CityCoins are the future of civic governance. As such, fairness in CityCoins, from activation to access, is crucial.

To ensure fairness when a CityCoin is activated, there is no token sale or pre-mine. Instead, CityCoins are only activated through mining. That means the only way to acquire new CityCoins is to mine them.

All CityCoins originate via a fair activation

CityCoins mining is open to everyone on equal terms. There are no pre-mined tokens, no ICOs, and no unfair advantages for any ecosystem participants.

Anyone can mine CityCoins by forwarding Stacks into the protocol. Access can also be democratized by joining a mining pool with other CityCoiners.

The fairness of the CityCoins-on-Stacks-on-Bitcoin system is intrinsically tied to the unassailable security of the Bitcoin network.  

How CityCoins offer the same security as Bitcoin (without the cost)

CityCoins is built on the Stacks protocol because Stacks enables smart contracts on the Bitcoin network. That makes CityCoins like MiamiCoin and NYCCoin programmable, so people can build ways for CityCoins to do just about anything. And since Stacks is built on top of Bitcoin, every on-chain CityCoins transaction leverages the unrivaled security of Bitcoin’s Proof of Work (PoW) consensus mechanism. This arrangement (CityCoins-on-Stacks-on-Bitcoin) ensures a secure system—and one capable of fair activations.

CityCoins uses aProof of Transfer (PoX) mechanism much like Stacks, which essentially recycles Bitcoin’s PoW protocol outputs (e.g. actual Bitcoins) to power its own scalable, application-friendly network. To oversimplify a complicated process, Bitcoin draws immense computing power—and electricity—to ensure network security. Computers need to work hard to add to Bitcoin’s immutable ledger: it’s what makes that ledger immutable. This resource consumption is a central and unavoidable aspect of what makes Bitcoin the most secure network on Earth.

Rather than start from scratch, Stacks uses clever engineering to piggyback on Bitcoin’s security without consuming any extra resources. Since Stacks is built on top of Bitcoin, its Proof of Transfer protocol is directly underpinned by Bitcoin’s PoW consensus protocol—the mechanism that serves as an undisputed and secure “source of truth.” In other words, the immutable and permanent record of every transaction on the network.  

Proof of Stake (PoS) blockchains, on the other hand, rely on early network participants who have an economic stake in the system and are willing to put up the capital to establish the network. Because of that, it's pretty much impossible for a PoS crypto project to conduct a fair activation, since pre-mined tokens must be distributed to early decision-makers in order to activate the network. The early movers will always have an advantage. (This is why CityCoins are only activated through mining.)

Stacks, however, lets CityCoins activate in a fully decentralized way without pre-mined tokens thanks to Stack’s Proof of Transfer mechanism, what we like to call “recycled Proof of Work.” Further, since each city receives 30% of the mining proceeds, they can decide to do things like give crypto such as Bitcoin or CityCoins directly to their citizens so that even those that aren’t on the bleeding edge of technology don’t get left out.

Here’s a deeper exploration of how Recycled PoW and Stacking are central to fair activations.

How civic-minded collaboration builds lasting success

The future is interoperable for both the crypto sector and society at large. However, that doesn’t mean you should build multiple independent networks and then find a way to connect them retroactively. Why start from nothing when we can continue building on the proven foundations laid by others?

The integration of CityCoins and Stacks into the Bitcoin network is far more resource-efficient than creating a fully independent Proof of Work network from scratch.

As the crypto space becomes more crowded and new applications spin up, we constantly see the community build upon the success of other projects in a way that reduces operational redundancies and makes it easy for everyone to get involved. Unlike the physical world, digital ecosystems are virtually unbounded. But in addition to scoping out new development opportunities in new territories, it’s essential to build better tools based on existing projects and reappropriate what’s already available into entirely new forms of value creation.

The future is fair

This future is embedded directly into CityCoins’ design. By leveraging the existing features of Bitcoin and Stacks to enable new community-run apps and services, CityCoins provides full creative freedom for its users and ensures that everyone has a fair and secure chance to participate in activating and building with CityCoins, right from the moment of inception.

CityCoins are designed so that everyone could share in their city’s success. That starts with fairness.