What is Phoenixcoin (PXC)? A Complete Guide to the Legacy Crypto Coin

Phoenixcoin (PXC) isn’t a household name like Bitcoin or Ethereum. You won’t find it on Coinbase’s main trading list. You won’t see it advertised on TV. But if you dig into the archives of crypto forums from 2013, you’ll find it-still running, still mining, still alive. It’s one of those quiet survivors in the crypto world, a coin that didn’t chase hype but stuck around anyway.

What Exactly Is Phoenixcoin?

Phoenixcoin (PXC) is a decentralized digital currency that launched in May 2013. It was created by a small team led by John Carmiche (JohnCar) and Michael Burns (iamatrix) under Phenix Crypto Systems Network Inc. Unlike Bitcoin, which took months to get its first real users, Phoenixcoin waited until about 20,000 blocks were mined before going public. That meant roughly 1 million coins were pre-mined before anyone else could touch them.

It wasn’t built to beat Bitcoin in market cap. It was built to be easier to mine. Back in 2013, Bitcoin mining was already shifting to expensive ASIC chips. Phoenixcoin said: no. You can still mine this with your old GPU or even a decent CPU. That’s why it picked NeoScrypt-a lighter, more memory-intensive algorithm than Bitcoin’s SHA-256. It was designed to keep mining fair for regular people.

How Does Phoenixcoin Work?

Phoenixcoin runs on its own blockchain, separate from Bitcoin or Ethereum. Here’s how it’s different:

• Block time: 1.5 minutes. That’s faster than Bitcoin’s 10 minutes and even Litecoin’s 2.5 minutes.
• Block reward: 3.125 PXC per block. It halves every 1 million blocks.
• Difficulty adjustment: Every 20 blocks (about every 30 minutes), with a max change of +2% or -5%. This keeps mining stable without wild swings.
• Consensus: It uses both Proof-of-Work (PoW) and Proof-of-Stake (PoS). You can mine it, or hold coins and earn interest.
• Maximum supply: 98 million PXC. As of late 2023, over 92.8 million are already in circulation.

The blockchain uses advanced checkpointing to prevent 51% attacks-a smart move for a coin with low hash power. It also averages block difficulty over 100 and 500 blocks, which helps smooth out mining spikes.

Can You Still Mine Phoenixcoin Today?

Yes-and that’s one of the few reasons it still has a community.

Unlike Bitcoin, where mining requires thousands of dollars in ASIC hardware, Phoenixcoin still runs on consumer-grade GPUs. Users on Reddit and Bitcointalk report mining successfully with NVIDIA GTX 1060 and AMD RX 570 cards. These cards can produce around 0.8 to 1.2 MH/s, earning between 0.5 and 1.5 PXC per day, depending on electricity costs and network difficulty.

CPU mining is slower-around 0.05 to 0.15 PXC per day-but still possible on modern Intel or AMD processors. That’s not going to pay your rent, but if you’ve got an old PC sitting idle, it’s a way to get free coins without spending a dime.

The wallet needs about 15-20 GB of storage to sync the full blockchain. It’s available for Windows, macOS, and Linux. Setup takes about an hour for most users. No mobile wallet exists yet, so you can’t easily send or receive PXC from your phone.

What’s the Price of Phoenixcoin?

As of November 2023, PXC trades at around $0.01475 USD. That’s down 82% from its all-time high of $0.0896 in April 2021. But here’s the twist: it’s up 65% year-over-year and 22% in the last week. That kind of volatility is normal for micro-cap coins.

Its market cap sits at roughly $1.42 million. That’s tiny. For comparison, Bitcoin’s market cap is over $500 billion. Phoenixcoin is 0.00017% of that. It’s ranked #4753 out of thousands of cryptocurrencies by market cap.

Trading volume is shockingly low-just $31.56 in the last 24 hours. That’s a red flag. When volume is this low compared to market cap (only 0.000386%), it means a single large trade can swing the price by 20% or more. Liquidity is almost nonexistent.

Where Can You Buy or Trade PXC?

Not many places. As of late 2023, Phoenixcoin is listed on only 2 to 4 active exchanges. Most of them are small, obscure platforms like TradeSatoshi, CryptoBridge, and a couple of others. You won’t find it on Binance, Kraken, or Coinbase.

Even CoinMarketCap and CoinGecko list it, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to trade. Some users report seeing price data on Coinbase but zero trading volume. That’s because Coinbase doesn’t actually support PXC trading-it’s just displaying data from other exchanges.

If you want to buy PXC, you’ll likely need to trade Bitcoin or Ethereum for it on one of the smaller exchanges, then move it to your personal wallet. There’s no direct fiat on-ramp. No credit card, no bank transfer. You’re stuck in crypto-to-crypto land.

Is Phoenixcoin Used for Anything?

Almost nothing.

There are no major merchants accepting PXC. No online stores, no service providers, no apps that let you pay with it. A few niche crypto-focused websites might list it as a payment option, but there’s no evidence of real usage. One user on CoinLore summed it up: “Great for mining on old hardware but almost impossible to actually spend anywhere.”

It’s not a currency. It’s not a store of value. It’s not a tech innovation. It’s a relic with a loyal few.

Who Still Uses Phoenixcoin?

Two types of people: hobbyist miners and long-term holders.

On the Bitcointalk forum, users who started mining in 2015 still post regularly. One, CryptoPioneer87, wrote: “Been mining PXC since 2015 and the wallet has never failed me once-simple interface and reliable transactions.” That’s the kind of loyalty you don’t see with most coins.

The active community is tiny-maybe 1,000 to 2,000 people total across forums, Telegram, and Reddit. There’s no official support team. Help comes from other users. Responses on the forum take 12 to 24 hours. Developers still respond to bug reports, but there haven’t been any major updates since 2021.

It’s not growing. It’s not innovating. It’s just holding on.

Is Phoenixcoin a Good Investment?

If you’re looking for returns, probably not.

With a market cap under $2 million and trading volume under $40 per day, it’s not a serious investment. It’s not listed on major exchanges. It has no institutional backing. No team announcements. No roadmap. No new features.

But if you’re a hobbyist who likes mining, enjoys the challenge of supporting a legacy coin, or just wants to collect obscure cryptocurrencies as a curiosity-then yes. It’s free to try. You can mine it with hardware you already own. The coins cost almost nothing to acquire.

Analysts at Deloitte and CoinTelegraph classify it as a “legacy cryptocurrency.” That means it’s still functioning, but it’s not part of the future. It’s a digital fossil.

Final Thoughts

Phoenixcoin is not the future of crypto. It’s a quiet echo of the past.

It was designed to be fair. It was built to resist centralization. It survived when hundreds of similar coins vanished. And for that, it deserves respect.

But respect doesn’t equal value. If you’re looking to invest, there are far better options. If you’re looking to mine something with low competition and no hardware costs, Phoenixcoin still works. If you’re just curious about crypto history, it’s a living museum piece.

It won’t make you rich. But if you mine a few coins and hold them for ten years, you might look back and say: ‘I kept this alive when no one else did.’ And sometimes, that’s enough.”