On May 20th we commenced with our alpha testing; following some very preliminary work from Q1 this year.
In this update, we will briefly recap our objectives for the alpha as well as some of the issues and implemented fixes, before moving on to other forthcoming developments.
For our purposes, it is vital that our network is heavily secured, reliable and of course, usable. These are our overarching goals and in the last month we’ve effectively removed myriad bugs, a number of functional gaps, as well as our share of critical errors and UI issues. Not unexpected and it’s fair to say that things went smoothly. The testnet also represented a coming together of parties who inhabit disparate worlds and varying disciplines, so their collective feedback was crucial.
Cycles
We actually completed five cycles while anticipating four so this was something of a bonus. It is not that we lacked for issues; rather they were remedied rather quickly. Though we are still a ways from a full feature set, the key elements that will comprise our final product are stable and functional on a back-end level. While it is not perfect, we can say that the truly restrictive, show-stopping type of errors that would exceed what live support, for example, could provide is no longer a serious concern. We believe that we will likely be ahead of schedule in running live beta sales, though there is still a fair amount of work ahead of us before such a statement can be confirmed.
BlocBuy believes the platform is near Beta worthy as primary functions perform as expected. There are no longer any blocking issues nor were any of our testers forced to contend with critical errors. To the uninitiated, we consider this to be good news.
We decided that the best way to rollout this early stage progress was by way of video walkthroughs rather than just plunking something on the website and saying “here.” This will consist of a series of easily digested videos with the first one available to be seen here:
Below is a link to the MVP alpha itself. Feel free to create a public profile and link your wallet or simply take a look around as it remains a work in progress.
BlocBuy is a bear market baby that firmly believes in our business model. Before we offer a peek of what is to come, let us address a couple of points:
BlocBuy is an atypical project for the cryptosphere. We are entrepreneurs who wish for our business to turn profits. We have customers and we are always trying to get more. We deal in the corporate world with extremely slow sales cycles and expect as many opportunities to shutter as they do shine. Selling our tokens is not required for us to continue and at this juncture, we can happily say that any capital will be used solely to augment development and awareness funding. We are also people who believe our job is to solve real world issues that have plagued start-ups, taxed the environment and generally speaking, undermined the spirited efforts of entrepreneurs and frankly, ripped off consumers. We are here to bridge the gap between buyers and sellers. We are here to leverage the power of a shared economy to make the world more affordable. We understand the challenges and are building solutions. Our token exists in the ecosystem that is commercial and consumer transactions. It has immeasurable potential utility but we must remain deliberate in moving forward.
When there is something that is notable, we will always share but we are not here to hype, shill and talk about landing on the undiscovered 80th moon of Jupiter. That is not us. That said, we are aware of how the markets work and realize that exposure and liquidity comes at a cost; which we are willing to pay. We are committed to our investors and the bear market of 2018 gave us the opportunity to demonstrate our loyalty while those that supported the project expressed requisite but ultimately hung tough. This has forged some great bonds and we are fortunate enough to have some well known people we call friends and investors. We are not against spreading the word but will not do anything prematurely.
Looking Ahead: Despite the tough talk, we are excited about our progress. Please stay tuned as it feels good to be kicking things off and beginning to realize what we’ve been working towards for quite some time now. Onwards and upwards.