One of the altcoins I have been wanting to write about for a while is OPAL. As we mentioned in the Opal Marketplace press release, a full-fledged article would follow soon, so here it is. Let’s see what OPAL is all about, and why you should take notice of this digital currency!
Introduction
Even though OPAL has only been released on September 11th 2014, their developers and community have been slowly making headway in the cryptocurrency community. Some very interesting features have been developed, and plenty more will be coming in the near future. More on all of those features later on in this article.
One of the most important aspects to the Opal team is customer & investor feedback. Not just in regards to the current development of this altcoin, but also as a way to further cement Opal’s position in real-world adoption.
Where most altcoins launch by either holding an IPO/ICO or a pre-mine, or even sluicing funds from each mined block into some sort of development fund, OPAL took the proper route and did none of that. All of the funding and expenses are being covered by the development team.
Speaking of the OPAL development team, there are 7 members in total who are located across the United States, United Kingdom, The Netherlands and Australia. Each members brings much needed skills to the project, ranging from coin development and programming to marketing and website design.
I did mention a lot of development has been done so far. Opal developers delivered on every promise they made when the first roadmap was released. As of this writing, progress is being made on completing stage two of development, but more on that in just a little bit.
Opal Development Roadmap Part 1 – 100% Completed
Let’s take a look at what the developers have worked hard on during stage 1 of OPAL development. Upon the launch of Opal to the general public, a rebranded wallet was released containing the new logo. I have to say, I personally like the current OPAL logo very much!
Opacity is the name of a feature we all know as encrypted messaging. Opacity has been integrated into the OPAL wallet and released via a client update. You will see the name Opacity return several times as you read further down this article.
As with any self-respecting altcoin these days, once you hit the Proof-of-Stake phase, it’s a good idea to have some sort of multipool available. The Opal multipool mines through Scrypt and X11 algorithms, and payouts are done on a daily basis. The multipool also enhances market stability, as coins are bought from exchanges and paid out to the miners.
Anonymity is an area of focus among cryptocurrency enthusiasts as of late, and the OPAL developers worked on providing their community with anonymous transactions. By using Opaque Addresses, users can send and receive funds without the transactions being traced back to either party.
Opaque Addresses is part of Opacity+ (OPAL’s anonymous encryption suite) , and while they allow users to create a new receiving address inside their OPAL client, that’s not all this feature can do. A “subject field” has been added to the wallet, so users can easily identify individual transactions.
While there were plenty of features announced on the first development roadmap, the Opal developers managed to surprise everyone when they added OPAL-EX. OPAL-EX is a feature allowing in-wallet trading of OPAL on the Bittrex exchange, removing the need for opening a browser window to access the exchange.
The final thing on the first OPAL development roadmap was getting a Proof of Developer rating through CryptoAsian’s service. Opal came out with a rating of 5 POD, and you can find out more details about this rating by clicking here.
Opal Development Roadmap Part 2 – In Progress
As the developers made significant progress on their plans for Opal, they wanted to bring some more UI improvements to the client. Some of the major features were streamlined to make the overall experience more user-friendly. This change was also a result of community feedback, who pointed out some of the things that could be improved.
The OPAL developers are keeping other options opens as well however, as they are currently working on a very nice looking HTML5 Opal wallet. Not too much is known about this wallet at this point, except that it will encompass Opacity+ technologies. I attached some screenshots below, which were taken from a test client a few weeks ago.
Despite having a Proof of Developer verification rating, the team felt more could be done in order to gain more credibility amongst the digital currency community. As a result, Opal has gone through CoinsSource’s Trust Index Verification process, and come out with a maximum rating of 7/7. You can find out more details about this rating by clicking here.
Anonymous file transfers is one the main priorities during stage 2 of OPAL development. By extending Opacity+’s Anonymous Suite of features, Opal users will soon be able to store their files anonymous and digitally in the blockchain. A more detailed whitepaper will be presented once this feature is released.
The other main priority during this stage of development is the OPAL Marketplace. We were sent an official press release not too long ago,which you can find here. The OPAL Marketplace will give users the ability of purchasing content with OPAL. More details will be unveiled in the official whitepaper, which will be released once the Marketplace goes live.
There are other projects in development as well, which are not “officially” part of the roadmap, but which the team will keep working on continuously. These projects consist of Cryptsy in-wallet trading, point-of-sale, stake tracking and further progression on the Opal multipool.
Exchanges & Services
OPAL can be traded on a plethora of exchanges : Cryptsy, Bittrex, C-Cex, Coin-Swap and CryptoRush.
Technical Specifications
Opal – X13 CryptoCurrency
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RPC Port: 51990
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P2P Port: 50990
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Algorithm: X13 POW/POS starts on block 15,000 (only mineable through the multipool)
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Ticker: OPAL
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Max PoW Coins: Approximately 15 million
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5% PoS Annual Interest
Block Reward Schedule
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90 second blocks
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No Pre-Mine
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Block 0-50 are low reward (15)
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Block 50-15,000 are 1,000
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PoW Ends on Block 15,000 (approx. 15 days)
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MinStakeAge: 24 hours
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Max: Unlimited
More Information
Website : http://www.opal-coin.com/
BitcoinTalk : https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=778720.0
Twitter ; https://twitter.com/opalcointeam
Reddit : http://www.reddit.com/r/opalcoin/
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