Nxt seems like the closest competitor to Ripple so I figured I'd download it and give it a spin this past week. My results and impressions are below. SO far, it's the most interesting cryptocurrency and network I've seen of any of the "altcoins". It has some drawbacks but although it's a "small" competitor it could potentially become a real big thing if development continues. I will be watching this one more closely. First impressions below...
Setup (Nxtra 1-click client)
- Downloadable client was nice, with a quick install and setup process - just as easy as the old Bitcoin-QT.
- Needing to remember or store a long secret phrase seemed like a hassle, versus having a password separate from the secret phrase.
- Blockchain took a very long time to download (approx. 2-3 hrs).
Features:
- Send "Nxt" funds to other users, with approx. 1.5 minute confirmation time (seems slow relative to Ripple!)
- Send messages to other users for a 1 Nxt fee.
- Contacts section to store addresses, emails and description for each contact
- Messages inbox
- Asset Exchange - this seems like it could hold huge potential for decentralized issuing, buying and selling assets directly on the Nxt blockchain. Trades also seem to require the 1.5 minute confirmation time delay though... slow relative to what I was used to on Ripple. The only big asset trading right now seems to be NEM stake token trading (New Economy Movement) so at the moment it does not seem heavily used.
- Aliases
- Peers (view connected addresses, platform, etc)
- News
Missing features (things that Ripple has):
- Instant transactions (5 seconds or less)
- Sending / receiving other currencies in the network
- Currency trading
- Instant currency conversions
- Bitcoin bridge
If you want the TL/DR verdict: I'm still much more in favor of Ripple due to the speed and user experience.
A few additional notes unrelated to the direct user experience and features:
- From an outsider's perspective, the Nxt community and marketing seems very fragmented and disorganized. It wasn't exactly clear how to find the "official" place to go and get a summary of the information on the protocol, the Nxt currency or how to find a simple downloadable client to use. It took a few Google searches and reading online forums.
- Approximate network transaction times are not exactly clear anywhere. I just had to test and check myself.
- Nxt trading seems difficult right now, as it's mostly traded on a few small exchanges based in China and other foreign countries. The only US-based one is Cryptsy which was a relief to find. However, their deposit and withdraw times are unfortunately all over the map, ranging from minutes to hours wait time. Deposit and withdraws ranged from 1-3 hours when testing with Nxt which was a little taxing on my patience and could be stressful for anyone who moves large money there.
Overall, Nxt was interesting but does feel a little cludgy and rough around the edges. It does have some potential though!
-nwtrades
https://ripple.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=7229&p=51906&sid=383542ae947d1a2d6cd58e6b92bc06fe#p51906
Source:
https://nxtforum.org/general-discussion/a-fair-review-of-nxt-from-a-ripple-user/
Monday, June 30, 2014
Isle of Man embraces NXT in cryptocurrency drive
As regulators and business owners recognise the benefits of digital money, new cryptocurrency NXT is well-placed to drive innovation and enterprise on the Isle of Man through a series of ground-breaking developments.
Second generation cryptocurrency NXT is poised to deliver unprecedented benefits to the financial services industry on the Isle of Man.
Cryptocurrencies are a suite of revolutionary new technologies that allow users to send money directly to each other over the internet, anywhere in the world, quickly and almost for free. NXT’s speed and versatility make it the ideal choice for a wide range of applications beyond money transfer, providing the backbone of a far-reaching digital economy.
Introducing NXT
Local business, banking and government representatives are invited to attend NXT Seminar at the Forum, Mt Havelock, Douglas at 5pm on 1 July, which will introduce NXT to a wider audience and explain how this powerful technology can be integrated into new and existing applications. The seminar will be delivered by Lee Gibson Grant, NXT entrepreneur and founder of TXT Coins Now.
The TXT Coins Now platform was built back in 2010 as bolt-on service for mobile operators and financial institutions that required an off-the-peg solution for their customers. The company has adopted NXT Coin as its default currency. Their platform is highly scalable and its use in real-world financial services applications will allow its users easier access to NXT Coin, too.
TXT Coins Now is a merger of Micropayment, Western Union, Escrow and PayPal for both the Fiat and Crypto Sectors. The business leverages NXT to allow customers to send funds anywhere on the planet via a simple text message or voice call, without any internet connection or further applications. Additionally, its verification step protects merchants by establishing that the transaction is legitimate.
Merchant benefits
ATM providers and POS providers will be able to link to the network via its merchant facilities, enabling merchant outlets to accept both fiat and crypto. This gives NXT Coin a cutting edge real-time financial network that bridges the NXT and fiat marketplaces.
‘Many jurisdictions have been sceptical or slow to move on cryptocurrency,’ Lee Gibson Grant comments. ‘But platforms like NXT can bring immense benefits to businesses and customers – reducing costs, delays and security risks to near zero. It’s enormously encouraging that the Isle of Man recognises this and is at the forefront of the cryptocurrency movement.’
Famed for its eGaming regulation and pro-enterprise culture, the Isle of Man is the ideal location for cryptocurrency and finance businesses to come together. The island recently positioned itself as a cryptocurrency hub, and in the coming days and weeks a series of initiatives will bring NXT and its developers into the mainstream.
World’s first regulated cryptocurrency exchange
NXT are in discussions to be listed on CoinCorner, a new exchange due to launch shortly, which aims to be the world’s first cryptocurrency exchange registered with a financial regulator – namely the Isle of Man FSC. CoinCorner will allow users to exchange crypto for GBP with no deposit fees and has been built by a team of seasoned programmers and cryptocurrency miners. Bitcoin has seen a number of high-profile thefts and scandals in its short history resulting from the proliferation of unregulated exchanges, and such a step is vital in allowing the public to buy and sell NXT and other digital currencies quickly, easily and securely.
Additionally, there are a number of financial bureaux actively considering incorporating NXT into their business models. NXT will also be included as a payment option at the Java Express Coffee Shop and Noodle Bar on Prospect Hill in Douglas. At the NXT Seminar on 1 July, NXT coins equal to the value of a cup of coffee will be distributed for use in Java so that delegates can see how easy and safe it is to use NXT Coin and TXT Coins Now.
During a visit by members of the NXT community to the Isle of Man over the past two weeks, numerous meetings have been held with Manx service providers such as Dixcart, Manx Telecom and Capital Invest, along with many others who are interested in cryptocurrencies and would like to discover more about the benefits that NXT, its community and developers offer for the legal and regulated services they would like to launch. Meetings with government officials and local lawyers have also been held to gather as much information as possible to position the Isle of Man and NXT Coin for the up and coming crypto boom.
Second generation cryptocurrency NXT is poised to deliver unprecedented benefits to the financial services industry on the Isle of Man.
Cryptocurrencies are a suite of revolutionary new technologies that allow users to send money directly to each other over the internet, anywhere in the world, quickly and almost for free. NXT’s speed and versatility make it the ideal choice for a wide range of applications beyond money transfer, providing the backbone of a far-reaching digital economy.
Introducing NXT
Local business, banking and government representatives are invited to attend NXT Seminar at the Forum, Mt Havelock, Douglas at 5pm on 1 July, which will introduce NXT to a wider audience and explain how this powerful technology can be integrated into new and existing applications. The seminar will be delivered by Lee Gibson Grant, NXT entrepreneur and founder of TXT Coins Now.
The TXT Coins Now platform was built back in 2010 as bolt-on service for mobile operators and financial institutions that required an off-the-peg solution for their customers. The company has adopted NXT Coin as its default currency. Their platform is highly scalable and its use in real-world financial services applications will allow its users easier access to NXT Coin, too.
TXT Coins Now is a merger of Micropayment, Western Union, Escrow and PayPal for both the Fiat and Crypto Sectors. The business leverages NXT to allow customers to send funds anywhere on the planet via a simple text message or voice call, without any internet connection or further applications. Additionally, its verification step protects merchants by establishing that the transaction is legitimate.
Merchant benefits
ATM providers and POS providers will be able to link to the network via its merchant facilities, enabling merchant outlets to accept both fiat and crypto. This gives NXT Coin a cutting edge real-time financial network that bridges the NXT and fiat marketplaces.
‘Many jurisdictions have been sceptical or slow to move on cryptocurrency,’ Lee Gibson Grant comments. ‘But platforms like NXT can bring immense benefits to businesses and customers – reducing costs, delays and security risks to near zero. It’s enormously encouraging that the Isle of Man recognises this and is at the forefront of the cryptocurrency movement.’
Famed for its eGaming regulation and pro-enterprise culture, the Isle of Man is the ideal location for cryptocurrency and finance businesses to come together. The island recently positioned itself as a cryptocurrency hub, and in the coming days and weeks a series of initiatives will bring NXT and its developers into the mainstream.
World’s first regulated cryptocurrency exchange
NXT are in discussions to be listed on CoinCorner, a new exchange due to launch shortly, which aims to be the world’s first cryptocurrency exchange registered with a financial regulator – namely the Isle of Man FSC. CoinCorner will allow users to exchange crypto for GBP with no deposit fees and has been built by a team of seasoned programmers and cryptocurrency miners. Bitcoin has seen a number of high-profile thefts and scandals in its short history resulting from the proliferation of unregulated exchanges, and such a step is vital in allowing the public to buy and sell NXT and other digital currencies quickly, easily and securely.
Additionally, there are a number of financial bureaux actively considering incorporating NXT into their business models. NXT will also be included as a payment option at the Java Express Coffee Shop and Noodle Bar on Prospect Hill in Douglas. At the NXT Seminar on 1 July, NXT coins equal to the value of a cup of coffee will be distributed for use in Java so that delegates can see how easy and safe it is to use NXT Coin and TXT Coins Now.
During a visit by members of the NXT community to the Isle of Man over the past two weeks, numerous meetings have been held with Manx service providers such as Dixcart, Manx Telecom and Capital Invest, along with many others who are interested in cryptocurrencies and would like to discover more about the benefits that NXT, its community and developers offer for the legal and regulated services they would like to launch. Meetings with government officials and local lawyers have also been held to gather as much information as possible to position the Isle of Man and NXT Coin for the up and coming crypto boom.
Monday, June 16, 2014
MyNxt Online Wallet now be trustless, open source and with new design
Starting on the 16th/June the myNXT.info Online Wallet (https://wallet.mynxt.info) will become a trustless wallet, and the client-side code will be open-sourced so anyone can review it.
This will add an extra layer of security to our users. The extra level of trust will help boost the online wallet adoption by both existing Nxters that were hesitant to use the wallet before, and also (and most importantly), will help encourage new people to join Nxt.
With this work, the myNXT Online Wallet becomes an on-blockchain, client-side trustless wallet, which is very similar to the leading Bitcoin online wallet Blochchain.info. The main objective is to make it dead-easy for new users to join Nxt without requiring downloads, java installs, or waiting for downloading of the blockchain.
Mynxt will also be adding a backup functionality so that our users can easily backup their wallet and even migrate to other Nxt clients if they choose to.
- Mynxt in brand new design
Existing users
Existing users don't need to do anything, their wallets are safe and not going to be affected. Everything we are developing is fully backwards compatible. Any existing users that wants to ensure that their wallets are also trustless (because when they created their account, the encryption was still server-side), will be able to change their master password using the new client-side encryption system.
What is Mynxt?
Nxt Online Wallet (http://wallet.mynxt.info)
Nxt online wallet is an html5 web app. It runs perfectly on iPhones or Android or desktop browsers. Anyone can put a link in their home screen and access it any time. Nxt online wallet is easy to use and users can access their Nxt account from anywhere. It has a responsive layout: works in PC, Mac, Tablets and Phones. Right now online wallet can be used for sending and receiving NXT coins. They can also check their balance in NXT, USD, EUR, BTC and other currencies.
- Antony Lewis (Singapore exchange itBit) is buying Nxt coins at the Cebexpo in Vienna by using Nxt Online Wallet
Safety first
Nxt online wallet was made as secure as possible. All accounts are 50 characters long, randomly generated. AES-256 is used to encrypt each account address twice (once using a site-wide key and once using the user's master password). Only SSL connections are accepted and all passwords are hashed (salted).
Brand New Tool: Nxt Forging Calculator (http://www.mynxt.info/forging_calculator.php)
Calculate how much you could forge! In NXT you forge instead of mining and how many blocks you can forge depends on how much NXT you have. Use this brand new calculator to find out how much you have forged.
Nxt Forwarder (http://www.mynxt.info/fwd/)
Use MyNxt.info as a gateway to Nxt aliases in the format <alias>.mynxt.info! This original feature connects the Nxt alias network with the regular internet. You can get people to visit a URL, see an image or a text and control this content via the Nxt network. If you have any alias, it is simple, just visit <youralias>.mynxt.info.
The new Mynxt block explorer (http://www.mynxt.info)
Explorer is now running on a better server. New home page shows the summary of interesting statistics. Asset explorer now shows list of assets, candlestick bars, history, buy/sell orders. Alias explorer, account explorer, transactions and block explorers were also enhanced. There are lots of new filters, pagination and information.
New Asset Exchange Transaction volume graph:
http://www.mynxt.info/charts/trades_asset_exchange_per_day.php
Nxt Alerter (http://www.mynxt.info/alerts.php)
Would you like to receive alerts every time there is a transaction in your Nxt account? Especially when coins are sent/received? Get e-mail alerts when your account finds a block or when there is any transaction, no need to keep client running. The system also supports alias operations and arbitrary messages.
The Nxt Alerter already sent thousands of messages to our users, every time a monitored account has a transaction or a block is found. The system can now send alerts every time an Alias Operation is performed or an Arbitrary Message is sent/received. This means you get Arbitrary Messages right in your email inbox, anywhere you are and without having to check your Nxt client.
Nxt Charts (http://www.mynxt.info/charts/)
- the total number of NXT accounts in existence per day
- the number of Nxt transactions executed per day
- the transaction volume (amount of Nxt transacted) in Nxt per day
- the total fees paid (as part of transactions) per day
Mynxt Public Nodes
15 Mynxt public nodes were deployed in December in 5 locations (Brazil, UK, Singapore, Australia and Japan). Their status can be checked here at any time: http://mynxt.info/server_status.php
This will add an extra layer of security to our users. The extra level of trust will help boost the online wallet adoption by both existing Nxters that were hesitant to use the wallet before, and also (and most importantly), will help encourage new people to join Nxt.
With this work, the myNXT Online Wallet becomes an on-blockchain, client-side trustless wallet, which is very similar to the leading Bitcoin online wallet Blochchain.info. The main objective is to make it dead-easy for new users to join Nxt without requiring downloads, java installs, or waiting for downloading of the blockchain.
Mynxt will also be adding a backup functionality so that our users can easily backup their wallet and even migrate to other Nxt clients if they choose to.
- Mynxt in brand new design
Existing users
Existing users don't need to do anything, their wallets are safe and not going to be affected. Everything we are developing is fully backwards compatible. Any existing users that wants to ensure that their wallets are also trustless (because when they created their account, the encryption was still server-side), will be able to change their master password using the new client-side encryption system.
What is Mynxt?
Nxt Online Wallet (http://wallet.mynxt.info)
Nxt online wallet is an html5 web app. It runs perfectly on iPhones or Android or desktop browsers. Anyone can put a link in their home screen and access it any time. Nxt online wallet is easy to use and users can access their Nxt account from anywhere. It has a responsive layout: works in PC, Mac, Tablets and Phones. Right now online wallet can be used for sending and receiving NXT coins. They can also check their balance in NXT, USD, EUR, BTC and other currencies.
- Antony Lewis (Singapore exchange itBit) is buying Nxt coins at the Cebexpo in Vienna by using Nxt Online Wallet
Safety first
Nxt online wallet was made as secure as possible. All accounts are 50 characters long, randomly generated. AES-256 is used to encrypt each account address twice (once using a site-wide key and once using the user's master password). Only SSL connections are accepted and all passwords are hashed (salted).
Brand New Tool: Nxt Forging Calculator (http://www.mynxt.info/forging_calculator.php)
Calculate how much you could forge! In NXT you forge instead of mining and how many blocks you can forge depends on how much NXT you have. Use this brand new calculator to find out how much you have forged.
Nxt Forwarder (http://www.mynxt.info/fwd/)
Use MyNxt.info as a gateway to Nxt aliases in the format <alias>.mynxt.info! This original feature connects the Nxt alias network with the regular internet. You can get people to visit a URL, see an image or a text and control this content via the Nxt network. If you have any alias, it is simple, just visit <youralias>.mynxt.info.
The new Mynxt block explorer (http://www.mynxt.info)
Explorer is now running on a better server. New home page shows the summary of interesting statistics. Asset explorer now shows list of assets, candlestick bars, history, buy/sell orders. Alias explorer, account explorer, transactions and block explorers were also enhanced. There are lots of new filters, pagination and information.
New Asset Exchange Transaction volume graph:
http://www.mynxt.info/charts/trades_asset_exchange_per_day.php
Nxt Alerter (http://www.mynxt.info/alerts.php)
Would you like to receive alerts every time there is a transaction in your Nxt account? Especially when coins are sent/received? Get e-mail alerts when your account finds a block or when there is any transaction, no need to keep client running. The system also supports alias operations and arbitrary messages.
The Nxt Alerter already sent thousands of messages to our users, every time a monitored account has a transaction or a block is found. The system can now send alerts every time an Alias Operation is performed or an Arbitrary Message is sent/received. This means you get Arbitrary Messages right in your email inbox, anywhere you are and without having to check your Nxt client.
Nxt Charts (http://www.mynxt.info/charts/)
- the total number of NXT accounts in existence per day
- the number of Nxt transactions executed per day
- the transaction volume (amount of Nxt transacted) in Nxt per day
- the total fees paid (as part of transactions) per day
Mynxt Public Nodes
15 Mynxt public nodes were deployed in December in 5 locations (Brazil, UK, Singapore, Australia and Japan). Their status can be checked here at any time: http://mynxt.info/server_status.php
Tuesday, June 10, 2014
How Nxt changed our lives? - James
There were 8 full BTC investors that each got 50 million NXT. The rest of 73 got mostly much smaller amounts. I cant say for sure, but I believe half a dozen of the original 8 (I am not sure who the other two are) have given away or sold off half or more of their 50 million along the way. It is simply a very hard thing to not cash out hundreds of thousands of dollars of profits! The smaller holders have most likely sold an even larger percentage on average than the half dozen. There are probably a couple dozen early adopters who purchased 10 to 50 million NXT on the open market. I would say less than 50 of the original 73 and early adopters who got it at 1 BTC per million NXT (!!) still have more than 10 million NXT. probably less than half a dozen still have 50 million and most of those would be the early adopters and not the original founders. So roughly 25 USD millionaires at current 6 cent prices would be my guesstimate. Most of these are down to their long term core holdings and most likely wont sell at any price, short of $1, cuz they already have all the fiat they need. Whats the rush, especially now that NXT is where it is? This means the active liquid NXT is probably around 250 million total, which is still plenty especially with the normal trading volumes of 1 million NXT per day. The deck has already been shuffled, I dont believe there is any organized coalition that can come up with more than 10% to 15% of all NXT. If you know people, you will know how hard it is to get any half dozen to agree on anything! I dont believe any other crypto has this level of dispersion. OK, NEM is fantastically dispersed, but it is not yet and dispersion is not what creates a great crypto. Concentration in few hands, like the three mining pools that have 66%+ of bitcoin, or the instamines for most alts, really make PoW coins insecure. So, while NXT isnt perfect, it is certainly better than PoW simply due to the fact that someone needs to control the majority of market cap(!) not just majority of current mining power. Even DOGE with decent market cap will be able to be attacked very soon and who does this attacking? The bitcoin miners! Yes, it seems they feel a duty to cram the bitcoin blockchain down all sha256 coins and that sure becomes the longest chain real fast. A big laugher for the bitcoin guys and a totally ruined coin for the alt.
Well I have proven that i am no genius, I just work really hard. At first, I was totally lost with this crypto thing, gee that was 6 months ago. Then with NXT being Java and me only knowing C, I started just doing tech support on the main BTT thread.
I started out with 2 bitcoins that I had a hard time getting. Finally had to by it via localbitcoins and paying $100 premium. That seemed wrong! I stumbled into Ripple and at the time (not knowing any better) it seemed like a big improvement over BTC. Actually, it probably is but it has a fatal flaw. The community there is half a dozen guys and a bunch of corporate forum moderators who dont tolerate anything anti-ripple. just mentioning NXT got me reprimanded. Seeing the huge spreads, low liquidity, buggy software and corporatization I predicted ripple would not last long, or at least it would fizzle.
I had sold off my real world assets to get $20K of crypto and by the time I figured out no alt was worth having I put it all into NXT. I had about 600K NXT. Then the whole peercover disaster got me. They lost 150000 NXT during their development of their NXT gateway into ripple and they would have had a hard time surviving if they had to cover it. So I sent them 25% of my total NXT to cover there losses. When it finally came online, it was rejected by most of NXT community, even though it was a viable path to fiat 6 months ago.
One of the big problems of ripple is that they have two major USD gateways, bitstamp and snapswap with peercover a third. The values were often 20%+ different. With the rippling automatically siphoning off the good bitstamp USD into the snapswap that was worth 20% less, it was a big problem. I had managed to make trading gains to overcome the 20% discount, but it took some luck and several good trades to pull out $25K from ripple into normal BTC and then NXT!
So, I started doing some USD conversion service at a 5% fee. Sounds crazy to charge people 5% for changing USd to USD, but people were clamoring for it and within minutes of the funds being available, it was all gone. So, "riskless" 5% was nice, but I had to pull it out of snapswap and send it to bitstamp. Then I had the idea of bypassung this and going from snapswap to peercover USD, maybe even make another few percent. Pretty clever huh? Well, it was fine until peercover got hit by bank fraud exactly the moment ~$10000 of my funds were going through. Poof! all gone. So, enough was enough. I had lost 150000 NXT and now $10000.
Along the way I became the largest WCG miner with a serverfarm I put together using borrowed funds. I was a bit late starting so I didnt get all the easy money, but for a couple of months it was more than paying the bills. So, added more and more servers on credit until I had over 180! On good days clearing $1 or even $2 per server. Soon I would recoup all that was lost, except the mining difficulty kept rising and rising and by end of Feb it was barely breakeven. then ripple announces they are cancelling the WCG program in 30 days. Ooops. I was on month to month, but I couldnt quite ramp things down in time, so profits became losses. Then XRP started to go from 25 XRP per USD to 30,to 40, to 50, ...
I figured it would bounce back so stupidly didnt convert the XRP, figuring after a ripple announcement of a big business deal, it would snap back, at least some. I had to recoup $70000 to breakeven from the stockpiled XRP. All I needed was it to get back to half its peak value. Well, instead of a happy announcement, we got the Jed announcement that he was going to sell 150% of the total market supply in two weeks. So instead of $70000, I was lucky to escape with $7000. And that took some quick trading to double what it would have been.
Looking at all that happened, it is quite surprising that I am where I am today!
Ah, there were three things I did right. I burned a dozen BTC for XCP and purchased and mined DRK in early Feb. So all the horribleness of the ripple based fiasco was erased with the recent DRK explosion in price. My 50000 DRK went from being worth $10000 to $500000! Actually it wasnt that good, as I kept selling off half each time it doubled after I was able to clear my bills. I was too busy to figure out how to get my XCP to an exchange and sell off half when it would have got me 150 BTC, but still I was able to clear something like 400 BTC.
The third thing I did right? Oh, work 80+ hours per week on NXT and started programming in late Feb. programming has always been my fallback, so the same week DRK pulled me out of debt and got me hundreds of BTC, it was only the second biggest thing. NXT AE had created a market cap of some mind boggling amount. I only sold to private investors and just small amounts on the open market. Most all the volumes of my assets are from the early investors and people who purchased on AE.
I strongly feel that NXT is going to get a lot bigger in the future. I have had this feeling from the moment I found out about it last christmas. Assuming that this is the case, then I conclude that NXT based businesses, especially automated ones will act as leveraged NXT. The critical element is for the business to scale with the NXT user base and NXT market cap. That is why I concentrated on financial and tech assets. The financial ones are no-brainer. As NXT marketcap grows, NXTventure will be able to finance larger and larger enterprises and its dividends will scale with NXT. The automated tech companies also will scale almost linearly, but at the high ends of NXT valuations it will not be able to keep up. However, if there is a large external market that it can cannibalize (like all centralized exchanges), its initial growth path will be much faster than NXT can possibly grow.
People say I am doing too many things. maybe I am, but I think this is better than not doing enough things, or not doing anything like some of my critics who are quick to criticize me but I dont see anything they are doing.
I would like to publicly thank aldrin for his generous support of my ideas and his critical donation to me during the darkest times. He just granted me a big chunk of NXT so I didnt have to worry about money. It was a lot more than anybody ever just gave to me before I did a project and with all my expenses covered for the rest of the year I was able to really concentrate on NXTservices instead of wasting time with bill collectors, finding rent money, etc.
Without aldrin I would have been forced to hire myself out as contractor just to pay back debt and bills (I didnt know about DRK going 50x yet). then most likely my NXT work would have been reduced dramatically.
All the TEAM members who now have about one third of what I originally had can also thank aldrin's generosity. I have worked very hard toward a bounty, only to have it suddenly taken away without any notice or conversation. This is not conducive to getting the best talent working hard. I have created a pretty ambitious vision of assets companies and while given time I could probably do most of it myself, I realized aldrin's wisdom. The more people that become vested in NXT, the better for NXT. So I did my usual too much thing and did too much recruiting :)
So, now I have gone from 2 BTC in hand to coordinating a TEAM of nearly thirty people, one third ownership of half a dozen operating asset companies with a market value of nearly 100 million NXT, in 6 months. I have made many mistakes and I will continue to make mistakes, but I am used to working extra hard to make up for them. I think it is easy for people to say that I became rich too easy, but the above leaves out many other battles I have had behind the scenes. It really wasnt as easy as it sounds.
What is most amazing to me about the NXT community is that the vast majority of people here are good people and are really helping each other as best as they can. The emules and fudster types are few and far between. I think the recent acrimony was due to the big money lost (not made) that put people on edge. I am just one small part of NXT. We just need to do what we can to help each other succeed and NXT is truly unstoppable. Just know this will be a several year marathon to complete the first stage and before the second stage will start.
James
18146608053740744717
NXT-DE2F-W76R-GL25-HMFPR
Well I have proven that i am no genius, I just work really hard. At first, I was totally lost with this crypto thing, gee that was 6 months ago. Then with NXT being Java and me only knowing C, I started just doing tech support on the main BTT thread.
I started out with 2 bitcoins that I had a hard time getting. Finally had to by it via localbitcoins and paying $100 premium. That seemed wrong! I stumbled into Ripple and at the time (not knowing any better) it seemed like a big improvement over BTC. Actually, it probably is but it has a fatal flaw. The community there is half a dozen guys and a bunch of corporate forum moderators who dont tolerate anything anti-ripple. just mentioning NXT got me reprimanded. Seeing the huge spreads, low liquidity, buggy software and corporatization I predicted ripple would not last long, or at least it would fizzle.
I had sold off my real world assets to get $20K of crypto and by the time I figured out no alt was worth having I put it all into NXT. I had about 600K NXT. Then the whole peercover disaster got me. They lost 150000 NXT during their development of their NXT gateway into ripple and they would have had a hard time surviving if they had to cover it. So I sent them 25% of my total NXT to cover there losses. When it finally came online, it was rejected by most of NXT community, even though it was a viable path to fiat 6 months ago.
One of the big problems of ripple is that they have two major USD gateways, bitstamp and snapswap with peercover a third. The values were often 20%+ different. With the rippling automatically siphoning off the good bitstamp USD into the snapswap that was worth 20% less, it was a big problem. I had managed to make trading gains to overcome the 20% discount, but it took some luck and several good trades to pull out $25K from ripple into normal BTC and then NXT!
So, I started doing some USD conversion service at a 5% fee. Sounds crazy to charge people 5% for changing USd to USD, but people were clamoring for it and within minutes of the funds being available, it was all gone. So, "riskless" 5% was nice, but I had to pull it out of snapswap and send it to bitstamp. Then I had the idea of bypassung this and going from snapswap to peercover USD, maybe even make another few percent. Pretty clever huh? Well, it was fine until peercover got hit by bank fraud exactly the moment ~$10000 of my funds were going through. Poof! all gone. So, enough was enough. I had lost 150000 NXT and now $10000.
Along the way I became the largest WCG miner with a serverfarm I put together using borrowed funds. I was a bit late starting so I didnt get all the easy money, but for a couple of months it was more than paying the bills. So, added more and more servers on credit until I had over 180! On good days clearing $1 or even $2 per server. Soon I would recoup all that was lost, except the mining difficulty kept rising and rising and by end of Feb it was barely breakeven. then ripple announces they are cancelling the WCG program in 30 days. Ooops. I was on month to month, but I couldnt quite ramp things down in time, so profits became losses. Then XRP started to go from 25 XRP per USD to 30,to 40, to 50, ...
I figured it would bounce back so stupidly didnt convert the XRP, figuring after a ripple announcement of a big business deal, it would snap back, at least some. I had to recoup $70000 to breakeven from the stockpiled XRP. All I needed was it to get back to half its peak value. Well, instead of a happy announcement, we got the Jed announcement that he was going to sell 150% of the total market supply in two weeks. So instead of $70000, I was lucky to escape with $7000. And that took some quick trading to double what it would have been.
Looking at all that happened, it is quite surprising that I am where I am today!
Ah, there were three things I did right. I burned a dozen BTC for XCP and purchased and mined DRK in early Feb. So all the horribleness of the ripple based fiasco was erased with the recent DRK explosion in price. My 50000 DRK went from being worth $10000 to $500000! Actually it wasnt that good, as I kept selling off half each time it doubled after I was able to clear my bills. I was too busy to figure out how to get my XCP to an exchange and sell off half when it would have got me 150 BTC, but still I was able to clear something like 400 BTC.
The third thing I did right? Oh, work 80+ hours per week on NXT and started programming in late Feb. programming has always been my fallback, so the same week DRK pulled me out of debt and got me hundreds of BTC, it was only the second biggest thing. NXT AE had created a market cap of some mind boggling amount. I only sold to private investors and just small amounts on the open market. Most all the volumes of my assets are from the early investors and people who purchased on AE.
I strongly feel that NXT is going to get a lot bigger in the future. I have had this feeling from the moment I found out about it last christmas. Assuming that this is the case, then I conclude that NXT based businesses, especially automated ones will act as leveraged NXT. The critical element is for the business to scale with the NXT user base and NXT market cap. That is why I concentrated on financial and tech assets. The financial ones are no-brainer. As NXT marketcap grows, NXTventure will be able to finance larger and larger enterprises and its dividends will scale with NXT. The automated tech companies also will scale almost linearly, but at the high ends of NXT valuations it will not be able to keep up. However, if there is a large external market that it can cannibalize (like all centralized exchanges), its initial growth path will be much faster than NXT can possibly grow.
People say I am doing too many things. maybe I am, but I think this is better than not doing enough things, or not doing anything like some of my critics who are quick to criticize me but I dont see anything they are doing.
I would like to publicly thank aldrin for his generous support of my ideas and his critical donation to me during the darkest times. He just granted me a big chunk of NXT so I didnt have to worry about money. It was a lot more than anybody ever just gave to me before I did a project and with all my expenses covered for the rest of the year I was able to really concentrate on NXTservices instead of wasting time with bill collectors, finding rent money, etc.
Without aldrin I would have been forced to hire myself out as contractor just to pay back debt and bills (I didnt know about DRK going 50x yet). then most likely my NXT work would have been reduced dramatically.
All the TEAM members who now have about one third of what I originally had can also thank aldrin's generosity. I have worked very hard toward a bounty, only to have it suddenly taken away without any notice or conversation. This is not conducive to getting the best talent working hard. I have created a pretty ambitious vision of assets companies and while given time I could probably do most of it myself, I realized aldrin's wisdom. The more people that become vested in NXT, the better for NXT. So I did my usual too much thing and did too much recruiting :)
So, now I have gone from 2 BTC in hand to coordinating a TEAM of nearly thirty people, one third ownership of half a dozen operating asset companies with a market value of nearly 100 million NXT, in 6 months. I have made many mistakes and I will continue to make mistakes, but I am used to working extra hard to make up for them. I think it is easy for people to say that I became rich too easy, but the above leaves out many other battles I have had behind the scenes. It really wasnt as easy as it sounds.
What is most amazing to me about the NXT community is that the vast majority of people here are good people and are really helping each other as best as they can. The emules and fudster types are few and far between. I think the recent acrimony was due to the big money lost (not made) that put people on edge. I am just one small part of NXT. We just need to do what we can to help each other succeed and NXT is truly unstoppable. Just know this will be a several year marathon to complete the first stage and before the second stage will start.
James
18146608053740744717
NXT-DE2F-W76R-GL25-HMFPR
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