Ethorse Project Update — September 12, 2018

Ethouse
4 min readSep 12, 2018

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In This Update: Thoughts on the Crypto Market, DApp Marketing, Ethorse Futures Concept, Ecosystem Update and More

The Overall Crypto Market, Ethorse Volume and Seeding Strategy

Like you, we have watched as the overall cryptocurrency market has experienced a prolonged downturn. There is a lot of uncertainty about where the market will go at this point, but we are confident in its longer-term (positive) future.

Clearly, Ethorse has not been immune to the overall bearish market sentiment. We believe current market conditions have had a downward impact on DApp volume. On the plus side, we have a loyal player base and expect volume to increase once the overall market begins to recover (and Ethorse improvement initiatives are complete).

One bright spot of this difficult market is that it provides us with additional time to focus on strengthening Ethorse’s fundamentals, which include:

  • Ensuring the DApp is stable, fast and reliable
  • Pushing out UI and other updates to improve the playing experience (and expand the potential of the DApp)
  • Engaging the Ethorse community in constructive and mutually beneficial ways

As you may have noticed, we continue to adjust our automated seeding strategy to better match current DApp use and to conservatively manage the ETH allocated to the seed pool. Currently, this means that seeds will generally be:

  • Lower during periods of reduced demand (weekends and overnight in the E.U. and North America)
  • Higher during peak playing periods (afternoons/evenings in the EU and North America and Community Racing Periods — two back to back races Tuesdays and Thursdays beginning at 18:00 GMT)

We will shift our seeding strategy over time as DApp utilization patterns change.

We’d also like to thank our loyal player base for their continuing support and engagement.

New 30-Minute Race and Schedule

Based on community feedback we introduced and tested a new 30-minute race over the last few weeks. Reaction to this race type was positive and we have now added two 30-minute races to the race schedule daily.

We have also added a new menu item to the DApp, “Schedule,” which displays the current race schedule.

Criteria to Begin Wider Marketing Efforts

We often receive questions about when large-scale marketing will begin. Below is an overview of the criteria we will use to determine when engaging in DApp marketing activities is a good idea:

  • DApp responsiveness and UI has been improved
  • DApp engagement has improved (we are considering launching new mini-games to improve and grow our daily active user base)
  • DApp community engagement is optimal (we are working with our community to deliver value-added services/features to the player community) that will support new players as they learn about and use the DApp

We are working diligently on all three of the above and will continue to update the community about our progress and when wider marketing activities will begin.

Ethorse Ecosystem Update

In late August we announced an initiative to formalize collaboration between the community and us: the Ethorse Ecosystem.

We have been pleased by the response to the Ecosystem’s launch. We are currently in the progress of discussing how to optimally collaborate with a community-developed Ethorse companion DApp and have received a number of applications from community members interested in becoming Ethorse Ambassadors.

Right now, we’d like to encourage the community to apply to become part of the Ethorse Ecosystem, if you have not done so already, by clicking the link below. Your applications will help our planning efforts.

Apply to join the Ethorse ecosystem by clicking here.

Your Feedback Requested: Ethorse Futures Concept

One of our community members has proposed a new mini-game concept called Ethorse Futures.

Essentially, this game would allow bettors to make predictions about whether the price of a single coin will increase or decrease in value over a set period (30 minutes, 1 hour, 3 hours, 2 days, etc.).

We are very interested in receiving community feedback on this idea.

Your responses will impact our evaluation of the Ethorse Futures concept.

Please take a few minutes to provide feedback on Ethorse Futures by clicking the link below.

Review and comment on the Ethorse Futures concept by clicking here.

DApp Updates: Betting Timer Adjusted, Progress Report

We noticed that many bettors were playing bets just before the betting window closed. This was causing a large number of rejected transactions.

To solve this problem, we have adjusted the betting timer to finish 90 seconds in advance of the actual time the contract accepts bets. Since making this change, we’ve noticed fewer last-minute bets are being rejected.

We are also working on:

  • Improving the responsiveness of the DApp
  • Continuing work on the UI (DApp responsiveness is being prioritized at this point)

Thank you all for your continued support!

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Ethouse

A decentralized application for the Parimutuel gaming on the price of Cryptocurrencies ethouse.app