Despite this year’s all time highs being broken and unbelievable community growth, November was a surprisingly quiet month for Vertcoin. The Dev team is back into development mode and our focus has shifted to delivering one of the most requested features: Mobile and desktop wallets. We’ve also had many productive discussions around how to further decentralize Vertcoin, particularly from a mining pool perspective.

We’ve made a commitment to deliver more frequent Core updates, added a new (old) Dev Team member and we’ve begun preparing for possibly the biggest VTC event this year — our first block reward halving.

Vertcoin Core Wallet 0.12 is almost here

Over the past few weeks we’ve been preparing the latest release of the Vertcoin Core Wallet: Version 0.12. This update adds a number of improvements including a chainstate database restructure, updated RPC commands, a new SegWit address format and other performance improvements. This update will bring Vertcoin Core up to feature parity with Bitcoin Core 0.15.1 (latest release). Release notes will come shortly after the release is live.

The Release Candidate is available now for testing but should not be used for mining or production systems.

Downgrading Note

The chainstate database for this release is not compatible with previous releases, so if you run 0.12 and then decide to switch back to any older version, you will need to run the old release with the -reindex-chainstate option to rebuild the chainstate data structures in the old format.

If your node has pruning enabled, this will entail re-downloading and processing the entire blockchain.

Vertcoin Reward Halving

Vertcoin’s first reward halving is scheduled to happen next month. It will occur on block 840,000 and is forecasted to reach the target height on December 12, 2017.

What does this mean?

Every mined Vertcoin block contains a mining reward paid out to the miner (or miners in a pool) that solved the block and submitted it to the blockchain. Currently, that reward is 50 VTC. At block 840,000 the mining reward will be halved from 50 VTC to 25 VTC. There is no impact to coins you currently own and it requires no action on your part.

We will be launching a halving countdown website to help everyone stay up to date.

New P2pool and Node Scanner!

We have a brand new Vertcoin p2pool and node scanner thanks to the contributions of a community member! This new scanner will replace the old and has a handful of new features including the ability to add your public pool to the list! Go check it out at https://scanner.vertcoin.org/pools

Electrum TOR Wallet Released!

For those who missed the original announcement, we’ve now made it easier to use Vertcoin over a TOR connection. Introducing the Vertcoin Electrum TOR Wallet: A lightweight wallet that is designed specifically with your privacy in mind. To mask your IP when interacting with the blockchain, simply launch the TOR browser then launch the TOR wallet. The wallet will automatically connect to a hidden service node via the TOR proxy.

Download the Electrum TOR wallet here: https://github.com/vertcoin/electrum-vtc/releases/tag/2.9.3.3-tor

What’s new

New face on the Dev Team

Adam (a432511) has rejoined the Vertcoin Dev Team after a short leave to pursue business opportunities. Adam is the former Lead Dev of Vertcoin, him rejoining the team will add a ton of knowledge and experience. Say hi to him in Discord when you see him.

Coin Development

Up Next

AMD Optimized GPU Miner

Re-implementation of Stealth Addresses

Block reward halving

In Progress

New Vertcoin mobile and desktop wallets

Expanded Vertcoin Exchange/Wallet Support

One-click Vertcoin Miner (BETA)

Released

Electrum TOR Wallet

Vertcoin & Litecoin Atomic Swap

Electrum-VTC 2.9.3.1 Update

Development Fund Website

KPIs (Key Performance Indicators)

Reddit — r/vertcoin: 18,573 Subscribers + 78.6%

Reddit — r/VertcoinTrader: 2,367 Subscribers + 359.61%

Twitter: 46,006 Followers + 28.64%

Discord: 8,037 Members +332.56%

VTC Development Fund Usage (September 2017)

Donations: 3874.43 VTC

Usage: -25 VTC (Marketing and Dev Costs)

Links & Resources

Interview With James Lovejoy, Lead Developer of Vertcoin