/n0cuEY6VfnAxVGh/XSPEC_statement.pdf)

Statement jbg (https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/uploads-eu.hipchat.com/174406/5248110/bhSqKU3bZD84ji8/jbg-xspec-statement.txt)

This is the most interesting part. XSPEC has been down in the dumps recently with all these FUD threads popping up. I think this is a good thing, XSPEC is better without JBG who according to github hardly done any work, and investors will get a second coin during the fork.

Prediction (Mid-December)


December 2017  = 1.44

1 month  = 1.20 (JAN 2018)

3 month  = 0.90 - (MARCH 2018)

6 month  = .30  - (JUNE 2018)

1 year     = .01 (DECEMBER 2018)


Current Price (APRIL 2018 $0.37)  :o :o :o :o :o :o


So far my prediction is spot on.  This coin is FAILING and crashing HARDER than anyone could expect.  I might have to revise my prediction if it stays in this depressed state.

Time for fork or coin burn and another pump and dump... I feel that this coin will stay "undervalued" for alooong time if not forever :D

I expect this "fork" as an attempt to create demand, and slightly raise the price so the DEV(s) can sell their coins knowing that it's a dead project.