Title: How to create an altcoin without premine - and profit Post by: d5000 on August 05, 2023, 11:28:44 PM This is a bit of a spin-off of this thread (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5457833.new#new) where I wrote about why most premined altcoins are likely to fail.
But if a premine isn't a good idea (for a real, long-term Bitcoin competitor), how to launch a coin, being able to pay for development and some marketing? I've collected some possible strategies which don't hurt decentralization too much. The following list are methods I would approve, from "simple" to "sophisticated":
*I define an instamine as "mining before publishing the source code and announce the launch" -- but this is in my opinion equivalent to premining, so I don't recommend it if the goal is really to be able to market a "fair launch". Also I don't like the method of simply forking an old coin like BCH did, because in this case you have modified its consensus with a centralized decision - for me these coins are "contamined" forever, BCH will never be BTC even if it tries hard. Method 1 (mining at the start) has several variants which can increase your possibility to mine with a relatively low difficulty without recurring to a full-fledged instamine: - Beta/Test version launch: You can declare the first version as "experimental", "beta" or "test". For example, you could clarify that the protocol can change during this phase, but the mined coins stay valid. - Announce the launch but don't be too vocal about it. This is approximately what Steem did, and called sometimes "stealth mining". I think it's still an acceptable launch policy. Nobody can force you to make marketing. - Local community launch: Launch the code repo/installation instructions or announce the coin in a language other than English. This was not well looked at in the past, but I consider it acceptable. Why should everybody accept English supremacy? Isn't that Anglocentrism? My personal favorites are methods 3, 4 and 5. These are really open methods, accessible to almost anybody, while 1 and 2 require investments or relatively controversial sub-strategies (the variants below), and 6 is a gamble, because it can be seen as "centralism" if abused. If anybody knows more methods, I'm happy to add them to the list! |