My profile says that I have been in the crypto world since 2012, but I never told you what coin actually got me into it...

The coins name, Verticoin. But it didn't start as a crypto, it started as a sort of , "log in and collect 100 Verticash..." 

It was a novel concept at the time, but the devs decided to take a different route and turn it into a cryptocurrency.

My 100,000 plus VertiCash turned into 10,000 Verticoin...and then, that team disappeared... literally no one knew what happened to them.

So, this is my Bitcoin clone story...where I jumped in, and it is 100% true.

Everyone already knows what it is and why it was created. But very few people know about a similar coin that started as something else, and ended up dying a few years after it's inception.

Verticoin. No, not Vertcoin, or Vericoin, but Verticoin. 

Maybe some here remember that it was actually listed for a while on CoinMarketCap, and even CoinGeko. As a top 100 coin.

When the Blockchain for Verticoin was created, it mimicked Bitcoin in that you could even send Verticoins using the Bitcoin Blockchain. (Don't ask me how the developers did it, and I think a few people tried it but lost their coins, or something like that.)

From the day the coin was dropped into wallets, and a few transfers were made, I was one of the founding members of the Verticoin Foundation.

At first, there were 4 of the foundation members, and we communicated daily by email to help grow the Verticoin community, and awareness.

A Reddit group was formed, and daily I would give updates on the price, and other important info concerning the newly formed crypto.

A few weeks passed, and in the reddit, I asked the people to start a foundation to grow the community even more.

And when very few people were interested, I started it myself, and that is when 3 other people joined.

One was a dev, another was a college student, and another part time dev.

My job, communicate with the Reddit community, and advertise as best I could. But that wasn't enough for me...I was roaring to move Verticoin beyond where it was, so I took a different approach...

I had decided to do a Walk Across America to show people how Verticoin was the next Bitcoin, and how it would change the world. I started in San Diego, California and walked as far as Kentucky, pushing a cart with a Verticoin sign on the front.

For the first few months after it's release, the price reached .002 cents, and many had been begging the foundation to place it on an exchange.

Faucets were built by a few devs, and as a founding member, I received a generous amount for my work telling people about it. Every week, I would receive 7,000 coins, but at the time, I couldn't exchange them.

Then, one member left without telling anyone why. The lead dev was a member, and informed us that he too was going to leave because he didn't see the project going fast enough.

The remaining member and I went and talked to the reddit community to find people willing to do various jobs in the foundation, but many were happy just collecting their coins and not wanting the headache associated with foundation work.

As my walk was coming to an end, I informed the Reddit community that I too was leaving the project, because there was literally zero communication in the foundation email.

And since no one was willing to step up, I had no choice but to leave.

There was advertising, application building, talking directly to merchants, and a host of other things that the foundation took care of, that I wasn't able to do by myself.

The project died, and the coin is no more, but it was an interesting time in my life.

I think back and see that at that time, and shortly after, I fell into a depression, and ended up homeless.

Since then, I have tried to see what became of that coin that I helped launch.

It's interesting what life throws at you...

Thanks for reading, and as always, let me know what you think in the comments below.