Earthcoin is dead. Long live Earthcoin!
By Jay Kevin "Biomech" Putzier
The scuttlebutt says the coin is dead. Prices dropping into the teens, maybe lower. Too much production, not enough demand, and where the hell are the devs?
Further, they say that the hype is all we got going on for us. And the hype is dead. Great promise, they say, but now it's nothing.
I know you've heard it all. And amidst it, desperate cries for the developers to "do something" right now. Pump it up, make it smaller, make it bigger, do this, do that.. do something!!!
And of course, each camp with their pet theories, convinced that they are the saviours, and that ONLY their solution can possibly rescue Earthcoin.
Trouble with that is that in addition to calling for contradictory things, they are attempting to, to put it bluntly, put a band-aid on a sucking chest wound.
But what if the patient don't need a band-aid? What if there is not sucking chest wound? What if things are actually going according to the original vision, and just not happening as fast as we'd all like? Rome was not built in a day, and neither will Earthcoin's ecosystem.
The original vision of this coin is a global currency, used for trade and charity. Not just a thing to exchange on a currency exchange to get more bitcoin! There are hundreds of coins whose only purpose is just that. Maybe they had some vision, though a great many appear to just be a lark for people to play with. It's nice to have and play with shiny things, but that's not the purpose of Earthcoin.
The vision, to be very blunt, is a hell of a lot bigger than that. We envision a time when Bitcoins, Dollars, Euros and what have you are traded on exchanges where the BASE of the pair is Earthcoin. To make this happen, we need as a community to do some thinking, and some things.
The development team is indeed looking into various technical issues, securing the network being the primary one. From our side, we now have a dedicated team updating the wallet. It will include the latest code from the "standard" templates as well as our own very robust difficulty retargeting. It is right now, as you read this, being coded and tested. It will very soon be released, and yes, that will mean a hard fork. Not a big issue, really, and ample warning will be given. This will help to close any issues with securing the network.
However, this is only part of what needs to happen. Miners, this network is currently vulnerable due to it's size. We need asic farms online ASAP, with a good portion of their hashrate pointed at bitcoin. With a big enough farm of gridseeds, you can successfully and profitably solo mine, which further decentralizes and secures the network. We need to get this network big enough, quick, that nobody can take control of it via a 51% attack.
Also, on difficulty retargeting. Our tech experts have informed me in no uncertain terms that Kimoto's Gravity Well, which several of you have called for, has several serious vulnerabilities, including one known as a "time warp" attack. I don't understand it well enough to comment on it, yet, but it can cause forks. Our built in code, however, retargets both better and with far less vulnerability. It has been thoroughly tested and has passed with flying colors. It does what KGW is supposed to do, and it does it without the vulnerabilities.
Once that is done, and this can be ongoing, we need MERCHANTS! Lots of them. The more, the merrier, as the saying goes. Got something you know how to make? Especially something you can make by recycling what would normally go in the landfill? All the better that you make it and sell it for EAC. And HOLD that EAC while we grow, if at all possible. Exchange enough to replensish your materials and meet your expenses, certainly, but hold back most of it and sell it dear when you do sell it. Just because the multipools are willing to dump any coin at any price doesn't mean jack to our vision. They drive down the exchanges because they are solely interested in bitcoin. If we start branding Earthcoin as a true competitor, and following through, you'll see that change. You'll see them start to pay out in EAC instead of or alongside BTC, and they won't be selling it at the lowest possible cost just to move it. But even if they do, and you have other options, why sell it low? Who cares what they do? So they sacrifice their ten minutes worth. If we build a merchant ecosystem, then we don't NEED the exchanges, we get goods, services, silver, gold, land... Whatever. We make it a real currency, and the daytraders and multipools will become irrelevant. They'll also love us, because we'll drive the price up. Dramatically.
I recently started a separate thread with a list of the current merchants who accept Earthcoin. It had a couple errors in it as some had dropped out. It's still a fair list, but it has a problem. It's too short. There are a little over a dozen merchants accepting Earthcoin right now. There should be hundreds, building towards thousands. We at Team Earthcoin are working on this, but you need to as well. As mentioned above, you can do it yourself. You can also encourage people and businesses you know to take it either as full or partial payment for their goods and services. Earthcoin is traded on exchanges, thus has a real world value. Wider adoption will only drive the price higher. Think globally, but act locally. If every miner of Earthcoin, every holder of earthcoin, and every supporter or Earthcoin recruited JUST ONE business, we'd rival Bitcoin in acceptance in very short order. Think what you could do if you recruited two. Three. See what I mean? The problem isn't oversupply, it's underutilization. The Earth is abundant, and so is it's coin. This makes it useful for large and small transactions, and everything in between.
Go to It! We are!
Kevin Biomech for Team Earthcoin.
