What Peercoin is about and where to buy and sell it
Peercoin (PPC) is a cryptocurrency designed for transactions and for holding value, with a focus on economic sustainability, stability and easy uptake by users and merchants.
Its most distinctive feature is that it uses both proof-of-stake and proof-of-work mining and is strongly focused on ease of use, stable prices and economic sustainability.
Where to buy PPC
Step-by-step guide to buying and selling PPC
Buy with fiat or crypto
You can buy PPC with cryptocurrency or with fiat currency such as AUD or USD.
At the time of writing, you can buy it with fiat currency at CoinSpot or WEX.
To buy with fiat currency, you need to do the following:
- Create an account on your chosen exchange.
- Verify your identity at that exchange. This usually involves confirming your identity by sending in a photo of your driver’s licence and other proof.
- Deposit money into the exchange. You can do this with a bank transfer, a credit card, a wire transfer or some other method depending on the exchange.
- Purchase PPC with the deposited money.
At this point, your PPC will either be deposited into your account on the exchange for withdrawal at your leisure or deposited directly to the wallet address you’ve provided.
Buy with crypto only
To buy PPC, you will first need to buy BTC, ETH or some other cryptocurrency and then trade that for PPC at an exchange. The coins accepted may vary, depending on the exchange.
If you already have some cryptocurrency, you'll need to create an account on the exchange you want to use to buy PPC, and then send your coins from your wallet to that exchange. At this point, you can trade them for PPC.
Your PPC will either be deposited to your account on the exchange or sent directly to the wallet address specified.
How to sell Peercoin(PPC)
To sell PPC, the process is almost exactly the same as the step-by-step guide above, except in reverse.
You put the coin up on an accepted exchange and sell it for another cryptocurrency, depending on the available pairings.
How does Peercoin work?
Peercoin was the first cryptocurrency to introduce the now common proof-of-stake mining system.
- Peercoin proof of stake. Stakers can earn 1% per year simply by holding coins that are at least 30 days old in the official Peercoin wallet.
- Peercoin mining. To give the network more power, miners can also contribute processing power to network security.
The earnings from proof of stake are fixed whereas the mining earnings are being reduced over time, but they are still higher than the earning from staking. Overall, Peercoin has averaged inflation under 5% per year, but at the end of 2017, this was starting to decrease.
Peercoin is specifically designed to be used as a currency and to be accepted in stores. Peercoin transfers come with a nominal transaction fee of 0.01 PPC on the sender side.
To help payments arrive almost instantly, transactions are verified by a block explorer ahead of the transaction itself.
The circulating PPC supply is around 25 million. While there’s no cap on the total number, its inflation is tightly controlled.
What to consider if buying Peercoin
Peercoin was established in 2012, making it a veteran by cryptocurrency standards. Its proof-of-stake system has since become a ubiquitous feature of cryptocurrencies, and great care seems to have been taken in economic and technical aspects of Peercoin’s development.
Its design is largely focused on recognising the shortcomings of bitcoin, and then taking steps to correct them.
For example, one of the main reasons behind the creation of the first proof-of-stake mining system was the recognition that bitcoin would consume exorbitant amounts of energy if it ever got big enough, that it would face slow transactions and high fees, and that its volatility would make it hard to use as a real currency.
Peercoin set out to tackle these problems years ago.
It also anticipated the problems of pre-mines and unfair token distribution, and it set out to create an egalitarian economy with no pre-mines and fair initial distribution.
For a coin like Peercoin, which doesn’t have any inherent features or purpose other than being used as a currency, deliberate price manipulation has historically been one of the more reliable ways to add value.
Buyers should consider that, without a lot of money to artificially pump up the price of Peercoin, or an extremely large wave of hype to do the same, it's possible that Peercoin might stay in the shallow end of cryptocurrency market caps. Although it’s a veteran in the cryptocurrency world, questions need to be asked about whether it's missed the boat by now.
Today, Peercoin is competing with coins such as Nano (formerly RaiBlocks) that offer instant transactions and zero fees, and others which aim to do the same while simultaneously offering a range of useful built-in features.
Peercoin’s price hit an all-time high of around US$10 on 13 January 2018, but then fell to under $5 on 16 January. This decline dropped its market cap from around $240 million to $120 million.
Whether it re-achieves or tops its previous all-time high may be largely dependent on whether it can pull enough interest back. Buyers need to think about whether this might be less likely than a year ago. Peercoin's relatively high price per coin now means there might be more tempting options elsewhere.
Keeping in mind the speculative nature of all cryptocurrencies, you should always take care to do your own research and make sure you fully understand the risks involved before buying Peercoin or any other crypto.
