Primecoin turns one year old: a look at some of its accomplishments

One year ago, Primecoin was launched by Sunny King, also co-founder of Peercoin. At the time, it was one of the few altcoins in existence. More significantly, it is one of the few that the employs a unique proof-of-work algorithm with real-world practical significance. This, despite it technically being based off of Bitcoin Bitcoin While some may still be wondering what is Bitcoin, who created Bitcoin, or how does Bitcoin work, one thing is certain: Bitcoin has changed the world.No one can remain indifferent to this revolutionary, decentralized, digital asset nor to its blockchain technology.In fact, we’ve gone a long way ever since a Florida resident Laszlo Hanyecz made BTC’s first official commercial transaction with a real company by trading 10,000 Bitcoins for 2 pizzas at his local Papa John’s.One could now argue that While some may still be wondering what is Bitcoin, who created Bitcoin, or how does Bitcoin work, one thing is certain: Bitcoin has changed the world.No one can remain indifferent to this revolutionary, decentralized, digital asset nor to its blockchain technology.In fact, we’ve gone a long way ever since a Florida resident Laszlo Hanyecz made BTC’s first official commercial transaction with a real company by trading 10,000 Bitcoins for 2 pizzas at his local Papa John’s.One could now argue that Read this Term.

The coin searches for prime numbers as part of its hashing mechanism. It can be argued that this is a more productive use of mining power, which conventionally goes to waste, save for the value of its hashing. It also has shorter confirmations of 1 minute and adjusts its reward difficulty level at each interval. The reward isn't fixed over a given period, rather calculated based on the inverse value of the current difficulty level.

King today congratulated the community on its bitcointalk forum. He thanked users and mining developers, whose efforts helped them claim 5 out of the 21 current world records for prime numbers:

"This is a feat that I couldn't have imagined at the time of primecoin's design, when I was still in doubt whether it could break any world record or not. One year after primecoin's public debut, the cryptocurrency designers are still focused on mixing hash functions with hash-cash proof-of-work, or finding ever more 'cpu friendly' proof-of-work, primecoin's unique proof-of-work remains the first and one of the very few useful and actually interesting proof-of-work designs, that preserves the decentralization property of cryptocurrency."

According to its site, miners additionally broke 11 world records for the Cunningham and BiTwin chains, which are specialized sequences of prime numbers.

The value of Primecoin, however, has not been something to celebrate. It has extended its gradual decline for over 6 months, losing over 80% in the process. One coin is now worth $0.37. Its market cap is now $2.37 million, ranking it 22nd among all Cryptocurrencies Cryptocurrencies By using cryptography, virtual currencies, known as cryptocurrencies, are nearly counterfeit-proof digital currencies that are built on blockchain technology. Comprised of decentralized networks, blockchain technology is not overseen by a central authority.Therefore, cryptocurrencies function in a decentralized nature which theoretically makes them immune to government interference. The term, cryptocurrency derives from the origin of the encryption techniques that are employed to secure the netw By using cryptography, virtual currencies, known as cryptocurrencies, are nearly counterfeit-proof digital currencies that are built on blockchain technology. Comprised of decentralized networks, blockchain technology is not overseen by a central authority.Therefore, cryptocurrencies function in a decentralized nature which theoretically makes them immune to government interference. The term, cryptocurrency derives from the origin of the encryption techniques that are employed to secure the netw Read this Term.