The Superblock Report
General News
What’s New
Welcome once again to The Superblock Report, your source for the latest news and updates from the world of PIVX!
This cycle, the PIVX Labs team is happy to announce the release of the SHIELD protocol on Mainnet MyPIVXWallet. Even though it still needs to be fully deployed to the live version of MyPIVXWallet, it is already available for everyone to test while we give it the last few touches. But this is just one of many developments we will be talking about, as both the Labs and Core teams have been busy at work improving both MyPIVXWallet and the Core wallet. Please keep in mind that in this report we’ll only cover last cycle’s commits. For this cycle’s changes, please read next month’s report.
Also this month, the PIVX Core team has taken steps towards greater transparency by merging the “PIVX Core” Discord into the “PIVX Community” Discord, while at the same time opening several new channels to the public. Nevertheless, it should be noted that banned voters and other members will still not have access to any updates posted on those channels.
Development News
MyPIVXWallet
This cycle was particularly busy for our developers, who have delivered quite a few commits. Most of them are related to the development of MyPIVXWallet, which include new functionality implementations as well as aesthetic improvements. Probably the most important change this cycle was the release to MyPIVXWallet’s mainnet of PIVX’s SHIELD protocol. Let’s look at all of these commits one by one:
- Simplified app text UI: To remove the complexity for new users to MPW, we have shortened and simplified texts and features all around the app. This has removed pages worth of text, which makes MPW much easier to use, particularly on mobile devices.
https://github.com/PIVX-Labs/MyPIVXWallet/pull/82 - Removed Google dependency: MPW previously relied on Google Fonts for it’s font system. We have now switched to Bunny.net, which is faster, lighter (de-bloated), and most importantly, more private.
https://github.com/PIVX-Labs/MyPIVXWallet/pull/83 - Added ‘Contested Proposals’ filtering: Due to the current low price for PIVX, “spam” proposals are often submitted to the blockchain using the URL to link to websites, or potentially even malware. As these proposals are overwhelmingly downvoted, MPW is now able to automatically detect them and penalize them. Specifically; MPW will consider a proposal ‘Contested’ if it has at least 100 downvotes, and the proportion of downvotes is higher than 75%. This should make it easy to identify proposals containing spam, malware, and other harmful ones, without the need for total censorship, and without allowing a tool of “vote bombing” genuine proposals.
https://github.com/PIVX-Labs/MyPIVXWallet/pull/84 - New ‘Transfer’ UX flow and UI design: MPW’s ability to Send PIVX just underwent a massive makeover, making it fully mobile-focused. Sleek animations were added, together with the ability to send amounts of PIV equivalent to a specified amount of a different currency. For example, you can now select to send “1 USD” or “0.01 BTC” and MPW will send the equivalent value in PIV.
https://github.com/PIVX-Labs/MyPIVXWallet/pull/89 - Added IPv6 masternode support: MPW’s masternode controller now supports both IPv4 and IPv6 masternodes. This allows now to use MPW to configure, run and maintain masternodes of either network variant.
https://github.com/PIVX-Labs/MyPIVXWallet/pull/90 - Redesigned wallet unlock flow: MPW’s unlock flow was previously clunky and long-winded. Sending and staking actions would be cancelled at the last minute with a red warning to unlock your wallet, which you had to navigate to the Dashboard to do. Now, when MPW is locked, it will prompt for an unlock mid-operation. This allows you to type your password there, and complete the operation afterwards automatically. This is also similar to how it works in the PIVX Core wallet, which will make transitioning between the two wallets much easier!
https://github.com/PIVX-Labs/MyPIVXWallet/pull/93 - Massive performance, bandwidth and SEO optimisation: MPW is a complex program, and complex codebases come with large sizes and scaling issues. Fortunately, after some compiler tuning, library shuffling, removal of bloated and unnecessary code, and some HTML tweaks, we have achieved the following:
–A compiled app footprint (size) decrease of ~65.77%.
–A ~50% speed increase in app loading speed. (After gzip compression).
–A massively increased Google Lighthouse score, with 100% for SEO.
https://github.com/PIVX-Labs/MyPIVXWallet/pull/96 - Status Icons Redesign: MyPIVXWallet has had a sexy redesign for its status system. Rather than throwing a bunch of text in the top-right of the app, like “Network Enabled!”, “Testnet Mode On!”… it now displays simple, concise status icons, like your car dash! Each icon has a hover-over tooltip that explains the meaning behind each status icon.
https://github.com/PIVX-Labs/MyPIVXWallet/pull/98 - Added native BIP39 passphrases: MyPIVXWallet has now integrated the use of native BIP39 passphrases, which allows your wallet to be password-protected right from the get-go. Thanks to this, even if your seedphrase were to be stolen, it would be useless without your passphrase, deriving different keys.
https://github.com/PIVX-Labs/MyPIVXWallet/pull/100 - Shielding: The PIVX SHIELD protocol is finally coming to MyPIVXWallet. To know what exactly this entails, you can learn more about PIVX SHIELD transactions here: https://pivx.org/privacy-protocol
https://github.com/PIVX-Labs/MyPIVXWallet/pull/104 - Added Proposal Creation: This makes it possible to create your own PIVX DAO Proposals directly from MyPIVXWallet. This removes the need to run a PIVX Core wallet to create and submit your own PIVX proposals, making MPW the first alternative PIVX wallet with full DAO integration; Proposal Submission and Voting.
https://github.com/PIVX-Labs/MyPIVXWallet/pull/99 - Ledger support for Masternodes: This allows to easily create and maintain Masternodes on your Ledger Hardware device directly from the familiar MPW interface, cold storage masternodes!
https://github.com/PIVX-Labs/MyPIVXWallet/pull/91
Core Changes
Aside from MyPIVXWallet, there have been a couple of notable Core changes released during the last cycle:
- PR 2809: Adds background functionality to improve the security of PIVX by implementing Signing Requests. This feature requires two new classes that help with securely storing and retrieving important information.
- PR 2812: Fixes a bug in the way dust is combined in PIVX transactions. The fix ensures that small transaction outputs (dust) are combined more efficiently, reducing waste and improving overall transaction efficiency. A new parameter “frequency” has also been added to reduce resource consumption when checking for dust.
Community News
Continued Growth
Thanks to the accelerated pace of development and renewed marketing and business development efforts, PIVX has been one of the best performing assets of the last 12 months. It is in fact one of the few cryptocurrencies with a positive growth since last year, having grown in price by more than 75% from around $0.20 then to around $0.35 today.
By contrast, others are still far from the prices they had a year ago. For example Bitcoin was trading back then at around $40,000, while Ether’s price was $3,300. Had they grown as much as PIVX, Bitcoin would be trading at $70,000 and Ether at $5,775!
But this is just the beginning. With renewed development efforts, marketing initiatives, new listings, and almost no surviving competition, the future for PIVX looks bright!
New Listings
Business development for the PIVX project is once again gaining momentum thanks to the efforts of our Business Development Manager Jeffrey. In the last few weeks, PIVX got two new platform listings: Cointopay and Swapuz. Cointopay is a payment processor which will allow merchants to accept PIVX payments among other things. You can read more on the official announcement on Medium:
Swapuz is a swap platform where people will now be able to exchange PIVX for a multitude of other currencies. Check out their official app here:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.swapuz.mobile
But that’s not all, Jeffrey is working on several other integrations that could materialize in the near future. Of these, probably one of the most exciting ones is ChangeNow. Integrating with ChangeNow would entail the following products:
- ChangeNOW + NOWcustody: Will provide off-ramping to stable coins plus a custodial service for businesses to hold , manage and accept PIVX.
- NOW wallet: A mobile/pc wallet that also allows the user to exchange directly in app. NOW wallet supports over 40 different coins.
- NOW payments : A non-custodial payment gateway compatible with most ecommerce scripts. This will allow many stores to easily accept PIVX as payment furthering PIVX adoption and providing new use cases.
You can read more about the changeNOW integration on Jeffrey’s proposal post:
https://forum.pivx.org/threads/now-products-integration.1370/
New Exchange Listings
But let’s not forget new exchange listings! Exchanges are crucial, as they provide the necessary liquidity for traders, while greatly increasing visibility for the project. Jeffrey is currently working on several new exchange listings that could materialize in the near future. Among them, some large ones such as Lbank, Biconomy and Dex-trade. These are all very high volume exchanges, with Lbank in particular being a top 10 exchange by daily volume. Check out their respective websites here:
https://www.lbank.com/
https://www.biconomy.com/
https://dex-trade.com/
DAO Watch
Two new episodes of the DAO Watch podcast came out in the last few weeks, both of which discussing PIVX! Episode 11 discusses PIVX SHIELD implementation as well as deterministic masternodes. Episode 12 discusses the new proposal to integrate with NOW payments, which we presented here previously.
Check out both episodes here:
And find all other DAO Watch episodes here:
Dao Watch has also started cooperation with PIVX on a new Twitter event series centered around the topic of DAOs. PIVX DAO advisor Hans Koning and DAO Watch host Crypto_SI will be hosting this series. This was the official announcement:
The first of these Twitter Spaces events took place a few days ago. You can already listen to it here:
Eric Stanek Leaves PIVX Core
Eric Stanek has decided to step down from his role in the PIVX Core team, becoming just a regular user and DAO voter. However, in his farewell post, he has made sure to make it clear that he is not abandoning the PIVX community. He’s simply taking a step back to focus on other matters, but we will still see him on Discord when time allows.
PIVX Labs Twitter Account
PIVX Labs has now an independent Twitter account that we will use to keep the community updated of all recent developments. The topics will be mostly tech-focused, but presented in an informal and relaxed manner. Go give us a follow!
PIVi, the PIVX AI!
JSKitty has brought a new friend to the PIVX community, the first community member that is not human! Its name is PIVi, and it is an advanced artificial intelligence chat bot, imbued will all existing knowledge about the PIVX project and much, much more. We’ll allow PIVi to introduce itself:
PIVi is currently still in an experimental phase, but will soon be upgraded with genuinely valuable use cases for the PIVX community. For instance, being able to read the blockchain, DAO integration, instant user support, and improving the PIVX Labs team workflow.
New Wallpaper Dropped
Qtez, one of our community members has designed a new wallpaper for PIVX. Check it out!
You can also go follow them on Twitter:
Guess the Jelly Beans Contest
Last week the PIVX team ran a contest to guess the number of jelly beans in a jar and the number of PIVX colored ones! 2 lucky community members guessed right and went home with 50 PIV each. The winners were Sojatoshi and Xiaosichu. This was the announcement:
https://twitter.com/PIVXcommunity/status/1645461658314104834
If you want to participate in other contests like this one, don’t forget to follow the official PIVX community Twitter account!
Guess the Jelly Beans Contest
JoaquimF Lecture
A week ago, PIVX Ambassador JoaquimF gave a lecture at Faculdade UNIJorge regarding several aspects from the PIVX project. Among other things, he discussed how to interact with the project through the DAO, and PIVX’s privacy features. You can see a few seconds from this lecture on our official tweet:
https://twitter.com/pivxcommunity/status/1646107355140988928?s=46&t=LI9iJs6X0Mda7u4EzP0qTA
Meet the Team Series
The PIVX community Twitter has been publishing a series of tweets dedicated to meeting the different members of the PIVX teams. The tweets contain some basic information, like when they discovered Crypto, when they joined PIVX, etc. So far there are two published, one for JsKitty and one for PalmTree. Check them out!
https://twitter.com/PIVXcommunity/status/1646830672181608452
https://twitter.com/PIVXcommunity/status/1643248096057458689
First Shield Transaction
Two weeks ago we celebrated the first successful SHIELD transaction on the PIVX mainnet with MyPIVXWallet! This was Duddino’s message back then:
Having Shield transactions in MyPIVXWallet will allow MyPIVXWallet users to preserve their privacy, as it makes it possible to hide both transaction amount and receiving wallet address. In this way, transactions are completely impossible to trace back to the sender.
Calling all Masternode Owners to Vote!
Once again we need you all masternode owners to vote on the proposals presented by the development teams. Development, design, marketing; all of these initiatives need funding, and it is only through your votes that we can secure it. Here you’ll find explanatory texts describing the different proposals and why they are important for PIVX:
Then there are several different ways to vote, probably the most convenient of which is directly from MyPIVXWallet. You will find all the current proposals under the Governance tab:
