Beginner’s Guide to Vertcoin

Vertcoin markets itself as being “the people’s coin,” as it is a decentralized currency that the users own. To go into more detail, this is a digital currency that you can send over the internet like other cryptocurrencies. Vertcoin, or VTC, aims to focus on the original traits of cryptocurrency, giving users a financial system they own. There are no large banks, manufacturers, or mining hardware that control Vertcoin. Instead, anyone can mine it to make a profit.

Vertcoin was developed by community members who put in time as volunteers. To ensure its fair distribution, there is no ICO, premine, or airdrop. Instead, the entire project runs on donations and volunteer efforts. Vertcoin is a finite resource, like gold is, and lets investors protect their money while enjoying minimal transaction fees. Vertcoin has software that can be used on Windows, Macs, or Linux as a multiplatform digital currency.

Who Is Behind Vertcoin?

Every developer or other member of the Vertcoin team is a volunteer. Vertcoin encourages anyone with an interest to donate to the project and future projects or to volunteer their time. The volunteers are all highly trusted and work around the clock to ensure an open-source environment. The team is passionate about programming, cryptography, building, mining, branding, and more.

The lead developers behind Vertcoin constantly strive for various advancements in technology related to the blockchain. The open-source community allows for group brainstorming and information sharing, as well as the implementation of advanced features. The focus has been and always will be on creating a strong relationship with the other developers who use the blockchain while learning and sharing with others.

At the moment, the lead developer is James Lovejoy, who has been programming since age 10. He is an undergraduate researcher at MIT DCI, where he works on enacting a decentralized monetary policy. Other developers have experience in various programming languages, work in fields like physics, and have worked in cryptocurrency for years, and some have even been in software engineering since 1998. Because Vertcoin is developed by volunteers, the backgrounds of the team vary greatly, but they all share a common interest.

Why Is Vertcoin Decentralized?

One of the main features of Vertcoin is that it is decentralized, and it was actually designed in a way that resists centralization. The algorithm behind Vertcoin helps stop developers from creating custom mining hardware which contains specialized chips known as ASICs . This ensures that each transaction will be validated by the network, which is widely distributed. This also prevents the pressure to sell that happens when a group of large mining pools flood the market at the same time with newly mined coins.

The developers behind Vertcoin work tirelessly to ensure that specialized mining equipment cannot be used to mine Vertcoin. They also put in the same level of effort to ensure that consumer-grade hardware is enough to mine. For you as a miner, this means that you can fairly compete with others, without worrying about unscrupulous manufacturers of hardware taking advantage of their ability to mine or not sending preordered equipment.

Vertcoin Wallets

Vertcoin offers wallets to download from the official website, there used to be a web wallet but it has been discontinued due to DDOS and other issues so for now you need to download a wallet to your computer or use a wallet on an exchange such as Bittrex – we only recommend you do this if you are purchasing VTC or exchanging them as you don’t hold the private keys to your wallet on an exchange.

The wallet is available to download for Windows, Mac and Linux.

How Do You Send or Receive Vertcoins?

Once you have a Vertcoin wallet, you are ready to send and receive Vertcoins. All you need is an address, which will start with a V and feature a total of 26 to 36 alphanumeric characters. The funds typically clear in less than five minutes. There is only a very small transaction fee that helps support the network upkeep. This is incredibly small, and transferring 100VTC will only lead to a fee of around 0.001VTC.

How to Buy Vertcoin

As a cryptocurrency, you can also buy or trade for Vertcoins. The simplest method is to pay for your Vertcoins using Bitcoins. There are numerous exchanges that include VTC. English markets include Yobit, Bleutrade, Bittrex, and Poloniex. Chinese markets include Jubi and 19800, and Europeans can use Litebit.

The easiest way to buy Vertcoin with fiat currency is to purchase Ethereum or Bitcoin, Coinbase is our recommend company to do so as you can buy with Credit Card, Debit Card or Bank Transfer. Then send this over to an exchange such as Bittrex to purchase your VTC, you can then withdraw this back to your vertcoin Wallet.

This process might seem a little convoluted at the moment, this process could well become easier in the future as the space matures and atomic-swaps become possible – granting you the ability to easily swap between Bitcoin, Litecoin and Vertcoin.

What Are the Specs of Vertcoin?

Vertcoin uses the Lyra2RE(v2) algorithm, and it has 84 million generated. The block time is 2.5 minutes with 50 coins rewarded per block. The subsidy will halve every 840,000 blocks, which is about every four years. There is no premine, and the difficulty retarget time is set to retarget with every block using Kimoto’s Gravity Well.

Segregated Witness was activated in May 2017, and the developers feel that this is the top choice for transaction malleability. SegWit increases the block size limit while letting the developers implement second-layer solutions to continue to improve Vertcoin.

Vertcoin also uses the lightning network for instant blockchain transactions, which are scalable. This should provide the ability to massively increase the network capacity by simply moving most transactions off the blockchain to process quickly. Part of the lightning network development is the Atomic Cross-Chain, a decentralized method of exchanging Vertcoins with others. This lets you seamlessly exchange Vertcoins with Bitcoins or Litecoins in your wallet.

The developers are also working on stealth addresses, which was previously available but had to be temporarily disabled for work. This is one of the most important privacy features, and it gives users “Stealth Addresses” that are displayed on the public ledger instead of more personal details.

How To Mine Vertcoin?

You can take advantage of proof-of-work mining. This is essentially using your system’s computing power as a way to validate the network transactions. You then are rewarded for your help generating additional Vertcoins. Mining Vertcoin makes logical sense from a miner’s perspective, because there is no need to worry about mining hardware manufacturers taking advantage of you or using unscrupulous methods to mine; they won’t work, as mentioned above.

Before you start mining, make sure you have a Vertcoin address to send your coins to. You can download one of the official wallets, or if you are a member of an exchange which deals in Vertcoin, such as Bittrex, you can generate an an address there and mine directly to the exchange.

To get started GPU mining Vertcoin, you need to download the correct mining software for your card as follows:

• AMD Cards – SGMiner Download
• Nvidia Cards – CCMiner Download

Extract the files on to your hard drive, for this example we will be using CCMiner on a Windows machine.

Join a Mining Pool

The next step is to choose a mining pool to join, by using a pool as this combines your hash rate with others on the same pool and you all share the rewards. This results in more predictable earnings at regular intervals. Here is a list of mining pools you can use to mine Vertcoin:

• Dev-run p2pool node http://pool.vtconline.org
• Give Me Coins http://give-me-coins.com/vertcoin-pool
• Mining Pool Hub https://vertcoin.miningpoolhub.com/
• Coinotron https://www.coinotron.com/app?action=ChartNoLogon&span=0&type=C&name=VTC
• List of p2pool nodes https://bitmakler.net/mining_VertCoin-VTC__pools
• Always Hashing p2pool http://vtc.alwayshashing.com:9171/static/
• ZPool https://www.zpool.ca

We will use Miningpoolhub, this is a good pool which allows you to register and then you have access to lots of different coin pools. Create an account with a username and password :

Once you are signed up, visit the “Wallet” link in the sidebar and enter your wallet address and a pin number – make sure you remember this pin as you will need it to make changes to your account.

Next, visit the “Workers” link in the sidebar and create a new worker with a name and password – note these down as you will need them shortly.

The next step is to create a .BAT file, create a new document in notepad and enter the following :

ccminer-x64 -a lyra2v2 -o stratum+tcp://hub.miningpoolhub.com:20507 -u login.workername -p workerpassword

Replace login.workername with your username and worker name, replace workerpassword with your worker password you created before.

Now save this file  in the same folder as your mining software with a .bat extension ( change “save as type” from text to All files ).

Now double click this BAT file and the program will then start mining. Your window should then look like this :

You can then visit the Dashboard at MiningPoolHub to see your hash rate and other information about your mining.

What Are Future Plans for Vertcoin?

Vertcoin shares its progress and roadmap via Trello, allowing all members of the community to stay up to date with the various projects. It has completed support for Ledger Nano s and Ledger Blue, the development fund website, an atomic swap for Litecoin and Vertcoin, and the core wallet.

At the moment, the team is working to finish developing the 1-Click Vertcoin Miner, which is currently in beta. The team is also working on a TOR Electrum Wallet along with hidden service nodes, and expanded support for Vertcoin exchanges and wallets. Other current projects include enhancing the website and developing an AMD GPU miner.

Once those projects are complete, the team will move onto re-implementing the stealth addresses and developing a Vertcoin wallet for iOS. The team will also work on Vertcore, allowing users to import the old style, and implementing more SegWit addresses.

The long-term projects include creating a mailing list and developing merchandise and other gear. Vertcoin also hopes to create Vertcoin Insight Explorer, provide support for Trezor 2, add a browser to the Wallet’s URI protocol, and develop Merkelized Abstract Syntax Trees. Vertcoin Block Reward Halving is also on the backlog, with an estimated date of Dec. 12.

Conclusion

Vertcoin is a useful addition to the cryptocurrency market because it allows all miners to profit. Those who develop mining hardware have ruined the profitability of mining other cryptocurrencies for the average person (without buying that expensive hardware), and Vertcoin does an excellent job of addressing this issue.

The fact that it can be used on nearly all systems and with a range of miners will allow it to appeal to a range of users while constantly expanding, likely increasing the value of Vertcoin in the future. It is also a nice change that users can participate in to any extent they want, whether with donations, programming, mining, or simply providing ideas.

Vertcoin has recently seen a large rise in price, probably due to people’s interest in ASIC-Resistant coins and the possibility of cross-chain atomic swaps between currencies such as Bitcoin, Litecoin and Vertcoin, meaning you will be able to swap these coins directly without the need for a middle-man being involved.

Useful Links:

• Official Website
• Official Blog
• Slack
• Reddit
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Bitcointalk Announcement
• Coinmarketcap

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