Bellscoin

About Bellscoin (BELLS)

Bellscoin (BELLS, sometimes written BEL) is a proof-of-work cryptocurrency that Billy Markus (BillyM2K) created in 2013, shortly before he built Dogecoin. It was abandoned for about a decade, revived by community developers in December 2023, and now runs as a Scrypt chain that is merge-mined alongside Litecoin and Dogecoin. It matters mainly as a piece of early meme-coin history that has been turned into a working chain for inscriptions and BEL-20 tokens.

What Is Bellscoin?

Bellscoin is a standalone Layer 1 blockchain with its own coin, BELLS. Its name and theme come from "Bells", the in-game currency of Nintendo's Animal Crossing. The official site describes it as "the ancient meme coin born in 2013" and states that the coin was fairly launched: no pre-mine, no team allocation and no venture or influencer allocation.

Today the chain serves two purposes. It is a simple payment coin secured by Scrypt proof of work, and it is a base layer for "Bellinals" (inscriptions written directly onto Bellscoin transactions) and BEL-20 fungible tokens, in the same spirit as Bitcoin Ordinals and BRC-20.

Who Founded Bellscoin? (History)

• 2013 launch. Bellscoin was introduced on BitcoinTalk in November 2013 (original announcement thread). The project site states that it was created by BillyM2K and that he later forked it to make Dogecoin. The site also points to posts in which Markus acknowledged that Bellscoin is based on his earlier code.
• Dormancy. After Dogecoin took off, Bellscoin was left unmaintained for years.
• December 14, 2023 revival. According to the project site, community members @adam_bcbride and @luke_wright resurrected the abandoned chain and announced it publicly.
• Core updates. Community developers updated the decade-old Bellscoin Core code to support BEL-20 and Bellinals. A later Core 3.0 update enabled merged mining with Litecoin and Dogecoin, which the site says Markus himself had proposed to the community in 2023.
• July 13, 2024. The chain entered Epoch 3 at block 129,600, an event the community called a "halving".

There is no company or foundation behind Bellscoin. Development is described as decentralized and community-driven, and the pages we reviewed do not name a formal core team or publish an audit.

How Bellscoin Works

Bellscoin is a Bitcoin-family UTXO chain using proof of work with the Scrypt algorithm. The official site lists these parameters:

• Block time: 60 seconds
• Difficulty readjustment: every 4 hours
• Max supply: unlimited (there is no hard cap)
• Emission: issuance falls through a series of epochs rather than halving by exactly 50 percent each time. The site notes that more than 60 percent of the pre-tail supply was produced in Epoch 2. After block 518,400 (Epoch 5), the reward settles at 2 BELLS per block, about 2,880 BELLS per day or roughly 1 million BELLS per year.

Because of merged mining (AuxPoW), Scrypt miners who already mine Litecoin and Dogecoin can mine Bellscoin at the same time without splitting their hashpower. The project site says most pools that support Litecoin and Dogecoin also support Bellscoin, naming Binance Pool, ViaBTC, AntPool, F2Pool and others.

The site also reports that a Taproot upgrade has been completed on the chain and that a future Core update is planned to add OP_CAT, which the team says would enable smart-contract functionality. Treat that as a roadmap item until it ships.

Key Ecosystem Components

1. Bellscoin Core The full-node and wallet software, open source on GitHub.

2. Nintondo Described by the project as the core product of the ecosystem: a block and inscription explorer, a marketplace and indexer for BEL-20 tokens and Bellinals, and a browser wallet extension for Chrome and Firefox.

3. Bellinals and BEL-20 Inscriptions and fungible tokens written onto Bellscoin. The site states that more than 150 million inscriptions had been issued by October 2024, and that artists use the chain to issue and trade inscribed artwork.

4. Mining pools Merged-mining support from large Scrypt pools is what gives the chain most of its hashpower.

BELLS Token Utility

BELLS is the native coin of the chain. It is used to:

• pay transaction fees, including the fees for writing inscriptions and BEL-20 operations;
• reward miners through the block subsidy;
• act as the base currency for trading Bellinals and BEL-20 tokens on Nintondo and other ecosystem marketplaces.

There is no staking, governance token or protocol treasury built into BELLS.

What Makes Bellscoin Unique?

• Historical position: it predates Dogecoin and was written by the same developer, which gives it an unusual origin story among meme coins.
• Fair launch: by the project's account, no pre-mine and no team allocation.
• Merged mining with Litecoin and Dogecoin: it borrows security from the largest Scrypt mining ecosystem instead of relying on its own dedicated miners.
• Inscriptions on a Scrypt chain: it brings the Ordinals and BRC-20 model to a Dogecoin-era codebase.

How Bellscoin Differs from Similar Chains

Compared with Dogecoin, Bellscoin shares the Scrypt algorithm and a comparable uncapped supply design, but it has a much smaller ecosystem and a younger (revived) community. Compared with Litecoin, it has no hard cap and a 1-minute rather than 2.5-minute block time. Compared with Bitcoin Ordinals and BRC-20, the inscription concept is the same, but Bellscoin's lower fees and faster blocks come with far less economic security and liquidity.

Use Cases of Bellscoin

• Minting, collecting and trading inscriptions (Bellinals) and BEL-20 tokens.
• Merged mining for Scrypt miners who want an extra reward stream.
• Low-value peer-to-peer transfers.
• Holding as a speculative meme asset tied to crypto history.

How Bellscoin Is Secured

Security comes from Scrypt proof of work. Because blocks can be merge-mined with Litecoin and Dogecoin, the chain can attract a large share of the Scrypt network's hashpower; the site reported a network hashrate of about 1.2 PH/s at the time it was written (a figure that changes constantly). The trade-off is that security depends on pools continuing to include Bellscoin in their merged-mining setup. If major pools stopped doing so, hashpower could drop quickly.

Risks and Considerations

• Meme-driven demand: value depends heavily on community attention rather than cash flows.
• Small development base: maintenance relies on volunteer developers after a long dormant period.
• Unlimited supply: tail emission of about 1 million BELLS per year continues indefinitely.
• Ecosystem concentration: much of the inscription activity runs through a small set of tools such as Nintondo.
• Planned features are not guaranteed: OP_CAT and smart contracts are roadmap items.
• Name confusion: tickers BELLS and BEL are used by unrelated tokens, so verify you are dealing with the Bellscoin chain.

Why Bellscoin Matters

Bellscoin is a live example of how an old, abandoned chain can be revived by its community and given new uses. For people interested in meme-coin history, merged mining or inscriptions outside Bitcoin, it is a compact case study, with the caveat that it remains small and speculative.

Where Can You Buy Bellscoin?

BELLS trades on centralized exchanges and on Nintondo's marketplace for Bellscoin-native assets. The official website maintains a list of exchanges and notes that it does not endorse or verify them, so check the current listing and trading pair on the exchange itself before depositing funds.

Storage Options After Purchase

• Bellscoin Core full-node wallet from the official repository.
• Nintondo browser wallet (Chrome and Firefox), which also handles Bellinals and BEL-20 tokens.
• Third-party multi-coin wallets linked from the official site. Confirm BELLS support and the correct network before sending.

Inscriptions live on specific UTXOs, so use an inscription-aware wallet if you hold Bellinals, or you may accidentally spend them as fees.

Related Coins

• Dogecoin
• Litecoin
• Pepecoin
• ORDI
• SATS (Ordinals)