Recent and Ongoing BLK Projects You Can Find on the BLK Reddit from 5 different, active sets of devs:

1.  POS 3.0 - Rat4 working a lot these days, update released earlier today
2.  BlackHalo!!! Smart contracts for over a year, now with cold staking
3.  NightTrader! markets for smart contracts, templates, huge
4.  Project Legoinnaire - yes still going, stealth wallet Obsidian with custom stealth pseudonyms
5.  Obsidian Cryptvault Technologies - BlackHive web wallet, BLK infrastructure, recently released address derivation/priv key extraction tool

Still hoping to hear more from Blackwave Labs with their Exco.in exchange, Onyx payment gateway and Bits wallet.  Bits is going to inlcude geolocal storefronts, quorum sensing for protests!
 

Reminder that Erik Voorhees and Obsidian developer JP Richardson are two of the panelists on the panel "Blockchain, Bitcoin and Digital Currencies" at 1:00 PM Central Time at Digital Economy 15 in Omaha, Nebraska tomorrow, October 2. I can confirm they are both attending because I sat at their table (just to Erik's right) during dessert at the pre-conference dinner a few hours ago.

Blackcoiners at the conference should plan to gather immediately after the 1:00 panel and/or at the after-hours mixer starting at 5:00 PM. Hope to see you there.

www.digitaleconomy.io

Most of the news about BLK is usually found at the subreddit page, not here. 

There are a number of developers working on BLK right now.  Firsthand, I know The Black Chamber is still working on Project Legionnaire / Stealth Wallet Obsidian that uses custom stealth pseudonyms.  Github is a also good place to see rat4 at work. 

A big development recently was Janko33's completion of black-chain.info.  Many things will be possible or much easier now for devs.   https://www.reddit.com/r/blackcoin/comments/3exjl0/announcing_blackchaininfo/

Please post this on the Blackcoin Subreddit page.  I'll be a sure customer for any t-shirt with a Blackcoin logo.

Coinkite has been busy! Along with other features, they've developed payment processing very well since including BLK on June 1, 2014. They have Tor-enabled pay buttons, custom pay buttons, merchant price adjustment, nyms, automatic forwarding and integration with Shapeshift for instant conversions, too. All this is made available to merchants who accept BLK and use Coinkite for payment processing.

http://cointelegraph.com/news/114707/coinkite-announces-tor-enabled-bitcoin-pay-button

https://coinkite.com/faq/pay

These are advanced payment processing options through Coinkite that are otherwise available only to to BTC or LTC.

It is great news for BLK.

You'd be feeling rich if you bought when 1 BLK = $0.016 or less through March, April and May.  

Kudos to those of us who kept up those buy walls during those times.  You've already been rewarded!

Announcement – Custom Stealth Address Pseudonyms and The Obsidian Protocol

The members of The Black Chamber are proud to announce a new feature to Blackcoin’s Wallet Obsidian: Customized stealth addresses through the use of pseudonyms! Now sending to a stealth address is as easy as sending an email!

The update for Wallet Obsidian with this new protocol can be found here: https://github.com/obsidianorg/app/releases/tag/0.3.0

Why This Is A Game-Changer: Individuals, businesses, merchants can now use and advertise a name, catchphrase, brand or any custom string of characters to receive payments anonymously. Now you can choose whatever characters or numbers you wish for a customized pseudonym to receive stealth payments to a posted Blackcoin public address. As with other stealth addresses, third parties will be unable to know the amounts received by a posted pseudonym generated through Obsidian. Customary cryptocurrency public addresses are impossible to remember and often must be either copied or painstakingly inputted manually. Addresses with long strings of letters and numbers are intimidating and alienating for those unfamiliar with digital currencies. Now public addresses with easily-remembered words, names or phrases are possible and simple to implement. There are no limits to how this can be used. This unique combination of customization and privacy will be a powerful tool for merchants and advances Blackcoin’s objective of mainstream adoption.

The characters may be in any language that can be typed. For example, a user can choose a pseudonym in Chinese as 投资公司 or in English the words “InvestmentCompany” or combine them for the custom stealth address of “投资公司InvestmentCompany”.

While other coins and wallets have stealth address features, based upon our due diligence, we could not find any other coin or system that allows you to customize those stealth address features in the cryptocurrency sphere, not even Bitcoin. This pseudonym system is unique to Blackcoin. Please correct us if we somehow missed this feature in some existing coin or system.

Development of the Protocol: This feature was not possible without the skill and continuing efforts of JP Richardson. JP’s development of this unique protocol for Blackcoin allows custom stealth addresses through pseudonyms with registration, deregistration and multiple pseudonym features using characters in any language. This vanguard system for stealth addresses and pseudonyms will be known as the Obsidian Protocol.

How it Works: After updating Wallet Obsidian, users will see three new icons on the left side of the interface screen. There is a button that begins the process of registering a pseudonym with the network. The wallet must have at least 100 BLK to allocate for registration. Presently there can only be one pseudonym per wallet. Addresses may be in any characters or numbers that can be typed and in any language. Note that Wallet Obsidian still functions with regular stealth addresses. Realtime feedback has been added to the registration process. If the pseudonym has not been registered, Obsidian will create a pseudonym registry transaction and submit it to the blockchain. If the pseudonym has been registered or is pending, it prompts the user with an error. When sending funds to a custom stealth address, Obsidian actively scans the blockchain for transactions and detects which ones match a pseudonym registry transaction. When it finds a match, it extracts the pseudonym and stealth address information to construct the stealth address. It then places this information into a local database (file).

Deposit for Pseudonyms: To register a pseudonym, Obsidian requires a deposit of 100 BLK per alias. Presently, there is no deregistration feature and funds will not be immediately retrievable. Since stealth addresses are composed of two public keys that the user owns, the fee essentially goes to the user. Think of it like an escrow for oneself. The BLK are not burned or lost, but are “parked” at an address until they are “deregistered”. If the user ever spends the fee after registering the pseudonym, they've effectively deregistered the pseudonym. The deposit of 100 BLK per address because an amount is needed for the transaction to register on the network and so one person could not easily register a large number of pseudonyms. Note that there must be five confirmations before the alias becomes effective.

Instructions for Update Installation: If you have not already downloaded Wallet Obsidian, go to: https://github.com/obsidianorg/app/releases/tag/0.3.0 If you have already downloaded and installed Wallet Obsidian, follow these steps: 1. Download the update. 2. Start Obsidian. 3. Click the wrench in the bottom left and in the developer tool screen 4. In the developer tool screen, type: localStorage.lastBlackCount = 710300 5. Press “[ENTER]” 6. Restart Obsidian. 7. As a test, type “jprichardson” and the address will be in green type to show a registered stealth address. This process is only for those who already downloaded and installed Obsidian. Users new to Obsidian who have not downloaded and installed the prior version do not have to follow this process.

For additional details: http://www.reddit.com/r/blackcoin/comments/3ad6f4/announcement_custom_stealth_address_pseudonyms/

Trolls show up to manipulate the price down so they can buy at little lower price, whether because they failed to buy enough when the price was lower or before a planned pump. 

http://www.reddit.com/r/blackcoin/comments/35pjyy/care_feeding_of_trolls/

I would have to think that once they're well-known to be trolls, their posts have very little or no negative effect on a coin's price.

I can tell you that The Black Chamber's Project Legionnaire is ongoing.  The first phase of the project was Wallet Obsidian, the privacy wallet with stealth addresses. When it comes to news, this coin has a perceived tradition of not making hopeful promises, unsubstantiated timelines or frivolous announcements.  That's a good tradition to follow.

There are over 400 Blackclones, but only a few that I found switched to PoS 2.0.  Crave is a PoS 2.0 Blackclone.  SDC is a clone that just switched to PoS 2.0 and even dropped scrypt for SHA-256.  Vericoin is a clone that is starting PoS 2.0 but calling it Proof of Stake Time with interest rate variations. Blackcoin implemented  PoS 2.0 in August of 2014.  It will be interesting to see how long it will take the clones to adopt PoS 3.0 when it appears.   I posted about Blackclones last week on the subreddit page.  http://www.reddit.com/r/blackcoin/comments/3552if/list_the_blackclones/

There are lots of reasons to have faith in this coin and especially right now.  As a spokesperson for The Black Chamber development group, I can tell you first-hand that more good news is coming soon. See also:
http://www.reddit.com/r/blackcoin/comments/34av55/how_have_so_many_blk_projects_been_successes/

Posted from: http://www.reddit.com/r/blackcoin/comments/34av55/how_have_so_many_blk_projects_been_successes/

Explain how BLK has had so many successful projects:

1.    POS - revolutionary! still cutting edge, cloned all over
2.    POS 2.0!!! - revolutionary, copied (Crave, SDC adopt, etc)
3.    Halo!!! - first smart contracts, multi-sig. Gamechanger. It works!
4.    Stealth wallet Obsidian
5.    BLK Foundation - first coin foundation after BTC, still helps coin
6.    Coinkite - you can pay BLK for food, law or dental in podunk Nebraska
7.    PR firm MBA - got the name out, intro many to coin and POS
8.    Blackbits - pay with BLK where BTC accepted
9.    No pre-mine launch, fair distribution model copied
10.  Mobile wallets - yes we have them
11.  Music videos - fun, got the name out
12.  Blackhedge - altcoin centric trading blackhedge.co
13.  Blackcoin Multipool! - first multipool, revolutionary, blackcoinpool.com
14.  Blackcoinsound.com
15.  freeblackcoingames.nuuleap.com

*I left some out so add them.

And how about all the ongoing active dev projects :

1.    POS 3.0 - Rat4 working alot on something these days
2.    Halo!!! now with cold staking
3.    NightTrader! markets for smart contracts, templates, huge
4.    Project Legoinnaire - yes still going, stealth wallet was start
5.    Onyx - payment gateway
6.    Bits - geolocal storefronts, quorum sensing for protests!
7.    Blackcoinj
8.    BLKshares
9.    Obsidian Cyptovault Technologies projects
10.  Legion Development projects

*Add what I left out.

Most successful part of BLK: community! Thats the answer. BLK = revolutionary coin and continues to lead = created great community

This is a great time to be here. Remember, celebrate, use whats already been done! Look forward to whats coming!

Localbitcoins.com has been a place to advertise buy/sell BLK in the past.  Put it in with an offer to buy/sell BTC.

You can buy/sell BLK for cash in person.  You can find a seller anywhere online then send cash or money order via mail and use BlackHalo to secure the transaction.  That's one of the great things about BlackHalo/BitHalo is that there is no longer any need for centralized exchanges.  With Halo you can securely trade peer-to-peer.

Posted at Blackcoin Subreddit:  http://www.reddit.com/r/blackcoin/comments/31fuy0/contest_blk_stealth_address_reverse_easter_egg/

-------
OK Team BLK time for a reverse easter egg hunt. Post your Obsidian stealth address and the easter eggs come to you courtesy of Black Chamber. 1st post gets 1000 BLK. 2nd post gets 500 BLK. 3rd - 10th posts get 100-250 BLK. Every post gets BLK to play with. Blackcoin Foundation or Black Chamber members cant win.

Donations via Obsidian address to be used for next contests/next developments: rVw7dxt2zofsdCbpqQXkYUvPy7gG3fVAcJj1m6HqDdrQeCPquSetzx3Una19UF41eNuex5t46Fw1Qrb AWUSNmRqzTmPJ13r7SCqcKq

Stealth addresses are long. This one starts: rVw7... ends: CqcKq. Watch that cut and paste in reddit.

Wow, Blackcoin (BLK) actually launched functioning Android and mobile wallets... months ago!!!

They are found on the right side of the Blackcoin subreddit page under "Building and Installing Guide."  Glad to see Faircoin catching up.   Does Faircoin have smart contracts and stealth wallets yet?

So, does this basically obsolete other methods of anonymous transactions?  And since it is open-source, this could be adapted to any coin, no?  - Theoretically, yes, but each coin is different. It  takes time, skill and expense to adapt for each coin.

What is the difference between this and DarkWallet?  The principles are the same, but Obsidian works and it uses BLK instead of BTC.  BLK is of course faster, Proof-of-Stake and can be used alongside a working smart contract system, BlackHalo.  I just waited nearly an hour for a first confirmation for BTC earlier this evening.  That doesn't happen with BLK and its 66-second max confirmation times.

Are there any distinct advantages of using Blackcoin and Obsidian wallet vs. DRK, SDC, XMR? Again, Obsidian works and it uses BLK which is faster, Proof-of-Stake and can be used alongside a working smart contract system, BlackHalo.  Most importantly, Obsidian works without changes to the protocol, a fork or for "dark" features to be built into the coin.  This goes to mainstream adoption, a goal that coins with built-in "dark" features will have extreme difficulty achieving.

This statement could be expanded upon "Wallet Obsidian helps Blackcoin facilitate anonymous trading better than any other coin or system."
[/quote]  - The entire phrase is, "In concert with BlackHalo, Wallet Obsidian helps Blackcoin facilitate anonymous trading better than any other coin or system."  Using BlackHalo's smart contracts for cross-chain trading and commodity trading, just for example, are ways to trade that are completely anonymous and more so than any individual coin. In addition to the documentation on stealth wallets in the Obsidian announcements, review David Zimbeck's videos and posts on Halo.   Also, using BLK with Obsidian and Halo/NightTrader does not rely upon nodes or other central points to achieve anonymity.

Best Bitcoin Bowl Smart Contract Contest

The members of The Black Chamber are taking a break from development to join community members thefriendlyfaceplant and blackcoin13 for a contest. We love this community and appreciate the miracle of both Blackcoin and BlackHalo. With the Bitcoin Bowl coming up on Dec. 26, 2014, we thought it might be fun to see who could make the best BlackHalo smart contract regarding the event. By "best" we mean the wildest, most clever and/or most fun contract regarding the St. Petersburg Bitcoin Bowl.

The requirements for contestants are as follows:

1. The contract must have mutual escrows of at least 50 BLK each.
2.  There must be at least two parties to the contract.
3. The parties must submit screenshots or jpeg files of their BlackHalo contracts regarding the event by December 27, 2014 to the Blackcoin Facebook page or, in the alternative, send them to trustlessgold@gmail.com who will post them. Please give your contract a name as well as the names/identifying information or BLK addresses of the contestants.
4. The contract must have something to do with the Bitcoin Bowl. It could be anything else so long as it's related to the event. The terms of the contract, the amount of the escrow and any assets exchanged are yours to decide. Note also that while the escrows must be in BLK, the contract itself does not half to involve BLK at all. That is the beauty of BlackHalo... you can contract for anything.

Community members trustlessgold, thefriendlyfaceplant and blackcoin13 shall judge. Decision of the panel will be final, etc. Judges may submit entries but cannot receive any winnings. Winners will be announced by January 1, 2015.

The parties to the "best" smart contract will each win an equal share of the contest wallet, which will be at least 2000 BLK contributed by the members of The Black Chamber. The judges are contemplating adding prizes for second and third place winners. We ask that the community also contribute to the contest wallet and The Black Chamber will match the first 1000 BLK contributed by the community. The contest wallet address for the prize will be posted at the Blackcoin Subreddit later today.

Enjoy the contest, enjoy the game and enjoy using crypto's operational smart contract system, BlackHalo!

OK, I needed to check my definitions.  I was calling the Blackcoin initial PoW phase the "pre-mine".  No coins were pre-mined.  At least a thousand of us or more were mining it during the PoW phase and it was announced well in advance.  BC has devs attending conferences worldwide, Coinkite adoption, multiple pairings on Bittrex, active devs and now working smart contracts.  Sorry FUDers.

http://www.devtome.com/doku.php?id=a_massive_investigation_of_instamines_and_fastmines_for_the_top_alt_coins#blackcoin

The author of this page didn't do anything except scan the blockchain.  Apparently knew nothing about the history, devs or great community.  Yes, there was a pre-mine but it was announced, it was open and at least a thousand of us were mining millions of blackcoins during the pre-mine.  Active devs like rat4 (PoS, PoS 2.0), David Zimbeck (BlackHalo smart contracts, NightTrader) and Blackwave Labs (Blackbit, Ruby Wallet, BC-centric Exchange) continue to work this coin.