Crown Development Update — 05/2018

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Crown Platform

10 min readMay 10, 2018

The past few months have been full of exciting developments for Crown. We will now release larger updates monthly and articles on specific announcements when we have important news to share. We hope you enjoy!

Latest announcements:

We have announced a move towards implementing a Proof of Stake based consensus mechanism after thorough research. The Crown Platform is ready to go one step further towards implementing its unique consensus mechanism that has been referred to as The Third Way which will answer any possible future scaling issues. In the mean time this Proof of Stake mechanism will pave the way for this future. All of the block rewards will move to Systemnodes and Masternodes that have been going to Proof of Work miners, we will have automatic instant transactions, and most importantly our community will fully control the network. This will be the first time a Proof of Stake consensus mechanism has been implemented in this way. Never before have Masternodes been the sole source of staking and securing the network. Crown is once again innovating and creating new never before seen blockchain infrastructure. Read our full announcement here

The Crown development team recently finished the integration for Trezor and created a pull request in Trezor’s Github. Crown will be available on the following Trezor firmware update! Keep an eye on our Twitter for the official announcement.

More Development Improvements

In our next June release Crown will have automatic InstantSend with lower transaction fees and several governance upgrades for a much smoother superblock. We have also begun Bitcoin merges to the latest code which will be added in the following release.

We are also going to open our internal development repositories to the public in the coming weeks. The community will be able to watch tasks and issues the team is working on, and It will be easier for community developers to contribute to the project. Watch out for the announcement here and on our Twitter.

So, what happened in Malta?

As many of you know, a selection of the Crown team recently went to Malta. This was a meeting to finally get together with contacts who we have been communicating with over the last few months.

For some of the team, this was the second visit to the historic island. The first, towards the end of 2017 at the Malta Blockchain Summit. Last December, Crown exhibited at the blockchain event and gave a presentation to a packed function room explaining the Crown project and our vision for future direction. Amongst the many opportunities, one stood out and has now developed into a very exciting partnership.

Representing the Crown team during this last meeting was Luke Bettles, Jan Brody & Filip Major. Along with Co-owner & director of CrownTech Solutions Ltd, Cyclebit (who would prefer to rename unamed at this time), founder & CEO of G-ME, Pedro Herranz and CEO of DMG Eco Ltd, Dave Meseck.

Cyclebit was part of the exhibition team, back in December and was instrumental in developing the relationship that resulted in this meeting. Dave was invited along by the Team due to his strengths in business strategy and experience dealing with large corporations in the UK who are clients of his waste management and renewable energy company, such as Galliford Try and Amazon.

Our contacts in Malta were Chris Vassallo and Alex Vella from the World Blockchain Forum. Chris is jointly responsible for Malta’s national blockchain strategy and was the co-creator of the recent Maltese legislation regarding crypto and digital assets. He also sits on the advisory board of MGI. Alex is the CEO & founder of Vella Technologies and is currently project managing substantial, high value blockchain projects that have developed in Malta including companies such as Genesis Mining.

The meeting started early and ideas and strategy began to flow immediately. Chris and Alex bring vast experience, knowledge, resources and contacts and after learning more about the existing Crown platform, the core team, community and the roadmap currently being worked on, they could see fantastic opportunity for collaboration.

An MOU is currently being worked on and will include short term projects to be launched in Malta using the existing Crown network and the Crown Time Stamping feature. The Crown team will also contribute to a proposed amendment to the existing legislation providing a legal framework that includes Time Stamping and the legal protection it could offer, along with Chris and Maltese based lawyer, Dr Ian Gaucci.

The MOU will also include putting plans together for a euro and btc to Crown exchange based in Malta, a multinational fine art tracking and information platform based on the G-ME project, Crown ATMs and a point of sale introducing Crown as the preferred payment method for upcoming blockchain events and projects such as Free Blockchain City, where young inventors and entrepreneurs can live in a subsidised tech village, working and training. This already has government approval and a large area of land set aside for development.

We have our first meeting on May 16th with lawyers to discuss the timestamping legal framework and to arrange the set-up of the New Malta Crown Foundation, which is being setup by Jan and Filip. Here they will offer startup advice, funding and strategy to blockchain startups focusing on innovation and the upcoming Crown Platform API.

The Crown team are delighted to have made a strong partnership with such an experienced team in Malta and are extremely excited to be working on turning some great ideas into reality.

More Crown Time Stamping Implementations!

Along with timestamping integrations in Malta, a Prague based tech firm named home3 will protect its data on the Crown Blockchain. It will move trademarks and patents approved by the Czech patent office to Crown which will be ensuring global protection — http://home3.cz

New Crown Website Translations

Our new website will soon be available in several languages including Spanish, Portuguese, German, Korean and Russian. We plan to expand on these efforts moving forward to make Crown as accessible to as many people around the globe as possible.

New Crown Wallet

A new world-class wallet is currently being designed in preparation for the platform’s release. We have contracted expert UX/UI designers that are working with us to make sure that this wallet will contain all of the necessary specifications for our community and our platform’s future. This new design will add various additional features, and totally transform the look and feel of the wallet. We do not have an ETA for the release, but we will have the first models available for review next week.

Exchange Updates

We are unable to discuss specific details of negotiations with exchanges, so we will do our best to speak in general terms.

Current status of the Exchange Listing Fund:

1 BTC was spent to facilitate our listing on Cryptobridge. All other donated funds remain unspent and in reserve.

Activities so far

All projects listed on Bittrex were asked to complete a regulatory review of their position against various US laws. Crown fully complied with this process. Whilst we are unable to discuss anything about what was involved, we received legal advice that we are in a good position in terms of alignment with US securities law.

After receiving positive feedback from our community, the CRW team spent 1 BTC of the exchange listing fund for a listing on Cryptobridge.
The major exchange listing negotiation that was in progress came to nothing. The exchange in question stopped responding to messages and then at a later date was reported to be asking for $1.6m for a listing which is far outside of what we can afford.
Over a period of 4 months, Stonehedge contacted 43 different crytocurrency exchanges using their official listing process. Only two responded. One of these responses was to ask for $400k for a listing, the other was to tell us that the exchange only listed ICO projects.
Dan Ames (Stonehedge) has handed over the majority of exchange listing work to Olya Suhovirskaya (riseandshine) in order to see if a different approach will improve outcomes.

Olya Suhovirskaya (riseandshine) summary here:

The Crown team has had more success in engaging exchanges through networking at conferences and events. We are currently in discussion with a major exchange as a result of this and are in the middle of the review process with a well known but smaller exchange.

Problems Experienced

1) ICO Bubble. There is still a huge influx of money into ICO projects meaning that there is a surplus of projects with millions of pounds to spend on exchange listings even before they have built a platform. I am aware of at least one ICO that has spent over $10m to be listed on several high profile exchanges. The exchange market has adjusted to this cash windfall situation leading to overcapacity issues in terms of not being able to process all applications that they receive.

2) Exchange Bubble. Due to the huge influx of money to ICO projects and the enoromous listing fees that they are willing to pay, there have been a huge number of new exchanges set up within the last year. Some people report as many as five new crypto exchanges launching every week. There have been over 100 ICOs for new exchanges in the last six months. This will continue, with high fees, while new money flows in to the ICO bubble.

3) Trust & Quality. There is a problem with trust and quality at these exchanges. Many are asking for listing fees before they have built their exchange platforms. Upon scrutinising some exchanges, including some very major ones, price fixing and fake volume is a common occurence. There are several ongoing investigations into illegal activities at major exchanges that are ongoing and may pose a risk to their future operations. Many exchanges offer a no questions asked listing policy for a large fee, but offer no quality control and artifically inflate their volume and list scam projects. We have been made aware of at least one well known exchange that agrees to list a project, waits until it has been announced to their community, and then ask for more money to proceed.

3) Scams & Phishing Attempts. The Crown team receive five to ten well disguised fake listing offers from people masquerading as well known exchanges every week. Extreme caution is required with all listing negotiations.

Strategy for the Future

1) The Crown team remains committed to spending the community donated exchange listing fund in a responsible manner that benefits the whole CRW community.

2) We believe that we will see a number of current exchanges failing as a business over the coming months and years as a result of a burst of the ICO bubble and of hacking attacks. This will include current very well known exchanges.

3) Our focus is on not being partially dependent on Bittrex as our main trading platform. Our primary goal is be listed on at least one other major exchange.

4) We will continue chasing exchange listings through orthodox channels but will increase face to face meetings with exchanges at events.

5) We will not list on an exchange unless we feel confident that all of their trading activity is legitimate and that they are a sustainable business for the future. Keep in mind that the majority of crypto exchanges in the top 100 list have not been trading for even one year yet. Binance has only just celebrated its first birthday.

We have a deal in place for a new exchange that will be adding us in the coming weeks, but we will continue on with our efforts to get onto legitimate exchanges that will both grow and add value to our community.

Events

Our next community meet-up will take place August 4th in Essen, Germany. The event will be a great opportunity to network with your peers in the community and the team. Doors will open at 10:30 and presentations will begin at 11:00. We will present the progress we have made since our last meetup in Miami, and then discuss the project as a whole and everything that is to come. Lunch will be provided and there will be a small Crown party after the event. Read more here