EmpireCoin Testnet is now up and running.  I will post an announcement shortly with instructions on how to install.

The free game is completely free; there's no entry fee and no prize for the winners. 

PrezCoin is a game built on the EmpireCoin blockchain gaming platform.  In PrezCoin, you can win or lose money every hour by voting for Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton.  Every 60 minutes (approximately), one of these 3 candidates wins a round of voting.  When a candidate wins, the total supply of prezcoins increases by 2% and the newly created coins are given out to everyone who voted for the winner.  This game will last for 500 voting rounds, or approximately 3 weeks.  Once the game is over, all Bitcoins that were paid in will be released from escrow and paid out to prezcoin holders in proportion to their final balances.  Anyone can join PrezCoin by purchasing 20 prezcoins for $10 worth of Bitcoin.  The game will start as soon as the first 10 people have joined.  To get started, please follow this link: http://empirecoin.org/prezcoin/


1. Any candidate with more than 50% of the votes when the round ends is disqualified.  The candidate with the next greatest number of votes wins.
2. Voting rounds consist of 60 blocks with blocks being mined approximately every minute.  Voting transactions are tapered by a linear decrease function.  This means that transactions confirmed in block 1 of the round count for 100%, while votes confirmed in block 30 count for 50% and votes confirmed in the final block of the round do not count at all.
3. Votes are based on the age of the UTXO being spent; therefore votes build up over time.  For example, a UTXO for 10 coins which is spent in the first block of voting round 5 will count for 40 votes if it was created in a transaction from round 1.

For more information on the EmpireCoin gaming platform, please see this thread.


A free version of PrezCoin is also available so that you can try out PrezCoin without putting any of your money at risk.  Follow this link to try out the free game: http://empirecoin.org/prezcoin-free/


PrezCoin winners are determined entirely by players' votes.  Therefore players can benefit by collaborating together to influence the outcome of voting rounds.  Players who are less active may wish to assign their voting decisions to active players without entrusting their money to anyone.  This can be accomplished through voting pools.  To set up your own voting pool, please visit the EmpireCoin API page.

EmpireCoin Web (what you see now on EmpireCoin.org) has two functions.  First, it allows you to set up and run EmpireCoin private games with any parameters.  Secondly, it functions as a client / wallet for empirecoind.  So when the EmpireCoin currency is launched, EmpireCoin Web will be open sourced and you will be able to install it on your computer as an alternative to the QT client.  (You would need to install Apache, MySQL and PHP first)

Part of the idea for launching EmpireCoin Web prior to EmpireCoin Core is so that a variety of game parameters can be tried out.  Once the currency launches, its parameters cannot change so we need to be sure to chose the best parameters right from the beginning.  Therefore we need to get a few games going now with different parameters to see how the strategy works out when a large number of people are playing.

Hi Kakmakr, just wanted to let you know that I have just edited my answer to your question above about the manipulation of votes.

Some screenshots of the game are posted below.  Hoping someone with image privileges can help me out by embedding these in a reply 

Sign up:


Claim coins:
https://i.imgur.com/pcZOG77.png

Planned votes:
https://i.imgur.com/KewKTRK.png

Voting strategy options:
https://i.imgur.com/pLO11TB.png

Compose a voting transaction:
https://i.imgur.com/9FXA1UE.png

Submitted votes:
https://i.imgur.com/nsoil8y.png

Results:
https://i.imgur.com/H46OLbj.png

Block Explorer:
https://i.imgur.com/OXDiswJ.png

Final results from the first game are listed below.

Follow this link for a block explorer showing the game activity:
http://empirecoin.org/explorer/free-20-player-game-1/rounds/

Alias	Initial balance	Final balance	Inflation adjusted profit or loss
famborghini~	2,000 coins	21,961 coins	167% profit
monbux	2,000 coins	16,817 coins	105% profit
slave	2,000 coins	6,083 coins	26% loss
tumbal1000	2,000 coins	3,833 coins	53.3% loss
changeakun	2,000 coins	3,824 coins	53.4% loss
artamara	2,000 coins	2,526 coins	69.2% loss
Parudal	2,000 coins	2,447 coins	70.2% loss

EmpireCoin is a new gambling / strategy game where players compete to win money by strategically casting votes.

For more information about EmpireCoin, please read our project announcement here.

EmpireCoin 2 player battles are now open to the public.  Both free and paid coin battles are available: we recommend playing a few free games first to get the hang of the strategy.

When you join a game, you and your opponent will start off with the same number of coins.  Your votes will be randomized to ensure that you don't miss out on any votes.  As the game progresses, new coins are created and given out at the end of each round.  Vote for the winning empire and you'll receive a share of the new coins.

Please follow one of these links to try it out for free:
Free 2 player coin battle. Vote on 16 empires starting with 1,000 empirecoins
Free 2 player election battle. Vote on 8 presidential candidates starting with $5,000

Based on the response so far it doesn't look like we'll get 20 players, so I have gone ahead and started the free game with the 7 players that we already have.

I have set blocks to a target time of 10 minutes, therefore rounds will conclude approximately every 10 hours for the next week.

Also links to several public two player games are now active on our homepage.  This means you no longer need an invitation to try out EmpireCoin - just visit EmpireCoin.org and click on one of the 2 player game links to start playing.

Hi Kakmakr, thanks for bringing up this important issue.  EmpireCoin addresses the incentive to exclude votes in two ways:

1.  Each round consists of many blocks (currently 10 blocks per round)
Assume that each mining pool has a few empires that they want to win.  These pools will therefore mine blocks that only include votes for those empires.  With a variety of mining pools winning blocks in a round, most votes should eventually be included in the round.  Recognizing that it is impractical to influence the outcome in this way, miners would therefore abandon this strategy and instead confirm all voting transactions in order to maximize their fees.

2. Proof of stake
Another risk is where mining pools do not immediately release blocks and instead build up several blocks which are released all at once, orphaning blocks which have been published by honest miners.  In Bitcoin, this is a problem because the longest chain (the chain with the most proof of work) is considered the true chain.  If this were the case in EmpireCoin, we might expect mining pools to exclude all voting transactions other than their own and mine a chain of 10 blocks which are released all at once, allowing the mining pool to keep 100% of voting rewards for the round.  However, EmpireCoin does not consider the longest chain to be the true chain, instead EmpireCoin uses a function which is a hybrid of proof of work and proof of stake.  In this case, the proof of stake component is simply the total number of votes in the potential chain.  Pools that pursue this strategy would have a small number of votes on their chain, thereby scoring poorly on proof of stake and allowing their chain to be overtaken by honest chains which score highly on proof of stake by including all voting transactions that have been published.

Also note that this thread is announcing the launch of EmpireCoin private games.  The fully decentralized EmpireCoin currency will be released separately in the Altcoin subforum.  For private games, this is not an issue since all blocks are mined by a single trusted miner with a policy of confirming all voting transactions in every block.


In the free games there is no money in the pot when the game ends and therefore you wouldn't earn bitcoins even if you do well.  For the paid games, you may either lose or win money depending on how well you do and how much money you put in.


Empires are only disqualified if they have more than 25% when the voting round ends.  So China and USA may currently be over 25% but they could still win if they are under 25% when the first round ends.  Note that the 25% is not fixed - different games may have different voting percentage caps.

Hi ioncanon and Hi7 I have sent you both invites, I hope you enjoy the game.

EmpireCoin is an ambitious project which aims to revolutionize the crypto community by creating a new genre of blockchain gaming.  The EmpireCoin platform functions as an altcoin simulator; each EmpireCoin game simulates an altcoin with linear or exponential inflation.  In EmpireCoin games, players compete against each other to win free coins which are created by the currency's inflation.  One empire such as China, the USA or India wins each voting round and everyone who voted for the winner receives a share of the free coins from that round.  EmpireCoin is based on a hybrid of POS & POW: some coins are created by proof of work (SHA256 hashing) while others are created by gamified proof of stake.  EmpireCoin votes accumulate based on the coins that each player holds.  For example, in a game where each voting round takes one hour, a player holding 1000 empirecoins would accumulate approximately 24,000 votes per day.  Players can choose to vote small amounts in each round or save up and cast all votes at once in order to receive a large payout.

EmpireCoin is a game of skill; the outcome for each round depends entirely on the votes of the players.  Players can gain a competitive advantage by forming a group and voting together.  This leads to complex political gameplay as different factions may form and attempt to gain control of the network.  Groups which get too large have incentive to splinter or reorganize.

Rather than trying to understand this text, you can just visit EmpireCoin.org and start playing.


This is the first public post about EmpireCoin, however this project has been in development for the past year.  EmpireCoin is made up of two main software components:

1. EmpireCoin Web - Web platform to facilitate EmpireCoin private games (Already implemented)
Games are facilitated by the house.  The house is a trusted party with the exclusive right to mine blocks, who is also responsible for guaranteeing the integrity of the game and for securely storing and releasing escrowed funds. Private games may be backed by dollars, bitcoins or any other currency.  For example, players must pay some number of dollars to the house in order to join the game, then they may buy additional coins from the house if permitted by the game's rules.  All funds paid to the house are stored in escrow and once the game ends, these funds are returned to the players in proportion to their final balances.  The house may charge a fee to the players by keeping some or all of the mined coins; any fees paid to the house must be disclosed up front for the sake of transparency.

2. EmpireCoin Core - Decentralized currency & protocol (Partially implemented)
In this stage, the EmpireCoin gaming platform will be completely decentralized through the creation of a single EmpireCoin currency which can facilitate arbitrary EmpireCoin games.  Players must purchase and then burn empirecoins to set up a game.  Once the game ends, the EmpireCoin protocol will re-create the burned coins and pay them out to the players.


EmpireCoin players may benefit by using automated methods to cast their votes.  Several automated strategies are already built into EmpireCoin's web platform.  Players can plan out their votes in advance or they can select and configure a strategy to automatically & strategically cast their votes.  Players can also code up a custom voting strategy by hosting an API endpoint on their own server.  This API is currently pull based: players enter their API endpoint URL into their web wallet and then the EmpireCoin server will hit this URL at regular intervals and apply it's voting logic.


In EmpireCoin team games, every player is assigned to a team.  At the end of the game, the team with the greatest net worth wins all the escrowed funds and players from the other teams walk away with nothing.


By default, EmpireCoin games are set up with 16 empires as voting options (16 of the biggest nations in the world).  However, EmpireCoin can support any type and number of voting options.  By setting up an EmpireCoin game with voting options such as presidential candidates, football players, NBA teams, stocks or currencies, EmpireCoin can function as a form of virtual prediction market.  Unlike traditional prediction markets, the outcome of events in EmpireCoin may be influenced by real world events, but outcomes are not exclusively determined by them.  Real world events may boost the probability of a certain outcome winning but ultimately outcomes are determined by the votes of the players.  Unlike traditional prediction markets, players do not lose in-game currency if they vote incorrectly.  Instead, the high inflation of EmpireCoin's in-game currencies discourages inaction, encouraging players to bet and rewarding those who cast winning votes.


Joey Rich is EmpireCoin's concept creator and lead developer of the EmpireCoin web platform.  He has previously engaged the crypto community with projects like BuyBitcoins.com, SellBitcoins.com and BitcoinGiftCard.org.  Joey has several years of corporate software development experience with companies like Gameday Housing and FanPay.org.  He also operates OpenOffCampus.com, a real estate advertising service and is one of Bitcoin's earliest adopters.

Madisco X has chosen to remain anonymous; he is the lead developer of EmpireCoin Core, the decentralized currency & protocol which will facilitate fully decentralized EmpireCoin games.  Madisco is an altcoin enthusiast who has contributed to several high profile open source crypto projects.


- EmpireCoin web platform opens for limited testing; several invite-only games will be conducted to try out EmpireCoin strategy.
- EmpireCoin web platform is fully opened to the public, allowing anyone to test the platform and play games.
- EmpireCoin Initial Coin offering (ICO) is held.  Funds raised from the ICO will be used to develop both EmpireCoin Web and EmpireCoin Core.  In exchange for their funds, ICO investor will receive shares of the EmpireCoin currency.  Since EmpireCoin Core will be incomplete at the time of the ICO, shares will be given out via an EmpireCoin private game.
- EmpireCoin Core is released. When this happens, the private game mentioned above will be migrated to the fully decentralized EmpireCoin currency; real empirecoins will be given out based on the balances of the private game.


Today I would like to kick off EmpireCoin with a handful of EmpireCoin private games.  The first game will start once 20 players have joined and paid 0.05 BTC each.  This game will last for 20, twenty minute rounds or approximately 6.5 hours in total.  For users who are hesitant to risk real money, a free 20 player game has also been set up.  Players should be sure to enter their planned votes ahead of time to avoid missing out on votes.  Once this paid game is complete, the 1 BTC which in escrow will be divided up and given out to all of the players based on their final balances.  For more information, please visit our home page, EmpireCoin.org

Currently all games are invite only.  To request an invitation, please post on this thread or send me a personal message.  Additional games can be created upon request.

Questions and suggestions are welcome in this thread.  Thanks in advance for trying EmpireCoin.
-Joey Rich

Our website https://www.BuyBitcoins.com is now accepting limited credit card payments for Bitcoin.  Users are required to share their location and to upload a legal photo ID before we'll consider selling bitcoins.  We err on the side of caution so unfortunately we are forced to deny a majority of the orders that are placed through our website. 

But if you're legitimate, please feel free to submit an order and we'll do our best to help you purchase bitcoins by credit card.  You'll need an MtGox user account to withdraw your bitcoins since we do all withdrawals through Mt.Gox redeem codes.  The only fee we charge is a 12% premium to current Mt.Gox rates and we hope to reduce this rate in the future if we continue to be successful in avoiding credit card chargebacks.

-Joey Rich

Here's my theory about what happened today:

People who used the same password on this Bitcoin forums as for their MtGox accounts had their MtGox accounts broken into.  To steal money from these new accounts, hackers logged into their own accounts and placed large sell orders at around $12.  Then they logged into the compromised accounts and placed large buy orders at $12.  These orders and anything under $12 were fulfilled, so the hackers were able to sell their own bitcoins for $10+ prices.  And people whose accounts were compromised will log in to find that they purchased a bunch of overpriced bitcoins.

I'm not sure if this business idea is compatible with the Bitcoin transfer system:

Suppose someone starts a small business and wants people to invest in his/her idea, but the business is too small for an IPO.
This person could use Bitcoins instead of a traditional stock structure.  This person would take 100 (or any number really) of his/her
existing bitcoins and re-brand them as 100 bitcoin stocks.  Anyone interested in investing in this person's business could attempt to
buy these bitcoin stocks from the owner.  These bitcoin stocks could be purchased with normal bitcoins or with any other form of
payment.  Essentially the idea here is to allow people to take their existing bitcoins and turn them into discrete, customizable entities
which could be traded through the existing Bitcoin network.

This would require some major changes to Bitcoin.  Most importantly, a bitcoin transfer of this kind would have to contain extra
information: the stock ID associated with the transfer.  It would also be necessary to have an online reference database
where people would be able to look up information associated with this stock ID.

infra,

A reliable cash in / cash out system like the one you're describing is the next big thing for the Bitcoin economy.
Bitcoin cannot become widespread until people have a reliable and safe way to buy and sell their bitcoins in large
volumes at a fixed exchange rate.  A single bitcoin broker could make this breakthrough by attaining a large number
of bitcoins and then selling them on a reputable exchange website.  A trusted middleman like this could become more
popular than Mt. Gox because bitcoin buyers and sellers would be willing to pay a premium to go through a trusted,
reputable broker.  If someone was able to successfully build a "currency bridge between BTC and USD" then I think
business people and large scale investors would be willing to invest in Bitcoin.

I attempted this with BuyBitcoins.com but lost 120,000 BTC to credit card fraud.  BuyBitcoins failed because:
1.  I didn't use address verification for CC payments
2.  I used API methods to automatically send bitcoins without human verification or a waiting period.

-Joey

I just found this article written in 1997 which argues the benefits of an "internet currency."
Check it out: Bitcoin: Internet Currencies for Virtual Communities

I've bumped the exchange rate back up to 15 BC/USD.

-Joey

Nelisky, here's the original thread for BuyBitcoins.com:  http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=228.0

I put this site online a month or two ago, but I immediately sold out my supply of bitcoins
and it has taken me some time to get ahold of enough bitcoins to start selling again.

I just now updated the site so that it uses secure HTTPS encrypted communications.
I achieved this by borrowing the SSL certificate from my primary business (isoffcampus.com).
This means that you will need to add a security exception when you visit the site.
But the HTTPS protocol is used even without a certificate signer, so there's nothing to worry about.

There are no fees for payment processing.  These are accounted for in the exchange rate.

The updated link is:
https://buybitcoins.com

-Joey Rich
Owner - JR Web Developments LLC
http://www.joeyrich.com

BuyBitcoins.com is back online.  Right now you can buy bitcoins with a credit card, or through paypal.  Currently 50,000 bitcoins are for sale at a rate of 15 bitcoins per dollar (0.077 dollars per bitcoin). Payments must be between $4 and $1000 dollars.

-Joey Rich
https://www.buybitcoins.com