Vericoin is an crypto currency that is easily separated from the other alts. A team of 3 developers work behind the scenes to bring to life, a number of great features and benefits, unique to Vericoin. We got a chance to sit down with the team from Vericoin and investigate a few questions circling their rather creative and user friendly currency.
It's time for 10 questions with Doug, Pat and Dave! Let's go!
It's time for 10 questions with Doug, Pat and Dave! Let's go!
Hey team! Why don't we start out with who you are, and your relation to the team at VeriCoin. How many bodies make up the total VeriCoin team and does your structure have separation of duties, marketing, development, PR etc?
DP: Hey I’m Douglas Pike! Co-creator of VeriCoin. We do seem to have a natural separation of duties. I do more of the coding for the VeriCoin Wallet on Mac, PC and Linux. Although all of us will do interviews, press and make appearances at BitCoin and Digital Currency related events none of us (the three core VeriCoin Developers) do any of the real Marketing or PR. Currently the majority of that is carried out by our Community.
PN: Hi I’m Patrick Nosker. Co-creator of VeriCoin. I mainly work on the infrastructure of the VeriCoin Network backend and coordinate new feature development.
DB: I’m David Boehm and I am a Developer for VeriCoin. I have a background in programming, both professionally and as a hobby, so that is the area I try to stick to. For VeriCoin, I have been implementing some of the features that VeriCoin currently utilizes (like VeriBit). At the end of the day, I rely on Doug and Pat to handle the other duties. I'm busy with my current job and don't exactly have the right temperament for PR.
DP: Hey I’m Douglas Pike! Co-creator of VeriCoin. We do seem to have a natural separation of duties. I do more of the coding for the VeriCoin Wallet on Mac, PC and Linux. Although all of us will do interviews, press and make appearances at BitCoin and Digital Currency related events none of us (the three core VeriCoin Developers) do any of the real Marketing or PR. Currently the majority of that is carried out by our Community.
PN: Hi I’m Patrick Nosker. Co-creator of VeriCoin. I mainly work on the infrastructure of the VeriCoin Network backend and coordinate new feature development.
DB: I’m David Boehm and I am a Developer for VeriCoin. I have a background in programming, both professionally and as a hobby, so that is the area I try to stick to. For VeriCoin, I have been implementing some of the features that VeriCoin currently utilizes (like VeriBit). At the end of the day, I rely on Doug and Pat to handle the other duties. I'm busy with my current job and don't exactly have the right temperament for PR.
What interests each of you about crypto-currencies, and why did you decide to get involved with VeriCoin?
PN: I've been involved with BitCoin since just after the launch. I mined it through college and noticed the long confirmation time made it less-than-perfect for fast transactions. LiteCoin is better, but still too long - so we decided to take the best ideas from current coins (PoS for eco-friendliness, short block times for fast transactions, etc.) and add economic thinking (variable interest) to create what we thought would be the best currency for real world usage. DB: I think crypto-currencies has a lot of interesting potential. It remains to be seen exactly how much they might change the world, but I am excited to have a front row seat. I become involved with VeriCoin through Pat. I've been friends with Pat for a while and he told me of his plans to create a crypto-coin. I figured that I might be able to help him out and have been along for the ride ever since. DP: I think crypto-currency is a great money transmitting mechanism that is free of the historic trusted third party saga that enables a financial oligarchy. |
We noticed through Google Hangouts and your social media presence VeriCoin seems to lead the pack in terms of transparency. We look forward to your regular agenda postings and updates. Why do you feel this is important to the coins growth? How has the response been and have you guys generated any ideas stemming from community discussion?
DP: With all of the scams that plagued the digital currency community by anonymous developers we ultimately decided to step up and put ourselves out there. Doing the Google Hang Outs turned out to be important for investors who were skeptical about the digital currency climate at the time. That said, it’s kind of a double edged sword because when good things happen you are put on some sort of a pedestal for being so transparent and available yet when the market tanks you are also more vulnerable to FUD, conspiracies and even insults etc. Aside from doing what we can programming wise and implementing new features we have NO control over the market. We just focus on doing what we’re good at and hope the market and investors find value in that.
As far as utilizing ideas gathered or proposed from the VeriCoin Community - yeah we enjoy receiving constructive feedback on what we’re doing right and what we may have got wrong. Our transparency has also enabled the community to feel more comfortable putting in their own effort to build VeriCoin, which is priceless.
PN: Exactly what Doug said. I’d agree that being transparent and open about who you are is vital to the success of a Digital Currency. When you look at other coins like LiteCoin - which has been super successful - you see that Charlie Lee has been up front about his involvement with the coin (though not from the beginning).
Or even with BitCoin - although Satoshi Nakomoto still remains a mystery - there has been plenty of non-anonymous contributors to the idea of a cryptocurrency along the way including Hal Finney, Wei Dai and Nick Szabo. Currently Gavin Andresen, Jeff Garzik and Peter Wuille provide somewhat of a “face” to the coin.
I think investors find that important. But also, as Doug mentioned, although we’re working on this coin we also have a personal life and so are really busy at the end of the day. That’s why it’s been great to see the Community step up so much. That gives us more time to take care of our personal responsibilities as well as work on the technical aspects of VeriCoin.
DB: Not much else to add here. Doug and Pat are the rock stars. I just love writing code.
DP: With all of the scams that plagued the digital currency community by anonymous developers we ultimately decided to step up and put ourselves out there. Doing the Google Hang Outs turned out to be important for investors who were skeptical about the digital currency climate at the time. That said, it’s kind of a double edged sword because when good things happen you are put on some sort of a pedestal for being so transparent and available yet when the market tanks you are also more vulnerable to FUD, conspiracies and even insults etc. Aside from doing what we can programming wise and implementing new features we have NO control over the market. We just focus on doing what we’re good at and hope the market and investors find value in that.
As far as utilizing ideas gathered or proposed from the VeriCoin Community - yeah we enjoy receiving constructive feedback on what we’re doing right and what we may have got wrong. Our transparency has also enabled the community to feel more comfortable putting in their own effort to build VeriCoin, which is priceless.
PN: Exactly what Doug said. I’d agree that being transparent and open about who you are is vital to the success of a Digital Currency. When you look at other coins like LiteCoin - which has been super successful - you see that Charlie Lee has been up front about his involvement with the coin (though not from the beginning).
Or even with BitCoin - although Satoshi Nakomoto still remains a mystery - there has been plenty of non-anonymous contributors to the idea of a cryptocurrency along the way including Hal Finney, Wei Dai and Nick Szabo. Currently Gavin Andresen, Jeff Garzik and Peter Wuille provide somewhat of a “face” to the coin.
I think investors find that important. But also, as Doug mentioned, although we’re working on this coin we also have a personal life and so are really busy at the end of the day. That’s why it’s been great to see the Community step up so much. That gives us more time to take care of our personal responsibilities as well as work on the technical aspects of VeriCoin.
DB: Not much else to add here. Doug and Pat are the rock stars. I just love writing code.
Two other areas of communication that grabbed our attention were VRCRadio and the new VeriCoin Forums.
How has the response been? The Reddit crowd can be a bit hectic sometimes but it seems as though it’s the platform of choice for the communication of most currencies. Is the VeriCoin team making a move away from Reddit or just adding another means to communicate?
PN: I think it's great that there are community members taking hold of the coin. I wouldn't say we're moving away from Reddit, but more-so trying to reach the masses through as many means as possible.
DP: Yeah we are focusing on the forums being the central hub of the community and key members such as Jay Jay (the Community Manager), Scott and Steve etc are making it one of the best forums out there. VRC radio is great addition to the community for news and updates live run by Kevin and Lootz.
PN: I think it's great that there are community members taking hold of the coin. I wouldn't say we're moving away from Reddit, but more-so trying to reach the masses through as many means as possible.
DP: Yeah we are focusing on the forums being the central hub of the community and key members such as Jay Jay (the Community Manager), Scott and Steve etc are making it one of the best forums out there. VRC radio is great addition to the community for news and updates live run by Kevin and Lootz.
DP: Thanks! I did the majority of the coding but I had lots of help from the VeriCoin Community as far as suggestions go etc. Also one of the more prominent members of our Community, Steve, really stepped up and gave me a hand debugging the wallet and built some nice features. Also big kudos are in order to Scott for making the network stats and chart value sections.
With the new wallet GUI we wanted to step away from the old, dull grey“BitCoin” clone wallets that the majority of Alt Coins currently use. We also wanted to make the wallet more secure, more accessible and provide super useful statistics for our investors. We’re still tweaking everything to get it where we want.
PN: Yeah the new wallet GUI was all Doug along with a community member with an expertise in design! I love it! I like the direction we’re heading in this department.
DB: I didn't do anything for this release, though Doug and I are working on a feature that may make it into the next release.
With the new wallet GUI we wanted to step away from the old, dull grey“BitCoin” clone wallets that the majority of Alt Coins currently use. We also wanted to make the wallet more secure, more accessible and provide super useful statistics for our investors. We’re still tweaking everything to get it where we want.
PN: Yeah the new wallet GUI was all Doug along with a community member with an expertise in design! I love it! I like the direction we’re heading in this department.
DB: I didn't do anything for this release, though Doug and I are working on a feature that may make it into the next release.
The VeriCoin wallet has some features that help differentiate itself from other wallets. VeriSend is useful for anonymous transactions, a Fiat to VeriCoin portal dumbs down the process of purchasing VeriCoin and VeriBit which allows you to spend VeriCoin anywhere Bitcoin is accepted. Why are these features important to the vision of VeriCoin? Which of the current features are the team most proud of to date?
A number of cool features that have either brought additional utility or have simplified the user experience. VeriCoin’s Proof of Stake protocol and Dynamic Interest rates seem to strike a reasonable return for long term investors. How does this work exactly and where do all the “free coins” come from?
PN: I would say VeriBit is our pride and joy. We had the idea to make the coin the first to be easily used at places where BitCoin is accepted. While you could argue that adding places to spend it would cause sell pressure, the added utility brings much more to the table than the fear of selling off coins. After all, if you can't use it, what value does it have?
DP: I think the most important thing for a digital currency is the ability to buy it and the ability to spend it. Another important thing is for it to be a good long term investment. Our purchasing portal, VeriBit and Network Stake Dependent interest are hitting all of these key attributes. With NSDI you earn on average 2% interest per year while it's simultaneously minimizing inflation. VeriBit makes VeriCoin spendable where ever Bitcoin is accepted, and our purchase portal when complete will make buying VeriCoin a breeze.
PN: I would say VeriBit is our pride and joy. We had the idea to make the coin the first to be easily used at places where BitCoin is accepted. While you could argue that adding places to spend it would cause sell pressure, the added utility brings much more to the table than the fear of selling off coins. After all, if you can't use it, what value does it have?
DP: I think the most important thing for a digital currency is the ability to buy it and the ability to spend it. Another important thing is for it to be a good long term investment. Our purchasing portal, VeriBit and Network Stake Dependent interest are hitting all of these key attributes. With NSDI you earn on average 2% interest per year while it's simultaneously minimizing inflation. VeriBit makes VeriCoin spendable where ever Bitcoin is accepted, and our purchase portal when complete will make buying VeriCoin a breeze.
What are the real world benefits of accepting VeriCoin as a merchant?
PN: VeriCoin offers the benefits of BitCoin with the added bonus of interest and fast transaction times.
There is no doubt that VeriBit is a technologically innovative hit as far as crypto currencies go but, VeriBit aside, how does VeriCoin plan on convincing merchants to accept VeriCoin ($VRC) directly instead of relying on a more established and well known currency like BitCoin?
DP: I think VeriCoin is easier to use, more efficient and much faster, in addition to earning interest we think there will be a snowball effect after a certain point.
PN: Promoting the interest as well as the transaction speed are critical for merchant adoption. If a taxi operator, for example, is considering crypto-- waiting for 2 BTC confirms could have him sitting at a stop for 20+ minutes. Even with LiteCoin, that's 5+ minutes wasted waiting for the transaction to confirm. With VeriCoin, within 2 minutes there will be 2 confirmations.
DB: This will be a tough thing to do. It terms of simple transactions, $VRC has clear advantages over $BTC. It's faster transaction times are much better suited to in store purchases than BitCoin's sluggish response time. The real difficulty will be adoption. Currently, $BTC has the largest adoption among crypto currencies which makes it the de-facto currency of choice. This in my mind means that the first step in getting merchants to accept $VRC is getting more people, in general, to accept $VRC. If enough people are holding coin, then merchants will follow since they will want to gain access to that market.
DP: I think VeriCoin is easier to use, more efficient and much faster, in addition to earning interest we think there will be a snowball effect after a certain point.
PN: Promoting the interest as well as the transaction speed are critical for merchant adoption. If a taxi operator, for example, is considering crypto-- waiting for 2 BTC confirms could have him sitting at a stop for 20+ minutes. Even with LiteCoin, that's 5+ minutes wasted waiting for the transaction to confirm. With VeriCoin, within 2 minutes there will be 2 confirmations.
DB: This will be a tough thing to do. It terms of simple transactions, $VRC has clear advantages over $BTC. It's faster transaction times are much better suited to in store purchases than BitCoin's sluggish response time. The real difficulty will be adoption. Currently, $BTC has the largest adoption among crypto currencies which makes it the de-facto currency of choice. This in my mind means that the first step in getting merchants to accept $VRC is getting more people, in general, to accept $VRC. If enough people are holding coin, then merchants will follow since they will want to gain access to that market.
Apart from the amazing additions, developments and marketing initiatives on the go, what do you feel is important as far as facilitating VeriCoin’s integration into the mainstream? How is the team working towards those goals? DP: The wallet will be the entry point for the average user, in addition to the mobile wallet. These are the areas where we are currently the most focused on. PN: We're hoping our community helps to provide pressure on companies they wish would accept VeriCoin. The three of us are not enough to get merchants to adopt. It's time for holders, investors and fans to demand VeriCoin acceptance! |
Final question, and a juicy one. What does VeriCoin have to say to the enormous portion of the world’s population that are still either very skeptical of crypto currencies or completely in the dark about their existence?
PN: I think some regulation is necessary before we see wide-scale adoption, however, the benefits of Crypto are enormous. I think they should read Satoshi's paper on BitCoin and judge the idea for themselves.
DP: If you think about how the current power structure around money that exists - resulting in the bank bailout etc - and you do some real research, you will realize crypto-currencies are more democratic and less expensive.
DB: To people either new to crypto currencies and unsure if they want to explore them further, I have words of encouragement and caution. Right now the world of crypto currencies is full of opportunity and definitely warrants attention. I think you are really missing out if you continue to completely ignore them. On the other hand, moderation needs to be exercised. There are a lot of sharks out there in the crypto ocean that try to take advantage of new people. Luckily with a little caution and a little research, crypto currencies can be exhilarating and fun.
PN: I think some regulation is necessary before we see wide-scale adoption, however, the benefits of Crypto are enormous. I think they should read Satoshi's paper on BitCoin and judge the idea for themselves.
DP: If you think about how the current power structure around money that exists - resulting in the bank bailout etc - and you do some real research, you will realize crypto-currencies are more democratic and less expensive.
DB: To people either new to crypto currencies and unsure if they want to explore them further, I have words of encouragement and caution. Right now the world of crypto currencies is full of opportunity and definitely warrants attention. I think you are really missing out if you continue to completely ignore them. On the other hand, moderation needs to be exercised. There are a lot of sharks out there in the crypto ocean that try to take advantage of new people. Luckily with a little caution and a little research, crypto currencies can be exhilarating and fun.