^January 2014 to approximately December 2021, halved approximately every four years
Vertcoin (Abbreviation: VTC) is an open-source cryptocurrency created in early 2014, that focuses on decentralization. Vertcoin uses a proof-of-work mechanism to issue new coins and incentivize miners to secure the network and validate transactions. Vertcoin is designed to be mined via graphics cards instead of through ASICs.
NBC News's Ben Popken said in 2018 that Vertcoin had received significant attention on Reddit due to it being impervious to ASICs which are used to mine bitcoin.[4]TechRadar's Jonas DeMuro wrote in February 2018 that Vertcoin was comparatively popular due to a lack of friction for new users, as well as an active social media presence.[3]
From October through December 2018, Vertcoin suffered from 51% attacks.[5] In response, Vertcoin changed to a different proof-of-work algorithm before suffering from another 51% attack on December1, 2019.[6]
A December 2018 paper published in The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers said that "because [Vertcoin] is not a very popular blockchain, the difficulty adjustment algorithm is very sensitive to hash rate change, making it an easy target to timestamp spoofing and cherry-picking attack."[7]
