Earthcoin Mining Characteristics and Analysis

Recently there has been more interest than usual on r/earthcoin. I mentioned on the subreddit that earthcoin has some interesting mining characteristics. Many coins, like bitcoin, offer a set reward for solving a block. For instance, miners would originally get 25 bitcoin per block  (excluding any transaction fee rewards). Earthcoin works differently - it matters when the block is mined.

This is best explained from this excerpt from github:

Besides its very fast transaction speed, Earthcoin is unique in the way it is mimcs the seasonal cycles of Earth. The mining rewards system of EarthCoin follows the same type of 365 day cycle as we do in our daily life similar to the earth moving around the sun. And like the equator is moving, so is the amount of coins being released to the miners. For example: in the 1st year of its release, the coins released to the miners were 10,000 per day starting to work to a positive deviation of 2,000 extra coins after 3 months, then falling back to its original 10,000 coins after 6 months to end up with a -2,000 deviation after 9 months. At the end of the year the amount would then return to 10,000.

14 days

In addition to following the equator, EarthCoin also introduced the full moon cycle. This cycle is translated to a double release of coins to all the miners mining for EarthCoins. This is also know as a X2 payout.

31 Days

Earthcoin also incorporated the other well known moon cycle called month. But in this scenario, the amount of released coins is a five fold of normal. This is also known as a X5 payout.

The occurances of these events can be tracked here: http://poolerino.com/eaccountdown/

Let's look at the effects of this in more detail. Some people complained that these practices invite volatility in the price of the coin. My response is perhaps not.

Some people might say that rapid increases in supply will lower the price. However, since the supply increases are known beforehand, this might not be the case, as the future increases in supply will already be factored into the current price. This argument basically assumes the Earthcoin market is efficient, which is probably another blog post on its own.

Some people have complained these mining effects result in a bit of an instamine, as more coins were released in the beginning of the life of the coin. This may be true, but I personally don’t think this is a big issue. The dev team seems to be long gone and the effects of any premine/ instamine have probably passed.

Lastly, it is interesting to note that earthcoin has a halving feature, like bitcoin. It sounds like it happens yearly, with a cap of 13.5 billion coins.

Once more into the exchange

Once more into the exchange

I decided to check out http://www.btc38.com/ as an earthcoin exchange. WolfessStudios mentioned it before on /r/earthcoin. Signing up was quite simple; I simply logged in using my facebook. Finding the actual earthcoin exchange, however, took a minute. There isn’t a search function so you have to visually search for it.

First you need to click BTC list. Then, scroll to the bottom of the list and you will see EAC/BTC

Now I need to figure out what prices to trade at. The market looks busier than I remember it being when I traded EAC/BTC on cryptsy.

The best way to get free bitcoin, dogecoin, litecoin, and earthcoin.

Before, I did some articles on various sites I use to get free cryptocurrency. Today, I'm going to put that list together to show my routine.

Up to once an hour, or whenever I feel like it, I use ( they pay about 15 doge/ 800-1000 Satoshi):

About once every two hours if I really want Doge, I use http://www.dogefaucet.com /. Its payout isn't nearly as good though.

If I really want earthcoin, I sometimes use this site. It has annoying pop ups, and it really doesn't pay much.

Every few days, I will use these sites:




Other sites of note:

Linkslap
Get 5 doge for each caption you approve or disapprove!

There is also  a bunch of labor sites on reddit! I might discuss them more later, but for now:

http://www.reddit.com/r/DoItForTheCoin/
http://www.reddit.com/r/dogeservice/
http://www.reddit.com/r/Jobs4Bitcoins/
http://www.reddit.com/r/jobs4dogecoins/

In the Exchange ( buying Dogecoin or Bitcoin or whatever!)

On the exchange you have a sidebar with the different markets. Cryptsy has so many markets its confusing. Let's say you want to look at the dogecoin market, you have quite a few options. First you can look under USD and find USD/DOGE and exchange doge for real money. Note, you will need a verified account for this.

You also can look under BTC and find the BTC/DOGE exchange.

 

Here the price is denoted in satoshi with 44 satoshi being the price to buy doge at and 43 being the price to sell doge at.

This is a very active market and there is no price gap. You can also trade litecoin for doge in the LTC/DOGE market. This is a comparatively less volume market. It also features a generally larger price gap. The price here is listed in litoshi ( i.e., satoshi for litecoin).

One thing to remember is your order doesn't need to be at the current price. You can put any price into your order. But if the price is too high, you won’t sell it right away ( or maybe even ever).

To the exchange!

In order to go far with any Cryptocurrency, you need a way of buying and selling it. For most of us, this means it's time to go off to the exchange! One of the most popular exchanges is Cryptsy! This is my referral link. Based on your volume of trade, you give Cryptsy points to your referrer. If you have enough points, you can enter drawings for hardware and goodies! Or if you don’t, you can trade it for straight up bitcoins!

Now, I just use the crypto to crypto markets. In other words, I don’t deal in US dollars. To trade in USD you need to have ID, SSN and all sorts of personal information I frankly don’t want to give.

The best part is, making your account is totally free. The exchange takes a modest .27% fee for transactions. If you compare this to typical costs for stocks and other somewhat comparable examples, it is a steal!

Bigger, however, is not always best! Other exchanges are arguably better. https://poloniex.com/ for instance has lower trading fees.  Currently, it looks like it is .2%. Some users assert the interface is much nicer too.

The last feature I wanted to look at on Cryptsy was Trade keys. With a trade key you can send other exchange users any time of currency with no fees and it requires no confirmations. For example my trade key is: 05f8991eb7ce90a2c059f215b079c0402c0e5282 .

Well that is what an exchange is! Next post, I will talk about using the exchange to trade!