What is Infinitecoin
After Bitcoin was released in 2009, the finance and cryptographic experts saw a new way of looking at payments by crafting new blockchain.
Most of them were aimed at identifying shortcomings in the blockchain niche and addressing them. One such platform is Infinitecoin.
Infinitecoin is a decentralized and peer2peer cryptocurrency forked from Litecoin in 2013 with the primary goal of facilitating stress-free online payments.
The target of the founders was to come-up with a network that allows users to effect payment without involving third parties such as banks and credit card companies.
One notable thing about Infinitecoin is the high supply of its coins. Unlike Bitcoin and Litecoin that have 21 million and 84 million coins that will ever exist in their networks, Infinitecoin has 90.6 billion native coins abbreviated as IFC.
The large supply is aimed at promoting even distribution across the globe.
Around August 2013, Infinitecoin was trading at a price of $0.000006 and remained within the same low range before gaining marginally to hit $0.00011 in January 2014.
The price remained within the range of $0.000001 and $0.000026 until May 2017 when it started rising marginally. On January 10th 2018, the price shot to $0.000342, about 5600% growth from the price recorded in August 2013.
Note that the price gain of Infinitecoin did not last.
By January 19th2018, the price had dropped to $0.000236. It continued with the downward trend and stabilized at around $0.000033 starting from July 2018 through to the close of the third quarter of 2018.
What is the problem that Infinitecoin solves?
Infinitecoin was created at a time when the pioneer blockchain’s popularity was approaching pitch high. Many cryptographers were focusing on crafting their networks with the expectation to improve what the existing platforms had achieved. Here are the main problems that Infinitecoin targets to address:
- Centralized mining through use of ASIC equipment
When Bitcoin was created, it was possible to mine BTC using a standard desktop. However, things changed when new mining equipment such as Application specific integrated circuits (ASICs) were created and released into the market.
These are specialized equipment created to generate high mining power to optimize profitability. Though this might sound appealing because one would make a lot of profits, the associated damage is too much. Because of the high cost of the mining equipment, it implies that they can only be owned by the well to do in the society.
This raises the risk of the coins falling into the hands of only a few people and danger of 51% attack. With the coins being funnelled to only a few individuals, it implies that many are those who will be left out. This compromises the original objective that the founding portrait of blockchain technology had of a completely decentralized system.
- The high cost of sending funds across the globe
If you take a closer look at the conventional banking system, one notable thing is the high cost of sending value, especially at the international level. Because they are designed as profit-seeking organizations, banks have very high transaction charges to optimize returns.
But it is not just the high cost of sending funds that plagues the conventional financial system. The transactions also take very long. In some cases, users are forced to wait for several days before both parties (sender and recipient) are verified and transaction completed.
- Lack of privacy in the financial system
Every time that you make payment or send value using conventional banking systems such as banks or credit cards, the details are known to a wide array of people. There is not privacy. For example, the cashiers who serve you over the counter and banking management can easily peruse your transaction, personal details, and history.
Other people who have access to your account into are the political administrators who are responsible for management of the economy. The details can even be accessed if a court issues such orders. Infinitecoin system was created to help people operate in total privacy.
How does Infinitecoin address the problem?
To address the different problems that faced the blockchain niche, Infinitecoin developers opted to improve on the existing technologies. They were especially focused on ensuring that the platform remained fully decentralized. Here are some of the strategies adopted to address the problem.
- Scrypt Proof-of-Work
To address the problem of centralized mining and the danger of 51% attack, Infinitecoin team had to look for a mining algorithm that was resistant to the ASIC mining systems. They opted for the Scrypt proof of work mining system. What exactly is scrypt and how does it work?
Scrypt denotes the hashcash proof of work consensus algorithm that uses scrypt as the primary hash function. This function is memory intensive designed to lower the efficiency of logic circuits such as ASIC mining systems. The focus was to make it completely unviable to use ASICs to mine Infinitecoin.
While scrypt was highly effective at the beginning, the efficiency in preventing the use of ASICs on Infinitecoin was watered down after scrypt ASICs mining equipment was discovered. This means that people with advanced scrypt ASICs equipment still have the advantage of mining more IFC.
- The Infinitecoin decentralized blockchain
The centralized system used in the conventional banking system implies that the data and funds can easily get lost or compromised in the event of an attack by viruses, malicious staff or even physical damage such as fire. To address this, the Infinitecoin operates as a decentralized network.
The system comprises of nodes spread in the Infinitecoin system to ensure that there is no single point of failure. All the data is stored in different nodes so that even if one node opts out or is not available, the integrity of the data and system cannot be compromised.
For transactions to be completed, the nodes spread in the Infinitecoin network have to come to a consensus. This involves checking that the sender has the funds he wants to send and there is no double spending. Then, all the details are captured in the next block and added to the Infinitecoin’s public ledger/ blockchain.
- Infinitecoin is fully owned and controlled by users
The people who use the platform own it. Unlike the banking system where users only feel passive about the platform, people own and control all components in the Infinitecoin system. When a person joins the platform as a node, he is part of the main decision making organ. This implies that he will be called to vote on major changes taking place on the network such as the introduction of new features.
- The difficulty of Infinitecoin blockchain generation adjusts with every block
For the five years that Bitcoin blockchain had existed when Infinitecoin was launched in 2013, the community had learnt how to go about optimizing the mining difficulties. Because the mining difficulty adjusts every 14 days in the Bitcoin network, miners who get it right early in the two weeks period can easily take advantage of their answers to mine the remaining block with ease.
To avoid this danger, the Infinitecoin system’s mining algorithm adjusts the mining difficulty after every block. Therefore, even if you have just created a block on the Infinitecoin, that alone does not give any added advantage over others. To mine every new block, all miners have equal opportunity.
Why is Infinitecoin better than its competitors?
The design of Infinitecoin was targeted at surpassing what the competitors were offering. The main platform’s benefits are linked to its decentralized outlook. Here are some of the things that make Infinitecoin better than competitors.
- The Infinitecoin operates as a completely decentralized platform. The decentralization helps to bypass profit-seeking organizations such as banks and credit card companies. Sending value using the Infinitecoin platform is, therefore, cheaper and faster.
- The Infinitecoin system is considered one of the most stable systems because it has been in operation for more than four years starting from 2013. This implies that most of its features and structures have been tested and proven to work. It is, therefore, considered better than newer systems.
- Though the price of Infinitecoin has been on a downward trend starting from January 2018, it is still far higher than the starting point. The community is optimistic that the value of the coin will ultimately go up and deliver a high return on investment.
- The platform allows users to use the network anonymously. When people join the Infinitecoin platform, their details and transaction info are encrypted so that no one can easily pull out the info. Even the miners who help to confirm these transactions can only follow back to the public address as opposed to the private keys.
- Though a large number of coins for the Infinitecoin platform was created to ensure that more people can access and use them, the approach has been contested. One part of the Infinitecoin community has blamed the large supply for the poor performance in the market.
How can Infinitecoin be categorized?
Infinitecoin is a fully decentralized platform designed to help make sending value cheap, fast, and reliable. The platform was created to help take the decentralization to the next level by ensuring that everybody has a chance to own and use digital coins through decentralized mining and a large supply of coins.
What is Infinitecoin’s vision for security?
The Infinitecoin’s vision for security is ensuring that people joining the platform can send their funds across the globe without worrying of attacks. When the Infinitecoin platform was launched, cases of attack on crypto networks had become very common.
The most notable of these security breaches was the MT. Gox attack that resulted to loss of more than 850,000 Bitcoins. To guarantee users of optimal security, here are the main strategies and features used at Infinitecoin network.
- The platform uses checkpointing to prevent the system from 51% attacks.
- Advanced cryptography helps to keep user information free from third parties.
- The platform is progressively reviewed by the development team to identify the vulnerabilities and seal them before they become major issues.
- The platform is fully decentralized to ensure that there is no single point of failure. The nodes use the scrypt algorithm to keep the system and information secure.
Examples of Infinitecoin’s use cases/ applications.
As a platform designed for facilitating peer2peer payments, Infinitecoin’s use cases in the society include:
- The Infinitecoin’s network is used for sending value on a peer2peer basis. Whether you want to send value across the globe or in the country, the transactions will be easy to run no matter the time of the day or night.
- Use Infinitecoin to pay for goods and services. As more traders and communities start appreciating the role of cryptocurrencies, it is becoming possible to make direct payment for goods and services. You only need to identify the stores that accept Infinitecoin for direct payment.
- Infinitecoin can be used to pay for transaction charges in the native network. This is the fee used to meet the cost of developers of the network. The coin can also be used to pay the trading fee in the exchanges that list Infinitecoin.
- If you live in jurisdictions that allow people to pay for government services with cryptocurrencies, it might be possible to use Infinitecoin. One example of such jurisdiction is Singapore. Unlike other countries that have been considering cryptocurrencies as threats, Singapore administration insists that they are accepted forms of sending value.
- Use Infinitecoin as a saving and investment platform. If you want to invest or save funds in the blockchain niche, it is advisable to select the high potential ones such as Infinitecoin. Its growth of more than 5600% towards the end of 2017 and early 2018 is considered an indicator of the platform’s potential. Therefore, if you want to invest and see the returns grow with a huge margin, this could be a great opportunity.
- The Infinitecoin coin can be used to trade in the exchanges/ crypto markets. The exchanges require users to create accounts and pair Infinitecoin with other coins such as Ripple and Ethereum to start trading. Remember to follow trading best practices such as picking secure platforms and always moving the coins to a cold store after trading.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=549432.0
https://coincheckup.com/coins/infinitecoin
https://www.quora.com/What-are-Infinitecoins
https://www.investopedia.com/news/wheres-missing-mt-gox-bitcoin-now-worth-2-billion/