The cryptocurrencies ecosystem is a new field for innovation always teaming with activity and constantly running at full pace. In my hunt for new technologies and real applicable features for the blockchain technology, I have managed to find a recently launched project called Emercoin (EMC). At first it seemed just a mere copy of what the Namecoin technology was all about, however after a few lines of reading I became amazed at the new features and integrated blockchain approach. Emercoin ultimate goal is to provide a real networking management solution to a widely known secure networks resources management and configuration problem. Emercoin has figured out a way to solve it – Providing a decentralized DNS open source application solution.
Originally, built on proven code techniques, and initially based on the Bitcoin, Namecoin, and Peercoin technology. However, EmerCoin enhanced it, turning it into its codebase and further developed their new and innovative concepts and features.
Emercoin was the first cryptocurrency to introduce STUN protocol that allows obtaining external IP addresses, instead of WEB-services.
It was not long ago, right after the launch, Bitcoinist published an article on Emercoin and its remarkable technology. Today we bring you a personal interview with the mastermind and leading developer behind Emercoin, Oleg Khovayko.
Unfortunately the day I met him he was a bit, worried about verifying everything was in order because their services had just undergone a triple attack:
Hello Oleg.
Hello. I’m afraid someone very much dislikes EMC. We were right under three attacks a few hours ago.
Were you just DDOSsed? I’m very sorry to hear that!
Unfortunately, yes:
- DDOS attack on WEB-server emercoin.com
- Hash power attack on the pool. 180TH blocked our pool.
- Fraud attack on our exchange, Total – 3 hours out of service.
Because of [3], our Bank Partner suspended our account. I’m afraid someone is seriously trying to take us down.
Did the attack have severe consequences? How have you dealt with it?
Well, we tried to:
- We bought special anti-DDOS network service. Now we have many mirrors and distributed DNS-record for different geo-zones.
- EMC has four pools, so we had to suspend only 1 of them. The other 3 are working, no issues there. So, the attack was unsuccessful, ah ah!
In addition, because of our combined PoW / PoS, EMC is highly resistant to full pool set stopping. So, this is not critical for us.
- I temporarily stopped selling EMCs in the exchange, because of attempts of fraud. In 3 weeks, I will be in NYC, and personally show them all the e-mail printouts and related data. I hope, this be can solved without serious issues. I performed just legal selling, no more.
Can you talk about the STUN protocol?
STUN used in VOIP (SIP) telephony for help NAT traversal. In short words, this is “mirror”, located on the public internet. Your host looks into the mirror and understands, how it seems. STUN allows for applications operating behind a network address translator to discover the presence on the network. is a standardized set of methods and a network protocol to allow an end host to discover its public IP address if it is located behind a NAT.
I know that the EMC’s blockchain provides a Name-Value storage system, including an integrated DNS server and all this to provide decentralized DNS. It is very similar to what Namecoin has introduced. Can you please comment on this feature?
About comment NVS/DNS: Yes, you right. Everything is true. I just want underline: NVS is a general purpose distributed trusted storage. And this is “primary blockchain service level”. Other services like DNS, emcssh and so on are located over this layer (application). 
Besides STUN and Decentralized DNS, you also introduced this, emcssh feature what is the main innovations present on EMC?
Most innovative.. Difficult to say. Everything is innovative… Maybe, most innovative is EMCSSH. This is 1st in the world world-wide PKI. It can easily be a solution to Network administration simply by using the blockchain. And have a couple of progressive ideas. And you have seen some of them – NVS, DNS, emcssh. emcssh, works as a network management application to provide administrative solutions with the help of the EMC blockchain. Emcssh is also responsible for the wallet control actions and blockchain access. Actually it works as a gateway to access the blockchain and for users authenticate their wallet private keys with the blockchain. Another solution is enterprise-wide.
I hear you are also one of the team actively contributing to the F@H, Folding at Home project. Can you explain me your relation with Folding @ Home?
It’S not mining in its right sense. However, the contributor delivers some hashing power to science research. F@H is a sponsored project, and we are very glad to support it! We pay EMCs to participants; in this case, our EMCs. And Stamford F@H is the hashing beneficiary. Our Team wants to contribute to making this a better world and incentivize people to participate in F@H.
So, this is some compensation you offer to participants for contributing to science research and get some EMC right?
Yes. This is our donation for science research. Or, you can consider it as exotic type of faucet. You can join to F@H, and earn EMCs. The payments are not too big a deal, but you can earn some!
What can you tell me about the EMC market and exchanges? Is it in expansion growth? Currently how is your US market penetration going?
Market penetration: We have our US exchange.
We did not perform extraordinary actions, or “paid articles”. 
Our position – do not pump price into a speculative bubble in “pump & dump”, like Quark and some others. Instead, we want to collect technical advantages while trying to use EMCs for real world application. We consider “speculative coin cluster” as non-important thing.
Thus, don’t want to push EMCs to exchanges; for example: If some exchange wants to integrate EMC – we, of course, will be more than happy to assist them. And … There are some negotiations. We are pleased with any cooperation. For example – we are totally opened to “free mutual benefits cooperation”. Again: We always avoid “special promotions”, etc.. We do not want to pump EMC price, and go out. We want the price to rise “on his own”. I hope, the community understands our point and also believe EMC will continue its healthy path amongst a plethora of scam coins that sooner or later will be out of business.
My work here as a Reporter is to tell the truth and not to tell some bought truth! scam coin’s, are considered to be a significant cancer within cryptos. These scam coins only serve to stain even further the cryptocurrency ecosystem.
I know. And this is the reason, why I am working with you. Couple cryptocoin-tabloids wrote us “pay us 3 BTC, and we will write articles regarding your project”. Our position is never to accept these offers. If you write, what you think – OK. I can share as much info as I can. As said, I am totally open for cooperation. But – for fair and honest cooperation. I supply you the facts. You can write it or not. Or you can even disagree with our view and write on an adverse approach if you believe that it is your position. We simply don’t want the pressure or make any illegal influence.
But, I comfortably believe, EMC is technically advanced, and that it has a couple of unique and progressive technologies. And as you see – EMC it is not NMC. Of course, NVS/DNS was inspired by NMC, but ok … it has some similitudes, but it’s not a real copy. We made another product. 1st – we split the system into two layers: Basic NVS level and application level (SNS, emcssh, etc.)
Finishing our conversation, Oleg gladly stressed that he is interested and committed to have a steady and normal growth. The real interest is for the coin to claim its place within the fast growing crypto currency ecosystem not by speculation but the appreciation of the potential that the underlying Emercoin technology introduces.
In the end I got the impression that there were so many aspects of this coin that were really innovative but I had a hard time to coping with so much information. For more information about Folding at Home visit their site here and for information about Emercoin visit here.
Decentralized DNS technologies have an immense disruptive potential because of its wide range of applications. Tell us what you think about Decentralized DNS in the Comments Below!
Editors Note: The writer conducted an informal personal interview with Oleg which set the tone of the article.
Photo Source: courtesy of Oleg Khovayko, Emercoin.