Month: November 2018

Posted on

PotCoin

What is PotCoin?

PotCoin was the first ever digital currency that enabled transactions within the legalized cannabis industry.

PotCoin is a community-based peer-to-peer network, offering low cost and instant transactions and runs on proof of stake (PoS) algorithm.

PotCoin is an ultra-secure cryptocurrency. It offers both a banking solution and a networking solution for users. The idea behind PotCoin is to process legally purchased marijuana. While there is a growing attention towards marijuana, the industry has suffered from a lack of support from the traditional financial institutions.

At the federal level, marijuana has not been legalized. Therefore, banks find it difficult to support such businesses, creating an opportunity for cryptocurrency.

Trading in a virtual currency over a decentralized network is one of the promises that PotCoin has made the users, which is quite appealing. Besides, users are also able to accept and send money to any other country in the world.

On the blockchain, there is also the benefit of a lower fraud risk given how blockchain technology has been designed.

The marijuana industry is estimated to be worth $6.7 billion. Given the legislative upheavals that are going on at the moment, it is expected to be worth more than $50 billion by the year 2030.

If it brings its marijuana business online, the state of California alone can add another $7 billion to the current market value. These are impressive statistics that make investing in PotCoin a brilliant idea.

What is the problem that PotCoin Solves?

The blockchain has given rise to a lot of young and speculative markets. There is a lot of growing concern as to whether all industries really do need a cryptocurrency or a blockchain project.

This is the speculation that most people had with the cannabis industry.

While skepticism, healthy or not, was going to be one of the concerns that PotCoin needed to ride out, it has done so well. Contrary to what most people tend to believe, there is actually a strong case behind the need for projects like PotCoin.

The marijuana industry is growing fast, especially with increasing acceptance and legislation supporting the growth and commercialization of the plant.

Marijuana is getting accepted in more jurisdictions by the day, and this opens up markets for projects like PotCoin. With the current advancements in the marijuana industry in terms of legislation, there is a need for transparency, standards, quality checks, maintenance, and payment platforms. This, therefore, makes a strong case for the presence of PotCoin.

The cannabis industry has for a long time been shrouded in secrecy and underhand dealings, and by legalizing it, it might be difficult for a lot of people who had gotten accustomed to making the shift into mainstream commercialization. This opens up an avenue for getting cannabis on the blockchain.

How does PotCoin Solve the problem?     

The cannabis industry and blockchain are two unlikely bedfellows, complementing one another just at the right time in their development stage. These two are both emerging industries. They are just getting accepted and taking shape.

One of the biggest target markets for either of these is millennials. Both cannabis and blockchain technology are items that millennials are excited about.

They both share a good promise for the future but are not the kind of topics someone would be willing to discuss in a family meeting, especially with hardline traditionalists.

Cryptocurrency and blockchain technology have been touted to be the solution to most of the technology problems that we are facing at the moment. For an infant industry like the cannabis industry right now, there are two key issues that projects like PotCoin are out to solve:

  • Payments
  • Supply chain

Payments

Marijuana has been legalized in so many states in the US. Other countries are following suit, and people are increasingly tabling discussions in their respective legislature houses about the legal status of cannabis, and the reasons why it should be legalized.

There are many reasons why this discussion is being held, whether for the medicinal use, recreation or for use in products with a low content of THC.

With the status change, there is, however, the challenge that most of the outlets that are selling cannabis products do not have the systems in place to handle checks, debit or credit cards, or any other form of conventional payment.

This particularly applies to the stores that are dealing in recreational cannabis.

Banks have made it increasingly difficult over the years for business owners to create and run accounts for marijuana businesses. Therefore, a lot of such entrepreneurs have to operate on a cash basis, and this has so many risks.

There are more than 11,000 banks in the US alone, and only 300 of these are willing to support the marijuana industry at the moment.

There is always the option of online payment platforms like PayPal, but these also have the tendency of suspending an account should they suspect money laundering or any other breach of their terms of trade, whether they can prove it or not, for fear of reprimand or backlash from the federal government.

Therefore, as it stands, the banking world does not have systems in place for cannabis growers and entrepreneurs. Most of the people who engage in cannabis are unbanked.

PotCoin offers a trustless solution for businesses whose primary objective is trading in cannabis. Other than that, by using cryptocurrency, this will also become a way of introducing cashless purchase options for stores that do not already have one.

Supply Chain

Other than solving the payments problem, PotCoin and the blockchain can also help to make the supply chain smoother than it currently is. As has been mentioned before, there is a lot of secrecy in the cannabis industry, and as a result, transparency might be a mirage.

However, by introducing PotCoin, the blockchain project brings a level of transparency to managing the supply chain, which means every step of the distribution process could fall under federal tolerance, and state regulation having met compliance standards.

In 2012, soon after recreational marijuana was legalized in Colorado and Washington, the US Department of Justice presented a memorandum, tolerating state-regulated cannabis industries, only if they met certain guidelines, including prohibiting the sale of legal marijuana to states where marijuana was illegal.

By connecting all the players in the supply chain through the blockchain (sellers shippers and growers) it becomes easy to do away with the risk of illegal trade of marijuana where it is not legalized.

The players simply need to enter the relevant details of their products and shipments on the blockchain. This also helps to determine how much supply is in stock and how much has been sold.

It becomes easier to monitor inventory, audit and identifies abnormalities in the supply chain through a simple scan.

This also allows for tracking and verification of the marijuana ecosystem. This is the level of transparency that PotCoin is bringing to the marijuana industry.

What makes PotCoin better than the competitors?         

There are not so many blockchain projects that are dealing with marijuana. However, given the nature of the industry, as it is, the following are some of the reasons why PotCoin is ahead of the pack:

First entrant

One of the advantages that PotCoin has over the competition is the fact that they enjoy the first entrant position.

By taking the risk and venturing into the market before everyone else, PotCoin endeared themselves to the users, making it easier for them to associate with it.

PotCoin was the first blockchain project in the cannabis industry and has since remained a leader in that realm. This also allows them the position and benefit of exploiting developments and technology available in the blockchain industry.

Marketing

Another area where PotCoin has been able to outshine the competition is in marketing. They have an able marketing team that has fostered partnerships with influencers around the globe.

Case in point, when they supercharged the price of the currency by having former NBA star Dennis Rodman in a PotCoin emblazoned shirt on a trip to Singapore at the same time when the world was witnessing the historic North Korea-USA meeting.

Soon after Rodman appeared in the PotCoin shirt in Singapore, the cryptocurrency started trending online.

What is even more interesting is the fact that in Singapore, marijuana is illegal. In fact, smoking marijuana in Singapore attracts the highest possible punishment, the death penalty.

Middlemen

Against the traditional marijuana market, PotCoin has offered a solution to many problems that have plagued the industry.

There are so many illegal activities that are associated with the marijuana market, and most of these can be traced back to middlemen in the process. Middlemen make business difficult for growers and buyers and anyone else in the process.

Through PotCoin, the entire production process is streamlined, meaning that at all times, there will be transparency.

Development Team

PotCoin is backed by a solid team of developers. Having a talented team of individuals backing any project is the perfect recipe for success, as has been the case with many projects over the years.

PotCoin has an intuitive cryptocurrency website, that is user-friendly, slick and comprehensive.

Anyone who wishes to invest in the project, learn about it or interact with the PotCoin community can simply access the website and find out as much information as they need.

From experts in sales, social media coordination, marketing, and developers to create a toll-free number, PotCoin has gone out of its way to encourage confidence in the project from users all over the world.

Instant transfer

One of the benefits of using PotCoin is that it allows users the ability to complete transactions instantly. This takes away the challenge of unnecessary delays that are often associated with traditional banking systems where applicable.

Maps

The development team at PotCoin have been working on making it easier for users to access PotCoin dealers. In this regard, they have created a map online for all businesses which accept PotCoin as a form of payment. This way, you can easily check the businesses in your area and find out which one you can trade with.

How can PotCoin be categorized?

PotCoin is a digital currency that is specifically designed to address the financial management challenges that are inherent to the marijuana industry at the moment.

While initially launched as a Litecoin-QT fork, PotCoin has since advanced and among other improvements, it is running a Proof of Stake Velocity algorithm.

What’s PotCoin’s vision on Security?

The PotCoin project is built with security being one of the top priorities, hence delivering a blockchain platform that is packed with innovative features. At least 98% of the coins are stored offline, which means they are safe from loss or theft.

Examples of PotCoin use cases/applications

Using PotCoin is very easy. It has been designed for two types of users, consumers, and businesses.

Consumers

First, you have to select a wallet that you prefer. While there are other wallets available from where you can manage and use PotCoin, PotWallet is one of the best available, given that it is specifically designed with PotCoin in mind.

Creating a wallet is free, and you should have this done in a matter of minutes. You can also research and find out more about the wallets that are supported by PotCoin.

The good thing is that most of the wallets you will come across are built to run on most, if not all of the operating systems available, from Linux to Mac OS.

With a wallet, you can then visit any exchange where PotCoin is available and purchase some, or conduct your business online. Other things that you can also perform with PotCoin include staking, spending or keeping PotCoin. Since PotCoin uses a Proof of Stake algorithm, by simply keeping the coins in your wallet, you stand a chance of earning more money.

Businesses

Legal marijuana businesses can now accept PotCoin as a form of payment. This is done through the PotCoin gateway. This gateway is specifically designed to make work easier for any entrepreneur that trades in legal marijuana. However, regardless of the industry, the merchant operates in, they can still accept PotCoin as a form of payment.

Charity Foundations

PotCoin is largely a community-centric blockchain platform. There are several projects that are run which give back to society. Through the PotCoin Donation Fund, a number of causes have been sponsored, including The Cannabis Health Service, The Snoop Youth Football League, and the FRAXA Research Foundation.

Resources

https://www.potcoin.com/news

https://steemit.com/@potcoin

https://www.potcoin.com

https://potwallet.com/faq

https://www.potcoin.com/images/blog-images/PotCoin-4.20.2016.pdf

https://coincheckup.com/coins/PotCoin

 

Posted on

ION

What Is ION?

ION coin is an open source and decentralized cryptocurrency of the Ionomy gaming ecosystem. The coin was launched in 2016 by Ionomy Studios that wanted to create a form of incentive for gamers and developers.

When Satoshi Nakamoto released the Bitcoin Core, his target was largely the financial sector. But he had opened the gates of the blockchain technology that would become the later defining benchmark for many industries. In the gaming industry, Ionomy, a gaming ecosystem joined the niche and released its native coin referred to as ION.

  • What is ION coin?

The most notable of the Ionomy founding and development team members include Richard Nelson (CEO), Adam Matlack (chief strategist), Colin Adley, Vadim Akhundov, Audrey Torbenko, and Joddan Smith. The motto of Ionomy is “The Business of Fun”.

In line with the motto, the developer team has been working on new games and seeking new ways to make the gaming community enjoy their products. Some of the games on the ION platform include To The Moon, Crypto Gravity, Ionix, and UrbanWords.

  • ION price history in the market

After Ionomy Labs was launched in April 2016, the native coin was released later in August 2016 through an ICO. The initial coin supply was 10.9 million ION. 3.4 million of the coins went to participants as incentives, five million was released through its ICO and 2.5 million as bounties.

The ION coins entered the markets early in June 2016 at a price of $0.22 and traded within a range of $0.2 and $0.3 until March 2017. From April 2017, the price grew steadily reaching a peak of $7.2 in January 2018. This was the highest mark in ION history.

However, the bullish trend changed immediately after hitting the peak. The price dropped steadily to reach a low of $1.8 on 6th February 2018 before rising steadily again to $4.88 by 2nd March 2018. The price took another downward trend culminating to $0.5 by the close of October 2018.

As the list of supported games keeps growing and more people realize the benefits of going crypto, the ION community anticipates that the value will continue on an upward trend.

What is the problem that ION Solves?

If you take a look at the blockchain niche, one might be tested to believe that everything is okay. For example, the number of coins that had entered the market by mid-2018 was more than 1600. But a closer look at the niche reveals that it is dogged with many issues. Here are some of the problems that ION solves.

  • Centralization of mining

The discovery of decentralized technology gave people hope that the high cost of sending value and lack of privacy especially in the financial sector had finally come to an end. The pioneer cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Litecoin are decentralized networks that rely on nodes spread on their system to confirm transactions for a reward in a process referred to as mining.

However, the desire to mine more coin resulted in development of highly advanced ASIC mining equipment that generates a lot of computing power. The main issue with the equipment is that they are very expensive. This means that only the wealthy in the community can afford them.

As individuals, mining companies, and pools capitalize on mining, it implies that there is a risk of these networks getting controlled only by a few parties is very high. It also exposes them to threats of 51% attack.

  • Poor uptake of cryptocurrencies in the market

While the concept of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology is no doubt gaining traction in the market today, the uptake is still very low. At this point, many people ask the question; “How can the argument that uptake of cryptos is slow yet most coins are bought within seconds when ICOs are announced?”

Every time that a new coin is released or a new network is discovered, the people who rush to acquire the tokens are those who want to take advantage of price growth. Their target is not using the coins to make a direct purchase in the market. Rather, they aim at making very high profits when the price goes up.

The slow uptake of the cryptocurrencies is also caused by poor penetration into other networks. For example, most networks target the financial sector while some niches such as gaming and social media remain unattended. ION was created as the main coin for the gaming niche.

  • Poor scalability

One of the main goals of decentralizing crypto networks was to make transactions faster. Because there are no centralized organizations such as banks that are involved, the argument was that transactions would be faster.

However, the architecture of the networks requires that nodes have to sign transactions and store whole blocks resulting in limited scalability. For example, Bitcoin can only handle 7 transactions every second while the more advanced Bitcoin Cash can manage 60.

When the above numbers are compared to top financial services such as Visa that can handle up to 20,000 transactions per second, it implies that the crypto networks are indeed lagging. This is the gap that ION came to close.

How Does ION Solve The Problem?

Ionomy came into the cryptocurrency market in 2016, about seven years after the introduction of the first cryptocurrency.  With its founders having watched the industry unfold and get stuck in the above problems, their commitment to looking for solutions saw them adopt the following strategies.

  • Static-proof of work

To address the problem of centralized mining and limited uptake of cryptocurrencies, ION development team opted for a new consensus algorithm referred to as static proof of work. The common proof of work consensus model used in coins such as Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash requires a lot of hashing power and energy to mine new coins.

The preferred alternative to proof of work (PoW) is proof of stake (PoS). However, even proof of stake (PoS) consensus that relies on coin accumulation as opposed to computational power is still subject to abuse because people who can afford more coins get preference in mining.

ION uses static proof of stake consensus which rewards users not just by staking the coins, but also by keeping them active. The users who are engaged in contributing to a robust and secure network get 50% of the block reward.

Note that the coins’ weight still matters. Therefore, even those who simply buy and hold without being active are still given a portion of the mining rewards.

  • Masternode network

One of the main causes of poor scalability is the requirement that nodes must come to a consensus before transactions can be confirmed. ION network uses a system of masternodes where only a few trusted nodes are used to find new blocks.

The masternodes in the ION network also facilitate private transactions via decentralized mixing of services that take advantage of the currency fungibility. The masternodes add complexity to transactions by breaking them into multiple private transactions to completely obfuscate the identity of users.

Because the masternodes are fewer, they are able to communicate to each other and confirm transactions faster compared to Bitcoin or other pioneer coins. The masternodes get 50% of the block reward as an incentive for their work.

  • The Ionomy PWR-GRD

To make the ION coin and Ionomy attractive to more people, game developers are provided with an opportunity to develop and sell their games online. PWR-GRD is a complete suite for helping developers to facilitate games development, crowdfunding, cash rewards, and integrated advertising.

What makes ION better than it’s competitors?

When the ION founders created the cryptocurrency network, they knew that the field had many competitors. But ION has been performing relatively well in the market and sparking speculation that it could be the next big thing. Here are the main things that make ION better than competitors.

  • ION is completely anonymous. As more cryptocurrencies grapple with the problem of anonymity, ION has managed to address it comprehensively through use of masternodes. This implies that ION platform users can now enjoy sending funds or running transactions without worrying that other people can access their transactions. They are also free from third party seizures.
  • The ION network targets a niche that is less explored. Unlike most cryptocurrencies such as Litecoin and Ripple that target the financial sector, ION ventured into the gaming niche.
  • The ION platform has helped to effectively address the issue of scalability. Because the masternodes required for confirming transactions are fewer, they easily communicate with each other and complete the transactions faster.
  • The ION network is completely decentralized. When the ION founders released the cryptocurrency’s core code, they ceased being the owners. Instead, the platform is owned by the nodes that join the platform either to use the coins or stake them. This means that when you use the network, you also own it. In the cases of an issue that needs voting, you could be called to vote.
  • As a peer2peer platform, the ION network allows users to send value or make payment without relying on a centralized entity such as banks or credit card companies. This helps to make the transactions faster and cheaper. It also allows users to make transactions at any time of the day or night.

How can ION be categorized?

ION is a next-generation cryptocurrency designed to help extend the benefits of blockchain niche to more niches in the industry. The commitment of the development team to drift from the commonly used proof of stake and proof of work to the more effective static proof of stake protocol implies that the industry still has the potential to grow.

However, it is the support for the gaming community especially allowing the developers to easily craft new games that are likely to edge the cryptocurrency and its platform further up in the industry. This makes it a reliable investment with good potential for growth because its native coins can also be used as a standard cryptocurrency in the market.

What’s ION’s vision on Security?

The success of any cryptocurrency in the market is dependent on the ability to protect user investment and the network from attacks. The main vision of ION on security is to become the most secure and reliable cryptocurrency for the gaming community. Here are some of the efforts used by the platform to deliver this security.

  • Advanced encryption.
  • Complete decentralization that guarantees even distribution of coins to prevent the danger of 51% attack.
  • The platform uses static proof of stake consensus protocol that incentivizes masternodes to protect the network.
  • The development team works progressively to identify vulnerabilities and fix them immediately to avoid attackers using them.

Examples of ION’s use cases/applications

Though the main target of developing ION crypto was the gaming niche, the development team has worked hard to extend its applications. Here are some of these use cases:

  • Use ION coin to pay for transaction fee on the Ionomy platform. When you decide to send value on the Ionomy platform, the charges are paid in the native coins. Note that the charges go to promoting the development of the blockchain as opposed to building profitability.
  • The native ION tokens can be used to pay for products and services in the market. As more traders come out to accept the native coins, it is possible to make direct payment for goods and services in stores that accept them. You only need to identify a store that accepts ION coins to make a direct payment.
  • Trade ION coins in the market. Like other cryptocurrencies, ION can be traded in the markets. Once you identify a market that lists the coin such as Bittrex and Upbit, you simply need to join and pair the coin with others such as Ripple to start trading.
  • ION coins for paying games in the Ionomy ecosystem. If you want to access and play the games on the Ionomy ecosystem, the charges are paid using ION coin.
  • Use ION coin as an investment. Instead of storing your funds in a bank where interest is very low, you could consider buying the native ION coins and staking them. This means that you will be getting part of the block rewards for being on the network.

https://ionomy.com/en/whitepaper

https://ionomy.com/en/pwr-grid

https://ionomy.com/en/pwr-grid

https://coincheckup.com/coins/ion/charts

https://coincheckup.com/coins/ion/purpose

https://coincheckup.com/coins/ion/news

https://coincheckup.com/coins/ion/events