The Price of Survival

Feathercoin Key Stats

The abundance of open source has met with the scarcity of money. If money were not scarce it would not force us to make the sacrifices necessary to reveal our true preferences to the group. That mechanism cannot work without consensus across a broad range of people. In order to be money everyone must agree all the time that your currency has value. It is not good enough that the butcher only believes dollars are worth something 3 days a week. The relative value may fluctuate against various commodities but he must be willing to exchange his money at all times.
 
When someone sees something in you that scares them they face a choice. They can either attack you or they can be humble and curious. This crypto currency space can be hostile at times because while the code may be open source and shared the money it creates is not and that terrifies us. We all believe we have unique access to the truth, sometimes we need so desperately to be right that we distract ourselves from what is important. I have found the best way to respond to hostility is to keep working and with that we now turn to some of the hardest workers in our community…
 
 

CryptoKnox

 
I don’t know how many times I can say this but UKMark, Nutnut and Svenn have done it again. UKMark is the guy who has put in countless hours in to SMS Wallet and now another 350 hours in to CryptoKnox the new online wallet with Merchant API exclusive to Feathercoin. The lads have committed some serious energy and commitment in to the project.
 
I don’t know where they get their energy from but what I do know is that I will always support someone willing to put in this kind of time and effort and do my best to remove any obstacles to their success.
 

CryptoKnox is and online wallet with Merchant API currently in alpha testing


I spoke to them last night on skype and they told me:

Security is paramount especially since the inputs.io scandal so fresh in our minds. All wallets are stored off host, all servers are hardened to the latest standards, all interserver traffic is encrypted AND on private networks, and everything is behind cloudflares CDN.
 
The Reason behind Knox is to make FTC more accessible to the new people. To find, download and setup a wallet when you first start your journey in to crypto is somewhat daunting. Cryptoknox aims to offer an easy and secure way to get your first Feathercoin wallet address.
 
This is just an alpha at the moment, security is the most important feature which is why we are asking for some keen beta testers. The lads are getting help from some security experts and I will be helping them with UX and usability feedback.
 
EDIT: UKMark asked me to point out that the CryptoKnox wallet is not just an online wallet but also includes a secure Merchant API to help merchants integrate Feathercoin payments in to their existing shopping carts. There is more info on their home page.
 
 

Local Feathercoin Progress Report

 
Since its launch back in early October our Feathercoin Map has been growing faster and faster. The main motivation behind the project was to highlight the need for localism. We like to think of Feathercoin as a local currency and you don’t get to the very big without paying attention to the very small.
 

From our humble beginnings back in early October…
 

…to the present day

Now due to the rising demand on this page we are slowing down the entries in order to verify all the accounts before we move on to the next stage. If you have put your name forward but don’t see yourself on there it’s because we need some time to verify you on the forum.
 
Plans now include putting on crypto related events, could be a Bitcoin Conference or a local Litecoin meetup, we don’t care as long as it involves a blockchain. So we welcome all submissions, I will try and get a new form put up there in the next week but in the mean time you can PM me personally like Smoothie on our forum who will be selling his physical Bitcoins and Litecoins at the Inside Bitcoin conference in Las Vegas in December.
 
 

The London Bitcoin Expo

 

Speaking of communities and events here’s a good one. We first heard about the London Bitcoin Expo back in July when we attended the BTC London conference. We try to attend as many of these as possible to make sure we get to meet face to face and away from our computer screens.
 

This free event welcomes all people and the organisers are working very hard at making this a success


Ruth spoke to Alex who is leading the organisation of the Expo the other day and it sounds like these guys are working incredibly hard. We know just how they feel after the mission we faced in Amsterdam. There will be a stall where people can donate their goods to be sold for Crypto, a virtual treasure hunt where people can venture out in to London to unlock bounties and a fantastic lineup of Speakers.
 
You can register for the event on the London Bitcoin Meetup page which is run by our friend Iain Cresswell. The impact of crypto on the ground is what it’s all about.
 
 

TL;DR – Genius and the Wisdom to Remember It

 
Everyone wants to be the genius, the one who makes that breakthrough discovery with the razor sharp insight but what’s harder is working on the task right in front of you, the one you can work on right now. Surrounding yourself with the people who want to support you and appreciate you for what you do is one of the most important steps you can take. What is genius without the wisdom to remember it? It’s often the wisdom that can understand the genius better than the genius understood herself.
 
You don’t need to be the best qualified to undertake a task you simply need the determination to carry on even while everyone around you is telling you to stop.
 
Today special thanks go to @Ruthie for her contributions to this newsletter.
 
You can follow us on Twitter @Feathercoin to stay up to date.
 
Thank-you for your time.