Vertcoin - First Scrypt N | First Stealth Address - Privacy without mixer

[inqd]

Have you ever talked to random people outside of your circle about it? If anything people think crypto is a get-rich quick scam. I have even heard the term "pyramid scheme" from several highly educated people.

Yeah I agree with this. If you talk to normal people, you'll hear this a lot.

Here's an idea - go and give some VTC to a friend or relative the next opportunity you get. Don't try to convince them it's not a scam, don't tell them it's not a pyramid scheme if that's what they believe. Just say "I mined some of this, figured I'd give you a bit now while it's cheap - if it goes up a lot, it'll be a nice gift", leave it at that.

I'm going to do it the next opportunity I get.

+1, +1, +1!

[Basnoff]

Hmm, the explorer has been down for hors now (again), does anyone know whats going on there?

[Shuxy]

In my opinion the early adopters of VTC (or any technology/product, really) are the people who see the merits when no one else does. If it ends up being another pump and dump coin, too bad. But if you personally believe in it's technical aspects, then you just got to hold and ride the wave. You may end up wrong but getting into crypto by itself is a risk that you (should) have decided to take. I remember a friend talking to me about BTC when it was around USD100 and I thought it was the dumbest thing I've heard .

I don't think Dogecoin had any sort of plan. It was a meme coin, people happened to fell in love with it, had a momentum, and the marketing/etc. plans came after it had a huge following, not the other way round. There're many other coins with good plans and they too have not succeeded. Sometimes the plans look too good to be true, and people dismiss them as scam coins, etc. I think VTC is perfectly positioned the way it is right now, we just need to focus on educating the masses with the right messaging on the website, forums, etc. Other than that, too much Marketing will make your coin look like a joke, and I'm not for the mascot idea at all.

Just saying because a lot of us (including myself) get lost in the illusion that X coin is not succeeding because X coin lacks Marketing, public support, etc. etc. when we are honestly just firing blanks. I think ctrlzed said it perfectly, this is not a rational market. For me, when the irrationality clears, what remains is the technical aspect of a coin, and the community behind it, both of which I believe VTC has.

And I love the idea of talking to friends about VTC

[victzhang]

In my opinion the early adopters of VTC (or any technology/product, really) are the people who see the merits when no one else does. If it ends up being another pump and dump coin, too bad. But if you personally believe in it's technical aspects, then you just got to hold and ride the wave. You may end up wrong but getting into crypto by itself is a risk that you (should) have decided to take. I remember a friend talking to me about BTC when it was around USD100 and I thought it was the dumbest thing I've heard .

I don't think Dogecoin had any sort of plan. It was a meme coin, people happened to fell in love with it, had a momentum, and the marketing/etc. plans came after it had a huge following, not the other way round. There're many other coins with good plans and they too have not succeeded. Sometimes the plans look too good to be true, and people dismiss them as scam coins, etc. I think VTC is perfectly positioned the way it is right now, we just need to focus on educating the masses with the right messaging on the website, forums, etc. Other than that, too much Marketing will make your coin look like a joke, and I'm not for the mascot idea at all.

Just saying because a lot of us (including myself) get lost in the illusion that X coin is not succeeding because X coin lacks Marketing, public support, etc. etc. when we are honestly just firing blanks. I think ctrlzed said it perfectly, this is not a rational market. For me, when the irrationality clears, what remains is the technical aspect of a coin, and the community behind it, both of which I believe VTC has.

And I love the idea of talking to friends about VTC

+1

[mjsrs]

In my opinion the early adopters of VTC (or any technology/product, really) are the people who see the merits when no one else does. If it ends up being another pump and dump coin, too bad. But if you personally believe in it's technical aspects, then you just got to hold and ride the wave. You may end up wrong but getting into crypto by itself is a risk that you (should) have decided to take. I remember a friend talking to me about BTC when it was around USD100 and I thought it was the dumbest thing I've heard .

I don't think Dogecoin had any sort of plan. It was a meme coin, people happened to fell in love with it, had a momentum, and the marketing/etc. plans came after it had a huge following, not the other way round. There're many other coins with good plans and they too have not succeeded. Sometimes the plans look too good to be true, and people dismiss them as scam coins, etc. I think VTC is perfectly positioned the way it is right now, we just need to focus on educating the masses with the right messaging on the website, forums, etc. Other than that, too much Marketing will make your coin look like a joke, and I'm not for the mascot idea at all.

Just saying because a lot of us (including myself) get lost in the illusion that X coin is not succeeding because X coin lacks Marketing, public support, etc. etc. when we are honestly just firing blanks. I think ctrlzed said it perfectly, this is not a rational market. For me, when the irrationality clears, what remains is the technical aspect of a coin, and the community behind it, both of which I believe VTC has.

And I love the idea of talking to friends about VTC

+1

[jtpeters]

Marketing focus at this stage has to be directed to the alt coin community. Consider this your b2b. Btc has a head start on the mainstream, let them do the hard work. The next gen (us) will follow.

Glad you had a chuckle.

You did suggest we have a cartoon image.

The spartan image is a meme among vert holders.

Our current market is the alt coin community which recognizes the flaws in Btc, Ltc and the need for anonymity. Everything else will follow, and even then, the marketing has to be done in a competent, professional way. Im sorry, but you are not going to get Mr and Mrs Smith to consider cryptos with just astroboy. There has to be a proven and shown economic incentive for them to adopt it. Vtc will do this, because its the superior product in a new industry.

"Im sorry, but you are not going to get Mr and Mrs Smith to consider cryptos with just astroboy." - it appears that you are missing my point entirely.

Developing an emotional connection with everyday people (now) is essential. It need not be anything I suggested, but it should be something.

[jtpeters]

Have you ever talked to random people outside of your circle about it? If anything people think crypto is a get-rich quick scam. I have even heard the term "pyramid scheme" from several highly educated people.

Yeah I agree with this. If you talk to normal people, you'll hear this a lot.
Here's an idea - go and give some VTC to a friend or relative the next opportunity you get. Don't try to convince them it's not a scam, don't tell them it's not a pyramid scheme if that's what they believe. Just say "I mined some of this, figured I'd give you a bit now while it's cheap - if it goes up a lot, it'll be a nice gift", leave it at that.
I'm going to do it the next opportunity I get.

The second word of "I mined some of this..." is where we will lose nearly 100% of the population.

Again, we are not approaching this from the perspective of someone who has no idea. And most people have no idea about cryptocurrency.

[jtpeters]

The answer is found on page one. People saw it as viable before they started mining it, correct? It was marketed to miners before mining.

And so now that we are mining we must market to the people who will be using it in future before they start using it.

It's one thing to say that, and entirely another to do so. Vertcoin currently has no non-speculative value. The people who might one day use it have no current interest in it, and won't unless the ASIC Armageddon kicks in. The people who might use it after that are so far away that talking about them makes no sense.

You can't sell average people on Vertcoin because the things that they're interested in don't collide with the things we're interested in.

Don't be so sure about that.

I, myself, am a potential future user of Vertcoin. I have never mined anything in my life. I just purchased it because I am interested in it. I am not too familiar with cryptocurrencies. My perspective is that of a user and someone who thinks it could be more useful in future. (I wouldn't consider it an investment, though.)

My girlfriend bought some, too, because I explained it to her in a way that makes sense to her. And so did a person I work with (who is a non-techie).

When we think, "The people who might use it after that are so far away that talking about them makes no sense." we are missing out on a lot of people that are potentially interested but intimidated by the kind of talk that they find on the website or forum.

Again... that's why Dogecoin has caught on and are one of your two biggest competitors (and in my opinion will surpass Bitcoin in less than a year). They make the complicated seem easy. We can be like Microsoft releasing Windows 3.1 instead of some company not understanding the real market and releasing OS-9 Level II.

If we do not make Vertcoin easy now then there will be other coins that do. This, at a time when more and more people are becoming interested in cryptocurrencies.

[jtpeters]

Tell me if I am wrong:

So far, the only people this coin can well benefit in the near future are the miners. In all other respects (especially as a payment method), is there any way to win the race against BTC and LTC or even gain market shares from them?
Now your counter argument might be: why should we win a race? We can build our own market.
To be honest, do you really think this works? Merchants will accept what is widely adopted. This is BTC. People will accept what is widely adopted. This is BTC. Let's call miners another group in this game. As soon as ASICS conquer the whole market, they will turn to mining VTC. What is happening now?
By thinking through this process, it becomes clear that this must be a reaaaal long term investment (long term in the cryptocurrency world).
You cannot really open successful parallel markets with another cryptocurrency, can you? What is required to put VTC in a really successful position is quite a lot of transition of the whole BTC market to let's say VTC.
Hard to imagine. It will take time to enter the really important industries like retailing and so on. They just got comfortable with BTC and now you enter the door and tell them that there is a better alternative... Wow. So, I think we are very much dependent on the mining advantage. And this will probably take quite some time to convince they many people it needs to make this coin really take off. Wrong?
I hope we get that zerocoin feature implemented as fast as possible.

The number of people that actually use Bitcoin is very negligible. It is estimated that there is less than 500,000 people around the world that use Bitcoin. (At least 40x more people watch the Big Bang Theory on TV than use Bitcoin around the world) An even smaller number of merchants use it. "They just got comfortable with BTC" is simply not the case when most don't even know what it is.

Put it this way.... nearly 100% of people and 100% of merchants do not use Bitcoin.

We are creating our own market, not stealing from Bitcoin's market share.

The question, then, is "How do we make Vertcoin attractive to merchants and consumers alike?"

[jocke_]

well said jtpeters.
+1

[jtpeters]

This is a very early thought/concept: is it possible to setup "exchanges" connected to every Vtc pool? So, the pool will have a bunch of Vtcs sitting in reserves that everyone can see (avoiding mt gox transparency problems).

Miners can elect the percentage they wish to keep and the percentage they wish to make available on the exchange and what crypto they are willing to accept. The percentage made available would be sold by the pool and then paid to the miner in the crypto of their choice.

Over time, miners can also add bank details to accept dollars via the pool/exchange mechanism, to sell Vtc for fiat.

Just an idea. Feel free to point out obvious problems with this setup.  

That is a VERY good idea. I like it a lot. But how could we make it secure?

This is something that needs to be coded right away. In light of the Mt Gox scandal, we can de-centralize exchanges and re-establish the public's trust.

Bitcoin holders would trade their BTC for VTC in droves. (That will be good for 3 weeks until a new decentralized exchange comes out for the new kid on the block.. no fun intended)

I think Vertcoin should be all about safety and security (in Maslow's chart). Although I have not done a scientific poll, my talks with people as to why they would not use Bitcoin has everything to do with security of their money.

[Hardwyre]

Has anyone compiled the 0.5.3 vertminer for windows?  I'm still using the 0.5.2 from the website, but I wanted to play with the auto TC calculations the *.3 version is supposed to have been improved with.  

Does anyone have the link to the compiled windows 0.5.3 binary?

VertMiner 0.53 is already out: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=404364.msg4914748#msg4914748

Link from Bufius himself: https://www.dropbox.com/s/5n70hj3izjj64y1/vertminer-0.5.3.zip

Hope this helps .

Yes, yes it did sir!  +2 VTC to you!

[inqd]

This is a very early thought/concept: is it possible to setup "exchanges" connected to every Vtc pool? So, the pool will have a bunch of Vtcs sitting in reserves that everyone can see (avoiding mt gox transparency problems).

Miners can elect the percentage they wish to keep and the percentage they wish to make available on the exchange and what crypto they are willing to accept. The percentage made available would be sold by the pool and then paid to the miner in the crypto of their choice.

Over time, miners can also add bank details to accept dollars via the pool/exchange mechanism, to sell Vtc for fiat.

Just an idea. Feel free to point out obvious problems with this setup.  

That is a VERY good idea. I like it a lot. But how could we make it secure?

This is something that needs to be coded right away. In light of the Mt Gox scandal, we can de-centralize exchanges and re-establish the public's trust.

Bitcoin holders would trade their BTC for VTC in droves. (That will be good for 3 weeks until a new decentralized exchange comes out for the new kid on the block.. no fun intended)

I think Vertcoin should be all about safety and security (in Maslow's chart). Although I have not done a scientific poll, my talks with people as to why they would not use Bitcoin has everything to do with security of their money.

You are spot on! At one point, credit cards were non existent & people got travellers cheques. Today our Canadian dollar bills are half plastic and the banks are informing clients that the Federal Government will be eliminating cheques by 2016. Times change. Expectations change. Cell phones now don't have buttons. Virtual payments will become the norm.

It'll just be a matter of how easy you can make it for people to put money in & use it. And of course feel safe that nobody will be taking it from them. Online banking is likely way less secure than they make it out to be yet people still believe in banks since they've been around 100 years. Silly but that's the way it is.

[Shuxy]

Has anyone compiled the 0.5.3 vertminer for windows?  I'm still using the 0.5.2 from the website, but I wanted to play with the auto TC calculations the *.3 version is supposed to have been improved with.  

Does anyone have the link to the compiled windows 0.5.3 binary?

VertMiner 0.53 is already out: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=404364.msg4914748#msg4914748

Link from Bufius himself: https://www.dropbox.com/s/5n70hj3izjj64y1/vertminer-0.5.3.zip

Hope this helps .

Yes, yes it did sir!  +2 VTC to you!

Wow wasn't expecting that, thanks Hardwyre !

[Shuxy]

Just giving a shoutout to http://vtc.crypto-pool.fr/. It's a good stable pool that's small at the moment but I've had consistent payouts and it hasn't gone down on me before . And it's small (I know, repeating), so it helps to spread the hashrate.

[jtpeters]

You are spot on! At one point, credit cards were non existent & people got travellers cheques. Today our Canadian dollar bills are half plastic and the banks are informing clients that the Federal Government will be eliminating cheques by 2016. Times change. Expectations change. Cell phones now don't have buttons. Virtual payments will become the norm.

It'll just be a matter of how easy you can make it for people to put money in & use it. And of course feel safe that nobody will be taking it from them. Online banking is likely way less secure than they make it out to be yet people still believe in banks since they've been around 100 years. Silly but that's the way it is.

Why not do a messaging-like app for payments? (This is really just a mobile wallet, but makes it less intimidating for the average user by converting the payment address into a universal payment address, or UPA)

This is more or less how MPesa (in Kenya) works.

So instead of sending money to rjgvijrwgiwg9uf9frwerfwd for example, the user would send money to +16469218113

For this, we recruit agents that will sell scratch-off cards*. The user buys the card from the agent (the agent gets a small fee; this could also be an online operation) and puts it into the app to fill their account. The receiver simply installs the app to see their incoming payments, much like how Whatsapp shows you all your friends that have it installed.

I'll post this idea to the subreddit in case anyone is interested in talking about it.

*Alternatively, QR codes could be printed out from a computer. The user just buys the piece of paper, scans the code, and confirms the transaction with the agent.

[Shuxy]

Having a VTC/USD exchange would be the best thing to do IMO. It will allow the public to buy VTC without first buying BTC, thus removing the fear/distrust of BTC in the process. It'll also allow people like me who are not mining fast enough to get more VTC easily .

I've happily engaged people on mining, some of them get it and some don't, never hurts to try . I don't think it makes sense to explain cryptocurrency to anyone without talking about mining. Where do the coins come from then? I've frequently used the concept of actual (gold/silver) mining to explain it and get a eureka moment.

[gouda]

looks like a great coin... just got started on it. new to the crypto coins any donation would be greatly appreciated... im working on getting a few people from work started on this as well!!!

Vh5pah1E8M8M9F41iT8Q9bP8LMnwYYboJG

[Lloydie]

This is a very early thought/concept: is it possible to setup "exchanges" connected to every Vtc pool? So, the pool will have a bunch of Vtcs sitting in reserves that everyone can see (avoiding mt gox transparency problems).

Miners can elect the percentage they wish to keep and the percentage they wish to make available on the exchange and what crypto they are willing to accept. The percentage made available would be sold by the pool and then paid to the miner in the crypto of their choice.

Over time, miners can also add bank details to accept dollars via the pool/exchange mechanism, to sell Vtc for fiat.

Just an idea. Feel free to point out obvious problems with this setup.  

That is a VERY good idea. I like it a lot. But how could we make it secure?

This is something that needs to be coded right away. In light of the Mt Gox scandal, we can de-centralize exchanges and re-establish the public's trust.

Bitcoin holders would trade their BTC for VTC in droves. (That will be good for 3 weeks until a new decentralized exchange comes out for the new kid on the block.. no fun intended)

I think Vertcoin should be all about safety and security (in Maslow's chart). Although I have not done a scientific poll, my talks with people as to why they would not use Bitcoin has everything to do with security of their money.

Apologies if I'm pointing out something obvious:  One of the key strengths of Vertcoin compared to Btc, Ltc and Doge, in my view, is the decentralised pools in Vtc.  It would be good to use this natural competitive advantage to decentralise exchanges somehow.  It would really cement Vtc's position as a coin for ordinary people, where people trade with people and not big businesses (like ASIC companies and big exchanges).

[XTR]

Having a VTC/USD exchange would be the best thing to do IMO. It will allow the public to buy VTC without first buying BTC, thus removing the fear/distrust of BTC in the process. It'll also allow people like me who are not mining fast enough to get more VTC easily .

I've happily engaged people on mining, some of them get it and some don't, never hurts to try . I don't think it makes sense to explain cryptocurrency to anyone without talking about mining. Where do the coins come from then? I've frequently used the concept of actual (gold/silver) mining to explain it and get a eureka moment.

I'm pretty sure you just made it a easier for me to explain to others how mining works, I can't believe I haven't though of that example