Hi everyone,
I helped found the TurtleCoin project with RockSteady, from the moment of inception. I'm not near as expert on the core technology or cryptocurrency in general as he and many of you are, but I will try my best to provide clarity and answer any questions here about the project, the community, its origins and developments , the technology or anything else. So feel free to ask me questions or raise concerns.
Briefly, my background is in software engineering. Schooled in comp sci & math. I've also got experience with community organizing, both online and IRL, and in entrepreneurship and business. I've been interested in crypto-currency for a few years, dabbling in trading since back when coinmx, cryptsy and mt gox were still around. I've read a couple of whitepapers and wiki's over the years...
Rock and I have worked on various projects together and blockchain has been a frequent talking point. We were both dissatisfied with the common story of outrageous ICOs and token sales with no product, exit scams, premines... Back in Dec. we got into a lengthy discussion about it. We lamented a bit about the seemingly increasing saturation of hype and commercialism in the crypto ecosystem. What happened to the fun days of mining out big digits of doge and making it rain in the roulette chat and buying pizza with these magical numbers our computers calculated from the nether?
By that point Rock had been working extensively on blockchain tech in various projects and had some Cryptonote-related code in the works. Just as I asserted there's no chance of starting a coin and getting traction these days without big capital and marketing and institutional involvement, he pulled up a terminal and showed me what would become the proof that my assertion was wrong. Within a few hours, parameters tweaked settings dialed in for maximum fun, TurtleCoin was compiled, built, and ready to release.
As Rock worked on the core build, we talked about names and concepts. When "turtle" was said, we both immediately knew the ninja turtles, highly iconic and influential on our generation as kids, resonated perfectly with the ideals we wanted in our coin and our community - a kinship of rag tag rude and crude party dudes with a love for fun and pizza, hangin' out in the underground and saving the world from the perils adrift. Quirky and almost appearing haphazard, yet fully dedicated to the way of the ninja. It was the perfect fit to our principles and meme-able af. Having love for all things turtle gives us so much to work with beyond the inspirational but restricted franchise that shaped our young minds, and the community has really picked up on that.
We've collaborated before, we've done quick-turnaround hackathons, and we've managed communities, so the next steps flowed naturally. I set up the discord, the github accounts, the email, the twitter. Rock grabbed the perfect domain - turtlecoin.lol - and got the code built. He announced on /biz/, we pushed source to github (
https://github.com/turtlecoin/turtlecoin/commit/757a49df0b4e68c913218ccc79fbd9f7ada70326), and the races were off (
http://turtlepool.space/?hash=8c9738f961a278486f27ce214d1e4d67e08f7400c8b38fe00cdd571a8d302c7d#blockchain_block). What happened between then and now has been surreal and beyond expectations.
People began showing up to the discord, almost immediately, asking for help, asking questions about the coin, the supply, the block time, having issues with the software, etc. I set up a quick and dirty Markdown website on github with our basic ANN info and the first draft of instructions to set up a wallet, sync the blockchain, start mining and send transactions (
https://github.com/turtlecoin/turtlecoin.github.io/tree/dcec725d5289fa9754fd8b940c445e86c5a6e4dc). Quickly I noticed the shared enthusiasm, support and cooperation that seemed universal. Cowabungas left and right, turtle memes popping up, logos and symbols being created, ideas being shared and each newcomer being helped by everyone in channel. If it wasn't for this spirit of support and cooperation, the whirlwind influx that followed would have been a disaster, but it has been nothing but fun thanks to everyone on this network.
Within days, our discord was growing over a hundred a day, and then hundreds. People stepped up to do everything that has made TurtleCoin the success it has been so far. Setting up pools, writing documentation, offering support in the chat, making memes, setting up bots, facilitating trades, helping with software development on both the core code as well as wallets and tooling, etc, design work, logos, websites... everything. Even the start of this thread was by a volunteer from the community - and that's exactly how we want it. We wanted this community to be welcoming, supportive, and generous, and seeing that vision manifest is unbelievable. People of all backgrounds, skill levels and interests have been able to contribute, learn from one another and share a good experience. Mining, writing code or doing work for bounties, buying and trading, merchandising and capitalizing, operating pools and faucets, making memes and helping others out for tips... so many people have found their niche in the ecosystem and made themselves a part of this phenomenon.
A little over a month in, we caught the attention of Kevin Rose, the founder of Digg. At that point we had maybe around 3000 discord members and had just recently been added to TradeOgre (
https://tradeogre.com/exchange/BTC-TRTL). RockSteady did the podcast interview on Kevin's Block Zero (
https://blockzero.simplecast.fm/7ffca55a) and growth took off even more from there. Price jumped to over 34 satoshi, NiceHashers flooded in, early whales dumped, a few trolls had to get sent to the shredder.. but the momentum has kept on going. We're just shy of 5000 members on the discord at the time of this writing. We've released more updates to the core software, seen development of GUI wallets for multiple platforms come to fruition, and several projects start up. We presented this week to a large blockchain group at the FedEx Institute of Technology. We were featured on Tek Syndicate about a day ago (
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dG9t8PKX1X8). And now we're here on bitcointalk, which, though perhaps considered late by some, is a tremendous accomplishment for for a lot of us Turtles. If you want to see more about the happenings in the TurtleCoin world, follow the discussion at
https://github.com/turtlecoin/meta/issues, read our newsletters (
https://medium.com/@turtlecoin), join the discussions on discord (
http://discord.turtlecoin.lol) or explore some of the pieces of turtledom at
http://turtleturtle.orgRock and I try to guide the momentum toward the goals we set forth and the values we believe in without imposing too much of ourselves on the project and its growth. We want TurtleCoin to be an open ecosystem, a doer's market for anyone who wants to do, allowing people to contribute in any way or style they want. The awesome work of the community and the effort they've taken on to self-manage has allowed us to focus on realizing that vision. This is no con, no premine, no ponzi, no get-rich-quick, no exit scam, nothing. RockSteady and I are here to have a shell shockin' good time, but we're no jokesters. It's a genuine community effort where the leaders see ourselves as ordained servants to the network, as equal as everyone, and proud to be on this ride with you all. More than anything tho the memes have been cool af. Cowabunga!
-Bebop TC (
http://github.com/BebopTC)
P.S. Not sure what this TurtleMarine guy's angst is about but it's entertaining. He was all about Turtle and selling hats a week ago
You know you're winning when you get dedicated haters.
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