Originally written on November 29, 2013
As of the time of the writing of this article, QuarkCoin currently sits at number 8 on the list of crypto currencies based on market capitalization. It previously was sitting at number 12, however the rising popularity of this crypto currency is partly due to the fact that there are rumours that it is going to be listed on one of the major crypto currency exchanges in China and also because the coin was covered by the Still Report#132 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qXhqSy0nbg . Keep in mind that market capitalization changes daily as more people get in on the coins.
The Still Report is a show by Bill Still who is a financial commentary and economist who made “The Money Master” documentary. Bill Still has been around for a while and he knows markets.
The premise/idea behind Quark is to provide an extremely secure verification method for the crypto currency through 9 rounds of hashing and 6 algorithms. I don’t know about you but this sounds a lot more secure than both Bitcoin and Litecoin. In addition to the security, this crypto coin is part of a few that allows for CPU mining, that is to mine or create coins for yourself using the CPU on your computer whether it is desktop or laptop. Preferably the the CPU should have at least 4 cores (Quad core).
In the YouTube video interview with Bill Still, the creators of Quark mentioned that they wanted this crypto coin to be egalitarian, meaning to be fair to people who are mining the coin that is why they chose to go with CPU mining. Using the CPU can make it affordable for citizens of poorer countries. Although, there have been a rumblings of a GPU miner being developed.
Citizens of countries with a large poor population like parts of Africa, Middle East, South America and South East Asia can benefit from CPU mining, but to fully understand this we first must take a look at why GPU and ASIC mining is way more costly.
An AMD graphics card (GPU) with significant power starts at $100 USD for an AMD HD 7770 model (160 Mh/s). Now, a dedicated Bitcoin ASIC usb (333 Mh/s) starts at $25 USD on Ebay or Bitcoin ASIC Blade miner (10Gh/s) cost $450 USD. Just by looking at the above cost you can see that a lot of people in other countries cannot afford that, I am talking about countries where median income is low and the cost of a graphics card would be what they make in a month’s pay. This cost prevents them from getting into Bitcoin and Litecoin mining.
Now, for individuals living in North America, Europe and wealthier parts of Latin American and Asia the cost stated above is no big deal for the middle class and higher, but you get the picture and there is a barrier to entry for lower income citizens of other countries.
Having said all the above, if a crafty person in those countries currently have a PC they can take advantage of their CPU to start mining coins right away. Many AMD CPU’s come with 4 cores now like A4,A6 and A10 series and those desktops are more affordable, where an entire family in a poorer country pool their money together and pay for it and the family shares the desktop PC. Intel CPU’s are more expensive.
A desktop PC with 4 core CPU can easily be set up to start mining at roughly 120 Kh/s, however this will vary on the type of processor and number of threads used. Right now the coins are at $0.04 USD a Quarkcoin and generating 100 coins would net a person $4 USD. To Americans, Canadians, Europeans and some Asians this is not alot of money, but for people in Africa, South America and poorer parts of Asia this amount can be used to supplement daily living expenses.
The Quarkcoins will then be needed to be converted into another more widely accepted crypto currency like Bitcoin. To do this, anyone can sign up for an account at many online crypto currency exchanges (Cryptsy.com) and then exchange their Quarkcoins for Bitcoins, then use those Bitcoins to purchase just about anything online nowadays and have it delivered to their door.
In addition to the benefits of generating Quarkcoins with the CPU in their computers, citizens of poorer countries can also take advantage of the fact, that crypto currencies give them the ability to transfer money into or outside of their country to a loved one in need without have to pay expensive money transfer fees of banks or Western Union.
I got into Bitcoins when it was at $120 per coin and was mining Litecoin when it was at $2.50 and now I am seriously considering trying to mine Quarkcoin. Now, I am not really sure that Quarkcoin will take off, but I do see a big potential for people around the world who cannot afford expensive graphics cards and purpose built ASIC hardware to get into crypto currencies and make some money to supplement their income.
A Crypto Currency has to be secure, easy to mine for people, easily and quickly have transactions verified and have a hard limit (max coin generated) to protect from government irresponsibilities. Quarkcoin has 3 out of 4 of those qualities above which is commendable, but the most important one from a perspective of being equal to all is the fact that it can be easily mined with CPU mining.
by Das Brain
Update (Dec. 6, 2013): Since this was written Quark has shot up to roughly $0.30 usd and then crashed back down to about $0.7 usd. This was partly due to a take down (market manipulation) of all crypto currencies by most like big banks and governments with high power supercomputers with HFT (High Frequency Trading) technology.
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Tags: Citizens, CPU Mining, Crypto Currency, Gives, in, Money, Poorer, Quarkcoin, to Make, with, World
