What could Peercoin be used for NOW?

General
1

In my opinion, a lot of the recent interest in Dogecoin and similar coins is because you can do things with them right now. You can mine Doge now, you can spend it now, you can donate it now.

While I think many of us here, myself included, are content to imagine how Peercoin will be used in the future with Open Transactions and Peershares etc, not everyone else is. It has very little use at the moment; the average person can’t mine it, and there are few places to spend or donate.

This isn’t an attack on Peercoin. I think it has the most potential out of all cryptocurrencies. But from a marketing point of view, that’s all it is, potential. We need to create ways for people to use it now. People who think long-term will be attracted to it anyway…that’s why we are all here. Marketing needs to attract people who are more interested in the short-term.

The main thing the average person can do now is mint Peercoin, and everyone is already aware of the need to make this easier and more-approachable. We need more things to show people how Peercoin is actually useful in the present.

I’m not sure what will result from this post except for “increased merchant and exchange adoption”. I guess I am hoping for people to think outside the box a bit :slight_smile:

2

I want peercoins, so I spend a great deal of time thinking about what stuff and services I can make and sell to people.

Have been researching ATM but can’t get the hardware I want, so that one is probably out. I’m also in the midst of launching a private fund. Hm what more, yes I’m writing a novel so I’ll be selling that one for peercoins.

Edit: buy peercoins by selling your skilz :wink: that’s a good thing I think.

3

First we have to state exactly what we want PPC to be for the next say, two years. This would give us a more defined goal moving forward… Should it be used for buying goods for example? Then we list every single merchant we can find that accepts crypto, but not PPC and we get them to accept PPC.

4

Things that help cause blockchain bloat, by creating numerous small transactions that need to be recorded:

(This is why dogecoin’s blockchain is near 3 gigabytes already and growing rapidly every day)

a) Buying / selling small products (things under $20 USD) ie: regular merchants

b) Dice games

c) Tips (like on reddit) without using a service to collect dust like (coinbox.me)

Things that are more geared towards Peercoin, and a small block chain

a) Trading on exchanges. One large volume transaction INTO the exchange. Lots of trade activity, and then One large volume transaction OUT of the exchange
(This is only 2 transactions. Doesn’t happen every day, maybe once per week or per month)

b) Peershares (buying and holding shares)

c) Minting (holding in your wallet and storing coin-age and vouching for other transactions)

d) Feeding cryptocurrency ATM machines at some point ($5,000 once a day movement of money, etc)

e) Buying large cost purchases that cost over $500 or real big ticket items (a house, a ferrarri, a speedboat, a business)

Any other ideas? I only have a few minutes to write this, so wanted to get this in quick.

In general we’d prefer a reasonable number of very large transactions, and not too many small ones, to keep our blockchain small and lots of people saving and minting their coins. Naturally people aren’t going to agree with me, but this is my view.

Put it this way, any way you can currently use gold as a currency / trading commodity today, should be similar ways to use Peercoin.

(This does not mean we’ll pour Peercoin on electronics or on teeth)

5

Personally I think Peercoin can be used for buying goods at the moment, and as such we should definitely target merchants. Even if Peercoin isn’t suitable in the future for buying goods, using it for that now will help to spread awareness of the coin.

[quote=“ppcman, post:4, topic:2180”]Things that help cause blockchain bloat, by creating numerous small transactions that need to be recorded:

(This is why dogecoin’s blockchain is near 3 gigabytes already and growing rapidly every day)

a) Buying / selling small products (things under $20 USD) ie: regular merchants

b) Dice games

c) Tips (like on reddit) without using a service to collect dust like (coinbox.me)[/quote]

Tips on reddit are done off-blockchain as far as I know, and if merchants use some payment service e.g. Moolah then that should be off-blockchain too. I understand what your point is though and agree that a small blockchain is a priority.

I just think that providing people with the option to use in Peercoin in an active day-to-day way will increase both awareness and adoption of the coin, and lead to increased use of the other things that you said are more geared towards Peercoin.

It would be great if some use unique to Peercoin could be thought of, although obviously I’m not sure what that is yet. Maybe something related to energy-efficiency is a possibility. Only aiming for adoption with the same merchants/exchanges as every other coin means that we are competing directly with the majority of coins. Considering the size of Dogecoin et al’s community, this is a competition we are losing at the moment.

6

I am convinced that a cryptocurrency can only be stabie and successful if it is used not only as store of value but also in commerce. When people know that they can do more things with Peercoin than only buying and selling them at an exchange, they would be less prone to overreact to market phenomena. So here my opinion differs a bit from PPCman’s. (That doesn’t mean that it must be necessarily used for micropayments).

An active Peercoin marketplace (craigslist or ebay-like) would be very fine. It would lower the barrier to use Peercoin for merchants and ordinary people. So a merchant which wants to try PPC out can accept it first for some test sells, before accepting it for all his stock.

I see there is already http://cryptomarketplace.net/. So, people, use it :smiley:

7

I have to agree with ppcman.

Everyone seems more set on turning Peercoin into X-coin. The whole idea behind Peercoin wasn’t dozens and dozens of small transactions for bubble gum and
snack foods.

I also have to agree with river333. If these transactions can be done off the block chain and keep the bloat to a minimum that would be great.

So… step 1 seems to complete it self, trading on exchanges and the potential for larger purchases. (Long term)

Step 2 seems to be a really good focal point.

Why doesn’t Peercoin develop it’s own merchant system that is designed around on the side transactions? Promote from within. If the whole point is to be
more of a self sufficient/backbone currency/property then why not be just that?

We all seem to be fishing around for “what is it good for now or later”? Establish the development from the inside, create your merchant software, and get it out.
Create trust - why? The software came from the community, not some fly by night guy(s) that are just attempting to coin in.

As they say, keep it in the family. I’m not saying other people shouldn’t develop, but it seems to me like this is a great spot to stick your foot in the door and kick it open.

8

[quote=“Drummel, post:7, topic:2180”]Why doesn’t Peercoin develop it’s own merchant system that is designed around on the side transactions? Promote from within. If the whole point is to be
more of a self sufficient/backbone currency/property then why not be just that?

We all seem to be fishing around for “what is it good for now or later”? Establish the development from the inside, create your merchant software, and get it out.
Create trust - why? The software came from the community, not some fly by night guy(s) that are just attempting to coin in.

As they say, keep it in the family. I’m not saying other people shouldn’t develop, but it seems to me like this is a great spot to stick your foot in the door and kick it open.[/quote]

You’re definitely on to something here!

I like this idea…

We could create a project that makes use of the Peercoin blockchain, but has off-chain micro-transactions. It could interface with existing alt-coins as the medium of exchange. Primecoin? Dogecoin? Our own colored coin based on peercoin stake? Hmmmm

Thinking… Thinking… Hmm… Need more time, I’ll come up with something, hopefully some one beats me to it because I’d like to have this in the works asap.

9

“Merchants Don’t Matter”, liquidity does.

“bad money drives out good” drives doge liquidity, btc uses first mover advantage and low tx fee to drive liquidity as well, but for peercoin it’s the opposite, we need to get peercoin used somehow other than hoard and mint

I think peerforcommit is a great success example

10

This could be useful: http://letstalkbitcoin.com/e99-sidechain-innovation/#.U0TvU4n8Im8 it could be a way to realize peercoins off main blockchain transactions. Micro tx could be delt with this way.

Personally I would like to see peercoins being used as much as possible. If the technology can’t handle being used then I care little for it.

11

I don’t see that any one suggested Peercoin can’t handle being used.

I think we’re focusing on the best ways to start using it to show off how Peercoin’s features has an advantage to other coins in certain areas. Peershares is one, there are many more we can come up with…

12

[quote=“romerun, post:9, topic:2180”]http://themisescircle.org/blog/2014/03/14/the-coming-demise-of-the-altcoins/

“Merchants Don’t Matter”, liquidity does.

“bad money drives out good” drives doge liquidity, btc uses first mover advantage and low tx fee to drive liquidity as well, but for peercoin it’s the opposite, we need to get peercoin used somehow other than hoard and mint

I think peerforcommit is a great success example[/quote]
Agree somewhat, merchants are ok, but liquidity is better, I would say.
Instead of focussing on goods, we need to focus more on work. Peer4commit is great but limited to software development. Other things I think which will contribute to liquidity is the social faucet. Same idea but then for tiny tips for all kinds of activities (same as the tipping in Dogecoin but then off-chain)

The next step I’m very keen on is to go beyond the social faucet and build infrastructure to administer a market with defined jobs/work and semi-automatic payments (like peer4commit) when the objectives are met. Same like some companies do with crowdsourcing for specific work. I’m looking for such infrastructure but able to take all kinds of well-defined measurable jobs and being paid in Peercoins. I (and some others) might be able to define the specs, who would be able to build it?

That would draw attention and provide the liquidity we so need.

13

I have this idea of an off-the-blockchain transactional avatar coin for Peercoin.

You are allowed to create N avatar coins by locking N Peercoins in your wallet. The avatar coints can be spent in transactions. The transactions are cleared by third party centralized clearing services, so the transactions are off the Peercoin blockchain. Anyone – an individual or a company or a clearing house – holding your avatar coins can choose to redeem the same amount of Peercoins from your wallet, by paying a transaction fee, there by transfering the amount of Peercoins to his/her/its wallet. This could be more costly than it sounds because a handful of avatar coins could come from hundreds of original wallets. Ideally your avatar coins can circulate for many years, acting as the blood of Peercoin economy, without getting redeemed. Your locked Peercoins cannot be spent but can quietly take part in Proof-of-Stake minting process to support Peercoin network and earn an reward as usual. By creating the avatar Peercoin you act like a central bank issuing a currency backed by a hard asset. The hard asset is not gold but Peercoins – the back bone asset of the economy.

The price of the avatar coins are determined by the market. If it is efficient and successful, the avatar coin will appreciate. Due to guaranteed 1:1 exchange between the avatar coin and Peercoin, the appreciation of avatar coin will cause the appreciation of Peercoin.

I hope this helps to solve the dilemma of needing transaction volume and aspiring to be a quiet backbone currency at the same time.

ed:typo

14

[quote=“romerun, post:9, topic:2180”]http://themisescircle.org/blog/2014/03/14/the-coming-demise-of-the-altcoins/

“Merchants Don’t Matter”, liquidity does.

“bad money drives out good” drives doge liquidity, btc uses first mover advantage and low tx fee to drive liquidity as well, but for peercoin it’s the opposite, we need to get peercoin used somehow other than hoard and mint

I think peerforcommit is a great success example[/quote]

Merchants add liquidity to the system, and I think they have a great psychological effect. Knowing that I can buy many things with PPC without having to deal with an exchange before, I would be more confident about the coin’s success.

Peer4commit and similar “work-oriented” PPC services are great too. Cybnate’s proposal - a “general market for work” - would be awesome.

Is there a transcription (to text) of this audio or any other info on the web for this concept? My English is not good enough to understand technical spoken language :frowning: “Sidechain” already sounds interesting, reminds me of our discussion about the transaction fee where there were similar proposals. Such a payment service would be the solution of the transaction fee/blockchain bloat problem. It would be even greater if it’s decentralized.

15

(2nd post)

I live in the North of Scotland and we are having an independence referendum later this year. I recently got into cryptocurrency while investigating some of the main points of debate around the referendum. Currency and Scotland’s share of the national debt. Whether we can or should keep the GBP (£), under the control of the Bank of England. In short I learnt a lot about economics, fiat currency, central banks, debt etc which lead me to cryptocurrency, which coincided with the launch of Scotcoin, a 98% premined bitcoin clone which is an opt in currency with free coins for any scottish resident. I was the first business to accept payment in Scotcoins but I don’t beleive it is the appropriate solution for us.

Due to real impending currency uncertainty I have undertaken a project of currency diversification. Part silver coins, part cryptocurrency.

After much research, I decided that PPC should be my first purchased coin. I purchased 40, which cleared out the only UK exchange that deals in PPC.

I admire Bitcoin but its too big. Synchroising with the blockchain for the first time took forever. It’s too big and requires too much energy and there is too much power in the big mining pools. The possibilities of Blockchain 2.0 is fascinating but I think too much functionality on a single blockchain is impractical. If I want to cut down a tree i’ll bring my chainsaw, not drag along the whole toolshed.

So I see PPC as the core that I will work from. If I need to go shopping, I’ll convert to a better suited currency. If I want to forex trade, i’ll trade to the best suited currency, if I want to make a contract i’ll trade to the best suited currency… and so on.

I see working with a basket of currencies which are best suited to a purpose with PPC being the best long term store of wealth and Bitcoin being left in the middle as a bloated jack of all trades but a master of none.

To me it looks like PPC is best suited as the most secure and energy efficient long term and stable store of wealth which you would convert from in order to use another currency, better suited for a specific purpose.

“Treat the stock exchange like a cold shower (quick in, quick out).” - Rothschild family maxim. I see other currencies as stocks and PPC with gold like stability and security.

Sorry about the long ramble, does this strategy make sense to you?

16

[quote=“simon13, post:15, topic:2180”](2nd post)

I live in the North of Scotland and we are having an independence referendum later this year. I recently got into cryptocurrency while investigating some of the main points of debate around the referendum. Currency and Scotland’s share of the national debt. Whether we can or should keep the GBP (£), under the control of the Bank of England. In short I learnt a lot about economics, fiat currency, central banks, debt etc which lead me to cryptocurrency, which coincided with the launch of Scotcoin, a 98% premined bitcoin clone which is an opt in currency with free coins for any scottish resident. I was the first business to accept payment in Scotcoins but I don’t beleive it is the appropriate solution for us.

Due to real impending currency uncertainty I have undertaken a project of currency diversification. Part silver coins, part cryptocurrency.

After much research, I decided that PPC should be my first purchased coin. I purchased 40, which cleared out the only UK exchange that deals in PPC.

I admire Bitcoin but its too big. Synchroising with the blockchain for the first time took forever. It’s too big and requires too much energy and there is too much power in the big mining pools. The possibilities of Blockchain 2.0 is fascinating but I think too much functionality on a single blockchain is impractical. If I want to cut down a tree i’ll bring my chainsaw, not drag along the whole toolshed.

So I see PPC as the core that I will work from. If I need to go shopping, I’ll convert to a better suited currency. If I want to forex trade, i’ll trade to the best suited currency, if I want to make a contract i’ll trade to the best suited currency… and so on.

I see working with a basket of currencies which are best suited to a purpose with PPC being the best long term store of wealth and Bitcoin being left in the middle as a bloated jack of all trades but a master of none.

To me it looks like PPC is best suited as the most secure and energy efficient long term and stable store of wealth which you would convert from in order to use another currency, better suited for a specific purpose.

“Treat the stock exchange like a cold shower (quick in, quick out).” - Rothschild family maxim. I see other currencies as stocks and PPC with gold like stability and security.

Sorry about the long ramble, does this strategy make sense to you?[/quote]
Your thoughts make sense and are shared by more. The thing is that it is a long term strategy. The stability is not there yet in this very young and relatively small market, but will eventually evolve from the security and economic model of Peercoin. That why the focus needs to be on growing the market or Peercoin economy if you wish in the short to mid term.
The discussion here is about how to cater for the increased transactions (higher liquidity) in the blockchain or off-chain. I’m still on the fence on that one as they each have its strengths and weaknesses, but I think eventually the market will make their choice based on type of transactions, we just need to provide the infrastructure to cater for the full range of transactions.

17

Point taken. Liquidity increases distribution and adoption. I’ll have to look into the idea of off chain transactions more.

I foresee two scenarios for crypto-currency.;
A basket of currencies, each with a specialisation and different protocol for PoS or PoW, linked by a decentralised exchange.

Or a King coin where Bitcoin runs multiple side chains with specialised coins and the link between different sub bitcoins acts as exchanges.

I see peercoins use as being the fort Knox (bad example in reality) of a basket of currency model, acting as a stabilising force and super secure store of wealth.

Perhaps a decentralised exchange, initially with another coin which is adopted, secure and better suited to micro payments is a good idea. I assume this would require a jointly developed wallet upgrade and an intermediary blockchain and coin that which supports the security of the exchange?

Alternatively, a merchant tool. I have a business and took payment for services in Peercoin. Payment is direct to an exchange’s wallet which sells PPC for GBP (£) which I need to pay staff, taxes etc. This would help increase available supply in my economy and help price stabilisation (?)

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

18

I hear there’s some technical issues making converting coins from a sidechain back to btc requires 2-3 days to pass security check, so it’s probably not the answer for everything