Viacoin Development Update — 03/2019

8 min readMar 25, 2019

It’s time for another development update! We have made quite a few announcements in the past few months, which you can all find in this update. We also have a few exciting things to share with you in the ‘Coin Development’ section. We don’t want to tease too much but we have a feeling the next development update won’t be far away ;).

Latest announcements:

Coinomi Desktop Wallet

Recently Coinomi released their desktop wallet, allowing you to store and spend your viacoins on your Windows, macOS or Linux desktop. Coinomi is the oldest multi-asset wallet available, with millions of active users. Coinomi has full SegWit support, allowing you to use compatibility and native bech32 addresses. Click HERE to download the latest version of the Coinomi Desktop Wallet.

Vialectrum Updates

Vialectrum is a simple, but powerful Viacoin wallet. A 12-word security passphrase (or “seed”) leaves intruders stranded and your peace of mind intact. Vialectrum doesn’t download the blockchain or require your computer to sync with the network. Instead, it is maintained on a tamper-proof, remote server. During the past months we have released two Vialectrum updates:

Vialectrum 3.3.2.1

Improve network timeouts.
New wallet creation defaults to native segwit (bech32).
RBF batching (opt-in).
Minor bug fixes.

View the full change log HERE.

Vialectrum 3.3.4.1

Notify users of new releases.
Minor bug fixes.

View the full change log and download the latest Vialectrum version HERE.

Hodl Hodl Listing

Viacoin has been added as a crypto-to-crypto pair on Hodl Hodl. Hodl Hodl is a global P2P cryptocurrency exchange, that allows users to trade directly with each other and it doesn’t hold user’s funds — locking it in multisig escrow instead. This minimizes the possibility of crypto assets theft and reduces trading time. Because Hodl Hodl does not hold any money (neither cryptocurrencies, nor fiat) it is not subject to complex compliance procedures. This allows trades to happen directly between users’ wallets and without having to submit your identity to the exchange.

SideShift Listing

Viacoin has been listed on SideShift. SideShift is an exchange service that allows you to buy and sell viacoins with 20 other cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Binance Coin, Monero and Litecoin. Unlike most exchange services, SideShift does not require any form of verification or KYC.

ivendPay integration

Recently we reveiled that Viacoin was integrated on ivendPay vending machine modules. With these modules you can accept cryptocurrencies on any existing vending machine, all by plugging in one cable! The average vending machine accounts for $76 of revenue every week, coming down to an estimated global revenue of over $71,000,000,000. With iVendPay, Viacoin is able to enter this multi-billion dollar market!

iVendPay is also working on a dualscreen Point of Sale. They have been closely working together with its manufacturer to modify the device to their needs. The Point of Sale has a very ergonomic design, making it very easy to use for both the merchant and its customers. The dual screen allows the merchant to create a payment request on the 7 inch screen while the customer gets to scan the QR code/make the payment on the 4,3 inch screen.

Viacoin will be enabled by default on all ivendPay devices!

Coinbureau Binance Rating

Recently Coinbureau, an independant rating platform, has added a rating to the Viacoin Binance Info page. Coinbureau gave Viacoin an 8/10 rating, you can read their full report HERE. Without spoiling their entire report, here is a quote from their conclusion:

“It isn’t a guarantee, but Viacoin could become increasingly popular as cryptocurrency adoption grows and users need to take advantage of the atomic swap capability of the token. We also like the rapid adoption of SegWit and Lightning Network by Viacoin, as well as the rapid development cycle the coin has seen since Romano became the led developer for the project.”

Bitcoin Kurier article

Altcoin Porträt: Viacoin | Der Bitcoin Kurier

Mit Viacoin können Sie Cross-Chain Atomic Swaps zwischen verschiedenen Kryptowährungen durchführen, ohne eine…

bitcoin-kurier.de

German online magazine “Bitcoin Kurier” has written an extensive article about Viacoin. The article has a lot of in depth information about Viacoin, its technology, adoption etc. Use Google Translate if you don’t speak German, the article is definitely worth a read!

Merchant adoption

You can now use Viacoin on the following websites:

Bitcoin Superstore offers a great range of giftcards from Wallmart, Nike, Starbucks, Amazon, Visa and many more. Beside offering giftcards you can also use their website to purchase goods from over 200,000 retailers!

PungoCard offers a FREE MasterCard debit card that can be topped up using several cryptocurrencies, including Viacoin. You can load the card with up to €2,500 per year without ID verification or up to €15,000 (without an annual limit) with ID verification.

Cryptocurrencyposters is committed to providing fine, crypto-themed artwork. They specialize in crypto posters but also offer backpacks, socks, pillows, and more. They believe that cryptocurrency is one of the most important technological breakthroughs in human history. Considering this impact, they want to help spread the word by offering cryptocurrency merchandise that allows fans to showcase the coins and projects that they support.

Paulman Acre is more than just a line of delicious hot sauces. It is a small urban farm in one of the most densely populated areas of the US. It is a commitment to hand-crafted, small-batch products. It is an ongoing experiment in sustainable agriculture. It’s a VW Vanagon loaded with product rolling into the neighborhood street fair. It is part Appalachia, part SoCal and part psychedelic spaghetti-western. Paulman Acre is a way of life!

Hashpower

Since January 2019 the Viacoin network hashrate has increased by 40%, creating an even more resilient network. The increased network hashrate results in more power, security and capability of the Viacoin network. Thanks to the use of AuxPow (merged mining) Viacoin has the 3rd highest network hashrate out of all Scrypt coins.

Coin development:

Viacoin Eclair

We are extremely close to releasing Viacoin Eclair, one of our implementations for the Viacoin Lightning Network. The Viacoin Lightning Network features instant transactions and near-zero fees. Waiting to open or close a channel won’t take long due to Viacoin’s 24 second block time, highly increasing the user friendliness of using the Viacoin Lightning Network. Before releasing Viacoin Eclair we will update LND as the latest version is much more stable. You can check our progress on Github or on www.viacoin.org.

LND (Lightning Network Daemon)

Recently the Viacoin development team has been busy updating LND. The Lightning Network Daemon (LND) is a complete implementation of a Viacoin Lightning Network node. LND has several pluggable back-end chain services. In the current state LND is capable of:

Creating channels
Closing channels
Completely managing all channel states (including the exceptional ones!)
Maintaining a fully authenticated+validated channel graph
Performing path finding within the network, passively forwarding incoming payments
Sending outgoing onion-encrypted payments through the network.
Updating advertised fee schedules
Automatic channel management (autopilot)

Once the update has been completed we will be able to release a stable version of Viacoin Eclair, allowing anyone to set up their own Viacoin Lightning Network node and start using the Viacoin Lightning Network!

Trust Wallet

The Viacoin development team is working on Trust Wallet integration. Trust Wallet is the official cryptocurrency wallet of Binance. Trust Wallet will work seamlessly with Binance DEX, allowing you to make instant trades on their decentralized exchange. We have finished the Viacoin integration itself. All we need to do is run unit tests and wait for them to merge our pull request!

Viacoin Block Explorer

The Viacoin development team is currently working on a new block explorer with a completely new backend, based on Electrum (written in Rust). Some features are:

Support for Segwit and Bech32 addresses
Shows previous output and spending transaction details
Advanced view with script hex/assembly, witness data, outpoints and more
Mobile-ready responsive design
Translated to 17 languages
Light and dark themes

Marketing

In the last development update we shared that we had planned the following things in the field of marketing:

Regular advertisement
Advertisement on an Augmented Reality platform (timed exclusive partnership)
Viacoin explanatory video
Viacoin Copay product videos ✔
Viacoin Merchandise
Polymerbit Cold Storage wallets (high quantity and very affordable)
Merchant adoption ✔
Viacoin Ambassador program ✔

We have checked off more of the items and will continue to deliver more great news in the upcoming months. Recently ViaOliver became our official German ambassador! Are you interested in become a Viacoin Ambassador for your country? Send an email to mike@viacoin.org for more information!

Do you want to help spread the word about Viacoin? Create a Twitter account and join our special Telegram group. We’d love to hear your ideas about sharing Viacoin with the world!