All Things Alt: A Dogecoin Wedding, Ire Over Isracoin and Crypto Commodities Go Wild

Relaxing after a long week in the alternative digital currency world? If so, it’s time to kick back, count your coins and remember that we’re all here to have fun.

California offers much weddings for dogecoin

While the list of places where you can spend your bitcoin is steadily growing, there aren’t nearly as many locations that will accept the less than one-year-old digital currency dogecoin.

However, dogecoin lovers have gained a new service that will take their dogecoins as payment — a marriage service based out of Los Angeles County in California. Long2Wed has been accepting both bitcoin and dogecoin for just over a month, offering confidential marriage licenses and marriage ceremony facilitation.

CoinDesk spoke with officiant Anthony Matthews, who said that he uses the Android mobile app to accept payments in digital currency. He voiced excitement over the prospect of being the first marriage officiant to accept dogecoin, saying:

“[Dogecoin] is an interesting social experiment, and integral part of the whole cryptocurrency theme.”

He explained that the type of marriage licensure and officiation he offers is similar to traditional marriage licenses without some of the bureaucratic hassles involved. In a way, Long2Wed is a decentralized wedding solution that appropriately integrates digital currency.

Matthews added that he believes his wedding services would cost about 500,000 dogecoins, and that he has not had a bitcoin or dogecoin customer.

Those in the dogecoin community looking for a destination wedding might want to factor this interesting service into their plans. Given the high costs of actually holding a wedding, this could be a fun and innovative way to pay for the event.

Unique asset backs new altcoin uro

A number of alternative cryptocurrencies have emerged in the past year that seek to back a proposed coin with a physical commodity. In most cases, the underlying asset is a (declared) supply of precious metals like gold or even a publicly acknowledged bitcoin mining hashrate.

Uro, a new altcoin, is moving in an unusual direction by backing up its currency with urea, a globally used fertilizer known for its nitrogen-rich properties.

According to the official Bitcoin Talk forum post, the project has reportedly attracted the interest of several institutional urea traders who will help peg the coin by a 1:1 ratio with each uro supported by a metric tonne of urea.

The uro development team was unavailable for immediate comment. However, according to the forum post, the next phase of the project involves creating an exchange for trading uros and urea. The proposal calls for providing computers to urea producers to help facilitate digital commerce.

The project’s management released a working draft this week for a proposed trade organization that would facilitate activity among urea producers and traders. Still, it remains to be seen how this proposal will result in a urea-based economic system.

Criticism mounts for isracoin

Since the advent of auroracoin, a country coin developed specifically for distribution in Iceland, a number of similar projects have emerged promising greater financial independence for the citizens of their target nations.

In the case of isracoin, the country in question is Israel. Its airdrop has already begun with a completed business community phase, and will continue next to everyday citizens, beginning on 3rd June, according to a post on Bitcoin Talk.

The altcoin has reportedly engendered a great deal of controversy.

As reported in The Marker, a Hebrew-language newspaper, feelings are decidedly mixed about isracoin, with some fearing that the project could be used to defraud Israeli citizens. Others see it as a viable, regional-scale alternative to bitcoin.

A point of contention is the Israeli government, which has not weighed in on the altcoin yet. Previously, regulators in the country have adopted a wait-and-see approach toward digital currency, although the bitcoin community remains robust there. On the other hand, a Februray release from a group of Israeli financial regulators suggests that the country could ultimately take a sterner stance on digital currencies.

Another criticism was the large price bubble that formed in the isracoin market. After achieving an $112m market cap, according to CoinMarketCap.com, the altcoin has since slid to an estimated market cap of just under $4m.

With its airdrop still under way, isracoin could stand to make an impact in Israel’s digital currency scene should it overcome these problems of perception.

Strange alt of the week

Last month on All Things Alt, we looked at embargocoin, an altcoin that involved a proposed economic model that dictated how the mining cycle would progress. In the case of that project, so-called “trade barriers” resulted in longer-than-normal transaction times to simulate an economy under stress.

A new project called OPECcoin (sign: OPC) seeks to peg the value of its currency to the amount of oil produced worldwide each day. It takes its inspiration from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), a global trade group composed of the world’s major oil powers.

Ultimately, the plan is for 1 OPECcoin to be worth a single barrel of oil, and for member-countries to adopt the altcoin as means of payment. At press time, the price of Brent crude oil was roughly $108 per barrel, according to Oil-Price.net.

For this unusual value peg and effort to shift multibillion-dollar oil economies to an altcoin-based system, OPECcoin has earned this week’s Strange Alt of the Week award.

OPECcoin is a proof-of-work/proof-of-stake hybrid. It utilizes the X13 mining algorithm, with a roughly 30 million-coin max supply and five-block processing time, according to its official Bitcoin Talk post.

Notably, OPECcoin deploys a unique mining schedule with phases that reflect the different member countries. After 200 blocks with zero rewards, the following stage released what were deemed “Libya blocks”. After that, “Iraqi”, “Iranian” and “UAE blocks” were deployed. Before the proof-of-work phase ends, miners will work through the network’s “Saudi blocks”.

Each phase offers different reward amounts. For example, a Libya block sports 220 OPECcoins while the Saudi blocks will offer an expected 9,400 OPECcoins.