There has been a lot of buzz surrounding the community and crypto currency PIVX. Whether it's positive or negative news that you may have heard about PIVX, their unique and largely growing community has become a strong contender in the crypto currency space in recent weeks. But why? What is it that PIVX is doing that really isn't being done with other crypto space platforms, and how does this PIVX manage to run with a community support system vs a corporate demographic we mostly see popping up in the crypto world in recent years?
**FIRST, WHAT IS PIVX?**
This from the official PIVX website, the definition of what PIVX is as follows: *PIVX, Private Instant Verified Transaction, is a privacy-focused, decentralized, open source cryptocurrency run by a global community run by creators, innovators, and technology enthusiasts.*
Key Features for PIVX users are as follows:
**PIVX is an anonymous Peer-To-Peer currency.*
**PIVX is Community Driven*
**PIVX uses Blackcoin’s improved Proof of Stake 3.0 protocol instead of Proof of Work. So it is more efficient in keeping the network secure than PoW.*
**PIVX has incredibly low transaction fees that are typically a fraction of a penny due to the PoS efficiency. This means it is perfect for micro-transaction business pricing models that previously existed using Bitcoin.*
**PIVX had no ICO. Pre-mined coins to start the chain were publicly burned.*
**PIVX is based on Bitcoin 0.10.x core which means it is more up to date than most other PoS digital currencies that commonly use a lower Bitcoin core version.*
**PIVX uses an innovative variable Seesaw Reward Balance System that dynamically adjusts its reward to masternodes and staking nodes.*
**PIVX has a highly active, accessible and responsive development team.*
That is the simple breakdown above of what features you will find, but for me the easiest way I have been describing to my friends what PIVX is goes like this. You take Bitcoin...you sprinkle some important privacy for the users, you take a little Dash but majorly overhaul the code to once again keep the key privacy features, ramp up transaction speeds to just about 60 seconds and then my friend you have yourself a crypto currency on the cutting edge. You also remove the need for corporate control and give users complete control. Returning control not only with its software or how they use their finances but also by letting them come to the community [(slack.pivx.org)](http://slack.pivx.org/) and truly voice their concerns or ideas. Trust me PIVX will listen and may even open the doors to you if you have ideas or can develop.
**SO HOW DOES THIS COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT AND THE WORKFLOW NOT ACTUALLY BECOME A MADHOUSE OF CHAOS??**
The last few days I have had numerous conversations about the fact that PIVX runs under an off the cuff approach to development and marketing strategies. The points I keep hearing are centered around the evolving community at the core of PIVX, questions like "how can this work with some many hands on it" "who is organizing such chaos" "are there active devs working full time or part time on project" and so on.
From outward appearances to anyone new to PIVX, I can get the confusion about direction and who is doing what with PIVX. Just a moment at their Slack it might be a bit overwhelming to watch all the ideas, questions, and people laughing it up hourly. PIVX has grown probably one of the most massive and active Slacks I have ever seen. So much is happening it might look like a mess to an outsider, but if you dig deep enough I can promise you there is a well oiled and fast moving machine of working parts all running in unison.
PIVX is definitely a different beast compared to a lot of crypto currencies around. The workflow is truly governed by community efforts. Through their Slack, community members are always on the hunt for volunteer jobs to help PIVX, something like I have never seen before. There is so many talented people coming together, developers willing to chip in their time to help with the Github, handfuls of people running around marketing and promoting, and numerous amazing people working in their support channel making sure new users have any issues solved. Truly seems to me like there is a very strong direction and as time passes I believe the micromanaging side to every part needed to flow correctly will be easily handled by the community itself as a whole. This is unique, not how its normally done but so unifying that it reminds me on a deep human level how important it is we as a world work together and PIVX seems to be paving a new path for this to happen.
Through this unique way of developing I see many benefits with involving a community structure core and the list goes as follows:
**1) START SMALL, DEVELOP HUGE TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCES ALONG THE WAY**
With community driven development there is a unique process happening. First you can have multiple hands on many smaller projects, allow them to develop on their own terms and integrate key advancements to the greater good for the whole project core. This means while new ideas flow, new chances can be taken because their are many people to work out the kinks and find what works and doesn't without wasting too many finances and resources on the project as a whole. One guy can work on the wallet, one guy over at networking advancements and so on. To me this seems a benefit, instead of wasting major finances on a small group of people to do one task, multiple people can branch out so over time more features and even new technologies can self produce themselves through a community of developers chipping in a little here and there.
**2) SPEED, FLEXIBILITY AND PRECISION**
Lets face it, in a corporate world there has to be meetings on top of meetings to even think about beginning a project. Financial departments need to sort a budget, managers need to find the raw talent to handle the tasks and the never ending battle to make stock holders happy through quarterly insights is a major stalling point for a lot of great ideas gone into turtle mode through corporate systems. Now with open source projects these things seem to be a thing of the past. In the way PIVX works there is no real need for this, raw talent just happens to present itself constantly. People just catch this vibe to get to work and everyone in the community encourages this to happen. So the meetings are gone, its up to the individual to produce his output of work if he wants to contribute, sometimes community members tip the person a job well done and ultimately progress moves forward. No need to answer to anyone, ideas are welcome and ultimately in the end the product itself gets better for the care people put into it. Goodbye corporate world, hello pure creative freedom!!!
**3) FINALLY, CUTTING DOWN ON COSTS=MORE FINANCES TO PUT BACK INTO THE PROJECT**
Now I am not a party to how budgets and expenses are dealt with at PIVX, this view is more a logical view as to what happens usually at open source projects and community backed ones at that. Usually what happens is if people pitch in on a project for either the love of it, the hope that a completed project will later create personal gains or whatever...9/10 these type of projects are actually created with a more cost effective platform. Volunteers create things more at their own available resource level...they donate their time, energy, and computing power....this works on dev level, marketers, so on. So with that being said, I would be led to believe this leaves the core project room for more development and freedom to pursue even more ideas and goals. Which in the end greater benefits the community as in price and worth of the project as progress keeps moving ahead. Low cost, less overhead and more can return back to advancing the system as a whole.
To me there seems a very misguided view of how PIVX runs, not many are used to this format but I do believe in time all this will make sense as time moves forward and this community runs wild showing the world how people working together out of love for a project can actually be a standard for how its best done.
**AND A FINAL THOUGHT, NO PIVX ISN'T TRYING TO TAKE OVER CRYPTO CURRENCY**
It seems there is this weird threatening factor people seem to view crypto currencies like PIVX who do things a little different and beat to a drum most aren't listening to. No, I promise PIVX isn't the scary boogeyman out to destroy Dash, XMR, Bitcoin, or any other crypto out there. Matter of fact I have actually seen respect from these guys about the crypto currency world and a desire to see everyone make good with their projects. The point in the matter is this, if you combined all our altcoins together against the amount of money in this world, we are literally a grain of sand in the middle of a desert. Crypto currency is still young and still has a very long way to go before world domination ever could be a dream come true, so I really hope people remember that we are all actually in this together no matter what coin you like or don't. If you believe in change for the world then every last one of these projects are at the least a stepping stone towards bringing a better technology to defeat a broken system for all to flourish once its finally corrected. Promise you there is no ulterior motives through PIVX, just a great community who I admire...a slew of individuals who just happen to believe in something strongly, and I for one am a very proud soul to have a small place among these great people.
~sflaherty
Join the PIVX experience here: http://slack.pivx.org/
Visit the official site for more info here: https://pivx.org/
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