Looking to develop an innovative coin that encourages travel.

[Land Marks]

Hello,

I want to develop a coin with some innovative features.

I would call the coin something like 'Land marks' or 'travel coin'.

I used to develop map and GPS apps for the Android, including games which were intended to get people out in the world.

It would be interesting to start a coin which utilized some of the same principles.  The coin would have real-world faucets.  We could set up at a number of famous landmarks as well as towns and cities across the world.

People would use their GPS enables smart phones to collect coins from these faucets.

We would attempt to get deals with travel stores and gift shops where people would be able to spend these 'travel coins'.  A website could be set where people could trade coins in for travel related goods and gift coupons.

People could set up additional faucets to encourage traffic to their business.  They would get listed in the directory of faucets, which would use a map service like google maps to show faucets in your area. 

The coin would be POS.  The faucets would be the primary form of initial distribution.  The coin would have a decent staking rate though to give it value.

The coins would be rare at first but slowly start trickling in as people visited sites.

Anyone want to help me brainstorm?

[hilariousandco]

I guess I like the idea behind it but it's just a pipe dream like all the other alts with a grandiose purpose behind them and it's not needed. Gift shops and any other places can just use Bitcoin. We don't need coins for every facet and niche in life.

[Spoetnik]

I guess I like the idea behind it but it's just a pipe dream like all the other alts with a grandiose purpose behind them and it's not needed. Gift shops and any other places can just use Bitcoin. We don't need coins for every facet and niche in life.

i agree.

..here comes my rant

i have thought about some coin ideas too and there is major barriers to implementing new concepts.. Proof of work is key and a secure one too.
bitcoin and litcoin are popular because they do what needs to be done and if anything comes along it needs to be BETTER than those two or
it's simply a waste of time.

i get the impression the OP here is a young guy with some ideas but he is not a coder.. that is great but i doubt he grasps the coding implications.
i have a decade plus experience at coding in c an dc++ and i am NOT qualified to code a coin and i have coded plenty of advanced programs by myself
but when it comes to making a coin you gotta be a boss lol
or you make a clone coin and tack a superficial gimmick on it like most of these coins here are doing right now.. such as Carbon Coin

OP:
All i can say really is i appreciate your enthusiasm and i wish you luck and i love hearing people are thinking of great ideas
and maybe consider getting involved in one of the numerous coin projects that exist already.. pretty much all of them are looking for new team members i bet.

edit:
And welcome to the forum

[YarkoL]

That's a very nice idea for a coin. Could really take off.

Regarding faucets, how would they work?
My first thought was that one could get coins at specific GPS co-ordinates, but I wonder if that is fake-proof?

[CoinBuzz]

Why dont you do this with already existed coins?

Make it as a service for those coins

[Nxtblg]

Hello,

I want to develop a coin with some innovative features.

I would call the coin something like 'Land marks' or 'travel coin'.

I used to develop map and GPS apps for the Android, including games which were intended to get people out in the world.

It would be interesting to start a coin which utilized some of the same principles.  The coin would have real-world faucets.  We could set up at a number of famous landmarks as well as towns and cities across the world.

People would use their GPS enables smart phones to collect coins from these faucets.

We would attempt to get deals with travel stores and gift shops where people would be able to spend these 'travel coins'.  A website could be set where people could trade coins in for travel related goods and gift coupons.

People could set up additional faucets to encourage traffic to their business.  They would get listed in the directory of faucets, which would use a map service like google maps to show faucets in your area. 

The coin would be POS.  The faucets would be the primary form of initial distribution.  The coin would have a decent staking rate though to give it value.

The coins would be rare at first but slowly start trickling in as people visited sites.

Anyone want to help me brainstorm?

Jeepers, you're ambitious. Do you have experience in the travel industry? Some connections there too?

If I wanted to start a "Dollar Store Coin," the first part of my plan would be to raise enough bank to buy a bricks-and-mortar dollar store and figure out how to run it. Oh yes, and network with my fellow small retailers in that industry. Only once I have a feel for what would work in a B&M store, and made some of my peers chums, would I put together the alt.

So, my 'umble suggestion to you is: start off by buying a travel agency and running it for a while.

[poornamelessme]

It is sort of an interesting idea, although I am not so sure implementation would be quite that easy.

I both agree and disagree when people say bitcoin could be used for something like this. Yep, travel shops could use btc. But the real value in this coin may not primarily even be from the ability to use it as a currency. It could have value as a form of advertising.

Shopowners/travel spots might agree to accept a travel coin alt, simply because the faucet increases traffic to their store. These same shopowners would be less likely to accept btc, as the OP can't set up freebie btc faucets across the world. So yes, btc could be used, but it offers no advantages to the shop owner, nor really to the consumer, in this case.

This travel coin then could be looked upon as sort of a coupon. So it does make some sense and in theory it could work.

But unless the OP has business connections already, I am not sure how easy it would be to set something like this up. Maybe start by contacting some travel agencies or travel-related websites, and see if you can get any interested.

[poornamelessme]

That's a very nice idea for a coin. Could really take off.

Regarding faucets, how would they work?
My first thought was that one could get coins at specific GPS co-ordinates, but I wonder if that is fake-proof?

I wondered that too. IP faucets are hardly fakeproof, but I don't know if they can be made to rely on GPS coordinates ... and be entirely accurate. If the faucets are too leaky, the idea won't work.

[YarkoL]

Maybe the faucets could be done with QR codes. A tourist visits the statue of Liberty. There is a stand with QR code on it. She scans the QR code and the network verifies the GPS coordinates. She gets some coins and buys a souvenir from a shop nearby.

There would have to be a lot of talking to do with travel agencies, municipal authorities and merchants to get this sort of thing rolling, but I think it would create quite a buzz if it were to take off.

[Land Marks]

I agree that working with travel related stores and gift shops is ambitious for this stage.  That is just a dream for the future of the coin.

Also QR code based faucets would be too hard to carry out at first.

Right now I have the capacity to make Google and Bing related map applications, and work with the GPS on Android phones.

(I have been working a game that encouraged people to get out of the house that used the GPS capabilities.  It was a resource gathering and crafting game.  It generated a game world overlapping ours, using map images and computer vision techniques so that if you are in a forest in the real world you would be in a forest in the game world.)

So for faucets connected to real world locations I would be using the GPS capabilities of the phone.

This way I can put a faucet in every town and city,and at every landmark.  People could also host their own faucets. A person can only get paid out every X hours or days, but they might be able to visit several faucets within a city. 

People could plan entire trips based around visiting faucets.

Someone brought up the name 'traveler coin' and I like it.

It would be a POS coin with the primary mode of distribution being these real-world connected faucets.

[Nxtblg]

I agree that working with travel related stores and gift shops is ambitious for this stage.  That is just a dream for the future of the coin.

Also QR code based faucets would be too hard to carry out at first.

Right now I have the capacity to make Google and Bing related map applications, and work with the GPS on Android phones.

(I have been working a game that encouraged people to get out of the house that used the GPS capabilities.  It was a resource gathering and crafting game.  It generated a game world overlapping ours, using map images and computer vision techniques so that if you are in a forest in the real world you would be in a forest in the game world.)

So for faucets connected to real world locations I would be using the GPS capabilities of the phone.

This way I can put a faucet in every town and city,and at every landmark.  People could also host their own faucets. A person can only get paid out every X hours or days, but they might be able to visit several faucets within a city. 

People could plan entire trips based around visiting faucets.

Someone brought up the name 'traveler coin' and I like it.

It would be a POS coin with the primary mode of distribution being these real-world connected faucets.

Here's an idea to consider: position your coin against all the cybers by making sure it only gets into the hands of hobbyists: the kind of people who would shoulder the time, hassle and expense of setting up a faucet because your coin is fun!

To do this, you have to make it clear that there'll be no way to cash it out for BTC for a very long time. Something like, "This coin will not be listed on any exchanges for several months" in the announcement. That's so contrary to the norm here, word will fly all over the place!

Of course, that positioning means no miner would be interested at all in your coin so you'd have to make it PoS by (say) forking Community Coin.

[YarkoL]

What about coin aimed for geocaching community?

I know little about geocaching, but there must be some merchandise, so vendors could feed the faucets.

I'm still worried about faking the gps though..

[poornamelessme]

What about coin aimed for geocaching community (GeoCoin)?

I know little about geocaching, but there must be some merchandise, so vendors could feed the faucets.

I'm still worried about faking the gps though..

I think that idea may be a lot more feasible than a travel coin would be. Then the dev could get around the faucet idea entirely and just use physical coupons/paper wallets as part of the geocache. Arrange something with these guys as far as merchandise goes : http://shop.geocaching.com/default/

And you are set.

And besides faking gps, people could just fake ip. Even if the gps thing was fullproof, I am not sure what would stop someone from visiting a faucet site and then using multiple ip addresses and just draining the faucet completly. Or what would stop the more likely scenario ... people who live in or near that area from just draining the faucets, leaving nothing at all left for visitors.

[Katala]

you can use any existing coin for this

[poornamelessme]

you can use any existing coin for this

Yes, you could. Although I don't think the OP has thousands of btc (or other coins) lying about that he can just give away.

There is some value in advertising/marketing, so that is where a branded coin could be of value too.

[Raxe.io]

If you want to talk to us about development for this please contact us:

https://twitter.com/RaxeSoftware
contact@raxe.io
Skype: raxe.io (Raxe.io Support)

[YarkoL]

I think that idea may be a lot more feasible than a travel coin would be. Then the dev could get around the faucet idea entirely and just use physical coupons/paper wallets as part of the geocache. Arrange something with these guys as far as merchandise goes : http://shop.geocaching.com/default/

And you are set.

And besides faking gps, people could just fake ip. Even if the gps thing was fullproof, I am not sure what would stop someone from visiting a faucet site and then using multiple ip addresses and just draining the faucet completly. Or what would stop the more likely scenario ... people who live in or near that area from just draining the faucets, leaving nothing at all left for visitors.

One would have to make some sort of mobile client and maybe smartphone API offers some hard-to-fake unique identifier that could be sent over.
Land Marks, can you confirm this?

Paper wallets are also great, because you could get started right now with those.

[Land Marks]

People would go out and drive around in order to get free coins.  It would encourage people to get out.

Also a business could set up a faucet and people would be inclined to go to their location.

In this the coin actually has utility. 

[poornamelessme]

If it catches on at all, the advertising aspect could be its main utility.

Years ago I worked for a digital map company (softchart), who specialized in nautical maps. They eventually branched off into aeronautical maps, and one of their goals was to use advertising as a main source of revenue for the maps. It was smart to try, as businesses could list their companies right on the maps for all to see -- or I should say, whomever was flying to see.

They were a pretty badly run company, so no idea if they actually managed it, and it was around the time I left them. But it could certainly work for something like this.

But rather than rely on companies to set up their own faucets, you may wish to set them up for them. I wouldn't expect most places to even know how crypto works, so asking them to set up a faucet might be too daunting.

[Land Marks]

If it catches on at all, the advertising aspect could be its main utility.

Years ago I worked for a digital map company (softchart), who specialized in nautical maps. They eventually branched off into aeronautical maps, and one of their goals was to use advertising as a main source of revenue for the maps. It was smart to try, as businesses could list their companies right on the maps for all to see -- or I should say, whomever was flying to see.

They were a pretty badly run company, so no idea if they actually managed it, and it was around the time I left them. But it could certainly work for something like this.

But rather than rely on companies to set up their own faucets, you may wish to set them up for them. I wouldn't expect most places to even know how crypto works, so asking them to set up a faucet might be too daunting.

I was thinking about this.  

I want the ability to set up a faucet built into the map application using a simple form.  Someone could register and a wallet would be built for them and faucet set up.

If there was ever an IPO it would be fun to setup a faucet for each investor that they could place wherever they wanted and either have listed on the main map or kept private.

Ideally someone who wants to set up a faucet would be able to with ease and not have to worry about the faucet.  People who have their own faucets would get access to usage stats, which would be useful.