GAW's Paycoin Volatile in Debut as Company Apparently Shifting Business Focus to Payments

Trading recently commenced with GAW's contentious Paycoin (XPY), which thus far has been volatile in typical crypto fashion.

The coin's website brands it as follows: "PayCoin™ - The People's Money," and "good for you. Bad for Banks." It goes on to claim: "Worldwide online retailers will accept PayCoin™ directly or through third party payment processors. We will give hundreds of thousands of businesses the ability to accept PayCoin™ with ease."

The coin's hashing algorithm is reportedly proof-of-stake, a fork of Peercoin.

A product of GAW Miners, a company already accused of Ponzi practices by members of the 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 community, the coin's launch brings with it more controversy. Ninety-six percent of its 12.5 million coins are pre-mined. So in addition to apparently enriching its creators, demand for the small remaining portion of yet-to-be-mined coins drives up demand for compatible mining hardware.

CEO Josh Garza is apparently willing to back each coin with a price of $20, implying a total valuation of $250 million.

The coin is currently trading for 0.024 BTC ($7.56). Since launch, it has hit a high of 0.035 BTC ($11) and a low of 0.016 BTC ($5).

Cryptsy and Bittrex are among the better known exchanges where it is traded. It is also traded on an exchange called Coin-Swap, where over 95% of current trading volume is between XPY and BTC. XPY is also traded against DOGE. BTC pairings with lesser known alts comprise the rest of the volume.

Total XPY volume during the past 24 hours is equal to over $400,000. The currency ranks 16th in market cap, worth $2.9 million.

Paycoin has already been through at least one name and logo change. Its parent GAW has been increasingly shifting focus to the coin, which it claims to be superior to Bitcoin. GAW is reportedly looking to evolve away from its cloud mining business toward payment services. Depressed bitcoin prices have made it difficult for mining operations to generate a profit, a phenomenon reflected by a recent trend of decreases in network Hash Rate Hash Rate A hash rate is the measure of a cryptocurrency miner’s performance and a key security metric. In the context of mining, the more hashing or computing power in a given network, the greater its security and its overall resistance to attackMining hashrate is a key security metric. The more hashing (computing) power in the network, the greater its security and its overall resistance to attack. Hash rate is also a measurement of the output of a device that is used to add transactions to a blockchain A hash rate is the measure of a cryptocurrency miner’s performance and a key security metric. In the context of mining, the more hashing or computing power in a given network, the greater its security and its overall resistance to attackMining hashrate is a key security metric. The more hashing (computing) power in the network, the greater its security and its overall resistance to attack. Hash rate is also a measurement of the output of a device that is used to add transactions to a blockchain Read this Term and difficulty.

GAW ("Geniuses at Work") itself is a reincarnation of GAW ("Great Auk Wireless"). According to Garza's LinkedIn page, he was CEO of the latter for nine years ending in 2012.