‘Another one bytes the dust,

And another one gone and another one gone

And another one bytes the dust, yeah!” - Queeen

Today’s review is of an OG coin that has a loyal community, sitting at #25 on CoinMarketCap at the time of this writing, but has been out of the spotlight for a while...Bytecoin!

Let’s dig in…

Bytecoin (ticker: BCN)

Mid-Tier Shitcoin

Wtf is this shit?

Bytecoin is an OG coin launched in 2012. They are the first to utilize CryptoNote (ring signatures and other privacy/anonymity tech) as used in Monero...which is a fork of Bytecoin. Gosh, it must suck to see a fork be more successful than you.

Without going into too much detail, a ring signature is another privacy protocol, distinct from zero-knowledge proofs for example. A ring signature is a specific type of digital signature where a group of signers merge together to create a separate, distinct signature.

Wait wtf?

Okay...let’s say you send a transaction to me. The ring signature is created using your account keys in addition to other public keys (aka outputs) pulled from the blockchain's history. So, a ring signature is created by the actual signers + other non-signers...yet the non-signers and signers are all seen as equals and it is infeasible to tell who the transaction originated from. So, an outside observer cannot tell which signer actually sent the transaction. We can continue to get deeper in a Monero review, when we decide to do that :)

Next, Bytecoin uses Proof of Work. They wanted to improve on Bitcoin's implementation by adding an Egalitarian scheme (a version of skrypt) that is not quite ASIC resistant, but allows for easier mining from a CPU or GPU...disincentivizing ASICs a bit.

Block rewards are also decreased at each block, rather than abruptly every 4 years like with Bitcoin. They claim this provides for a smoother, less abrupt economic environment.

A big reason for the heat Bytecoin has received is that they originally had a large premine, which is a big no-no in the space. Additionally, the team remains anonymous, yet they are reachable. We know these ‘downsides’ are only taking up two lines here, but there have been many accusations and lots of paranoia around Bytecoin, despite how solid the team may (or may not) be. Still, these reviews are here to give you the basics of how these coins work, with some anecdotal fun :) Also, their logo is too happy and bubblegum-like. 

Who tf is behind this shit?

No one really knows. They do have communication channels, but they are far from public. This is a drawback, go DYOR.

Anyways, mid-tier shitcoin, mostly due to market metrics, but they are ahead in the privacy race relative to other coins. Let’s see how they do.

Hope you learned some shit.

Chat soon!

- Mike and Aaron