Skeincoin

Whilst 2018 will not be remembered as a golden year for cryptocurrencies or blockchain technology, it was an extremely fundamental year for Skeincoin (SKC) and the Skeincoin LLC company. The Skeincoin project was revived in November 2017 by Andrej Ashuev, now the CEO of the Skeincoin LLC company, who assembled a new team comprised of both new and old Skeincoin team members. An ambitious aim was set to become one of the world’s largest and most useful cryptocurrencies. Armed with superior technology compared with many of the top 10 cryptocurrencies at the time and a clear vision of what needed to be achieved Ashuev had the project well underway. Almost immediately after the revival of the project was announced the now famous bull market of December 2017 was in full swing. At the time, the activity in the cryptocurrency space was exciting for both investors and the team at Skeincoin. Never before had the spotlight shone so brightly on bitcoin and altcoins alike. Although along with such excitement in the market came a panic from investors that the train had fully left the station and such opportunities were at risk of being missed, potentially forever. However there is no need for a plot spoiler, we all know what happened next, and throughout the rest of 2018. With hindsight it was a blessing that Skeincoin was not affected by the enormous price hikes as other projects were. In comparison to many coins, Skeincoin’s bull run was comparatively smaller and involved far less people. Daily volumes of Skeincoin peaked at over $40,000 and an all-time high price of $0.24 was achieved in January. Despite such volatility in the market, the Skeincoin project remained focussed on the tasks at hand and steered clear from hyping the project. An attitude of furthering the project first and focussing on price second was adopted. In March, the Skeincoin LLC company was registered in Minsk, Belarus. The aim of the company was to oversee the Skeincoin project and its development as well as having other potential tasks or directions in the future. The company was subsequently registered with High Technology Park (HTP) in Belarus, an ever-growing incubator for IT and technology business known often as the “Silicon Valley” of Europe. Due to Belarusian law, tax benefits and freedoms of operation apply to Skeincoin LLC as a registered member of HTP. President Lukashenko of Belarus legalised the use of cryptocurrencies and ICOs within the country initially until January 2023, yet this has now been extended to 2049. From this point onwards, strong foundations were being established for the new Skeincoin LLC company and the advantages available conferred clear advantages and competitive edge for the business. Within the first quarter, social media channels were newly created or restarted, and the community began to rebuild. A particular focus was given to growing the Twitter account and Telegram group. Both platforms, it was decided, had the largest influence and were most suitable for community interaction. After the project reboot, Skeincoin (SKC) was listed on just one exchange, Cryptopia, however two more exchanges quickly listed the coin. Since then, despite changes in the exchanges where the coin is listed, a minimum of 3 exchange listings has always been maintained.  In April the Skeincoin bluepaper was released. Since Skeincoin is all blue it only seemed right that the document outlining its future was too. The bluepaper was received well by the community and a competition was held for the community to review the bluepaper with the best reviews. The community voted on the best reviews with these entries being subject to prizes. As the bear market ensued throughout the year and value was wiped off of almost every cryptocurrency or blockchain project in existence at the time, Skeincoin LLC, even with the decline in the price of SKC, accelerated its progress within the second half of the year. In total 6 partnerships were made. Skeincoin was one of the first coins to partner with AirCoins, an app often referred to as the “Pokemon Go” of cryptocurrency. The app is free and currently available for both iOS and Android. It allows users to find a range of cryptocurrencies using their mobile phones in different real-world locations. Listing on the app gave Skeincoin’s online profile a boost and allowed more people to become familiar with the coin and its logo. For a link to the app and its website, see the end of the article! Throughout the year, Skeincoin LLC began to communicate and work with the Cryptocurrency Association of Belarus. This cooperation only further strengthened the cryptocurrency-centred hub Belarus was and is becoming. In late 2018, other important partnerships were formed, BelAssist and VINT consult. The partnership with BelAssist was fundamental to the future development of Skeincoin debit cards and integration of the upcoming Skeinpay payment system into a useable platform. BelAssist is a subdivision of Assist which is the largest online payments provider in Russia. The partnership will allow for a method of payment utilising SKC which can be used anywhere a Visa or Mastercard can be. The partnership with VINT consult aims to bring prominence to both projects and will deliver an increased marketing drive to the Skeincoin LLC company and Skeincoin project. In November, it was announced that Skeincoin LLC was undergoing negotiations with VimpelCom PJSC, the parent company of Beeline Russia which is the second largest mobile operator in Russia. George Held, the vice president of the company, expressed a keen interest in Skeincoin and is known in the industry for his forward thinking and innovative ideas. It is hoped that 2019 will bring further negotiations with VimpelCom, yet there are no guarantees as yet that the company will be ready to adopt blockchain technology in any form. December brought a website facelift for skeincoin.co. The website is now much clearer, well designed and easier to navigate. A real drive to improve the website has been undertaken in 2018 to distance the Skeincoin LLC company from the generic cookie cutter websites which are often associated with less than impressive ICOs which clutter the cryptocurrency space. A good website grabs attention and the Skeincoin team remain dedicated to maintaining the website to a high standard into 2019. In perhaps what was the biggest announcement of the year the Skeincoin LLC company announced that it has been commissioned to aid in the development of a national cryptocurrency exchange in Belarus. The development of Skein Crypto World will be backed by one of Belarus’ largest banks which will finance the project. Such a move will raise the profile of cryptocurrency and further the continuous arms race of cryptocurrency evolution and regulation worldwide. The announcement arguably cements Belarus as the world leader in cryptocurrency and blockchain adoption. This December news brought more attention to Skeincoin and it is expected this will continue as the project moves forward. More heads will be turned towards Skeincoin LLC and its ongoing activity when the news of such an exchange is released to the Belarusian media.    In conclusion, the Skeincoin project and Skeincoin LLC have achieved a tremendous amount in the short space of a year, despite no external investment and virtually non-existent budget. Calls for Lamborghinis or “going to the moon” have been ignored and strong foundations have been built instead. Unlike many projects, Skeincoin LLC is not a house of cards, but instead an increasingly connected company with a future that certainly has potential and an ethos of remaining transparent to the community and dedicated to the project. 2019 will bring many challenges, but the team and company are now ready to hit the ground running in January! Although, for now, all of us at Skeincoin LLC would like to wish all of our community members a very Happy New Year which we hope will be both exciting and prosperous for us all! 

Skeincoin LLC is proud to announce it is working in collaborating with VINT Consult, The Entrepreneurs Confederation of Belarus and The Belarusian Cryptocurrency association to create Skein Crypto World, a national cryptocurrency exchange. The development of this project is a large undertaking and aims to revolutionise the way cryptocurrency is used, traded and adopted worldwide. Negotiations have been undertaken with one of the largest commercial banks in Belarus, who will finance the development of this national stock exchange. Skeincoin LLC has been tasked with the development of the base currency of the exchange which will be a third-generation cryptocurrency for use on the exchange. This cryptocurrency will be used to trade against other cryptocurrencies on the exchange. Skein Crypto World will be unique in many regards, but most notably in its integrity to the blockchain community around the world, its level of security and its position to operate more freely due to the legal structure in Belarus with regards to the operations of cryptocurrency related companies or operations. There is no other country in the world where such an endeavour as the creation of a national cryptocurrency exchange can yet be achieved. In this view, Belarus is the first mover when it comes to bringing cryptocurrency to the masses. The exchange aims to be the NASDAQ of the blockchain sphere and with the backing that Skeincoin LLC has to create such an exchange, this feat is not an overestimation.  As alluded to previously, Skeincoin LLC has been tasked with the development of the base currency for the exchange. The total amount of coins, price and the distribution of them has not yet been settled, however the major bank involved will hold a large proportion of such coins. This means that cryptocurrency itself will be safer than ever to buy and more easily brought to the masses. Skeincoin (SKC) will itself be listed on Skein Crypto World. At Skeincoin LLC, we believe this project will bring increased credibility to the cryptocurrency industry as a whole, yet also distinction to SKC itself. This effort will provide SKC with increased liquidity as well as the ability for Skeincoin LLC to progress faster with the development of SKC itself in order to create one of the world’s leading cryptocurrencies, both in terms of its technological prowess, but also in its implementation into the Skeinpay payment system which will be usable worldwide. Link to the video presentation: https://youtu.be/8c3fVWeCrc0

In one of its most symbolic partnerships to date, Skeincoin is very excited to announce that it will be working closely with Assist Belarus! Assist Belarus is itself a subsidiary of Assist, Russia’s largest online and electronic payments company specialising specifically in facilitating payments infrastructure. The company currently connects over 3000 businesses and enterprises online and meets the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), an international security standard for organisations involved in operating with major credit card schemes such as VISA or Mastercard. This is a standard it must meet annually and has done since 2006. The parent company Assist, has been awarded the Runet award in the past for being the best online financial instrument in Russia. The company offers many different services, each providing convenient benefits for the end user. These include ‘one click’ purchases and easy cancellation/refund options. By providing such quality services, Assist Belarus is capable of providing payment systems which can contend or even outcompete international standards. Together with Assist Belarus, Skeincoin aims will develop the unique payment system SKEINPAY, based around Skeincoin itself. Whilst this is a large undertaking, formation of such a payments system will allow for the creation of Skeincoin debit cards which will operate like any other VISA, Mastercard or American Express card. This will open up many doors for Skeincoin by providing one major step forward in allowing SKEINPAY to become a more serious and accomplished payments system.

Skeincoin is proud to announce its recent partnership with VINT Consult. The company has been operational for almost 7 years providing a plethora of services including business planning, marketing, HR consulting and it also helps businesses achieve strategic success as well as operational goals. VINT consult serves many businesses and despite its base in Belarus, it now reaches clients in many countries including: Estonia, Latvia, Czech Republic and Cyprus. VINT consult is not restricted solely to the cryptocurrency sphere and has found success with partnerships in many fields including service, trade, production and agriculture. Despite this, the company has a strong interest in the future of cryptocurrency and has successfully registered the first “Cryptounion” titled “Support and Development of Cryptocurrency and Blockchain Technologies” again in Belarus. Along with serving over 1700 clients, it is safe to say that Skeincoin values VINT consult as a very useful and versatile partner. Through this partnership, Skeincoin will begin to formulate its marketing operation which will soon be underway. After working hard on the core product, the Skeincoin company and other partnerships, Skeincoin is now ready to embark, together with VINT consult, on an advertising campaign to show the world its unique product and service and how it can change the world. Skeincoin will be supported in the many domains of marketing such as strategy, branding, market research and promotion.

Here at Skeincoin we are proud to announce our partnership AirCoins! Often termed the ‘Pokemon Go’ of crypto, AirCoins is an app in which you can find cryptocurrency in augmented reality (AR) with your smartphone! The app is supported on both Android and iOS, and at present offers a wide variety of coins or tokens to find out and about in the real world. Examples of coins already supported and ready to find include Bitcoin, Ethereum, Electra and PacCoin! The app is free to download and use and is growing in popularity each day! We are proud to be a part of the AirCoins journey so early on as we think it is an excellent way to entice new users to discover crypto (quite literally) and for existing users to get both functionality and enjoyment. The AirCoins team has an ambitious roadmap with a multitude of potential directions for the future! Most notably, the team aims to work with a decentralised exchange to offer users the ability to not only find cryptocurrency using the app, but to trade it with other users too. Armed with this unique idea and with the strong backing of over 20 staff, the team is surely poised for success. On top of all of this, Team McAfee, fronted by John McAfee himself, have pledged $25m to the AirCoins project to further its development! AirCoins is an excellent way to attract more people to the cryptocurrency sphere as it provides users with a useful and enjoyable service, individual cryptocurrencies with marketing and advertising opportunities and it also connects the AR world with blockchain in a way never tried before. So, what are you waiting for? Get outside and find some Skeincoin, or any other crypto for that matter! Each Skeincoin within the app is worth 0.1SKC and we can airdrop more at any point in time. Download the app here for Android and here for iOS! Don’t forget to check out all the AirCoins social media channels here: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Aircoins/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/AirCoins_Crypto Telegram: https://t.me/aircoins Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aircoins.co/

You may know about Skeincoin (SKC) or you may not. Either way, you will in the know by the end of the article, and you will be glad of it! We’re all busy people so let’s cut to the chase! From transaction costs of <$0.0001, to its ability of processing 10,000 transactions per second (with lightning) there are many reasons one may be interested in Skeincoin, however these are just two of many reasons why Skeincoin is a true hidden gem. Today I want to discuss a brief history of the Skeincoin team and how it got to where it is today. It is important people understand this information as it is excellent evidence that the team is dedicated, hardworking and willing to push through the hard times to reach the light at the end of the tunnel. November-December 2013 Skeincoin was first created in in the latter part of 2013 by Red Kendra (1), with the ANN (announcement) for the project being posted on Bitcointalk on November 1st of that year (2). The announcement was initially met with much interest on the forum. The project had no premine, which allowed equal access and opportunity to all who wanted to mine Skeincoin. Whilst there were never problems with the Skeincoin team or the technology associated, there were issues in the cryptocurrency space at this time which would ultimately be enough to destabilise this small, yet ambitious project. January 2014 Between the original Bitcointalk announcement in November 2013, the Skeincoin team worked in the background to try and secure exchange listings, which quickly began proving difficult. It was not until the 8th January 2014 when it was announced that Skeincoin was listed on Openex, its first exchange. Openex was Skeincoin’s first exchange Much to the disappointment of the Skeincoin community at the time, the team was struck with what would be their first wave of bad luck. Less than one week of Skeincoin being listed, Openex was hacked. Bitcoin wallets on the exchange were affected, causing many users to lose bitcoin stored on the exchange (3). It was publicised that any stolen bitcoin was recovered but following this unfortunate news, trust towards Openex in the Skeincoin community began to dwindle very quickly. There was a rebound of pressure on the Skeincoin team to find a new exchange not only to increase liquidity, but to diversify against further threats to users’ security when trading Skeincoin. Community members began community votes for other exchanges, however the main target was Cryptsy, a popular exchange at the time, which is now no longer in existence. However, Skeincoin would never be listed here despite community efforts. A Skeincoin community WordPress was established by members of the Skeincoin community in early January. It aimed to provide relevant Skeincoin information and tutorials. Sadly, due to other commitments from the creator and with the apparent demise of the project, the WordPress was not updated after 7th March 2014 (4). By 25th of January, it appeared that Skeincoin would be able to break free from the barriers it faced to effective trading when it was listed on Freshmarket. However, this taste of freedom was short lived. In an attempt to secure itself against further hacks, Openex announced it would be in maintenance for 3 weeks. Still a relatively unknown project, and back to trading on just one active exchange, a negative sentiment began to creep into the Skeincoin community. By February 2nd there was almost no trades on the exchange. One Skeincoin miner was even close to obtaining 51% of the hash rate around this time. It was clear the project was in decline, yet by this stage many factors were out of the team’s hands. To gain community interest, team members created caps and even socks sporting the Skeincoin logo February 2014 Openex resumed trading early on February 4th, but this was overshadowed by yet more bad fortune as on 5th February, Freshmarket was hacked also and announced its own shutdown as a result. A community member’s contribution for a Skeincoin logo To make matters worse, as the Skeincoin project entered these new troubled waters, community frustrations in the Bitcoin talk thread regarding a lack of PR and promotion from the team became increasingly common. The coin was not being noticed, and the level of interest seemed to be at an all-time low. In a last-ditch effort to revive the project and gain some order in the chaos, the core members of the team and community decided to form the Skeincoin foundation which was officially announced on 12th February. The aim for the foundation was to streamline ideas between a tight community and decide upon the correct direction of the Skeincoin project and which actions should be prioritised by having regular meetings to discuss such topics (5). To make matters worse for cryptocurrency as a whole, it was during February 2014, when Mt. Gox, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world shut down and filed for bankruptcy (6). The world-leading Japan-based cryptocurrency exchange Mt. Gox went bankrupt in February 2014 On February 14th it was announced that Swisscex, another exchange, planned to list Skeincoin and the following day, Skeincoin was available for trade on Atomic Trade. From this point, things began to look more positive for the Skeincoin project again. Work commenced on a website and community members began to design logos for the coin. March 2014 Skeincoin was in a vote to be listed on Bittrex in 2014, but was unsuccessful On 5th March, it was announced that a new exchange called Bittrex (heard of that one?!) would be doing some community votes to list coins upon its launch. Skeincoin entered this vote but regretfully, did not make the cut. Interestingly, Bittrex is the only exchange to show any interest to the Skeincoin project that is still in existence besides Cryptopia where the project currently has the vast majority of its trading volume. The Skeincoin team was even working on an android wallet in March, but unfortunately it was never listed on Google Play, and there is no obvious evidence to suggest what state it was developed to. By mid-March a newfound push to get listed on more exchanges was undertaken. Requests were sent to all of the major exchanges at the time by members of the Bitcointalk thread, including C-Cex and Kraken. Unfortunately, applications for Skeincoin listing were declined or unsuccessful by all, with Kraken stating they did not have the resources at the current time to go through the lengthy process of listing a new coin. In late March, Cryptobetfair.com, an online cryptocurrency gambling site, added Skeincoin and it is still listed there today (7). August 2014 Just 8 months after the original announcement, interest in the coin was the lowest it has been since its inception. This decline was seen despite Red Kendra posting a wallet update in late July. Posts on the Bitcoin talk thread became few and far between and the community was unsure of the direction the project should go in. Without any real trading volume, and such low adoption, no use case could be achieved by Skeincoin. One user on the Bitcointalk thread at the time described this as a ‘chicken and the egg’ problem. Due to the low hash power being achieved by Skeincoin at this time due to the lack of people mining the coin, it was proposed that the team should implement ‘merged mining’ with Myriad coin. If it were implemented it would have allowed miners to mine both coins simultaneously. The reason for this was that it would be mutually beneficial to both of the coins by combining hashing power making both coins’ networks more secure (8). Despite the benefits, there was no partnership with Myriad coin. April-May 2015 By April 2014, the only exchange Skeincoin was listed on was Atomic Trade, which by this stage, had rebranded to Banx.io (now inactive). There was talk of a renewed effort to get Skeincoin listed on C-Cex, a more trustworthy exchange, to spread the trading risk as had been done before in 2014 with Openex and Freshmarket, but this fell through. Early in May, the market cap of Skeincoin fell below $5000USD, yet, into July the project began to show signs of recovery and the market cap began to rise again. However, this ‘recovery’ was most likely due to the block halving which was approaching at the time. Miners rushed to mine as many blocks as possible before the halving. In late May, Skeincoin was added to the vote to be listed on Cryptopia and by the end of the month it was listed on the exchange and remains there to this day (9). October 2015 By this stage it looked like Skeincoin, the once determined yet now stagnant project, couldn’t take much more of a beating. However, this was not the end of Skeincoin’s setbacks. The skeincoin.org domain expired, meaning there was now no website, and despite still being active, the project looked dead to outsiders. From this point, posts in the Bitcointalk thread were often months apart. June 2017 Despite the thread being almost silent for over a year, Red Kendra released an updated Skeincoin wallet which signalled the project was apparently not dead in June of 2017. November 2017 – Present Just a few days after Skeincoin’s third birthday, the current CEO Andrej Ashuev posted in the Bitcoin talk thread with a proposal for the coin. He had a new and ambitious vision for the coin with inspiration taken from the beginnings of DASH and how a rebranding and new team induced massive success. The new and current Skeincoin logo designed by Graphic Guru After gaining support for his vision, Ashuev created his new team from the remaining original members plus new ones too to create a stronger and more well-rounded team. Interest in the project was now fully reignited and by this point and Skeincoin was now (and still is) tradable with BTC, LTC and DOGE pairings on Cryptopia. The current logo for Skeincoin was created by Graphic Guru who is the current graphic designer for the project. Upon inception of the new team’s takeover, discussions were undertaken about whether to rebrand and change the Skeincoin name. It was quickly decided to keep the name to symbolise the originality of the Skeincoin project in using the Skein hashing algorithm. In June 2018 the official roadmap was announced Zoran Ilišković ‘Graphic Guru’, the Chief Design Officer, and Ashuev bought the current domain Skeincoin.co and began to assemble ideas for the new and updated website. The confidence displayed by Ashuev about the Skeincoin reboot was infectious. Old wallets were synced proving the chain was still alive and the price of the coin began to increase. By 1st January this year (2018) the coin was up to date on CoinMarketCap and had a functioning Twitter account (10) and Telegram chat (11). At this point, the new team, fronted by Ashuev, was in search for a developer and were trying to contact Skeincoin’s founder Red Kendra without initial success, yet by 21st January 2018 when he was reinstated as lead developer, the very same day the new was released, giving a fresh new look to an old coin (12). The new Skeincoin website published on 21st January 2018 A new Bitcointalk thread was also created on January 21st 2018 (13). From February, Skeincoin has been listed two new exchanges: ICQBase Exchange and FreiExchange. In March of this year, the Skeincoin foundation was announced and it is based in Belaruses’ High Technology Park in Minsk (12). Hi Tech Park in Belarus could be Europe’s answer to Silicon Valley Most recently, on July 5th the SegWit status for the Skeincoin project was marked as “locked in”. It is not always just the tech which makes a project successful. Skeincoin has proven it is not a flash in the pan and is here for the long term. Unlike other community reboots, the Skeincoin team is an amalgamation of new and old team members who are striving for success together. They do not and will not have problems with old developers trying to sabotage the new project similar to what happened with the PacCoin (14) and Peepcoin/DAPS (15) projects which both suffered significantly due to problems with the old developer. The Skeincoin team is friendly and approachable and after speaking with many of them personally, I am confident their project will succeed. Sources 1. https://bitcoinexchangeguide.com/skeincoin-skc/ 2. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=322828.0 3. https://www.ccn.com/openex-hacked/ 4. https://skeincoin.wordpress.com/ 5. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=461693.new#new 6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mt._Gox 7. https://cryptobetfair.com/ 8. https://www.cryptocompare.com/mining/guides/what-is-merged-mining-bitcoin-namecoin-litecoin-dogecoin/ 9. https://www.cryptopia.co.nz/Exchange/?market=SKC_BTC 10. https://twitter.com/Skeincoin 11. tinyurl.com/skcTele 12. https://skeincoin.co/ 13. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2800098.0 14. https://www.reddit.com/r/paccoin/comments/7rzejx/newold_pac_saga/ 15. https://dapscoin.com/daps-peepcoin-project-will-now-be-daps-project-important-community-announcement/ Cameron McCloskey