All Things Alt: A Crypto Congress and a Birthday for Feathercoin

Another week in the unpredictable world of alternative digital currencies has yielded some interesting developments. Read on for just a taste of the many things going on in the altcoin world today!

Happy birthday, feathercoin!

Feathercoin turned one year old this past week. The scrypt-based proof-of-work coin debuted on 16th April 2013, and has long possessed a passionate and involved community.

In a message posted on the official feathercoin forum, lead developer Bushtar thanked the community for its dedication and meditated on some of the events of the past year. At the same time, he acknowledged some of the challenges lying ahead for feathercoin.

CoinDesk has learned that an anniversary party will be held at The Oxford Blue in the UK on Saturday, 26th April.

The community has also raised 6,000 FTC, or about $900, to be donated to Prostate Cancer UK.

A new game for caishencoin

This week, Tiny Elementals – an animated racing game for the Android and iOS platforms – became available for download. The project was developed by members of the caishencoin community, and is aimed at providing not only a way for users to spend their caishencoins, but also return value to the community at large.

As developer Stuhlman told CoinDesk, users will be able to exchange their caishencoins for codes that can later be redeemed in-game for points. Points can be spent on abilities and powerups available in Tiny Elementals.

When asked about the team’s relationship with Apple, Stuhlman said that there has been no official communication with the company. Because no caishencoins actually pass through the game – codes are redeemed via a separate portal out-of-game, they say the concept does not run afoul of Apple’s scrutiny of digital currencies.

Said Stuhlman:

“We want to build Zynga in crypto, but at the same time not bring in too much burden on the devs, Apple have been very strict about using bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies so we want to play by the rules for now.”

The community will also be holding weekly tournaments, with prizes being offered in caishencoins and other alts.

Mastercoin team looks to expand

The mastercoin development team announced on its official blog that it is seeking a new hiring manager.

Mastercoin’s team also posted other open positions, including product manager and web team lead, at the beginning of April.

In the blog post, team member Ripper234 laid out the qualifications perspective candidates need to present. The position is not full-time, but any applicants should have experience working as a tech hiring manager, possess developed communication skills and be “superficially familiar with Bitcoin”.

More information about the position can be found here.

Strange alt of the week

This week’s Strange Alt of the Week award goes to houseofcoins (sign: HOC). Styled after the popular Netflix show starring Kevin Spacey, the coin is designed to create power institutions within its community based an owner’s accrued holdings.

HOC utilizes the scrypt proof-of-work algorithm and sports a 21 million coin supply limit. The coin will debut with a 50% premine to be distributed among participants in an initial public offering. The block time is two minutes, with a per-block reward of 50 houseofcoins per block and no reward halving scheduled.

Everyone who owns houseofcoins gets a proportional vote on decisions made by community, including funded projects. The person who owns the most houseofcoins is considered the President, with Vice President and Speaker of the House positions designated for the second- and third-largest wallet owners. All other coinholders are considered part of the House. While there are no limits on ownership, no single holder may have more than 10% voting power.

In a post on the Bitcoin Talk forum, developer BitOffer wrote that votes in the House will determine the majority of decisions. A later post proposed the concept of investing in mining hardware in order to generate revenue.

Unlike most new coins, the announcement suggested that listing houseofcoins on an exchange was not a primary goal and would be left to the community to decide.

Image via Bitcoin Talk forum