I had high hopes for meta-coin, or any way to link meta-trader with crypto coins.    I was going to write my own interface between cryptsy and meta-trader.

Then I read this:

http://forexmagnates.com/metaquotes-warns-brokers-about-illegal-plugins/

From my understanding of this, Meta-trader gives out free clients, but the brokerages/exchanges pay for the severs that the clients talk to.  Thus adding meta-trader to cryptsy would for certain be illegal unless cryptsy paid for the meta-trader server software.   Heck it sounds dicey to even be pulling in data into Meta-trader as this going on with this thread.  Am I right about this?

I was thinking it would be best to meet at a coffee shop on weekends during the day sometime.  What were you thinking?

Dude that's me.  I still believe someday I will be rich for all this time I'm investing in cryptocurrencies!  Yet why did I find this so hilarious?

Why not use the obvious 3 letter symbol for CureCoin:   CUR

I'm working on a new alt-coin called Flexcoin.   My work has been in C# since it was first introduced way back around 2001.    So this is my area of strength.  I putzed around in C++ back when it first came out in 1985.   I know things have changed with C++ over the years, namely things like smart pointers and the like.   But I still see C# as having a huge advantage in programmer productivity.   So for me, I'm strongly considering branching Novacoin to create a starting point for Flexcoin but then using C# as much as possible for new development.   

I see one big con of this being that users installs would be larger (requiring Mono if they are not on Windows).  Requiring Xamarin if they are on android or iOS.    But is this really so terrible?   Am I completely barking up the wrong tree and should I learn C++, Java, and objective C?   

Ok so I'm teaching my kid to program, and we came up with this silly little game that combines crypto currencies and pong.  It is a work in progress Have fun.  

http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/11609074/#player

I'm leaning toward Novacoin as a starting point for Flexcoin because it is scrypt based and PPcoin isn't.   Yacoin seems interesting because it has fast confirms, script, and Proof of stake.   What is a better foundation to use Novacoin or Yacoin?   Yacoin claimed it would be GPU resistant, but it wasn't long before people were GPU mining Yacoin.   

I'm looking for:
Scrypt
Proof of Stake
Fast Confirms

I'm thinking it wouldn't take much to make Novacoin have fast confirms, so if it is a better design than Yacoin, maybe go with that.

I wanted to see if Bitcoin could just bolt on the Flexcoin ideas, so I sent a message asking Gavin about this.  Here's what he said:

>Internally, Bitcoin doesn't have addresses at all, just unspent transaction outputs, so flexcoin will need to have a completely different scheme for >keeping track of coins.

This is both good news and bad news for Flexcoin.  The good news is that these ideas cannot easily be bolted on to another coin, but the bad news is that this means that implementing Flexcoin's ideas involves a fairly substantial project.  I have to be honest to myself and to the team.   I don't have the expertise or the time to lead this project to success in a reasonable amount of time.   I see that I could continue to be a valuable contributor, but for Flexcoin to happen, it will require leaders and skilled developers who have more expertise and time than I do.  So I'm willing to step aside and let others lead this project to completion.   These are great ideas that fill an important need in crypto-currencies.    If you are interested in taking a lead role on implementing these ideas, let us know.  If these ideas were implemented, I see great potential success for this coin.  Much more so that pretty much all the other alt-coins out there.  Primecoin is a nice step in the right direction, but it doesn't address the most important shortcoming of all the coins out there, difficult to use security.  In the end, that's what users care about.

I'd guess that is what blockchain.info is doing, since they have both a web wallet and a mobile one.   However since a mobile wallet is a core feature of Flexcoin, I'd be afraid of a centralized solution where a website/web service controls the core logic.  This website would be a prime target for being hacked, hit with a DDOS attack, or possibly shut down by some regulatory agency.   

Flexcoin is absolutely going to need a mobile app for it's wallet.    I searched on google play and only found mobile wallets for Bitcoin, Litecoin, and Feathercoin.   Since I think it would be a lot of work to create a mobile wallet from scratch, that might suggest that we want to branch Litecoin instead of some other coin.   I don't know all the difficulties of taking one of these wallets and porting them to some other coin like Novacoin, PPcoin or Primecoin,  but I'm guessing it's not trivial.    I do know that Andreas Schildbach's popular Bitcoin wallet is based on bitcoinj (A Java implementation of a Bitcoin client-only node) https://code.google.com/p/bitcoinj/   So that could mean in order to create a Primecoin or other non-litecoin based wallet, a port of the client to java is necessary, as that is the native android language.   Another question would be do we want to go cross platform, but if so, a lot of these crossplatform alternatives (like PhoneGap) are potentially less secure because they are not compiled.  I'm not sure if it makes sense to try to do c++ on android and iOS.    I know a little about android development, and nothing about iOS development.

I have created a development discussion thread here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=260510.0

If you want to help out with development, please head over there and let us know what you'd like to start working on.

This is a thread dedicated to discussing Flexcoin development ideas and planning.

The main Flexcoin thread is here.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=260234.msg2776110#msg2776110

If you are interested in helping.  Please post here and let the team know what you'd like to start working on.   One of the main things is developing the Vault, and also Denominated Addresses.

For developing the Vault, we need someone to identify the code in another coin that does Public Address/Private key generation. 

It has been suggested that we also look into Novacoin for energy efficiency because it does both POW and POS.  I like the idea.  I also like perhaps looking into PPCoin for its energy efficiency.   I do like the idea of POS.

I think there is a place for both.   Some people are going to want someone else to be their bank.   Some people will want the ease of touching their cellphone to their Raspberry Pi, and not have to pay fees to keep a crypto bank alive.  I think both ideas have merit.   There is no one size fits all solution.  What I like about Flexcoin is its simplicity.

But the point of crypto is to be your own bank.  Buy your own device and be your own vault. 

Awesome.   I like your USB nfc solution.  Easy for users to install.  My adafruit suggestion could be incorporated in some sort of premanufactured Raspberry Pi Vault device.

The first decision we would need to make is whether to use scrypt or calculate primes like Primecoin.   While I see value in calculating primes, and a good percentage of my holdings are in Primecoin, at the end of the day, I'm not so sure the mass public cares at all about primes vs. scrypt.  (What they want is ease of use).   And using scrypt is proven and it is well understood.   I think the much easier path is to start with Litecoin and move forward from there.  Another decision is how fast the block time should be.   I think that a 20 second blocktime like Digitalcoin is too fast, too many orphans.  But for mass adoption you need near instant confirms for in store purchases.  Worldcoin is trying to solve the orphan problem and it also has fast block times.  I'm thinking the fastest way to go would just be to clone Litecoin on GitHub and go from there.   Unless Worldcoin has the orphan problem somewhat addressed, then either clone that or adapt it's code to the Litecoin clone.  It would be interesting to run a Diff/Beyond Compare between Litecoin and Worldcoin.

Adding NFC to Raspberry Pi is trivial.  (You can buy a Pi for $25)
http://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-nfc-rfid-on-raspberry-pi/overview

Reserved for project planning. Q&A, etc.

Crypto currency is the coolest innovation ever.  But why aren't crypto currencies being adopted by everyone?  The reason is that security is really difficult for the users.  The best security we have right now are paper wallets, and they are really clunky to use.   We need to make the process of securing coins completely painless for the end user.  To do that we need to introduce a few new concepts.  

Vaults:  The first new concept is a vault.   All this is is a device that is always disconnected from the internet so that it can't be hacked.   This is where the private keys and all the coins are stored.   This device can either be a Raspberry Pi, or a computer.   The Vault device needs to be NFC (near field communications) enabled.   This allows the user to take thier cell phone, and touch it to the Vault to top off thier Wallet.  This is called doing a Sync.

But what is to prevent the Wallet from getting hacked so that it tricks the Vault into releasing all of it's coins to the Wallet?  We need another new concept to handle this.

Denominated Addresses: These are addresses which are capable of only holding a fixed amount of Flexcoins.  For example, a 100 Flexcoin address can only hold 100 Flexcoins, or 0 Flexcoins once they have been spent.  There are still regular addresses that can hold any amount of coins but those are for Wallets, not Vaults.

The user logs on to the Vault to set the maximum number of coins that can be releasd in a single Sync.  

Sync:  There are a number of things that need to happen during a Sync. The first thing is to top off a wallet that has a low balance.  The user tells the wallet what balance it should maintain.    Say 200 Flexcoins.  Suppose the wallet is empty.  When the user touches their cell phone to the Vault, the Wallet asks for two 100 coin private keys.  Since this is under the maximim, the Vault sends two 100 FlexCoin private keys.  But we also need the ability to fill the Vault up with coins.   To do this, the Vault has to be capable of generating Public Address/private key pairs.  And it will send out Public Addresses to the Wallet as needed.  

Easy Backups:  The other thing we do is make Vault backups super easy.   Just plug one or a few thumb drives into your Raspberry Pi or Vault computer.  The Vault app will do backups on a regular basis.  The app will be smart enough to automatically keep enough backups over time to ensure full coverage.  Deleting redundant backups.

So that's pretty much it.  A very simple design that is super easy for the end users.  Just touch your cell phone to the Vault device to top off your wallet while the rest of your coins remain completely safe.  Sure you could lose your cellphone or it's coins could be stolen, but someone could steal your non digital wallet too.   The point is that the amount they can steal is small.

We are looking for developers and other contributors to get in on the ground floor and help make FlexCoin a resounding success.  Reply to this thread if you are interested in joining the team.  There is only one requirement to joining the team, that you treat everyone involved with the FlexCoin team and the broader FlexCoin community with civility and respect, whether they deserve it or not.  The team will decide things like if there should be a premine or not, and how any rewards should be divvied up.

SourceControl: https://github.com/Neuromancer56/Flexcoin
Development Thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=260510.0

But I'm running this on my litecoin miner which already is running 4 gpus.  So isn't the additional electrical cost for cpu mining at the same time next to nothing or does cpu mining bump up my electricity cost?  I'm mining with a Sempron.

I'm used to using cgminer and pools where I just double click a batch file and I can see my hashrate.   But when I read the instructions on how to mine primecoins all it told me to do was go to the help>Debug menu and click on the console menu and type getmininginfo.
That tells me "primespersec" = 122 and it jumps around quite a bit when I reexecute this command.   So am I automatically mining primecoins just by opening the client or is there something more I need to do?

Also with this primespersec rate, is it even worth my time?  Will I get any coins?