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Why VersaCoin™? Why another cryptocurrency? These are valid questions. VersaCoin™ came about because at the present time, there is no real-world adoption of crypto in commerce. Sure, people are using it in small areas of commerce and private transactions. They are trading it. They are holding it hoping for its value to increase. But it has not been adopted as a mainstream method of payment. That is about to change.

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• Introduction
• A Brief History of Cryptocurrency
• Mining
• Simplicity
• Adoption
• Decentralization
• Technology
• Coin Features
• What’s Ahead
• Key Terms

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At this point in time crypto currencies have been mainstream long enough, where spending half a white paper on technical details is pointless. That is not to say that details are not important, it just means that descriptions relative to the inner workings of a crypto currency are not warranted for the majority of users. There will be technical terms and comparisons discussed herein, but presented on a level that will be understood by the masses. Additionally, Bitcoin (BTC) will be mentioned throughout. Other crypto projects may also be discussed, but not as a benchmark. People need to have a reference point in order to quantify what makes something better (or worse), or different from competing or similar products. So, let's get started.

Bitcoin (BTC) is the name that comes to mind when people hear the term "crypto". Kind of like how almost all people are able to associate the “Model T" with the automobile industry (Ford). Bitcoin was the first truly successful peer to peer currency.

The original design was brilliant. A trustless, permission-less system permitting two parties to enter into a private transaction that did not rely on a corporation or government entity to facilitate (allow) it to take place. Their “peers” all possess identical copies of the public ledger, thereby allowing their exchange to be validated automatically without influence or obstruction.

However, it was supposed to be a project that evolved over time and grew with the needs of the users and the community. Unfortunately, this failed to occur and as a result, the community that was tasked with fostering that growth failed to reach a consensus on the best way to proceed. Lines were drawn, sides were chosen and the project fractured into competing ideals and competing egos. As a result, the Bitcoin that we all think of with respect to cryptocurrency, the "Model T", is broken.

 Bitcoin failed to scale with the increase in the user base and as such, it is slow, inefficient and not capable of taking the place of a currency. At only 1 MB, the blocks are just too small for real world applications and, most importantly, commerce. Decisions were made which flew in the face of the original protocol and the birth of "Segwit" (segregated witness) and "Lightning Network" came to pass.

Segwit stripped out parts of the transaction ID allowing more transactions to fit into a block, thereby scaling albeit only slightly. What got stripped out you ask? Oh, just the signatures of the transaction. Think of it like a signed contract by all parties and right before it is recorded, the signature page is removed to “save space”.

Lightning Network would create an off-chain network allowing "private" transactions, which would not be part of the main chain. Both of these solutions are departures from the original vision of Satoshi Nakamoto. That vision was that the blockchain would be a permanent, distributed, public ledger containing EVERY transaction that ever occurred.

 This caused a group of the original developers to break off (fork) and create a coin that could scale and grow. Bitcoin Cash (BCH) was born. The project was accepted by a large number of followers who chose to support that coin and promote it. However, not long after this fork, the cracks on the surface started to spread and grow deeper within this new project. The core developers of BCH could not agree on how to scale their new project in a way that supported the users while staying true to the original Bitcoin protocol.

Once again, a fork occurred and Bitcoin SV (BSV) formed from the Bitcoin Cash project. With both sides referring to themselves as the real Bitcoin Cash, a power struggle ensued, in the form of a hash war, vying to be the true Bitcoin Cash. What made this reckless to the holders of the coin was that neither side wanted to concede and if a transaction was made on the wrong chain by an unaware individual, the loss of their coins was very real.

Today there are three main versions Bitcoin, a few larger coin projects that get some media attention and hundreds of small projects that don't get media exposure at all. Additionally, there is an underlying problem which all of them share. None of them have concentrated their efforts on becoming part of the global commerce arena. It's time to change that.

In order for a cryptocurrency blockchain to keep growing, a special version of the coin protocol must be running on the network. Its role is to validate the blocks that are being created and, as such, validate the actual transactions contained within them. Work is being performed in this case and those performing this important role deserve to be compensated. Enter the Miners.

How is it possible to mine a cryptocurrency? This is a question that always seems come up when people unfamiliar with cryptocurrency find themselves in a conversation. It’s hard to accept something when you don’t understand how it works. But there are many things in life that are not understood, yet they are readily accepted.

Take a mobile phone, for instance. The engineering and technology packed into that hand-held device is remarkable but the vast majority of users never give it a second thought. It just works, and they have a physical device in their hands that is easy to use AND accepted worldwide.

Let’s think of gold for a moment. It has been utilized for centuries as a store of wealth and a method of payment for goods and services (we’ll save the discussion of fiat currency for a different time). Gold is an element found on earth and it is scarce when compared to other metals such as copper, iron or silver. It is generally mined, which is a process that is widely understood and physically occurs. In the case of gold, one would dig in the earth, sift and separate out rocks and soil and hopefully there will be shiny specks or nuggets. It is a game of chance as there is never a given that gold will be found.

So how on earth can one “mine” a VersaCoin™? As mentioned above, part of the VersaCoin™ client has a function which enables one to mine for coins. Every block contains brand-new coins that have never been used. This is how they are created and make their way out into the world. The quantity of those coins is determined by the coin rules, but the block will also contain the fees that are attached to each transaction within that block.

The process of mining is therefore twofold. It brings new coins into existence AND it validates the transactions that occur between two parties.

Just as a lucky miner finds gold in the screen after sifting, the lucky block finder will be rewarded with the new coins and all the associated fees. The more clients that are mining the coin make the network stronger and more secure as the protocol creates a distributed public ledger. Mining is a vital part of the blockchain process and because of decentralization, anyone can choose to mine the coin. In essence, anyone can validate their own transactions through mining.

Discussed earlier, electronic devices today are extremely technical and packed with complex chips and circuits that we use every day in our lives. However, the designers of them also have another job. Make all that technology simple for the end user to effectively use these devices and make the user's lives easier, not harder.

Crypto currency can be thought of in that way too. The original designers formulated complex algorithms and mathematical equations to create an effective digital currency. But to the end user the only things that really matter are these: Is it secure and is it easy to use?

The Bitcoin developers knew that there were going to be certain obstacles which would need to be worked out as the coin’s user base grew. But as that was the case, there were others along the way who felt that they could build a better coin. Some under the guise of total anonymity, some to utilize more advanced computer hardware to mine blocks and some, just to create a coin specific to their own interests.

Whatever the case, these changes added complexity and features that may not even be necessary in real world commerce. After all, who wants to get to the checkout at their favorite coffee shop and have to wait 10, 20, or maybe even 30 MINUTES for their transaction to go through? Anything more than a second or two for a transaction to be approved and it’s too long.

Commerce is the goal of the VersaCoin™ dev team. Fast, effective commerce.

VersaCoin™ has been designed so that it is readily available, secure and fast.

One may hold gold or silver as a store of wealth, but the last thing they would think of is trying to pay at a register or restaurant using a precious metal. In reality, Bitcoin is very similar when it comes to using it in daily commerce.

The original Bitcoin protocol included a feature called Zero Confirmation (0-Conf) which permitted almost instantaneous assurance to both parties that the transaction was recognized by the network. It allowed a merchant to be certain that the coins of a transaction would absolutely be included a block, with no way for the buyer to pull them back. However, this feature was removed in version 0.12.0 of the Bitcoin protocol and in its place was Replace by Fee (RBF).

Bitcoin had become too big for the underlying coin structure. As the number of transactions began to exceed the capacity of BTC’s 1 MB block, many transactions had to "wait on the sidelines" in order to be included into a block for validation, as the block size never increased with the growth of the network. Miners have the ability to selectively choose the transactions which contain the highest attached fees and add them to a block. Remember, the finder of the block doesn't just get the new Bitcoins mined, they also get ALL the fees associated with the block's transactions. This meant that it could take considerable time for a party to receive their Bitcoin if the sender chose a low transaction fee. Not very desirable if you are trying to pay for something in a hurry, nor if you are the merchant wanting to ensure that you are eventually going to get paid.

RBF allows a sender to "recall" their initial transaction and increase the fees in order to entice the miners to select it for a block for confirmation. Think of it like trying to outbid someone in an auction. But there is a possibility that during this process the transaction can be altered or the receiver address changed to one that the originator owns, to the detriment of the receiver. With RBF, the only way to ensure fraud hasn’t occurred is for the receiver to wait for a few confirmations of the block containing the transaction before releasing the goods or providing the service.

Today's Bitcoin, with Segwit, is only capable of handling approximately 600,000 transactions per day. That equates to about 7 transactions per second. VersaCoin™ is lightyears ahead of that, capable of 1,120 transactions per second. That is 160 times the capacity of the Bitcoin network and a blockchain that contains ALL transaction data. In comparison, the Visa™ network averages 1,700 transactions per second. That puts VersaCoin™ in a very comfortable position immediately regarding capacity and there is room to expand the network and transaction capability as time passes and the need arises.

Decentralization is a word that inevitably comes up when speaking of crypto coins. After all, Bitcoin was born after the global crash of the world economies in 2008. Many blame the practices of the world banks for that collapse. Centralized banks are not putting the needs and interests of the people first. They run in their own circles and serve themselves and their interests. Fiat money has nothing but debt standing behind it and as more is "printed" the value of all the outstanding currency becomes even more devalued. Inflation: The hidden tax we all are forced to pay

Hence, a currency that would not be “centralized” was an attractive prospect. But in the true sense of the word, decentralization may not completely be possible. A small group will always be required to behave as a “custodian” but that is not necessarily a bad thing. The rules of the coin itself will always ensure the interests of the coin holders are protected and the possibility of manipulation eliminated. Consensus is the term used. It is very powerful and its power grows as the coin's network grows.

A better term and concept may be “self-governing” where the community and the network will ensure that the coin remains functional, effective in commerce and a trusted means to store and exchange value.

VersaCoin™ is a fork of the Bitcoin version 0.17 codebase without two main elements that are not needed, by design: Segwit and Lightning Network. Those two features were Bitcoin’s feeble attempt to scale their network. VersaCoin™ has been built to be fast and with ample capacity from day one. With massive 32MB blocks and block intervals of every two minutes, it has more than 160 times the capacity of Bitcoin’s “on-chain” network. That's a staggering 1,120 transactions per second vs Bitcoin's 7 transactions per second.

Additionally, the hashing algorithm has been changed from SHA-256 to Scrypt.

Many coins have suffered the fate of their technology limitations. While the original creators of Bitcoin tried their hardest to make it 100% foolproof and secure, there were parties that picked it apart and searched for a way to game the system. Enter “the double-spend”.

A cryptocurrency network protocol will always agree to follow the longest chain. There are cases where two mining parties may find a block at virtually the same time. Two new blocks (call them A and B) and one chain present a problem. When this occurs, the chain replicates into two separate entities, one possessing block A and the other block B. These blockchains continue building until one of them adds a block before the other, thereby making it the longest chain. Since each chain is identical (except for the A & B blocks) up to the point where a chain became longer, the protocol will orphan (abandon) the shorter chain and blockchain keeps moving along. All transactions are accounted for and the miner whose block is on the orphaned chain is not rewarded.

Nefarious parties figured out a way to build a chain on the side containing fictitious transactions, and by controlling more than 51% of the mining network, insert it into the blockchain. By design, the rest of the network follows the longest chain, but there is not a matching parallel chain alongside the fraudulent one. While this is occurring, the network is validating transactions that were not legitimate and when the network eventually determines this, it reverts back to the true chain. However, the damage is already done. Parties who accepted coins during that time for goods or services find that they really did not receive any of the coins. They've been robbed. 

A brilliant programmer discovered a way to effectively eliminate this flaw. It is called Advanced Checkpoint Protection (ACP) and it very eloquently prevents chains from being built on the side. VersaCoin™ has ACP built into it. ACP creates checkpoints (markers) every x number of blocks. Every node running on the network knows of them and is looking for them. As such, a villainous party's sidechain will not contain the authorized markers and the network will reject it before any damage can be done.

• Scrypt hashing algorithm

• Proof of Work (PoW) scheme

• Advanced Checkpoint Protection (ACP)

• 88 Million total supply

• 32 MB block size

• 2 minute block time

• Difficulty retarget every block

• Dark Gravity Wave (DGW) difficulty adjustment algorithm

• Instant (0-conf) transactions

Like any technology, VersaCoin™ needs to innovate with the times.

Commerce and community are the core principles driving VersaCoin. Meeting the needs of a global community requires a payment system that is fast, safe and secure. People should have a choice as to what they are willing to accept in commerce, public and private.

Privacy is becoming a major concern these days and while VersaCoin™ presently affords a level of privacy there is room for improvement. In the future, a feature will be added to give the user complete peace of mind that their transactions, public or private, will remain private and untraceable.

An element of Proof of Work mining is that as the network grows, so does the demand for energy on a global scale. It is desirable for the network to grow, as this results in a more robust and secure coin, but at what cost? The original vision of Satoshi Nakamoto was “One CPU, one vote”. The idea being that everyday people could run a node and mine the coin. Millions of people all possessing the public ledger. True decentralization.

However, as the value of a Bitcoin began to rise so did the desire to increase one’s mining hash power to find more blocks. Fast forward to today and there are thousands of mining pools and massive mining farms, all consuming tremendous amounts of electricity to mine Bitcoin. This paradigm shift in mining resulted in the individual “solo miner” becoming obsolete. Imagine being at a gold mine, surrounded by heavy machinery, and you show up with a spoon. Not very effective.

There is a better way though. VersaCoin™ will implement a unique “Environment-Friendly” system where the network can grow the way it was intended. Where anyone with a laptop or desktop can mine in the background and have an equal chance of finding a VersaCoin block as to one running expensive, high power mining rigs.

Having the ability to conduct transactions at a crypto ATM or using your VersaCoin at a Point of Sale (PoS) terminal is where we are heading.

Rounding out the list is Near Field Communications (NFC). The avid crypto user is all too familiar with QR codes and long cryptic addresses. But simple is easier. NFC will allow a VersaCoin user to simply hold their Smartphone containing their crypto wallet close to a PoS terminal or ATM and authorize the transaction. No more scanning QR codes as the sole means of sending or receiving

• Algorithm (cryptographic) – A set of well-defined but complex mathematical instructions used to encrypt or decrypt data.

• Bitcoin – The first cryptocurrency created by a group led by Satoshi Nakamoto and introduced on January 3, 2009.

• Bitcoin Cash – The new cryptocurrency formed after the hard fork of the Bitcoin protocol which took place on August 01, 2017.

• Bitcoin SV – The new crypto currency formed after the hard fork of the Bitcoin Cash protocol which took place on November 15, 2018.

• Block – a “file” of a pre-determined size which contains transaction data.

• Blockchain – A string of blocks which contain all past transaction data and will contain all future transactions as new blocks are “found”.

• Confirmation – Each block found contains information derived from previously validated blocks. The network, through consensus, ensures that the hash from previous blocks has not been altered, confirming the validity of the blockchain and the transactions contained within.

• Consensus – A majority agreement amongst the network of users.

• Crypto Currency – A digital form of currency which can be used in commerce and as a store of value.

• Decentralization – A system which does not rely upon a central figure, authority or governing body.

• Difficulty – A calculated factor which accounts for the amount of computing power on the network so as to generate a hash that will statistically require the allotted time to find a new block.

• Fiat Money – Government-issued currency that is not backed by a physical commodity, such as gold or silver, but rather by the government that issued it.

• Fork – The act of modifying the coin’s rules which is accepted by a consensus of the network and the blockchain will continue as a singular entity.

• Hard Fork – The act of creating a new cryptocurrency from an existing one, with the new project defining new coin rules and creating a new blockchain. After a hard fork one will possess equal quantities of coins from the old and the new project.

• Hash (function) – A complex mathematical algorithm which can take an arbitrary binary string and generate a unique string of a predetermined length. This is known as ‘hashing the data”. Any change to the input string will generate a different output string vastly different from the first. Also, it is singular in that one can never take a resultant output string and derive the input string.

• Near Field Communications (NFC) – A set of communication protocols which allows two electronic devises to transmit bidirectionally up to a distance of 4 cm (1 ½ in).

• Peer-to-Peer (P2P) - The exchange or sharing of information, data, or assets between parties without the involvement of a central authority.

• Permissionless – No permission is required to become part of the blockchain network and contribute to its upkeep. In essence, its public.

• Proof of Work (PoW) – A scheme where a piece of data (block) is difficult to create (mine) but easy for others to verify (consensus). Miners expend resources to create the block and as such, the network accepts those blocks as valid. Any attempt at trying to change previous blocks becomes economically impractical and more costly the more blocks one would tamper with.

• Protocol – Describes how algorithms will be used to secure data, the details of data structures and representations and how programs will utilize the protocol.

• Satoshi Nakamoto – The pseudonym of the person, or persons responsible for creating the original Bitcoin. To date, the true identity is still a mystery.

• Trustless – A system where the parties involved are not required to know or trust each other for it to function.

• Validation – A process where miners, running a special version of the coin’s application program, are conducting a mathematical operation to verify that the block about to be added to the chain is genuine and accepted by all on the network. Therefore, all transactions contained within the block are valid.

• Zero Conf (0-conf) – A feature where a transaction is immediately broadcast to the network but has not received any confirmations yet. This allows a receiver to be assured that the coins will make it into a block without the fear of them being retracted or redirected by the originator.