Quote from: QB Horse on April 11, 2018, 02:37:09 PM

Quote from: cryptodv on April 10, 2018, 11:00:18 PM

What's next with development with the $BTX after airdrops? The final one is supposedly April 30th right?

Yep. The last airdrop should be on April 30th and the percentage (%) of the drop is to be finalized. Minimum 8%, but more than likely 8.5%-9% depending on how many coins are left in address #1.

Many people ask questions on what to expect after April 30th. I decided to compile a short summary of what has already been communicated by the team. I might be missing a few things, but I'd say the most important stuff should be there.

In May, the new development phase begins -- Here are just a few tasks from the many the team is working on:
Note: all these updates were communicated by the team over the past few days/weeks

Whitepaper
Hardware wallet (Ledger nano completed task from Bitcore. Ledger has to implement it but must fix their internal issues before. Trezor to come after Ledger in Q3 (estimate))
New exchanges (Many new listings recently on smaller exchanges. More to come as they get confirmed. The team can't speculate nor pre-announce the future listings)
PR (Announcements and articles to come post airdrop)
Some great read by Peter Mercury https://btcmanager.com/cryptocurrency-community-ignoring-bitcore/https://medium.com/cryptomedication/bitcore-still-remains-one-of-the-biggest-steals-in-the-cryptoverse-72540d8ed73e
Active marketing (Details to come post airdrop)
Buy/Sell BTX directly on bitcore.cc (Details to come post airdrop)
BTXM / Payment gateway (Official announcement to come post airdrop. The goal will be to target real businesses and real people that may or may not be into crypto. See also some of the comments below from the team with regards to the BTXM)
https://twitter.com/Bitcore_BTX/status/982354529512550400
Expansion of the merchant network (Details to come post airdrop)
And much more...

BTW the Bitcore Cash fork has nothing to do with the dev team and if legit, looks like the fork would happen on June 16th at 1:1 ratio. The only spec info that was communicated was a 133MB blocksize. (This could be a scam, so be careful with your private key). I guess we just want to wait and see at this point.

The BTXM is certainly one of the main Bitcore projects that could become a game changer not only for Bitcore but the crypto space IMO. Below are some of the comments from the team I can share...

So the shift in focus is now being made to education, vision, infrastructure and utility. We are done with the dry technological superiority of btx speeches, of course if we get questions all will be answered

So the fiat gateway and btxm concept will be repeated many times till we finally get through to the masses in the community.

We are at the verge of getting started now and the race for adoption is on. If we manage to get a 1000 machines in the field in yr1 we are well on our way. Production is being prepared for that and we have the option to expand on that if needed

Btxm = crypto enables fiat service gateway

The version we presented on coinfest was the first prototype we had to get dev going, the next version is the first production-ready model, it's being produced as we speak, it comes with options for the bill acceptor, there's a 600 and a 1200 stacker version, but the rotator holds 80 bills of any value. It's configurable. So you can tell it that if it receives a 500 bill for example to not store it in the rotator, but directly stack it for example. It even generates paper wallets

It's a tool to expose the general public to the benefit of being able to use crypto in a user-friendly manner. If you already have coin you can use them directly on these machines

They are designed to be very flexible with regards to kyc and aml. So it will be hard to ban them

Steve: I saw that machine now for two days in the hotel room and for me its one of the most exciting projects Ive ever seen

Even though we have the btxm's in the works, we are also hard at work to integrate existing atms, Jon has done awesome work with general bytes and there are more to follow. It's vital for our mission that we represent on all hardware platforms available

These quotes about the BTXM are from April 8th...
Wel the btxm isn't an ATM at all actually, it is a fiat machine that takes and gives fiat for 1,2nd and 3rd parties
That's all it does
So any fiat service can be integrated to it. Think mobile top up cards, or AppStore cards
The reason it also functions as an ATM is because of the fiat gateway service on it
So if you want to buy a top up card for your mobile for example you can pay with cash
Because of the bitcore fiat gateway service that is integrated you can also pay with btx
As it will automatically convert your coin to fiat for the top up service
For you it has 0 impact
From the machine operators perspective he makes 2 commissions. Let me explain that a little bit from a busyness perspective
If you buy a top up card for 10 the seller makes gets anywhere between 2-10% of that 10. It has 0 impact on the buyer. Because your voucher gives you 10 of top up
If they use btx for example the seller will get a small % in commissions from the fiat gateway
So they only get commissions from the fiat gateway they aren't able to set a percentage of margin on the coins they sell or buy, it bound by contract with the fiat gateway
That way we are able to keep the fees very low and you won't be punished by using coins to pay for your services like with a normal ATM where the operator takes 5-20% on the sale and the exchange takes an other 5% for example
An other thing that greatly reduces loss in what you get for your coin is that it's decoupled from btc
So you don't lose on the insane btc fees and pay a few times for conversion from cash->btc->btx
And the other way around
And don't forget that network fees on btx are very cheap on btx
The rates you'll get from the fiat gateway might not be the cheapest on the market, this is be cause we need real banks, real people and compliance for it to work. But in reality it will be the cheapest way to buy and sell coins, because there is no btc and exchange fees involved
Just to make it clear: I want to buy btx, I deposit fiat to an exchange (might involve bank fees), I buy btc-> exchange charge me fees on the buy, I need to send those coins to an other exchange-> the exchange might charge me for withdrawal and I have to pay btc network fee, I buy btx the exchange takes a fee on my buy order, then again they might charge me on withdrawal, then I finally have the coins
See how that route is expensive and not user friendly?
With the fiat gateway the fees involved are only a commission for the vendor as with any other service and it will be just enough to incentivize them
The btx is a device that takes cash for the fiat gateway among other services that take cash
The target audience for the btxm is not the crypto community but average joe stores and 'normal' people. We just expose them to crypto because the service is on the machine that also has lots of other services on them. This is how we reach huge amounts of people with 0 knowledge about crypto

EDIT: In this "edit" section I'm adding interesting posts from the team that worth sharing with the community.

April 11 -- Interesting comments from Ivo on the Bitcore capacity and the importance of putting it into a broader perspective.

We still have so much to do with regards to education. There's still so much misconceptions. As an example, on coinfest when me and gm were doing the presentation we got the question that if we can handle 48mln tx, this is still not visa or PayPal capacity. While that is true for now, keep in mind we are still at <1% adoption. That means that if we take their transaction volume and for simplicity take that as a 100% we as btx in it's current form can take crypto to an adoption of 40% if BTX does ALL crypto transactions.

In reality this doesn't hold of course but it does give some context to the capabilities of this coin. People can hammer on the specs all they want but in it's current form we are more then capable of taking it to the next few levels. So people asking if we want or are going to implement LN, the short answer is at this time there is no need to be even thinking about that.

If we manage to take a 40% out of services like visa and PayPal the world would be quite a different place and crypto will have evolved and have a decent infrastructure

What I'm saying is that we have what it takes to position our selves as the top coin without running in to issues that plague btc and eth for example

That's what makes it doable for us to go the route with the fiat gateway, BTXM's and lots of other merchant services and it will hold up in real life

Most of the other coins would suffer from their own success if they manage to pull of something similar. And that would be catastrophic for them

Imagine having a vast infrastructure and then not being able to use it because you suffer from congestions like btc

Another good example is crypto kitties. They were just 1 app, just at the point of going 'hype mode. They weren't even a hype yet. And they faded in to nothingness only because the eth network couldn't handle it. It suffered from congestion and insane fees that instantly made the app unusable. And this was just 1 app gearing up for the start.
I'm not bashing eth here at all. Just pointing out the limitations from a higher point of view.

April 12 -- Fiat Gateway High-Level Overview Chart.
https://twitter.com/Bitcore_BTX/status/984339957966954496

Above is a high-level overview of the fiat gateway. This is a very high-level overview, but it should help with getting a general idea how this is going to work.
All the reddish items have user interaction.
As you can see there's a bank and a payment provider involved in this. Since banks don't have any decent way to interact with them, (API) incoming and outgoing payments require human interactions. The payment provider does have automation possibilities. This is where if you purchase coins, the transaction will get approved and go through directly.
The KYC/AML will be manual on the initial launch phase but will be automated in the future. we chose to go the manual route because we want to make sure we are compliant from the start.
The red endpoints items (BTXM, merchants website, POS, bitcore.cc) require on a couple of things; contracts or arrangements we have with the parties using them, laws and compliance by region, amounts we are talking about, etc.
The Gateway API will notify staff when there's interaction needed and the support staff will monitor the bank account and KYC/AML so the API can take care of the rest.
The insight API is there as well. This adds an extra layer of security and also can function as a trigger for further actions. The insight API helps us to process incoming transactions through cold wallets, there's no need for us to have private keys on the servers, we can do this with watch addresses on the coin deamon too. So we have the option of redundancy but it can also offload the deamon.

There are many factors involved where I can't go into more detail because we are working with third parties, security and legal stuff. There will be more details on the API itself once we are ready to release the tools for merchants and POS integrations. We aim to make this really usable for all without the need for us to know details like selfies, passports, etc.

A few more points...
A commercial product this is a real step forward because it completely decouples from BTC.
The rates are weighted, so the API hooks onto all exchanges that BTX is on. We could have gone the easy route and just hook into CMC and get a nice weighted rate, but it's considered bad practice in both business and IT to build a service on top of another service. If something were to happen to CMC that would instantly cripple the functioning of the gateway. So we hook onto every exchange ourselves. So if we choose to start our own CMC we could. We would build our own and all that's needed is a visualization of the data we already have. So, in essence, we already have our own CMC.
That data is used in an algo that adds the overhead costs of the support staff, a small profit margin and also takes in to account the buy and sell prices of the buffer. This makes for a system that makes a very competitive rate. On the books, that might not be the cheapest, but in reality, it will be on the low end of the spectrum because there are no exchange fees, and most importantly no 2x BTC fees.

When do we get this? Why does it take so long?
It may look easy... Well, the software dev is, in reality, the smallest part of it all. We are dealing with banks that are rigid and require long meetings with expensive lawyers, licences, contracts, compliance issues, third party meetings, risks from a business and legal perspective, etc. In short, there's loads of meetings and legal stuff to take care of. Also to bring blockchain technology a lot of explanation is needed to everyone involved. Then they need to invest and draft contracts for stuff that's out of their comfort zone. A lot of reassuring is needed.
Getting this kind of stuff will get easier once adoption increases. So for now, we have to go the long route because there are not many people that went there before us, there are no examples of how this pans out, so for a lot of people, this is considered high-risk.
We designed it to be future proof so we are flexible if things change from a legal standpoint and we are forced to do more. The level of KYC done is also dependent on local laws.

April 13 -- More quotes related to where Bitcore is going and the vision
QBH - There was long discussion related to the importance of having additional layers of security for the BTXM vs. a centralized ATM owned by banks. Since it's a bit technical, even if it's interesting, I'd rather stick to the main nuggets I include in the post.

Vision on Bitcore development projects (e.g. BTXM): "It's very important that not only the coin itself is decentralized, but that the services built on top it are equally decentralized." ...QBH - Bitcore is a pioneer in that sense!

Who's the main target for BTXM?: "The Btxm is made to bring in newbies."

Examples of places that will be targeted to place the BTXM: "Countries like Turkey or many cities, with ppl with no bank account or similar. We will also be mapping out hotspots, it's easy for us to gain adoption there. The main focus is exposure to the general public. So from a strategic point of view, the target market is where the supporting services (not crypto) are a hot item. The btxm is designed for easy handling. You get your first wallets directly from the machine."

Interesting comment with regards to fiat currencies acceptance: "The bill acceptors are able to process 99% of all currencies available and are able to check the bills on 48mln points of authenticity. Keep in mind that a lot goes into designing and building these machines. They're designed with expansion and flexibility in mind from the ground up. So we can cater different regions with different specs if needed. The parts that go into the machine are chosen so they can be serviced around the globe. So for example the printer that is used is available everywhere in the world and can be swapped out easily. All components that are used are very high-quality so there require very little maintenance. This is important because it hard to setup a global support network. We have access to multiple factories spread across the globe, we have the connections to do global service in place and they are designed to be serviced globally. " ...QBH - That's awesome! Worldwide is the playing field Cool

May 1st -- New updates and quotes

No big surprise, yesterday was the last airdrop @ 9.288277% https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1883902.msg35944821#msg35944821
Bitcore beyond the final airdrop. The future of electronic payments https://bitcore.cc/2121-2/
Missed the airdrop? Had BTC on November 2, 2017? Then you can claim your free BTX at rate of 1.0BTC : 0.5BTX https://bitcore.cc/are-you-a-bitcoin-holder-claim-your-free-btx-now/
What's next? Everything mentioned above is still valid. Make sure you review these points carefully and also the roadmap ...then buy lots of BTX ASAP before the price moon Grin

Most recent quotes from the team

The whitepaper is coming: "I expect us to have the whitepaper out in the next week or so."

The team is getting things organized with regards to the Bitcore development fund: "I also had a meeting today with the lawyer that will help us with setting up the foundation. More actual news about the status of this will be released in the next 2 weeks."

Buckle up! The fiat gateway is knocking at the door: "The fiat gateway is nearly completed and we are well on our way to having the first one in the wild. I expect that to be in within a month."

Quick BTMX update: "The BTXM's are also in full development. I'm working on documentation that explains the principals and working of them.
This takes some time because actual work on the projects eats a lot my time. Also we have several meetings that need to be attended. And we will be working on example use cases on service integrations for them over the coming time, this will be an ongoing effort and will take lots of community effort and ideas. "

Post airdrop BTC coin distribution vs. BTC (chart) -- see below

Cheers
- QBH