Plural Vertcoin, vertcoins User(s) International | Date of introduction 8 January 2014 | |
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Ledger The Vertcoin peer-to-peer network regulates and distributes through consensus in protocol. | ||
Vertcoin (VTC) is a peer-to-peer cryptocurrency and software project. It is a Bitcoin-like blockchain currency with additional features such as Stealth Address technology and ASIC resistant Proof-of-Work (PoW) function. The main difference between Bitcoin and Vertcoin is the latter's resistance to centralized mining and the long term promise of Vertcoin developers to keep it that way. Vertcoin has already forked two times to a new PoW function because of a veritable threat of centralized mining. The Vertcoin Wallet can be downloaded from Vertcoin's official website.
Contents
History
Vertcoin was released via a client on GitHub on January 8, 2014.
A 2014 International Business Times article mentions Vertcoin as a potential Bitcoin successor. The article notes that it "hopes to offer an alternative. By taking the foundations of Bitcoin and making some adjustments, Vertcoin punishes miners who use powerful machines and work together in 'pools' to monopolise the mining market."
On July 1st, 2014, Vertcoin released a wallet supporting Stealth Address transactions.
On December 13, 2014 (block 208301), Vertcoin forked from Scrypt-Adaptive-N proof-of-work function to Lyra2RE as a proactive defense against emerging Scrypt-Adaptive-N capable ASICs.
On August 10, 2015 (block 347000), Vertcoin forked from Lyra2RE to Lyra2REv2 because a botnet was controlling more than 50% of the hashing power of Vertcoin network.
Technical
Vertcoin is a lite version of Bitcoin using Lyra2REv2 as a proof-of-work algorithm. Payments in the Vertcoin network are made to addresses, which are based on digital signatures. They are strings of 33 numbers and letters which always begin with the letter V.
Vertcoin introduced what is known as "Adaptive N‐Factor" to the Scrypt algorithm. The N‐factor component of Scrypt determines how much memory is required to compute the hashing functions. Vertcoin's N‐factor increases with time to discourage the development of dedicated 'mining' hardware and encourage the distribution of the verification task across individual users' PCs.
As a countermeasure to emerging Scrypt-Adaptive-N capable ASICs in late 2014, Vertcoin introduced a novel proof-of-work function called Lyra2RE, a NIST5 based chained algorithm with customizable parameters. The original Lyra2RE consisted of a chain of BLAKE, Keccak, Lyra2, Skein and Grøstl hash functions. In 2015, the algorithm was modified by Vertcoin developers to favor GPU miners because of a single (assumingly CPU based) botnet controlling a majority of the network's hash power. The current version (Lyra2REv2) of the algorithm consists of the following hash functions: BLAKE, Keccak, CubeHash, Lyra2, Skein and Blue Midnight Wish.
Discouraging centralization of the verification task avoids a single entity exercising control over the blockchain ledger, otherwise known as a "51% attack."
Merged mining
Cryptocurrencies have the ability to merge mine with another cryptocurrency, meaning a miner is able to mine for more than one blockchain at the same time. The benefit is that every "hash" that a miner submits contributes to the total hash rate of both currencies, and as a result, they both become more secure.
There is at least one active cryptocurrency, MobileCash, that is currently merge mineable with Vertcoin.
Available software for Vertcoin mining can be found from the Vertcoin project's official website.