Yes it is THAT press release and the assumption that a huge investment in the millions has taken place when, in reality, it hasn't. It is just another coin project put together by the IT department of zitr and launched under the auspices of, financial and promotional support, of the mother company. It is a gimmick, a promotional campaign designed to bring more customers to zitr.com, NOT any effort to bring digital currencies to the masses. If you continue using euphemisms, communication will be impossible and, ultimately, quite deceiving. If you do achieve the expected target of bringing new customers to your site, a SIDE EFFECT could be that some of those would be enticed to use digital currencies, but it is neither a priority nor a necessity. Not even a convenience for you; the opposite, if anything. Clearer now?

Now, mind you, you are giving ANYTHING to entice those new potential customers, since it is a pre-mine and it has cost you absolutely zero. And all your enticement to those potential new customers is a paltry 5% discount in your network of merchants. As enticements go, this is very minimal and, as stated before, will be a resounding failure but as a means to attract new customers to zitr.com and, even more so, to bring "crypto to the masses". But reality will sink in on this soon enough, so I will not beat that particular dead horse anymore.

The red flag of 10X cannot go away. It is not just a red flag, it is a HUGE problem. Unshakable. And will hinder the project fatally.

I will tell you how it could be somewhat neutralized though: Doing things right (what a concept, ah?). As in: Making a "contract with investors" by which 10X will be limited to remain as an "angel investor" with both time and targets thresholds to sell their tokens set in writing and legally enforceable. For instance: 10X will not be able to sell any of their coins until a specific price is reached (and sustained, on average, for a month) and then only in amounts no higher than 10% of their total holdings and only during windows of time pre-set before the coin gets to the market. 10X will not be able to sell any of their holdings off-market before offering any potential sale to the current stakeholders for the same price. These are both legal and common-sense obligations in all such cases in the real world, so all of them are pretty standard in any VC or corporate investment scenario, so nothing new really.

As for the "innovations", it is, sorry to say, laughable. Let me just refer you to the recent case of Bytecent where the "protections" were -and remain- gamed. Fact is you need a network of miners, as big as possible, and it makes no difference to you if it is provided by hundreds of small people with ant miners or huge pools in China. Those safeguards you mention won't stop even a 15 year old computer wiz, much less any reputable hacker. Reducing the number or orphans as a tech innovation? Let's just say meh... and of no relevance whatsoever for the purpose of the coin's survival that will depend, exclusively, of it price progression.

And the technical development... I believe there are dozens, probably hundreds of real developers that have worked for over a year in proven projects that would easily discount your research, discussions and experimentation for they have done it all, in spades, for oven a year on a daily basis... and all of it is freely available to anyone that wants to copy/paste it. It goes from very sophisticated wallets -some of which now include video calls and maybe even conferencing for free- to so called, quite euphemistically, "smart contracts". None of it has any practical use in the real world, mind you, for there are regular providers such as Google, Facebook and other that have been providing such for quite a long time already. And the "smart contracts" are quite dumb and unusable for the most part, but your coin would not be able to offer neither anyway because, among other things, as repeatedly stated, your project is not a cryptocurrency, but a -potentially cost effective (for ziftr and its parent company)- promotional campaign.

In a non-censored thread like this, you are going to have all kinds of posts. Having Steven and his "passionate" responses here is highly detrimental to your project. While "passionate" is, generally -depending on what- a positive things, if it leads, as it usually does, definitely in this case, to out of control, inexperienced, school yard behavior, IS detrimental. I know you get the gist.

If you read your own press release you will notice that it either is very poorly redacted or it was done that way to give the impression that sift is claiming to have invested many millions in the development of siftrcoin. The list of "non free" items you post are "cost of trying to do business", not actual expenditures. And every coin project carry those. Costs, again, remain close to ZERO.

I thought I had explained very clearly why the 10X is a monumental "red flag" rather than the opposite, but obviously you need to read about the Black Hand in Blackcoin and stop for a while and use your common sense, ok? To state that it is the same and has the same effects if any investor dumps his coins as an institutional one that may own 10-20% of the float, is simply preposterous.... and hard to believe it is stated out of naivety, by the way. And, on that subject, how much did 10X pay for their coins? In other words, how many coins did they get for their $150,000 investment. What were the strings attached? This is information investors and general public in your project ARE ENTITLED to know, you know that? If Warren Buffett makes a deal to purchase a large amount (never even remotely as large in % as 10X purchased in  your coin) of BOA as a "special" price, it it illegal not to make it public, ok? Did they get 1600 per? 3200? 5000? For what you posted I have to deduct that there were no obligations on their part... which is mind boggling for, in actuality, puts the entire project on their hands and they can sink it at any time they choose, either to get rid of it or to buy it all outright for peanuts. And you don't "see the problem"? I believe perhaps you need to go back to corporate business 101 class... Hint: These deals, in the real world, come with many LEGAL obligations -designed to protect the investors, of course, not the corporate raiders- and no enterprise would allow such venture investment without specific time obligations, like "10X cannot sell any of their tokens or representation of such to any third party, either directly or publicly fo X amount of time and then so in such and such (%) amounts of their total holdings..." Now I'm quite sure you "get it", don't you?

But the more pedestrian way of screwing investors in this unregulated wild west of crypto would be the obvious accessibility of 10X to inside information and the inevitable price manipulation that they would be capable of because of it and because of their huge holdings. For instance, they could influence the creation of promotions, special or not, to dump part of their coins while everyone else is buying. P&D 101. Or any other "landmark announcement". Privileged info. Jail time in the real world, total impunity in crypto (for now). Anyway, I know you see the inevitable conflict. And dire consequences for buyers of your ICO.

The pre-mine, not unfortunately but by design, is just your way to pay for the gimmick. Legitimate companies budget and pay for their gimmicks. You choose to try to have your naive investors carry that burden. It won't work, I can guarantee you that. You are going to have a front row experience of it.

Finally, what "innovative features" are you speaking of in ziftrcoin? a "white paper"? Really? have you checked around? There are about 1,000 still-active coin projects with "white papers" of one kind or another already out. Is that one of your "innovative features"? What "real development" has taken place in your coin? Perhaps we need a new definition for "development" here...

Anyway, I hope those 35 people along you are able to somehow keep their jobs or, at the very least, to get some valuable experience from this exercise in futility. It will be a monumental feat if they do keep their jobs, that's how tough the space your business is in. But there's no future in it. And much less while diverting any, whatever smaller, resources in trying to tap into the crypto world to attract new customers. You guys are already in the process of getting a crash course in it.

And, unfortunately, you will represent just another -if minor- step back in the development and mass implementation of digital currencies.

What "this amount of selling...."? That is ridiculous. There's practically no selling (and even less buying, for that matter) in BYC. Have you checked the volume (lack of it)?

What levels of delusion.... the coin is practically dead.

It had every ingredient, yes. Until I discovered the corruption that eventually came to happen inside.

But it was, initially, a beautiful project indeed that could and should have reached mainstream and be the first cryptocoin to actually be massively adopted in the real world.

You are wellcome to nominate others that comply with the four basic rules stated above... An almost impossible task, by the way.

Happy New Year and Happy 1st Anniversary, SOLARCOIN!

Only current coin listed in THE WALL OF HONOR: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=651689.msg10055393#msg10055393

Congratulations!

It was considered for inclusion from the get go, as explained above. But they failed at one key requirement: No censored official thread. I argued above with "free bird" about it. Now, I have just been made aware of the fact that they have closed their previous censored thread and there's no censorship whatsoever, on their part, on the new, official thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=785257.0

Glad they reconsidered and kudos for the implied admission. It was, for several reasons, not the least of which is their reason of existence, the promotion of solar energy, my favorite alt coin from the very beginning and now that the only obstacle to its inclusion on this WALL OF HONOR has been removed, I am very glad to list it as the only current entry in this wall, since the disgraced PINKCOIN has gone to the WALL OF SHAME where the corruption and deception inside their dev team has taken it.

Welcome, once again, Solarcoin, to the WALL OF HONOR!

In order to avoid bloating the thread too much, I'll answer you and Steven in the same post, ok?

First, you must know that when one has had scams for breakfast every day for quite a while, one develops a kind of radar sense for bullshit (pardon my expression but I favor clarity) even in it's most sophisticated forms. We, in the digital currencies scene, call it "immediate red flags" but it is simply bullshit.

Apparently you guys have a decent thing going with ziftr.com, I don't know... are you a public company? I assume you aren't and if my assumption is correct, why not? You don't need to answer that (actually, no you do) but let just call that a first red flag, ok? 35 employees and a track record of almost 7 years would grant any decently successful company a right to get back some of the "millions" they have invested in creating the tools of their trade that have warranted their "success". And yet, somehow, there doesn't seem to be a market for it (no IPO). You Steve are way too young and inexperienced to even get a light gist of what a difficult environment the business of Ziftr is, so I will point some of those extraordinary cut throat issues for others more in step with the realities of the online commerce: The margins are minimal (and dwindling constantly as the manufacturers themselves move to full out connection with their customers, on one side, and, on the other, to actually making this dubious business model obsolete by way of warranty of best price -in many cases plus 10% discount).

That said, Ziftr creating its own digital coin is a particularly interesting gimmick... but just a gimmick nevertheless. This is much cheaper than delivering minimally significant coupons via traditional distribution channels and potentially more effective giving that it is directed at the crypto community, meaning people that already are, in their vast majority, veteran purchasers online. Clever. How clever? that's entirely another matter. But since going deeper into it would mean a barrage of figures and demographics and, still, plenty of speculation, I'll leave it aside, for now at least. On with the launch of the coin project: Second (huge) red flag, is the words "millions already invested" present in the press release... An extremely poor choice at that for everyone in crypto knows that there's practically no cost to launching a digital coin... and we have had every variety of them, in the many hundreds, for months on end. So launching ziftrcoin cost NOTHING. Not even hundreds of dollars. Nothing or, to be more precise, next to nothing. It is, in fact, no different than when Overstock.com decided to accept bitcoin. Ziftr.com no will accept not just bitcoin, but also other crypto currencies... including their own. No extra costs involved. Again, not "millions", not thousands, nothing.

On with the Bu.... "red flags": ZWGuy writes "The purpose of the coin is to incentivize new people to start using crypto currency." To the initiated that stinks to high heaven of what it is: Pure, unmitigated, smoking, raw BS... sorry, "red flag" for the purpose of this particular enterprise, with no technical innovation whatsoever, is just to bring more people to the business of Ziftr, people already using cryptocurrencies and regular people, as many as possible of course for that business depends, totally, of that stream of customers coming in in stead of leaving, which is what they are doing, in droves, due to the competition from not just the manufacturers themselves, but the credit cards giants and the Living Socials and Groupons of this world. That mantra may have worked a year or two ago with the most deluded members of the crypto community -depending, above all, on how "high" they were at the moment of reading it-, but certainly jumpstarts all B S detectors now.

But that's not all. Not by a long shot. The biggest, by far, "red flag" in this orgy of red flags is that investment from 10X Venture Partners. $150,000, apparently. This VC outfit prefers to invest in companies in the New England area because they want to provide "hands on assistance"... which would be fine and dandy -desirable, even, if this were a traditional enterprise-, but that inevitably will lead to the worst corruption possible in a coin project such as ziftrcoin. Let me explain this a bit: In a traditional American company, such VC investment is perfectly legitimate because its purpose is, through capital investment and business know how, to create a company or enterprise and bring it to the point where the investment -plus profits- is recouped via the sale of all or part of that company or the bringing of the company to the public through an IPO. In both cases, the LAW of the land dictates quite clearly what can and cannot be done. In the case of a digital currency such as ziftrcoin, that is not -yet- the case. Not by a long shot. So, inevitably, when and if the targets !0X has set for this particular investment are reached -or decided at some point along the way-, they will just cash in, pack and leave... the rest of "investors", hanging on to their bags. That is, by pure definition, what they do, what they are supposed to do. See the conflict? But, since there's nothing new under the crypto sun, let me take you to an actual example of exactly that scenario that happened, for months, in BlackCoin. You can read about it for I have posted in full detail many times and in many threads. The X10 part was played there by a "group of investors" that I names THE BLACK HAND. It is INEVITABLE that the action/s of X10 in ziftrcoin will eventually develop into a none time or more instances of The Black Hand corruption in BlackCoin, responsible for taking the coin to 96,000 sat an d dumping all the way to less than 1/10 of that... with many lesser pumps and dumps on the way up and a few on the way down. That is not just a "red flag" that is a certainty. By design and definition.

Finally, the pre-mine. Nothing to add there that hasn't been expressed many times (quite correctly) before on these boards. Only adding that while projects with abysmal distribution have succeeded in the past (NEXT is the paramount example, but there are others) that has happened in the past and will not happen again, in my opinion, now that most of the digital currencies community has been victimized enough out of their delusions. But that is quite beside the main objective of this project as explained in detail above, right?

Anyway, best of luck to you in other enterprises and projects -or line of business-. This one will not work, you can take that to the bank. Although, as usual, you more than probably have found already q few dozens of deluded "supporters" looking for the proverbial quick buck that, for a few weeks will provide the pretension that it is a success.

It simply goes with the territory.

pS.- Steven I don't "spew"; I post. And I don't post FUD but  very educated information, doubts and concerns. You, on the other hand, should be immediately restrained by your team from actually participating in any way in the PR of this project. It is difficult enough as it is and your presence here has already proven to be an unnecessary additional burden.

Thanks again.

I see that this will have probably as much real-life usage as selling condoms to flies. Oh well...

Thank you for your answer. One more question: This cost a bit of money per call, right?, why would anyone use it instead of the video offerings, for free, totally, from Facebook or Google, for instance?

THIS makes sense, Steve:


If someone purchases merchandise or services from one of your affiliates, for 100 dollars, they will have to pay 95 of those dollars with fiat or coin equivalent at whatever price market has it at the time. The other 5 dollars can be paid with 5 of your coins. If those coins were purchased at the rate of 25 cents per unit, and assuming the price has not gone down, they'll have a 3.75% discount after the buyer redeems his/her 5 coins ($5 minus the cost of purchase in the pre-sale, $1.25). To redeem 1000 coins, one would have to make 200 different purchases...

Obviously this is nothing but a meaningless gimmick, poorly "explained" on purpose in the hope people deceive themselves.

As for the other "enticing" aspect of this project -"participating in a coin with a lot of cool things..."- nah, it's just another copy/paste hackjob/shitcoin.

But, by all means, you be the judge. I simply explain, really explain, what it is that the gimmicks are here.

Question: Can one make video calls from within the wallet or not?

Funny that you make a distinction between P&D groups (legitimate and non). And hilarious in fact that you may think of ANY P&D group as "legitimate"/ I guess the ethics are so perverted -for some- in crypto, that any for of stealing is OK... as long as it is done "discreetly". Wow.

Ryan Pumper, like Bob Surplus and Pr0metheus, Fontas, etc. are indeed all scammers. It is in fact redundant to state so for the whole P&D "game" is based in deception and, ultimately, thievery... in any possible iteration or evolution for the basis of it is the childish game of musical chairs.

Now, while those guys identified by name or handle are, indeed, the ones reaping the most benefits and the most infamy, let's not forget about those who also benefit in the shadow and for a fistful dollars of these scams, the so called "foot soldiers" or "ronin" that so many in the crypto scene long to be. Those are the ones that make the whole con possible.

Peculiarly, for some, they are "legit"...

As long as you are happy, what else can someone wish for, really?

Now, if you want to invest in something that is positive throughout and offers the possibility of obtaining some profits along the way, perhaps quite significant profits, there are already one or two vehicles out there, so you don't have to wait for a possible Laurel and Hardy coin -enticing as that may sound-. My personal favorite is Solarcoin.

It's a pity that they chose to have a censored thread -a no-no for me, so I don't participate-, but it is a serious project, with a noble purpose and, in my opinion, a great future. More and more people are beginning to see this and it is progressing slowly but nicely of late.

You are welcome for the  suggestion... but by all means keep on waiting for a Laurel and Hardy coin. Not only it is assured to be more fun than any other already existing but, worst case scenario, better than 95% of all existing others (currently), Vericoin especially included.

Edit to add: After posting this I was made aware of the fact that the new (as of September) official thread of Solarcoin is indeed NOT moderated: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=785257.0 which makes it not only my favorite coin project this side of BTC but the current ONLY active entry in my WALL OF HONOR: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=651689.msg10055393#msg10055393.

Not "essentially" Steve... and doing a hideous job of it. On purpose.

For anyone to understand, what you are offering is to "back the coin" by giving those who buy the pre-sale coins that are in fact coupons that will get them discounts of less than 5% from the merchants you are affiliated with. To clarify:

If someone purchases merchandise or services from one of your affiliates, for 100 dollars, they will have to pay 95 of those dollars with fiat or coin equivalent at whatever price market has it at the time. The other 5 dollars can be paid with 5 of your coins. If those coins were purchased at the rate of 25 cents per unit, and assuming the price has not gone down, they'll have a 3.75% discount after the buyer redeems his/her 5 coins ($5 minus the cost of purchase in the pre-sale, $1.25). To redeem 1000 coins, one would have to make 200 different purchases...

Obviously this is nothing but a meaningless gimmick, poorly "explained" on purpose in the hope people deceive themselves.

As for the other "enticing" aspect of this project -"participating in a coin with a lot of cool things..."- nah, it's just another copy/paste hackjob/shitcoin.

But, by all means, you be the judge. I simply explain, really explain, what it is that the gimmicks are here.

Define "top tier", ignore boy.

Truth is NO ONE cares about a coin that is not being developed, with self-set deadlines never met and no community whatsoever to support it.

Dead and about to be buried.

Happy New Year to you.

Closure of not censored BTCT threads usually signals the beginning of the end for a coin project (moderated ones are, as you know, a clear sign of "shit that the devs don't one discussed, and is also a huge red light). It has happened many times before and certainly it is happening with VRC. In all truth, the coin was already damned even before they closed it but that was indeed then point of no return.

Same fate, by the way, lurks for VIA -I know it's one of your favorites-. The way the dev there runs the ship is utterly ridiculous and no matter what he may or may not accomplish technically, he will not have a community. And as you point out, no community (and by that I mean a HUGE community with people with actual money in their pockets, willing to put it behind a project), equals no project.

On another more general subject, I am surprised by the amount of BTC still available in the markets which has almost tripled in the last week of 2014, albeit half of it going to the XPY market alone. Still, surprising though(the volume, not the fact that that particular project hit the dust also).

It's quite immaterial what you think, say or  even do -since you don't have any resources whatsoever-. There's never a case, ever, in which a coin project comes back from going under $20k valuation. Truth is that this project cannot be salvaged at this point, even if there were anyone -with resources- interested in it.

And yes, this post is, from your perspective and the sorry one of the bagholders of SFR, completely useless since it is stating the sad reality and not some "miracle solution", completely non-existent, that could revive. So keep on praying and exercising your poor taste and delusional qualities that got you broke to begin with. You will continue repeating the same idiotic decisions -hang on, in this case- that brought you to the pathetic situation you are ion in the first place. Enjoy!

I don't agree it has been a "good fight". I believe it has been a very clumsy fight... that IE is losing in a hurry. He just failed to raise the community that would be able -and capable- of supporting the project, as simple as that.

It's all downhill from here.

Worse: IE has not -and will never- learned the lesson. So he will be back with other projects... and committing the same mistakes that have been the undoing of BYC. Sad.

This coin is dead, unfortunately. The dev obviously has other commitments/obligations/priorities but, much more importantly, this project has failed miserably at creating a community and it is only a few people with no financial means whatsoever, on a wing and a prayer.

SFRDirect, if it is ever developed, would probably bring only a minor opportunity for those deluded bagholders (very, very few) to get out of Dodge in a hurry.
So it will probably never be delivered and, instead, used for other projects the dev is committed to. Safforn is dead, waiting to be buried.