NEM Newsletter #5 (2014/9/9)

Alpha Release 0.2.9

Alpha 0.2.9 was released on 26th August, 2014. The main user-visible feature of the new alpha version includes a tray icon called the NEM monitor. It allows users to monitor the status of the NIS and NCC. Additionally, it allows someone to start and stop the NIS or the NCC directly from the icon tray.

However, there is still more work that needs to be done in terms of user interaction. The devs are working on getting this to be more interactive.

In the same release, there are also now separate tabs for confirmed and pending transactions, making transaction status more organised and structured.

There was a hard fork at block 32768 which occurred at about 6:50:27 am (UTC) on 29th. August, 2014. Nothing disastrous happened but there was a critical bug as reported by fellow Nemster, Rigel. We appreciate Rigel’s effort and discovery. There should be some reward coming his way. Everyone is encouraged to test the vulnerability of the NCC and ecosystem to the hilt so that we can have a solid and bug-free platform when we launch. Now is the time to do vigorous transactions and run it into the ground if we can!

AltNemo Crowd Sale

The crowd sale was launched on 20th August, 2014, selling 1oz 9999 pure gold and 999 pure silver NEM coins, containing NEM cold wallets attached to them. The coins will be minted at the Perth Mint and it is expected that the value of the coins will increase many times over, due to their scarcity and the quality of the bullion from the mint.

The crowd sale is to support the creation of AltNemo, which will be the first commercial entity in the NEM ecosystem. Just as Bitcoin has numerous companies like Coinbase and Kraken, AltNemo will help create a vibrant and sustainable ecosystem for NEM. Since the funds from the crowd sale will support AltNemo, the coins will also come with “special privileges” in the company.

AltNemo is a private entity setup solely for the purpose of making NEM a very powerful ecosystem by developing applications to sit on top of the ecosystem. To start, AltNemo is embarking on two epic projects: 1) develop a mobile application for transactions using a smart phone such as an iOS or Android, as well as transactions through SMS, and 2). create a fast trading exchange that includes a link to fiat.

It is important that NEM as an ecosystem, has a holistic offering. AltNemo is filling in the gap to make the NEM platform more complete, as well as independent from relying on other coins.

Supporting AltNemo, therefore, is also supporting NEM by helping to create new and useful functionalities and therefore increasing the value of the NEM coin greatly.

For more information please visit the website at http://altnemo.com.

NCC was made open-source

The NEM Community Client (NCC) was made open source on 15th August, 2014. This was published on Github so that anyone can make use of it or can fork and develop applications around it. https://github.com/NewEconomyMovement/NemCommunityClient

This marks an important milestone, because with the publication of the source code, many things can be further enhanced, added, or made use of for any initiative that a user may want to leverage the NEM platform for.

We hope that with this being made open source, there shall be more developers involved in preparing NCC for launch.

NEM’s development roadmap to launch

Jaguar made an announcement on the 20th August, 2014, sharing with us plans for development up until the launch of NEM. Although many of the features do not appear to affect the end-user much, they will improve the security and performance of the system.

The plan includes:

· Time Synchronization — All NEM nodes will synchronize their clocks. This will provide two benefits:

1. an attack defense because we will be able to shrink the range of allowable timestamps,

2. allows NEM to work on computers with non-synchronized clocks.

· Secret Performance Enhancements — We have an idea that could significantly increase NEM performance. This will be tested before launch.

· Complete POI Enhancements – The devs are now working on some improvements to the POI algorithm.

· Remote NIS Support — Allow a local NCC instance to connect to a remote NIS server. This is especially important for mobile applications as the program footprint and battery usage will be very much reduced. It also improves the security of the NCC because the NCC does not need to be connected online all the time to harvest (see remote harvesting).

· Remote Harvesting — Allows an account to harvest on behalf of another account. This would allow accounts in cold wallets to harvest securely, thus having profound implications for increasing security.

Other stretch features for launch that could be included are:

· Lottery payout to reward running / highly trusted nodes

· Multisig support

Significant V1 features shall include the following:

· AE

· Business Rules

· Blockchain compression (i.e. faster downloads)

Representation of NEM by NEMSters

As we gear up for Beta release and official launch, a lot of things need to be prepared and worked on. These include NEM ambassadors and representatives to speak at or attend conferences, physical promotions, and local communities dedicated to using and promoting NEM.

In the coming months, and as more and more volunteers come on board, we will try and send speakers to as many conferences as possible to spread the word and talk about NEM.

This can only be done through crowdsourcing. For those who are interested to join us, please contact xtester directly at xtester777@gmail.com.

As an update, Erkki12 attended the Bitcoinference on September 3–5 in Amsterdam. This is a small gathering of bitcoiners. We will report about this at a later issue of our Newsletter.

Rockethead will speak at the Bitcoin Expo Shanghai 2014, to give an introduction of NEM as a > Crypto 2.0 platform on 19th-21st September.

NEM Press release

The marketing team made a press release on 19th August 2014. It was posted on 370 Broadcast stations/TV/radio and other news websites. More information can be found at http://forum.nemcoin.com/index.php?topic=2395.0;topicseen. We are confident that this release may have touched a substantial readership among all age groups.

Makoto and Xtester were featured in a Motherboard article on 28th August 2014. It was a well-written article by DJ Pagnburn and his view on the NEM. The article can be found at http://motherboard.vice.com/read/this-cryptocurrency-doesnt-want-to-beat-bitcoin-it-wants-to-beat-the-economy.

NEM Stake Claiming — Coming Soon!

We will soon start stake claiming in preparation for the launch of real NEM. All stakeholders will be contacted via PM and stake claiming will be announced on twitter.com/nemcoin as well, so please watch for contact from us.