Say Hello to the Vertans

Vertcoin is a decentralized, open source coin that aims to be more fair than Bitcoin, more generous for individuals, and faster than Bitcoin.

I could be completely wrong (I am from time to time), but I think I may have stumbled across a massively promising Bitcoin challenger that was born only 28 days ago: Vertcoin, or “Vcoin” as some of the converted are already calling it. An International Business Times article earlier today described it as “the soaring cryptocurrency set to surpass Bitcoin.” I don’t know about all that, but going from $0 to a $10 million market cap in less than a month is cool. That’s an order of magnitude faster adoption than Bitcoin experienced in its youngest days.

So why would anyone be interested in such a strange little thing as Vertcoin?

It shares none of Bitcoin’s shady roots, for one thing. Whereas Bitcoin for years could only gain early adoption within the illicit realms of Silk Road and the dark web, newfound public awareness of crypto currency will benefit the second attempt at the idea: Vertcoin could be adopted swiftly by freelancers, entrepreneurs, and small business owners who already “get it” and don’t need to be sold on the idea of cryptocurrency itself. Such users just need to be sold on a better designed currency than Bitcoin, which is what has “Vertans” (as they refer to themselves on reddit) so nervously excited.

Vertcoin was born in broad daylight, not in the shadows.

Consider:

1. Unlike Bitcoin, we actually know who created Vertcoin — and it’s completely open source like Bitcoin, so anyone can see the underlying code and also contribute to the platform’s evolution. You can also read the creator’s founding note at Vertcoin.org, explaining how Vertcoin sidesteps challenges Bitcoin and Litecoin are already experiencing.

2. Furthermore, being clear of the lingering Silk Road taint is to Vertcoin’s tremendous benefit. How many of the Bitcoins in casual speculators’ accounts today have a sordid past that might trigger unwanted scrutiny? How many of the transactions in Bitcoin’s ailing blockchain are leftovers from the Silk Road era?

3. Vertcoin’s clean schoolboy image may mean it gets an easier treatment from governments and regulators, or no treatment at all. And it could be the currency more conservative institutional users adopt to transfer value frictionlessly without the risk of getting tangled up with “bad coins.”

4. Under the hood, Vertcoin is ASIC-resistant. Many believe this will be an absolute requirement of any successful future online currency. Whereas Bitcoin was designed to work in a world Satoshi Nakamoto envisioned when he developed it, Vertcoin works in the world that we’ve actually seen unfold since — where ASIC miners gain ‘unfair’ advantage and can disrupt the decentralized aspect. A decentralized currency that doesn’t remain decentralized is no good.

Put simply, if Bitcoin drives the central bank model out of business and the world becomes reliant on one or two concentrated mining companies for all of Bitcoin’s transaction processing and new coin creation—a situation where we have to “trust” that the miners won’t do something bad or collude with each other—well, that’s not good. In fact, it’s pretty much the situation we’re in now with the establishment financial system: too much static power in the hands of too few.

5. ASIC-resistance also means mining this coin is potentially still enticing even for individuals with personal computers, rather than server farms. This feature is unintentionally leading to a more equitable initial distribution of the currency worldwide. As one crypto fan enthusiastically explained in a Reddit post recently, “Vertcoin started by trying to fix the ASIC mining flaw and on the side, somewhat accidentally, happens to fix the problem of partly unfair initial distribution.”

6. Litecoin was supposed to fix the ASIC vulnerabilities of Bitcoin. The fact that it really hasn’t done so is evidence, in my mind at least, that Litecoin’s $537 million market cap is up for grabs. If those users can find something that runs on a more sophisticated algorithm, and is not pre-mined, they will take it. That’s the thing worth remembering here: despite the “hype,” Vertcoin is not a Bitcoin destroyer (not for a couple years, at least). But it is, unequivocally, a shot across the bow at the aging ideas behind Litecoin and other 1.0 Scrypt-based currencies. Litecoin was an attempt at the right answer to Bitcoin’s blind spots in 2011, not 2014. A lot has changed in crypto since 2011.

7. A move for Bitcoin users over to Vertcoin would be frictionless and swift — cryptocurrency to cryptocurrency exchanges such as BTC-E, CoinedUp and Cryptsy already make it as simple as a click for anyone who holds Bitcoin (or, more likely, Litecoin) to transition some of their holdings into Vertcoin, still at a relative savings versus their initial buy-in cost with Bitcoin… if Vertcoin’s growth continues.

8. The early inroads Bitcoin payment processors such as Coinbase and BitPay have made could easily be tailored to Vertcoin-denominated services with relative ease.

9. Faster architecture: full transaction blocks are consolidated every 2.5 minutes (versus 10 minutes over Bitcoin). I think many in the community are coming to realize 10 minutes per block was too long a window.

source: https://medium.com/cryptocurrencies-to-stay-or-not-to-stay/225f5a2d4f93

Say Hello to the Vertans