Like many of the users here, I was frustrated by the messy launch, the fact that getting your hands on a windows client, mining info and such was close to impossible for those less tech savvy, who are not Linux users.
In retrospect, though, would it be a bad thing for Max&co to have gotten their hands on some coins by making day 1 mining less accessible to the average user? I think any holders would agree that Max could do much better job as a promoter if he had some skin in the game.
The coin itself, while it doesn't feature ground breaking innovations, it does have an ASIC proof Keccak (SHA-3) mining algorithm, which is way more than what most of the alt coins have. Most alt coins use either Litecoin based Scrypt or SHA-256.
Devs had this to say about the launch:
I agree that Max's approach can rub people up the wrong way but that's his style; love it or hate it.
To correct some misconceptions about the launch:
It was a mess and we own up to that.
It was not intentionally so chaotic.
The devs have made no money out of MaxCoin (we've actually lost money right now in server costs).
Max provided no funding to the dev team and to my knowledge had no advantage over any other miner (excluding his financial resources of course)
We had every intention of having GUI wallets available for all all clients at launch as well as a CGMiner port (we planned originally to release this on day 2 to allow people to CPU mine first but it became apparent that the community were going to beat us to it so we put resources into developing one but proved unsuccessful due to time and competing priorities), stratum port and p2pool port.
The above was not possible due to time and resources constraints and it was decided that it would be better to launch as was than delay and upset the community.
In hindsight it was the wrong move to release when we did and we should have delayed but hindsight is 20/20 as they say.
This above is my take on things personally and doesn't reflect the opinions of the entire dev team or Max himself. A comprehensive statement explaining and apologising the launch will come hopefully tomorrow.
I can only apologise if people feel cheated and or let down by the launch. We all hope to do better in the future.
http://www.reddit.com/r/maxcoinproject/comments/1xgo7a/the_launch_wasnt_for_crypto_cry_babies_cowboy_up/cfbany3
I see a few things going for this coin:
1. SHA-3 mining algo, which is not the standard SHA-2 or Scrypt.
2. Max Keiser behind the coin as big media personality.
3. Max Keiser's financial expertize, knowledge of cryptos and filthy rich friends that can jump in the bandwagon.
4. Since Max Keiser is also an investor in Bitcoin businesses like Bitpay, he will financially support the project to increase adoption and create the infrastructure.
5. Efficient mining with Nvidia cards.
6. The coin has inbuilt algorithm changing so if someone was to build an ASIC the devs would simply change the algorithm and they would be rendered useless. Posted by the Maxcoin devs http://www.reddit.com/r/maxcoinproject/comments/1xh1xl/the_maxcoin_advantage/cfba4hy
Coins like Megacoin and many others among top 20 by market cap don't have any of these advantages. Maxcoin has big upside from these levels. Here are some links in case you have no idea of what I'm talking about:
Website:
http://signup.maxcoin.co.ukReliable exchanges:
https://bter.com/trade/max_btchttps://mcxnow.com/exchange/MAXhttps://www.cryptsy.com/markets/view/152Coindesk article
http://www.coindesk.com/max-keiser-altcoin-maxcoin-makes-debut/Twitter
https://twitter.com/maxcoinprojectBitcointalk thread
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=438150.0;topicseen