XY/COIN/XYO Q2–2020 Update
Q2 2020 for XY has been exciting. It’s certainly been an interesting time, not only with physical changes to the work place and team, but also with critical advances and updates in our products and technology.
COIN has been growing substantially, XY looks forward to the release of a new app, XYO has some very exciting things in the works, and more. We are very fortunate and grateful to have been afforded the time necessary to continue building the dream of location data solutions with an amazing team and the support of our community that continues to believe in us.
Truly great things are built slowly and methodically, over long periods of time with a dedicated team and strong community of believers. The greater the goal, the greater the obstacles and we have definitely had our share. As we overcome these inevitable impediments, one by one, we have only become stronger and more determined in our pursuit.
COIN
For XY Labs, Q2 2020 focused on new COIN App features and the development of COIN Boss. The main updates to COIN this quarter are centered around the introduction of social features. One of the first steps was allowing users to have a profile picture and unique username. We have also introduced a Daily Geomining Leaderboard and the ability to see social profiles of the Geominers globally or nearby.
With the use of XYO technology and other techniques, we have significantly improved our ability to detect invalid and fraudulent data in the system, allowing us to feed these findings back into XYO and the XYO protocol. This learning that we can apply to our technology continues every day.
Future releases will offer more ways to connect with other COIN users and introduce social events and games.
Covid-19 also impacted our COIN user base and structure of the app; as many users suddenly found themselves at home more often than exploring the world, we were pressed to find new was for users to create and be rewarded for location data.
Ultimately, the “Home Base” feature that was already in our roadmap was fast-tracked to address this new change that was impacting the world allowing users to earn extra rewards for staying at home, doing our part to help fight the spread of Covid-19.
Finally, COIN Boss Beta has received extensive feedback from the community, resulting in exciting updates and changes to the platform.
We feel it is ready for the next step, and will be opening to anyone who has requested an invite. If you have not already, please request an invite!
Purchases — XY’s New GeoApp
XY has been quietly working on new apps that utilize the power of the XYO Network, and we’re excited to announce that one of them will soon be ready! These apps will play a key role in expanding the use of the XYO Network, and creating more “edge nodes” for the network.
“Purchases”, a new centralized GeoApp, uses location-based data to help users better manage their cards, and verify purchases made with those cards.
The app will be released during Q3, and you can check out purchasesapp.co to sign up for the invite-only first version of the app.
XYO
The XYO core team has been continually working on incremental improvements to the XYO Network, as well as establishing the exciting new GeoDapp, XYO World.
XYO World is an important part of the XYO Foundation’s vision and a big development for the network. Due to its operation on the Ethereum network, as well as the nature of its deployment, it requires quite a bit of up-front planning, research, and care. We’ve been actively starting the rules for the GeoDapp, and reaching out to community members for direct feedback on our plans.
Thank you to everyone who participated in our lengthy surveys about the upcoming XYO World, and for all your feedback so far on this project. We will continue sending updates as they come.
Interestingly, Covid-19 has impacted XYO Foundation in a good way, primarily because the virus has opened more conversation and development towards solutions for pandemics and global health. XYO is particularly excited to announce the start of the virtual hack-a-thon partnership with UCSD — The Changemaker Challenge!
With this challenge, we are looking to use XYO for contact tracing to help aid with Covid-19 or other illness tracking.
XYO World
Development for XYO World is now at full speed, and further updates and previews will be available throughout Q3 2020. We expect to have a full release of the system in the next few months, with August 25th as our projected release date. This is a very aggressive timeline, but we believe it to be achievable.
We have not finalized the ruleset yet, and will publish them on our site as they solidify.
To share some insight into what it takes to build something like this, here is a screen capture of the debug panel that I use while developing.
How are all these things tied together?
People often ask me, why do we have XYO, COIN, and now also XYO World and Purchases? At first, these apps may seem like a random selection of products, but they are not. Since 2012, when I founded XY, my quest has been to connect the physical world with the data it produces and take this data and make it useful. Many of these uses include location, whether relative (XYO) or absolute (XYO World). The data also includes actions taken by people (COIN & Purchases).
Looking at the world through the lens of data has recently gained much more attention in media, with shows such as Devs, Altered Carbon, and Upload. As we continue our development of products, you will notice this ‘dataistic’ theme continue. So stay tuned, there is much more to come, and I want everyone to join me on this voyage of enlightenment that is quickly becoming my life’s work.
Covid-19
Like all companies, we have seen some of the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. We have been fortunate to have had our employees stay safe, and work from home, with little to no disruption in operations. This is both due to good fortune, and our very talented team working endlessly and creatively from home, or wherever they have needed to to make this continue to progress for our customers. I would especially like to thank our fulfillment team, since they have fielded more curveballs than anyone else due to these world events as our ability to ship to different parts of the world seems to change on a daily basis.
The stars are definitely in motion for XYO and appear to be coming into alignment even through these uncertain times. We remain steadfast in doing everything we can to make this happen. Stay positive and stay tuned!
