Busy Is The New Brave

 

Feathercoin Key Stats

    237 days since genesis block creation

  • Approx. 25,700,000 Feathercoins created
  • Approx. 13.84 days behind target generation rate
  • The title of today’s news is a quote from Seth Godin.

 
It has been another busy week, so we’re going to skip the philosophy (I know, I know) and begin today with a quote from one of my favourite shows in this space, Let’s Talk Bitcoin in a piece entitled Beggers Can Be Choosers:
 

“You’ll never go broke giving to people. You only go broke when you selfishly try to make too much too quickly with too little research or effort.”
~The Bitcoin Monger from Let’s Talk Bitcoin E63 Seek 39mins


That has nothing to do with this week’s topics but I loved it so much I just had to share. Now let’s dive in…
 
 

Bank To The Future

 
The highlight of my week was meeting Stacy and Max at the Bank to the Future meetup in London. I saw Simon Dixon talk at the Bitcoin Expo the previous week and just had to come along.
 

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These two make a great duo and I hope to see them again at an event like this


I was a little concerned after Max Keiser’s recent tweets with price targets and what seemed like a pump of alt coins and someone indeed asked the question “what is the next coin you will be promoting” to which Max reassured everyone that the only crypto currency he owned was Bitcoin and that he would not be doing anymore announcements as it was a distraction. Although he added that competition was healthy and he welcomed it.
 
I really love what Simon and Max are doing in the crowd funding space and anything that removes the barriers to success of the person on the street instead of leaching of her productivity gets a thumbs up from us.
 
 

VAT on Bitcoin?

 
Following the meetup I spoke to Michael Parsons about his plans to visit HMRC and getting them to reconsider their position on charging VAT on Bitcoin sales in the UK. I offered to come along to the meeting and take a photo of the group to help publicise the effort.
 

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Left to right Tom from Bitprice, Michael Parsons, Marc Warne from Bittylicious and Eitan Jankelewitz from Sheridans Law firm


The result from the meeting is not completely clear as we are still awaiting something more official from HMRC but the guys said that the feeling they got was that HMRC did not think VAT should be levied on Bitcoin. You can read more on this in the CoinDesk Article.
 
 

llocans’ App

 
It’s a well known fact in crypto that miners only break down right after you have left the house in the morning, only to be discovered when you finally arrive home after a long day. But now thanks to @llocans you can from your Android Device.
 

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llocans has been a Feathercoin fan since May and has already helped us with French translation of our video back in the summer
and now he has made this nifty tool to solve his own problem and help fellow miners



This is going to leave you with one of those dilemmas like when you leave your wallet at home and you have to work out whether it’s worth turning round or if you should give up some dignity and bum a twenty off of someone at work.
 
This is @llocans’ first project and he has been working hard on fixing bugs and would welcome any feedback. He plans to introduce more features too like data from the different exchanges like btc-e or bter and profitability calculation. If you have any suggestions go visit his thread and let him know.
 
You can download the app here:
 

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Escrow Services

 
We have seen overwhelming demand for Feathercoins in the past few weeks following the media attention on Crypto Currencies as a whole. As a result we are keeping a close eye on the security of our citizens on the forum to make sure they are protected against any frauds.
 
We have published a list of long time members offering Escrow Services. If you would like to become an Escrower it is important that you have built up a reputation on the forum and we’re happy to help you achieve that. There are many opportunities to get involved right now including modding the Facebook page, helping with the website redesign and the doing data entry on the Local Feathercoin Map.
 
By earning your stripes you will gain trust in the community which in itself could help you grow your future Escrow business.
 
 

Feathercoin Market Now Features Pin to Fiat

 
As you have come to expect from us we have been asking for feedback from merchants and one of the hardest challenges they tell us they face is cash flow. A lot of business operate on tight margins and while they are happy to accept Feathercoins as payment they cannot yet pay their staff or their taxes in anything other than government issued money.
 

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Sellers and Merchants can now peg the price of their products to old fashioned money such as British Pounds and Dollars


@Kevlar on our forum has mentioned a few times that one of the measures of success for Feathercoin will be how it is valued against a range of products and services especially life essentials such as food, hygiene products (soap) or any other daily items that most people need to get by. However before we can get there we needed to help integrate existing merchants who are having a hard enough time selling their products in fiat let alone a new digital currency.
 
You can read more in the forum announcement.
 
 

Feathercoin will be LIVE on MadBitcoins Tonight 7pm PST

 
I will have the pleasure of appearing on the MadBitcoins show. I am nervous because I am a big fan of Mad and have been watching his show since episode one. I think he’s made a great contribution to the movement as a whole.
 

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There’s a fine line between genius and insanity and Mad here likes to stomp all over it


The introduction of this kind of personality helps adds another aspect with which people can approach digital currencies. It gives people a new way of understanding the technology and the news within.
 
 

@wrapper0feather Joins The Team

 
One of my favourite duties at Feathercoin is Welcoming new members to the team. Today we leave you with the news that @wrapper0feather also known as Tony is now part of the core Feathercoin Team.
 
Tony has PhD in Physics and 20 years experience as an engineering consultant. He has contributed a lot to the Feathercoin project, his charts and analysis knowledge have been particularly useful.
 
Tony also has good experience in software development management, fault finding and data analysis. He has also supervised numerous PHD projects at Manchester University and UMIST on application of artificial intelligence techniques such as Data Fusion.
 
But you don’t need a PhD to join our team, all that qualifies you is his hard work and commitment to the cause. So as always if you know someone you would like to see join the team or think you should please give us a shout.
 
 

TL;DR – Thank-you

 
If you read the whole news today I am very grateful to you 😀
 
Today special thanks go to @Ruthie, @spynappels & @wrapper0feather for their contributions to this newsletter.
 
You can follow us on Twitter @Feathercoin to stay up to date.
 
Thank-you for your time.