They're probably referring to the fact that we have payment processing close to ready and are actively building a list of merchants who will be accepting BitSeeds with some onboard already including in (but not limited to) the cannabis industry.

Please see the main thread for updates and replies: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1195172.new#new

Are you getting a green icon in the staking area like this?



If it shows that you're ready for staking but you just haven't received any yet, then you may just need to be patient. I took a larger wallet offline just a few minutes ago which should help - I've tested with larger and smaller wallets on the network and it's (as expected) definitely more frequent with a larger balance.   

You said you're unlocked, so it sounds like you're already familiar with staking and making sure an encrypted wallet is unlocked for it, but I'll post the links to the two tutorials covering this in case others can benefit:

BitSeeds 2.0 Staking
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3PbtqUcuvQ

BitSeeds 2.0 Encrypting
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6bLlb5Sqj4

I took a look at the Maxminers pool stats page and see what you're talking about - I'm repeating what I said on Twitter, but will post it here so people see it:



The blocks are being found pretty steadily but there's a lot of hashing power that seems to be either a solo miner or a private pool I'm not aware of.

You just replied on Twitter as I was typing this pointing out the long run of blocks being minted with POS so I've taken my staking wallet offline and we have hash pointed at the pool again (our rented rig went offline last night mid-rental so we rented a new one) so we'll see if that balances things a little more.

I was as surprised as anyone when I saw my notifications and checked the market yesterday. I knew this would happen at some point, but wasn't expecting it until after we'd gotten more press - seems like someone has quietly had their eyes on the project and others noticed.

Sorry for the slow updates guys; I appreciate your patience. I'm going to post a couple of quick responses here, then update the OP with some info and then post more here.  I can't post a list of merchants yet unfortunately, but I do have some updates on what's going on which will appear shortly.

I propose Ethereum 2: Electric Boogaloo 

Quick update to the above, Maxminers has been working great for weeks now with regular payouts and no issues. We also have gotten another pool

http://pool.cryptoally.net/

offered by Cryptoally which has been added to the OP along with a Iquidus based explorer they donated which includes a rich list.

We've got our own Iquidus explorer set up but I haven't posted it yet since I've been busy and haven't had a chance to go in and customize it yet. There's a way to add labels to the different wallet addresses and I want to ID all of the project wallets for transparency purposes.

Speaking of transparency, a disclosure: as has been mentioned before, we've been renting mining equipment through MiningRigRentals and mining BitSeeds since the relaunch.

Since we're not doing this for profit, but just to maintain the network we're donating a large percentage to the pool owner and we've also been selling some of the mined BitSeeds on the market to increase liquidity and to put the resulting funds right back into renting mining equipment. We've been deliberately renting the least powerful miner we can each time to avoid driving up the difficulty. 

This seemed to make more sense than holding onto the resulting XSEED yet to make the mining as self-perpetuating as possible just to keep the network running smoothly for everyone.  We welcome any feedback about this, but it seemed like the logical approach.

Belated thanks for the explorer and pool! I've updated the OP.

Anyway, someone linked to this thread on Twitter and it's not the main thread. It was posted by the original dev and the OP can't be updated so current information is found in the main thread here:  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1195172.0

Well, I don't really get the comparison, but appreciate your feedback.

I'm not 100% sure who at the RF wrote the text, but I don't think it's probably written by a very tech minded person. So maybe that in conjunction with what seems to be an assumption on your part that if a block of funds is allocated to a specific purpose that the purpose must automatically be sinister is what is leading you to that comparison. I think it's Alexandria who does the website updates there so I can get in touch with her and maybe see if we can talk it over and help her clarify the explanation if you think it's lacking.

Anyway, the funds are for staking only and are never to go on the market. The majority of the staked funds go to the Rainforest Foundation annually, giving them a pool of new BitSeeds each year. When someone donates to the RF they receive a gift card loaded with BitSeeds. That is the purpose of the funds.

We are working with a payment processor called coin.co who will allow participating merchants to accept BitSeeds as a payment method beginning this summer. 1.5% of each transaction will be a charitable donation to the Rainforest Foundation and the merchants will get a tax write off as an added incentive to adopt BitSeeds as a payment method over the standard fee savings any crypto offers merchants compared to credit and debit card fees.

The idea is that this should create an incentive for people to donate more often or in larger amounts since they don't just get the satisfaction of donating to a worthy cause, but also get something useful in return rather than a more conventional item most charities give in return for donations such as a t-shirt or mug or whatever. Donors can then either stake their own coins or spend them at a participating merchant.

The Rainforest Foundation has an international reach and recognition as well as the support of celebrities and other influential donors who care about environmental causes. One of the reasons I got involved in the project was because the cause of the Foundation is one that resonates with me personally, but also because I think the average person doesn't have any interest in stuff like cryptocurrency and they need an incentive to become interested.

This project has potential more than most others to reach a broader audience by working with the Foundation and people who might otherwise be dismissive or unaware of Bitcoin or other cryptos by the fact that it's designed to help a cause they care about. The more it's used the more it helps the Rainforest Foundation. This creates a cycle of economic activity and helps add value to the network that is difficult to generate in most cryptos that don't have much of a specific purpose.

Anyway, hope that makes more sense to you. If you've got other questions, feel free to ask them and I'm happy to answer them to the best of my ability.

You're not understanding the purpose of the custodial funds. They are not to "control" anything, they are to stake funds to generate them for the Rainforest Foundation.  You can verify this on the charity's official site:

http://www.rainforestfoundation.org/bitseeds-2/

Hey everyone, please vote to add BitSeeds to Cryptopia. They're a great exchange based in New Zealand you should check out if you haven't before.

https://www.cryptopia.co.nz/Vote


Mining update: Maxminers resolved their website issues and BitSeeds mining is still going smoothly. We expect to pick up some more miners, pools, and to start seeing more trading activity once we start getting some press coverage in the near future. Will keep you posted as that develops, but in the mean time please take a minute to vote with the link above.  Thanks!

Heh. My assumption has always been it's just to keep bumping the thread to keep it active. 

You new to this thread? I think about 50% of it is him posting links to open source projects.  

(often useful links, BTW)

Maxminers still seems to be having problems with their website (sort of looks like they may be under a DDoS), but mining is working fine for me - just checked and we've been getting regular payouts with the most recent being about six minutes ago as I type this. 

Bill (wmikrut) has taken his XSEED pool down for the time being while he figures out the problem he's been having with payouts. Any BitSeeds you are owed by his pool he's going to send out manually.

Just a quick heads up - the wmikrut pool will be going offline temporarily sometime fairly soon (maybe a few hours from now since it's the middle of the night) so the pool owner can rebuild it.  If you haven't received payouts from the pool, he's going to be sending out all backlogged payments and is rebuilding the pool to troubleshoot the issue.  

Maxminers has been paying out steadily, but I'm noticing they seem to be having some unrelated site issues and downtime. Hopefully they'll be up and running again soon, too.  



Sunday May 15th 7:15pm Eastern update:

The wmikrut pool has been taken down while Bill troubleshoots the problem he was having with payouts.   

Maxminer's site seems to be up again, but acting a little weird as far as the actual website goes - I could be wrong, but it looks kind of like they may be under a DDoS attack or something.  Either way, while the site and stats aren't working, mining still is and payouts are going out steadily with the most recent one we received about 9-10 minutes ago as I type this. 

Maxminers.net entire site (all pools) has been going down off and on since last night sometime; I'm not sure what's going on with them but hopefully they'll have their pools back up and running soon.  Unfortunately the wmikrut.com pool will be going offline temporarily while Bill rebuilds the pool to troubleshoot a problem.  That pool hasn't been sending out payouts automatically so he's going to send them all out manually, so don't worry if you haven't received any mining proceeds from that pool yet. 

Maxminers has been sending payments regularly, which I'm sure will continue once they've resolved their site load issues. Anyway, I think Bill is on the east coast and it's pretty late there so he may leave the pool up until morning before rebuilding it, but I don't think the process takes too long so the downtime should be short when he does it.

Hi. Didn't see your updated post until just now since I don't get notifications of modified posts, only new ones.

Which pool are you using? The wmikrut pool seems like it's not paying out properly, I've contacted the pool owner about it and am waiting to hear back.  Maxminers has been working very smoothly, however.  Try that pool if you haven't, and you can also send me info on how your miner is set so I can take a look at it if you'd like. 

Yes, the network launched originally in April of 2015, the original dev sabotaged the project by forking it to a new codebase with broken POW and abandoned the project in early May the same year. I got involved in the project after that.

Now, after many roadblocks and delays over the past year, we've just relaunched with new codebase at the end of April. All existing users were able to reclaim their funds on the new chain along with the project funds needed for the Rainforest Foundation. We did overestimate the funds needed by a bit to cover everyone, but we'll be burning the difference and posting a link to the transaction.

Thanks!

We have now begun full production of 10 XSEED per block - little ahead of schedule, but no more waiting.