KittehCoin Status Update and Hard Fork Pre-Announcement

http://kittehcoin.info
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Lead Developer: dan@kittehcoin.info
Open Source GitHub: https://github.com/kittehcoin/

Hello Kittehcoin community! I do apologize for my absence. I've had some higher-priority commitments come up over the past weeks (aka: my day job) that have kept me from being as communicative as I always want to be when it comes to KittehCoin and for that I apologize. The community has done some very cool things in the meantime including raising funds to help a dog in distress and currently offering a bounty for a twitter tipbot. The team and I are also honored to have been voted the best coin-team of March 2014 as well as winning several other awards- we are very much appreciative of the recognition.

When I picked up KittehCoin it was dead and had no hopes of coming back- it has now grown into something much larger than I could have ever imagined and I have learned a LOT from it and the experience. The problem I'm facing is that due to the time-constraints of my day-job commitments I find myself having insufficient time to give Kittehcoin the attention it deserves from a leader. I have also been presented with the opportunity to participate in a new project and my passion for producing a truly innovative cryptocurrency that doesn't just tinker with the bitcoin/litecoin code (like Kittehcoin does  :-X). This new project builds on that tech and provides value-added services built directly into the blockchain itself- that type of innovation is where my interests truly lie; implementing such tech within a memecoin like Kittehcoin would be silly- let's be honest. In that opportunity also lies the ability to launch a coin correctly from the start rather than picking up something and having to resuscitate it without having any part in its true inception.

Even though I won't be leading Kittehcoin in the long term I will still be part of the team perpetually. I will also still continue to host all of the core properties for the foreseeable future and if the community updates them I will be happy to enable the new team with access to those web properties (wiki, forums, block explorer, website, etc).

The current team and I would never scale back our commitment while leaving Kittehcoin in a bad position for the long term. We have thought long and hard about how to leave Kittehcoin in a strong position regardless of how long it may take for a new leadership team to step up. Originally we had thought about creating a new coin that is merge-mined with Kittehcoin but that only seemed to confuse people and would not leave Kittehcoin itself in the best position long-term if someone weren't able to step in immediately to steer the ship after launching the new merge-mined coin. Because of that, we have decided to change course just a bit for this last release done under the guidance of myself/the current team in order to leave Kittehcoin in the best position possible.

This next release will include some major changes that should leave Kittehcoin in a great place. We have a rough timeline of about 1month to having the release candidate ready and will be coordinating with pool operators to make sure the hard fork is performed cleanly with proper forewarning. A hard fork is coming!! We plan to release the client within 2months so the hard fork will occur within that time period with more specifics to follow.

Updates planned for final Kittehcoin client under my watch:
Changing block rewards from random to fixed-average similar to DOGE.
Adjusting the KGW variables to improve difficulty adjustment
Implementing the max_coin cap at 25bil in the actual wallet code- this would otherwise not be possible until the random reward tiers were complete.
Adding checkpoint blocks to the next client release.
Merge mining with another scrypt coin- the exact coin is still TBA

This is how the new payout schedule will be structured after the hardfork:
Payout Schedule (pending hardfork):
Blocks 1 — 200,000: 25,000 MEOW Reward
Blocks 200,001 — 400,000: 12,500 MEOW Reward
Blocks 400,001 — 500,000: 6,250 MEOW Reward
Blocks 500,001 — 600,000: 3,125 MEOW Reward
Blocks 600,001+ — 2,000 Reward (flat)

Kittehcoin is an open-source community project and I have no doubt that a fresh group of people will step in to take the reigns. I will hand over control of the assets (including the donations wallet) as the proper entities step forth to take over- please pm me or email dan@kittehcoin.info if you're interested in being that point person; I will not leave Kittehcoin with someone who has no experience in this kind of thing, I'll make sure it has a good home. Although I will still be involved with Kittehcoin I will no longer be leading the initiative as it would be a disservice to Kittehcoin and to the new project I want to focus on. I want to be clear in that this change of focus has nothing to do with the value of Kittehcoin; I would do this even if MEOW were worth 100x its current value. This is about me wanting to do other innovative things in crypto and applying the lessons learned via Kittehcoin to those other more innovative initiatives. Some other members of the Kittehcoin team may be scaling back their commitment as well to join me in this new initiative. Trust me if we had the hours in the day we'd do it all, but that just isn't being realistic.

We will provide more news on which coin Kittehcoin will be merge-mineable with as soon as we have had some more time to speak with the dev teams of said coin(s). In the meantime please feel free to ask any questions you may have- the team and I will do the best we can to answer them in a timely manner.

There are a few development updates we have as well since there has been ongoing development:
iOS app is being resubmitted to app store abiding by their updated TOS, should be available soon
Block explorer is being updated with QR codes for easy scanning of addresses from explorer
SSL-Heartbleed fix has been applied to the Mac and Windows KittehCoin wallet clients and is post to the website or here (mac | win).
Bounty is being raised by the community for a twitter tipbot

TL;DR;
- Team will be transitioning to new leadership and is looking for interested parties to lead
- A hard fork is coming with a new release that changes payout schedules, diff algo vars, implements the coin cap, and introduces merged mining
- The iOS app is finally ready to be approved by Apple and the block explorer has been updated to work in conjunction with the app and provide QR codes for addresses in general and SSL heartbleed fix has been applied to both mac and windows Kittehcoin-QT wallet clients- posted on the official website.
- Bounty is being raised by community for a twitter tipbot