TWIST Toolbox 0.9.1 release! + development updates and future plans
Our first release version of the Toolbox is available for download now:
https://twist.network/releases/TWIST-Toolbox-Windows-Setup-0.9.1.zip
Currently only Windows is supported for reasons detailed in the last section of this article.
Toolbox features available in this release:
- Register a TWIST ID to a TWIST address
- Send a transaction to a TWIST ID
- Send a TWIST ID transaction (with an optional encrypted message)
- View your sent/received TWIST ID transactions
How TWIST ID works
We will be providing a more in-depth explanation of TWIST ID in our whitepaper. However, for the time being, here is a brief explanation:
A TWIST ID is a unique username which can be assigned to a TWIST address to make sending and receiving TWIST payments more familiar and friendly. An address may only have one TWIST ID assigned to it and a TWIST ID must be unique (not registered before), must be 3–18 characters long, and must contain only alphanumeric and — or _ characters.
When a TWIST ID is registered, a transaction is debited from the registering address for the amount of 50 TWIST (currently around $0.15). This 50 TWIST fee is a necessary control to deter individuals from registering large amounts of TWIST ID’s.
In a registration transaction, approximately 99% of the 50 TWIST fee is sent to a burn address. This will act as a source of deflationary pressure across the overall supply of coins in circulation. The remaining 1% is used to pay the mining fee and to encode the data. The data (i.e. your TWIST ID and your public and encrypted private key) is encoded into a list of base58 TWIST addresses where a negligible amount (0.0001 TWIST) is sent to each address.
TWIST ID transactions work similarly, with the sender ID and an optional encrypted message being encoded into TWIST addresses and bundled alongside the main transaction.
Cool stuff…so what’s next?
Whitepaper
Our whitepaper has been written and is currently undergoing a review by our advisers and subject matter experts. We expect this to be ready for publication in the first week of April. It is important to note that unlike most projects, where the whitepaper is created and never changed, this approach will not be adopted for TWIST. Instead, the whitepaper will be a living document that will constantly be updated as the project progresses with new ideas and innovations being added to the existing framework. This will not only enable TWIST to maintain a competitive edge in the market, but will also help to keep all stakeholders updated on the latest developments, whilst remaining at the forefront of ever evolving blockchain technology.
Upcoming Developments
As the project was first being envisaged, the TWIST Toolbox was only ever intended to be a desktop application. However, the team been listening closely to community feedback and we’ve noticed a very common request is the availability of a web wallet. Our project revolves around the core objective of making the blockchain more accessible, and we feel that providing more web based services would be a significant way of helping us achieve this objective and expand the influence and scope of TWIST. We are therefore very excited to announce that we will be developing, in parallel to the desktop Toolbox application, a TWIST web wallet with integrated Toolbox functionality including features such as TWIST ID and TWIST Data.
The team strongly believes that creating an integrated web wallet and Toolbox not only encompasses the core value of the project, but also provides an array of benefits:
- Ease of use by having one single platform
- Accessible on mobile devices and all operating systems
- No down-time waiting for wallet to synchronise with the network
The decision to develop a web-based Toolbox is largely the reason why we have decided not provide Toolbox desktop support for Linux and MacOS: we felt our time would be better spent focusing on building an operating system and device agnostic application that can be used by everybody, including mobile users.
The team will be adding several additional development goals and an updated roadmap will be posted soon to reflect the changes. We also feel it’s about time to start our next bounty campaign and ramp up our marketing…but more about that in the coming weeks.
Exciting times ahead for TWIST and we wish you a pleasant Easter Sunday!
