After about 4 days trying this out, i wanted to give the community some feedback.
A little about me, I am in my early 30s with 80k a year salary. I have been investing in stocks for a while and recently got into crypto. Litecoin and Antshares are where I have slowly been accumulating. I like to think that i am casual retail investor. I saw this on youtube and thought the concept was interesting and worth a look.
I originally liked the idea of this coin especially the use of the HDD. I wasn't certain of its future, however I wanted to think it would be much easier for a casual person/investor to get involved with. Unfortunately the last few days have been a disappointment.
There was a video sign up and start mining in 11 minute from the burst team. Looking back at it, i think it is a good reflection with my experience. Great idea but poor communication. This is a very important thing and no one can understand what you are saying. This has been my experience. "Poor communication from within the community."
A few things to note:
Windows Client:
Simply logging in - It was frustrating getting the "page not displayed" error or logging in the online wallet to see my account at 0 and blockchain downloading. Due to the lack of stability, I almost gave up on this coin just because of this experience.
Getting your first coin: I like the idea of faucets, but they are 99% empty and when i finally found one with coins, It said i already got my free coins. I was forced to be a beggar on the forums.
Plotting:
CPU plotting is simple and i like the integration of it within the client. However, this process is painfully slow as i tested this with a small 1tb. This in itself is not a complaint, but to the casual person it is discouraging especially if you have more than 1 TB
GPU plotting: On paper this sounded like a faster way of doing things, however this is where i wanted to pull my hair out. I just spent the last 3 hours trying to figure this out, why is this so difficult? There is a distinct lack of user friendly knowledge as a previous user stated. These guides are not meant for the casual person. I have found that references to programs made within tutorials provide either bad links, links to a mismatch of software, or no links at all. Some do provide proper links but do not explain the use of them properly. The latest video i just watched was from "imineblocks" the link referenced a zip file that had different files than in the video. I couldnt follow along and he got technical right away so i said im done.
Considering the only alternative is CPU plotting, It was at this point i decided that I cant continue with this experiment.
Few suggestions
Emphasis on "How To" documents/videos being current and newbie friendly. To often i noticed it gets way too technical right away. Tone it down otherwise you will limit new miners/users
Marketing? What is the future here? Personally i see that the limited community of miners will be your entire user base. Expansion is necessary.
In conclusion , I currently do not consider this a viable financial investment. The community should focus on expanding their reach outside of your bubble. You all speak the same technical language but do not provide an avenue for newbies to learn and embrace it. Considering the total coins left to mine is only 16% i believe you have a small time frame to attract investors/users. I wish you luck and will occasionally take a look at it.