Meme coins hold a distinct and crucial role within the cryptocurrency ecosystem. DOGE, one of the most famous meme coins, benefits from endorsements by celebrities like Elon Musk, maintaining its position among the top ten cryptocurrencies by market value. Other meme coins, such as SHIB and PEPE, also feature prominently, ranking within the top 30.
Interestingly, DOGE wasn’t the first meme coin. Bellscoin (BEL), developed by DOGE co-founder Billy Markus in 2013, predates DOGE. As a newer and increasingly notable mining project, Bellscoin (BEL) is attracting growing interest from investors.
This article will explore Bellscoin (BEL) in detail, covering its background, tokenomics, profit potential, and mining methods. This comprehensive overview aims to give miners and investors an in-depth understanding of BEL.
Bellscoin: The Oldest Meme Coin
In November 2013, inspired by the game “Animal Crossing,” Billy Markus launched Bells, a cryptocurrency using the Scrypt algorithm. The idea behind Bells was to create a payment system for a virtual item marketplace, akin to the gameplay in “Animal Crossing,” where players earn Bells through various activities like fishing and fossil hunting. Unlike in the game, however, Bells could only be mined.
Despite its innovative concept, the project did not gain much traction initially. Later, in December 2013, Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer introduced Dogecoin, which gained much more attention. Billy noted that Dogecoin was essentially a fork of Bells, sharing a similar algorithm. Bells and DOGE’s genesis blocks feature the term “Nintondo,” a playful nod to Nintendo, the developer of “Animal Crossing.”
While Dogecoin’s popularity surged, Bells faded into obscurity. It wasn’t until December 2023, marking Dogecoin’s tenth anniversary, that enthusiasts rediscovered Bells through old posts on Billy’s account and chose to revive the project. With the assistance of Litecoin developer Luke, they rebooted the Bells source code, bringing this pioneering meme coin back to life. Billy commented that it’s funny because everyone thought Bells was stupid back in the day, and he likes the active development efforts of the Bellscoin community.
Bellscoin’s Tokenomics
Bellscoin is based on Bitcoin’s code and features a fair distribution model with no pre-mining. However, its block reward reduction mechanism is quite distinct from many other cryptocurrencies. Drawing inspiration from the random item collection in “Animal Crossing,” Billy Markus designed Bellscoin to incorporate a system of random rewards. This means that rewards come in various denominations, adding an element of chance to the mining process.
The total supply of Bells is unlimited, similar to DOGE. Blocks are generated every 60 seconds, and the difficulty is adjusted every 4 hours. The mining rewards vary at different epochs:
EPOCH 1 (Blocks 1–100): 2 Bells
EPOCH 2 (Blocks 101–129600)
- 1% 10000 Bells
- 5% 1000 Bells
- 10% 500 Bells
- 14% 250 Bells
- 20% 100 Bells
- 50% 50 Bells
EPOCH 3 (Blocks 129601–259200)
- 1% 5000 Bells
- 5% 500 Bells
- 10% 250 Bells
- 14% 125 Bells
- 20% 50 Bells
- 50% 25 Bells
EPOCH 4 (Blocks 259201–518400)
- 1% 500 Bells
- 5% 50 Bells
- 10% 25 Bells
- 34% 10 Bells
- 50% 5 Bells
EPOCH 5 (After Blocks 518400): 2 Bells
Bellscoin’s Profit Potential
Among popular mining cryptocurrencies, BTC has only 6% of its total supply left to mine, KAS has 15% remaining, and LTC has 11% left. As of August 27, Bells has only mined over 40 million coins, with an unlimited total supply, suggesting that Bells still offers significant mining opportunities for the long term.
The random block reward system in Bells makes earnings challenging to forecast for epoch 2 through 4. A 1% jackpot could yield more than mining 100 blocks. Theoretical average rewards are 280 Bells for epoch 2, 140 Bells for epoch 3, and 15.9 Bells for epoch 4. Rewards in epoch 2 and 3 are notably higher compared to other periods. Once epoch 4 is reached, the daily output will drop by about 89%, and epoch 5 will see a further reduction of 87%, significantly lowering returns for new miners.
As of August 27, Bells has surpassed 157,000 blocks and is currently in epoch 3, with a daily yield of approximately $244,000. This compares to 107% of LTC and 16% of DOGE. It is anticipated that Bells will enter epoch 4 in about 70 days.
Regarding price, data from CoinEx on August 27 shows that Bells has surged by 172.64% over the past month, with a circulating market cap of around $40 million. For comparison, LTC’s market cap is $5 billion, and DOGE’s is $15 billion. This suggests that Bells still has potential for growth.
Theoretical projections indicate that Bells could reach epoch 5 within a year, with an annual production of about 1.05 million Bells and an annual inflation rate of up to 1.8%, lower than DOGE’s current 3.4% inflation rate. Therefore, Bells can maintain effective control over inflation even with an unlimited supply.
How to Mine BEL
Bellscoin employs the Scrypt algorithm, which is similar to LTC and DOGE. With the release of BellsCore V3, Bells introduced merged mining at block height 144,000. This allows LTC miners to simultaneously earn rewards for both DOGE and Bells, boosting their overall earnings.
Currently, ViaBTC is at the forefront of supporting merged mining for LTC, DOGE, and BEL. As the top LTC mining pool, ViaBTC offers convenient mining services with a PPLNS payment method for BEL, providing hourly profit payments. After creating an account with ViaBTC, miners can connect their LTC mining rigs and choose either the PPS+ or PPLNS payment method to earn additional DOGE and BEL rewards.
For a detailed guide of BEL mining, see the “BEL Mining Guide.”
Early mining of Bells offers higher rewards, and merged mining does not involve extra costs. Visit ViaBTC today to maximize your mining profits with Bells: https://www.viabtc.com/
