February 2019 Community Update

Published in

Skycoin

7 min readMar 13, 2019

The road to Skycoin’s 2019 triple mainnet was paved during a strong February, with new software releases of Skycoin Core (v0.25.1) and CX (0.6.0 and 0.6.1) and the imminent launch of Skywire mainnet. The quality of Skyfleet community content was just as strong, with the launch of the fantastic new site SKYFUD and a host of new video reviews. Turn up your engines and read on, Skyfleet!

Skywire

As mentioned previously, mainnet will be deployed in stages as the various components are implemented, tested and integrated. The first stage of mainnet is a developer-oriented software release. It continues to run over the internet, with proxy functionality. This will be followed by Coin Hour bank, then CoinJoin and a full bandwidth-sharing marketplace.

The first stage of the hardware mainnet launch is on low-bandwidth radio links. In time this will transition to motorized antennas that have GPS and incline measurements as hardware development continues.

Until mainnet bandwidth metering is activated, rewards will only be paid out to testnet Skyminers. In February, 40,000 SKY were distributed to Skyfleet running testnet Skyminers. Everyone dev-testing the new mainnet software must use two new Orange or similar Pi boards, and install the new software on these dedicated boards:

Mainnet Development setup

Two TP-Link AC600 usb dongles (supports 5ghz, has linux drivers, has external SMA port)
SMA coaxial cable (optional)
Two 64 bit ARM boards (Orange Pi 64)
Two SD cards
Debian Linux OS for the boards
Ability to SSH into the boards for setup (router, ethernet cable, usb keyboard, portable monitor, usb mouse)

Skybian is the Skycoin-designed Debian-based operating system image for mainnet Skyminer nodes. The first release candidate of Skybian can be accessed here.

Skycoin Core

Version 0.25.1 of Skycoin Core and Wallet was released. This version includes a range of technical additions, fixes and changes.

Added

Add CLI addressTransactions command
Add /api/v2/wallet/seed/verify to verify if seed is a valid bip39 mnemonic seed
Filter transactions in the History view in the UI

Fixed

/api/v1/health will return correct build info when running Docker containers based on skycoin/skycoin mainnet image.
#2083, Windows desktop wallet sometimes shows “Error#1” on start

Changed

Extend URI specification to allow plain addresses (i.e. without a skycoin: prefix)
Switch skycoin-cli from urfave/cli to spf13/cobra.
Now all options of a cli command must only use — prefix instead of a mix of — and — prefixes.
— prefix is only allowed when using shorthand notation.
Use an optimized base58 library for faster address decoding and encoding.

CX

CX development continues at a strong pace. Version 0.6.1 was released, which includes support for lexical scoping as well as library improvements. A host of issues including compilation errors were resolved. The CX programming handbook was also updated to reflect these changes.

CXO

Skycoin’s content addressable storage tool CXO will play a key role in Skycoin applications and in the Skycoin consensus mechanism, Obelisk. Synth shared some brief lines on the progress of CXO and its potential uses:

“Skycoin has its own successor to Bitorrent. Based upon Skywire and content addressable storage. Where the data is addressed by hash and large files are split into chunks and where people will automatically earn payments from hosting the data because of the skywire rewards for providing bandwidth to the network.”

Hardware

Synth reported that parabolic antenna simulation for 2.4 ghz was completed. This is another milestone along the way to rolling out our DIY antenna kits that will allow people to construct the hardware for Skywire’s wireless mesh network.

We also saw more images from the Skycoin Hardware Incubator including gold-plated Skyminers.

Firmware for the Skywallet and Ledger Nano S support are a continued focus of developer efforts. These will be released for public use when we are confident that they provide the highest grade security storage for your Skycoins.

Official videos

The Future is Now — Malta Blockchain Summit teaser, a video documentary of last years highly successful conference was posted. It features Skycoin Lead Dev Synth talking about the blockchain industry, including his trademark honesty. A must watch!

“The most important thing is that its grassroots, its bottom up. We don’t have to go to the president we don’t have to go to the central government, we don’t have to get permission. We are giving people a tool that they can use to improve their lives.”
Synth

There were some sort teaser videos of Skycoin’s daily transaction potential, enabled by its highly intuitive, easy to use moblie wallet. Check out Skycoin payments made simple with Skycoin mobile and Paying with Skycoin.

We also saw a fantastic Skyminer promotion video in Let’s Build the New World Together .

Conferences/Exhibits

Daken and MacSkyver repped Skycoin at the San Francisco Developer Week. As usual, Skycoin was the center of attention with the Skyminer and other hardware devices. Check out a great a video summary of the event!

Media reviews

Hashoshi published one of the best community video reviews to date, called Skycoin Review (Skycoin 2019 — Ethereum Developer’s Review!). Altcoinbuzz released 10 Skycoin Facts! The Good, the Bad and The Ugly. Journey to 100k made a solid Skycoin Review. Jordan Heal from Coin Rivet did an excellent summary A beginners guide to Skycoin and Decentralized internet.

SkyFUD Website

Misinformation surrounding Skycoin is rife, but cutting through the noise has become much easier thanks to an incredibly high quality website curated by Skyfleet member Casino.

SKYFUD! Clearly debunks much of the fear, uncertainty and doubt surrounding Skycoin.

Several of the great articles include ‘Exit Scam’, ‘Toxic community’ and ‘Skyminer,’ as well as some hilarious ‘Copypastas’. Our favorite is ‘Community manager Sudo is a space alien/Team is mostly lizard people/Desktop wallet steals your television.’

Understanding legitimate versus unfounded criticism is essential for due diligence and proper research, so jump on and start reading! The site also is a great archive of Skycoin resources with articles, videos, and images from the project.

Community Articles

In addition to his work on SkyFUD, Casino also released two great articles ‘Skycoin Skyfleet” and ‘Why every blockchain platform needs Skycoin.’ The community thanks you Marco!

CryptoDiscipulus ran a fascinating piece called ‘BTCPay Server, Skywire and the quest for censorship-resistance.’ It explores a very strong use case for Skywire providing a censorship-resistant platform for decentralized payment processors to be built.

*“Skywire has the potential to greatly amplify the censorship-resistance of decentralized payment processors like BTCPayServer.” writes CryptoDiscipulus.*

Macskyver wrote ‘CX: the Solidity Killer’, which explains the design of Skycoin’s programming language and offers insight into its potential for blockchain-based applications.

Lawrence Qholloi dropped an excellent piece looking at the troubled African country of Zimbabwe, and ruminating about the possibilities that a censorship-resistant internet like Skywire could have enabled for combating tyranny and maintaining freedom in that country.

Community videos

MacSkyver produced his consistently high quality video re-cap of the January update. He was joined by CryptoRich, a prominent friend of the project, who did his own video review of the Jan update. Great work guys!

MacSkyver, in conjunction with several other Skyfleet members, have launched the Skycoin Rewards Program (SRP) designed to tease out the creative potential of the Skyfleet community through Skycoin giveaways. Read how the program works here. Great work to all who have gotten involved so far. You, too, can join the list of high quality community contributors listed above!

Community hardware

DIY Skyminers have traditionally been the main products created by our enterprising DIY community. In February, however, we saw some cool photos of 3D printed Skycoin merch including Raspberry Pi cases and keyrings by community leader Moojie:

We also continue to be amazed by the innovative DIY miners, including this impressive perspex build with engraved Skycoin logo and dual cooling fans.

Community campaigns

Skycoin Wiki

The Skycoin Wiki continues to need love, attention and contribution. If you are looking to help out the Skycoin project but don’t know how, start by writing some basic articles for the Wiki. Sign up to contribute here.

Skycoin Sticker Blast

Community members have been relentless in raising awareness of Skycoin through an urban sticker campaign. Skycoin stickers are now visible throughout the major metropolitan areas of the world. Contact Daken directly on Telegram or post in the Sticker Blast Telegram group to get involved!

And that’s a wrap of the Skycoin development from February. Fantastic work to all community members and developers who worked so hard throughout the month. Stay tuned as we continue this exciting progress into March. Onwards and upwards Skyfleet!