Easy guide for NXT on MAC, Get Thousands of NXT POS giveaway while you can!

This is an easy guide to getting started with nxt on a mac. I will re-post what Nxt is about and post how to get started on a mac right after and how you can get free nxt (give aways up to 500 a). and oh Nxt is scheduled for launch by 03/Jan/2014, thats less than a month away. Word is software is already good to go, the core devs are just waiting to distribute coins. So the time is now if you want to get involved big time and for free (give aways)

What is NXT?

Nxt is considered a 2nd generation crypto currency. With all the alt coins coming out that only change things such as hashing mechanism, time between blocks, starting difficulty, and so on, Nxt brings much much more to the table and was designated this way for a number of reasons:

1. It is not an "alt coin" like coins such as litecoin, peercoin, and others who have their code based on Bitcoin's source code. It is brand new from scratch with its own code.

2. It provides built in support for planned extra features such as a decentralized peer-peer exchange, colored coins, messaging/chat, decentralized DNS, and options for instant transactions. We will describe these advanced features later in this article.

3. It is a 100% proof of stake versus the proof of work mechanism the vast majority of other coins are based on. This effectively removes a large security risk inherent in most other coins, as now the issue of a 51% attack or other vulnerabilities inherent to PoW coins are now gone. The biggest plus here is how green this protocol is (not a reference to colored coins) in power consumption, since PoS doesn’t require massive amounts of hashing power

4. It was announced weeks in advance, unlike mere hours like most coins. The 71 stakeholders are responsible for distributing the 1 billion Nxt coins that were ejected from the genesis block via an injection of bitcoin (donated by them, 21 BTC total) into the genesis block. This is a requirement for this PoS system to work and this distribution is now in progress. Nxt is listed on http://coinmarketcap.com/ and people are trading on a 1on1 basis in the forums as well as on a temporary (centralized) exchange http://www.dgex.com.

Let's get into the first planned feature, a decentralized exchange. How do we currently trade coins now? Well you have to sign up for an account on a centralized platform such as Cryptsy/BTC-E/Bter/etc, transfer them your coins and pay them for transactions. This brings in a large concern that I personally have yet to be seen brought to light, in that it’s possible that the exchange could just bail with everyone's deposits. This has actually already happened when the Sheep Marketplace did just that with 96,000 bitcoins, ending up as the largest theft in history. The developers of NxT (BCNxt and his crew) are developing a peer-peer exchange into the software to allow for decentralized trading which will eliminate this trust point. It will also eliminate trading fees! Obviously this is all still completely secure and anonymous as are current bitcoin transactions.

But let’s not stop there. If you can have a decentralized exchange based on the peer-peer model then what else is possible? Well, quite a bit as it turns out; the developers are also building in a decentralized DNS system to compete with namecoin. Also in the future we can expect messaging and chat systems that, like the p2p exchange, will also be completely secure and anonymous. Think of what this will allow: Completely anonymous websites, AND anonymous payments, to go with an anonymous support system in the chat/messaging feature, all 100% secure, encrypted, and irreversible.

Nxt (pun intended) is one of the more curious services: colored coins. To understand the concept of colored coins requires a fairly deep view into bitcoin transactions that most people aren’t aware of. With bitcoin, each transaction's output hashed address is based on a previous receiving address that originally received that coin. So with the blockchain, a set of bitcoin transactions can be traced. Not to a person mind you, but what is meant is that an individual coin or pieces of that coin can be traced back on a transaction by transaction basis. Since this is a case, then if it was possible to expand the protocol to allow a person to designate or "color" a particular coin, then we can build a bridge from the virtual crypto currency world to the physical world. In effect that coin can then be used to represent some physical entity here on earth. Property, stocks/bonds, commodites, or really any concept that can be concretely identified could be used. This protocol expansion is exactly what is being built into Nxt’s unique code to allow for the use of colored coins.

Let’s talk about Proof of Stake and green energy. Everyone knows how bitcoin is based on Proof of Work. That is there are thousands of miners around the world crunching away at hashes and gobbling up TONS of power. Now, PoS doesn’t really involve ‘mining’ per se; it’s important to realize that unlike bitcoin, all Nxt that will ever exist already exists, so client wallets now ‘mine’ for transaction fees. A growing trend is to refer to this as ‘forging’ instead of ‘mining’. Since this can be done on a client wallet loaded on a PC (CPU mining), it is MUCH more environmentally friendly and power efficient.

Now, on to the nuts and bolts of Nxt’s implementation of PoS. Its elegantly simple: transaction fees are distributed out proportionally to all users based on the amount of Nxt a client has. (assuming that client is running and unlocked). So if a client has 1 million Nxt, then they have 1/1000 of a chance of receiving the transaction fee for any transaction. The math here is 1 million (amount the client has) divided by 1 billion (total Nxt in existence) is 1000, so that is 1/1000 of a chance.

comprehensive information:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=345773.msg3832234#msg3832234 Updates recent events
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=345619.0 ---Main thread

Now that you have that information going, lets dive right in.

Windows Users:
For windows users you can find a full guide with pictures here: http://nextcoin.org/index.php/topic,4.msg5.html?PHPSESSID=5usfjjc28r361de89j8h8fllu6#msg5

or

watch this video : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eF0XspFMq_4

Mac / OSX Users comprehensive guide

Getting started on a Mac (OSX)

NXT currently supports Mac OS X. Here's the instructions(test in OS X 10.9):

1) Download Java Client from http://nextcoin.org/index.php/topic,100.msg730.html#msg730 (please keep your client updated)

2) Unzip the client file you will be using the folder a little later

3) Go to application/Utilities and Open Terminal,

4) Check your java version in the terminal by typing "java -version", if it shows anything below 1.7 like (java version is 1.6), got to step 5, otherwise go to step 7. NXT is dependent on jdk 1.7. so make sure you download an updated download jdk1.7 from http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/jdk7-downloads-1880260.html and install it.

5) download jdk1.7 from: http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/jdk7-downloads-1880260.html you have to accept the terms before you download.

6) Once you have download click to install, your system will prompt you for your password in other for it to make changes. Enter your password if you have one and like that, Your Java is updated. You can make sure by typing type "java -version" in your terminal

7) In terminal and type:
"export JAVA_HOME=/Library/Internet\ Plug-Ins/JavaAppletPlugin.plugin/Contents/Home"

Cool

note that this change is temporary, you can make the java update permanent add this to the end off the previous command by typing this instead: echo "JAVA_HOME=/Library/Internet\ Plug-Ins/JavaAppletPlugin.plugin/Contents/Home" >> ~/.bash_profile

9) Now change directory to wherever your nxt folder is.. the one you unzipped in step 2.
for example if you unzipped the next folder in the into the downloads folder, you should have a folder called nxt in downloads. So in the terminal type: "cd ./downloads", then type "cd ./nxt". You should now be in the nxt folder.

10) Now enter this command into the terminal: "java -jar start.jar" you should see the server startup as shown below:

first stage done:

11) Now Open https://localhost:7875/ ("https" not "http") in your browser and you should see the NXT website. (you have to repeat steps 10 and 11 each time you need to access you account)

12) Enter a passphrase remember to make it hard to be able to be guess, yet simple enough for you to remember. keep it in a safe place. You will need to follow steps 10 through the end and use this passphrase each time you access your next account. (this is the only thing between you and your nxt..be safe)

**VERY IMPORTANT**
--Nxt is a brain wallet, a very long and secure passphrase MUST be used to generate your account. You much use more than 30 uppercase, lowercase and special characters for your password to be safe from brute force attacks. YOU CANNOT, CANNOT CHANGE YOUR PASSWORD. Please be careful.

14) At the top left corner…19-20 digit number this is your Nxt Id…this is how anybody will be able to send you some nxt.. to the top right corner is an arrow, this is how you send next

How to send money

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=303898.msg3314850#msg3314850

1] Go to http://88.198.210.245:7875/
2] Click the orange lock to unlock an account
3] Enter any digit into SECRET PHRASE field, for example "1" (the genesis block contains only 10 addresses with 100 mil coins on each)
4] Click the purple arrow in the top right corner
5] Fill the form, amount must be not greater than 10,000 and fee not greater than 100 (limited for testing)
6] Deadline (in hours) can be less than 1, enter 0.1 to set it to 6 minutes
7] See the balance adjusted and the transaction appearing in the unconfirmed transactions list

Now I'm working on the most interesting part -- the mining. Stay tuned.

If a transaction is not included into a block (it's not because mining is in development yet) then after the deadline is reached it will be removed. We tested that transactions are correctly propagated over the network (sent some from one peer and watched them appearing on another).

Free Giveaway and Bounties To be updated Daily/ Weekly

a i) https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=347927.0 (Free Giveaway )

There is also a giveaway thread to be started soon which will give users NXT for just showing up. I will keep you updated.

b i) https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=345773.0 (bounties)

If you have any problems, reply below and you will get help.

Btc donation: 1AGRXxkMZpqNXbzFpmW2gyh9f6YkKpphre

Client updates

Version 0.4.7e : This is an experimental version, use it only if u want to help

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=345619.msg4136243#msg4136243

or
http://files.nxtbase.com/nrs-0.4.7e.zip