Stellar Foundation Offers Lumen to All Bitcoin Users
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It is good news for those bitcoin users with a streak of altruism in their blood. Stellar Foundation is giving away a significant number of lumen, the crypto-tokens used by Stellar protocol to bitcoin users. According to the latest announcement from the Stellar Foundation, 19 percent of the total lumens initially created will be distributed among bitcoin users, starting July 4, 2016.
By giving away 19 billion lumens to the Bitcoin community, Stellar hopes to involve the bitcoin community members in its initiatives. Stellar will be distributing lumens in multiple rounds. The first round, starting July 4, 2016, will see about 3 billion lumens distributed among bitcoin holders. The lumen distribution program will enable bitcoin users to claim a certain percentage of network, equivalent the percentage of total bitcoins they own.
For those who are new to Stellar, it is an open source financial platform built over cryptocurrency technology. Unlike bitcoin and other digital currencies, the Stellar protocol allows people to build financial products on the platform. With Stellar protocol, Stellar Foundation aims to provide access to financial services and education to everyone around the globe.
Unlike Bitcoin, Stellar protocol doesn’t involve mining. Lumen, the crypto-token of Stellar platform is pre-generated initially (100 billion of them) and 95 percent of these is distributed to people and organizations across the world. Lumen, will act as a behind the scenes digital tokens to facilitate transactions on financial applications created over Stellar protocol. The Stellar Consensus Protocol will confirm these lumen transactions within seconds. With Stellar, there is no restriction on the type of currency (fiat or crypto) transferred across the protocol.
The Stellar Foundation will begin the lumen distribution program for bitcoin users on July 4, 2016. The beginning will be marked by the sharing of a bitcoin blockchain snapshot, containing information of the total bitcoin holdings across the platform. It will be followed by the launch of the lumen claim page, where bitcoin holders can verify the ownership of their bitcoin wallet and claim an equivalent percentage of lumen. Bitcoin users can claim their share of lumen till October 5, 2016.
Upon completion of the first round of lumen distribution, Stellar will decide upon further rounds depending upon its success. Even Bitcoin exchanges can take part in lumen distribution drive, and distribute the crypto-token to their customers, depending upon their bitcoin ownership.
When asked about the upcoming lumen distribution campaign, this is what Jed McCaleb, co-founder and CTO of Stellar , had to say:
NewsBTC: Are the lumens being given away to bitcoin users for “free” or is it a crowd sale or an ICO?
Jed: They are being given away to bitcoin holders for free. We believe in community-based ownership of the Stellar network and want early digital currency enthusiasts like bitcoin holders to feel at home in the Stellar community.
How does the lumen distribution campaign work?
To ensure distribution goes smoothly, we’ll distribute the 19 billion lumens in several rounds. The first round will distribute 3 billion lumens.
We’ll take a snapshot of the blockchain at the first block mined with a timestamp on July 4th (UTC/GMT). This snapshot will record the coin balances of all bitcoin accounts at that time.
On July 5, we’ll publish a claim page, allowing bitcoin holders to verify that they control a given bitcoin address and send that address’s share of lumens to a Stellar account.
To get a sense of the distribution math, take Rachel as an example:
At time of snapshot
15,692,500 bitcoins in existence
Rachel owns 10 bitcoinsRachel receives
3,000,000,000 * (10/15,692,500) = 1,911.72 lumensDistribution logic
Rachel owns .0000649% of bitcoins in existence at the time of the snapshot.
Her 1,911.72 lumens equal to 0000649% of lumens distributed.
What does Stellar gain from this distribution campaign?
We want many people to be exposed to digital currency and everyone to be able to participate in the network. Through the program, we hope to include early participants in the digital currency community in the Stellar ecosystem.
The distribution campaign will allow Bitcoin community to gain firsthand experience with Stellar, giving them an opportunity to be part of this community driven initiative.
Via:http://www.newsbtc.com/2016/04/26/stellar-foundation-offers-lumen-to-all-bitcoin-users/
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