In introducing currencies of the #Galactic-Milieu it makes sense to begin with DeVCoin (DVC) if only because to this day DeVCoin is still the default currency in which the #Latest-Rates include-file is denominated.
The #Latest-Rates include-file is a file intended for inclusion by #Galactic-Milieu "shell scripts" enabling them to convert prices and values between various #Galactic-Milieu currencies and assets.
It is published periodically as https://galaxies.mygamesonline.org/latestrates.inc
Thus, nodes and clients can conveniently grab the "latest rates" to do things like post automatic buy and sell offers, display prices in terms of any or all of the listed assets, find arbitrage opportunities and so on. It is available using http not only https, in case your scripts aren't quite up to the task of using end to end encrypted connection.
Here is the Latest Rates include-file as it is right now as I write:
sBCErate=153009.68819384
sBCIrate=13783.60719787
sBMCrate=19556.34521274
sBRFrate=15218.74743984
BTCrate=41136448.42955050
CDNrate=10581.91727083
CLCrate=108.54412297
sCMCrate=56465.13633377
sCRFrate=461158.52020934
CZBrate=83.00430468
DVCrate=1.00000000
sDVCrate=1291518.71476958
FBXrate=134.86281662
sGDCrate=1367752.99626172
sGFCrate=5030974.31119443
sGHCrate=352790.72192895
GMCrate=7487.65458335
sGMCFrate=281661.98642892
GPLrate=15021.35273460
GPL2rate=10412.84074946
sGRCrate=1525841.32709909
GRFrate=17163.57578503
sGRFFrate=1703517.55439757
GRPrate=196.08521002
sGRPrate=116029.12337441
I0Crate=683.87570800
IXCrate=633.21908559
LTCrate=138207.14889664
MBCrate=31332.15690561
NKLrate=509.85112601
NMCrate=1666.42831573
NRDrate=224.91695364
QBTrate=3.10170374
SPICErate=14584.95315827
TBXrate=119.07597761
UFCrate=81.18837509
UKBrate=10468.39885132
sUNFrate=226165.41242240
UNSrate=13819.77256558
USFrate=43.96490552
XGGrate=40.61834473
Notice that DVCrate is given as 1.00000000 ; that fact tells us that the file as given is denominated in terms of DeVCoins (DVC). If we run it through a trivially simple conversion calculation dividing each rate by some arbitrary value (such as, for example, the value shown for BTCrate) we can convert all those rates (values, prices) to show all the rates in terms of our arbitrarily chosen conversion rate. If the arbitrary value we choose to divide all the rates by happens to be one of the rates shown in the copy we are converting from, that rate will show up in the converted copy as 1.00000000 ; for example dividing them all by 41136448.42955050 (the value shown for BTCrate) gives us the following include-file, which is the same rates converted according to the rates shown in the previous copy into BiTCoin (BTC):
...
sBCErate=.00371956
sBCIrate=.00033507
sBMCrate=.00047540
sBRFrate=.00036995
BTCrate=1.00000000
CDNrate=.00025723
CLCrate=.00000263
sCMCrate=.00137263
sCRFrate=.01121046
CZBrate=.00000201
DVCrate=.00000002
sDVCrate=.03139597
FBXrate=.00000327
sGDCrate=.03324917
sGFCrate=.12229967
sGFFrate=.00000419
sGHCrate=.00857611
GMCrate=.00018201
sGMCFrate=.00684701
GPLrate=.00036515
GPL2rate=.00025312
sGRCrate=.03709219
GRFrate=.00041723
sGRFFrate=.04141139
GRPrate=.00000476
sGRPrate=.00282059
I0Crate=.00001662
IXCrate=.00001539
LTCrate=.00335972
MBCrate=.00076166
NKLrate=.00001239
NMCrate=.00004050
NRDrate=.00000546
QBTrate=.00000007
SPICErate=.00035455
TBXrate=.00000289
UFCrate=.00000197
UKBrate=.00025447
sUNFrate=.00549793
UNSrate=.00033594
USFrate=.00000106
XGGrate=.00000098
...
See how the currency (asset) the include-file is denominated in is indicated by which one of the rates in it comes out as 1.00000000 ?
The original reason for choosing DeVCoin (DVC) as the default denomination for the #Latest-Rates was simple: historically it had tended to be the "cheapest" of the items included in the list. Showing all the values in terms of the smallest value provides the finest-grained "granularity" of the conversion-rates.
Showing them in terms of BiTCoin (BTC), for example, gives in effect less digits of accuracy, given that all values are displayed with only eight digits after the decimal-point.
Incidentally, the lowercase 's' at the start of an asset tag dates back to the Digitalis Open Transactions Server days of yore, when we put the 's' prefix onto the tags of "shares" because in #Open-Transactions shares were a special kind of asset that had various features other asset types did not have. For example in #Open-Transactions one could issue "dividends", of any asset, to holders of a "share" type asset, proportionally to their holdings of the shares.
Thus while DVCrate designates DeVCoin, sDVCrate designates shares of DeVCorp, a Corp formed for the purpose of building up the value of DeVCoin.
Nowadays we use #HORIZON and #Stellar rather than #Open-Transactions, and "shares" are so far only available on #HORIZON not on #Stellar. The decision to hold back from putting the "shares" type assets on the #Stellar platform was partly to let all assets we put on #Stellar have whatever number of decimals #Stellar allowed ; we still to this day have "shares" as integer assets, no fractional "shares", which on #HORIZON we were fairly confident would work but when we started implementing onto #Stellar it did not seem clear whether it really supported integer assets.
It was also because by that time various noises were being heard about various conceptions of "regulations" and "laws" and "jurisdictions" and such that at the time made it seem reasonable, possibly even prudent, to allow the fact that #HORIZON was not in any way a "mainstream" platform to help keep clear in everyone's mind that the #Galactic-Milieu is a game, albeit an alternate reality game. Basically, #HORIZON was by then no longer an active contender for "finance platform" or "real life cryptocurrency" but rather simply a game-asset platform for use in the #Galactic-Milieu.
Essentially the so called "shares" are not, on the planet known as Earth, actually "shares" at all, nor any kind of "security" or suchlike; they are just another in-game item in an online game, like all traditional cryptocurrencies and tokens have always been. It is all just data, just bits and bytes, until some entity or other on (or not on, for that matter) some planet or other manages to con, trade, argue, exchange (etc etc etc) some "actual money" out of some other entity for some of it - and there is no guarantee that any other entity on or off of any planet, or even that same entity for that matter, will ever again manage to thusly "convert" (or maybe more accurately "realise") any amount or instance of it into such things ever again.
(An example I was fond of was the online legend that once upon a time someone somewhere sold a World of Warcraft "magic sword" on Ebay, prompting all kinds of idiotic politicians to come up with all kinds of insane ideas about how any World of Warcraft player who finds a magic sword in the game should have to pay some kind of tax if their character picks up the item, even though who could even know whether any World of Warcraft sword would ever again manage to sell, let alone for whatever price that legendary seller managed to get for one?)
So anyway. DeVCoin. It is one of the earliest #alt-coins. When #BiTCoin was first "cloned" to make the first #alt-coin, bringing to everyone's attention that of course as free open source code #BiTCoin was freely modifiable and re-purpose-able, I had made for various civilisations, Corps and such a currency each of their own, by modifying for each of them a copy of #BiTCoin to make its -testnet flag trigger the use of their own currency instead of the #BiTCoin testnet.
Thus when the inventor / proposer of #DeVCoin wanted someone to help make #DeVCoin a reality, they hired me for 100 BiTCoins (worth about 5 to 6 USD or so each at the time) to help them figure out how to implement it. First we made #GRouPcoin (GRP) as a testbed in which to try out various ideas of how we might implement #DeVCoin. Then once the design was finalised we stripped the #DeVCoin features out of #GRouPcoin making it just a simple "mints 50 coins per block forever" coin and launched the actual #DeVCoin.
Around that period of history other variants of #BiTCoin were also coming along, such as an "scrypt" based coin #TeneBriX, TBX, that had a pre-mine, revealing that a lot of folk didn't like pre-mines, preferring a "fair launch"; leading to a second scrypt-based coin #FairBriX, FBX, with no pre-mine, and eventually of course both of them were ignored by what a lot of people nowadays think of when they think of scrypt: #LiTeCoin, LTC but that of course was later...
The "use the -testnet switch on your modified #BiTCoin client" earlier currences I'd implemented were thus earlier than #DeVCoin, but #GRouPcoin (GRP) followed immediately by #DeVCoin (DVC) were among the first cryptocurrences of the #Galactic-Milieu.
The #Galactic-Milieu supports #DeVCoin on the #HORIZON platform as HZDVC and on the #Stellar platform as DVC.
The #Stellar explorer Stellar.Expert page about the #Galactic-Milieu's DVC-on-Stellar tokens is https://stellar.expert/explorer/public/asset/DVC-GBHAQ252S4Z4AQOM4BWIRC3UHAOJIKCZQBUJGD336YH2O7W2NKRXMHA5
Thank you for reading, assuming you did. :)
You are also welcome, even encouraged, to upvote and share, of course; it would be nice to have more HIVE-power with which to upvote players who choose to contribute on this platform. :)
-MarkM-