I find this coin interesting from a creative perspective although I'm not sure why other than the slick website and clear market momentum. If I may ask a moronic Monday question about POS. How is POS any different from a instamined scam coin if the POW stage ends so quickly that the distribution is definitely consolidated to a bunch of greedy SOBs?
SilkCoin had 2 PoW phases to ensure that there was a good distribution of the coins. The first PoW phase was pre-announced, allowing miners enough time to regroup their resources to mine SilkCoin. After the initial PoW phase there was a one month phase of full PoS.
This month long PoS phase allowed us time to build a proper foundation for SilkCoin before the second PoW phase and hence SilkCoin had grown a lot more popular and had garnered a lot more attention and visibility than in the first PoW phase.
This meant that there were far more miners in the second PoW phase leading to better distribution of the coin supply. Evidence as to the distribution can be found here :
http://explorer.silk-coin.com/richlist/ where you can see how well distributed SC is.
OK just being the devils advocate here yes the distribution is fairly even according to that list but just 403 wallets. Is that all the interest ATM in creative and slick alt coins with clear technical prowess behind them. I would think the bare minimum number to find at leaat 2000 unique and verified individual wallets to be called fairly distributed in my book, but I guess I may be a overly optimistic type person.
I dont know if there are really just 403 Wallets but you have to see that Silkcoin is listed on the 4 biggest exchanges (Mintpal,Cryptsy,Poloniex,Bittrex) and most people leave their Coins in the exchanges.
two reasons could be: Small amount of Coins, so staking wouldnt pay out OR someone is using mobile devices/ no stationary Computer.
OK, if I may from an average Joe perspective ask a question about staking. Should I have a wallet with some coins on it and left open? Does that earn me more coins? How many should I have in the wallet to be getting more and more coins? I know I should have coin distributed, which I do across two sites and possible three with cryptsy, but apparently I am one of those folks that is not doing something with the wallet that could earn me more. Is there a document that explains this to the normal investor? I seriously thought staking the coin and the who POW and POS was just for miners. This may ultimately be the confussion in the wallet numbers if there are more "typical" folks like me that are dipping into this with others...
Lots of questions there.
To get the benefits of staking you need to have your wallet open (but encrypted) - it needs to be running as a proper node on the network. Wallets that are not supporting the network do not benefit from staking. Wallets on mobile devices or web wallets don't stake. The amount of coins you get is governed by how many coins you have in the wallet, and how long they have been there. So the more coins you own, the more you get; that is why it is called Proof-of-Stake.
If you keep your coins in an exchange then
you don't get the benefits of staking. The exchanges either disable it (because of the administrative nightmare), or keep it themselves, I think one exchange has said publicly that it gives the benefits to the 'real' owner. Ask your exchange what their policy is.
I hope you know that coins kept on an exchange are not secure, they can be hacked, or the exchange can close with no warning, or the exchange can be running a fraud.
