Project Tracker — Issue 10
Usually in this post I give a gentle introduction to the Project Tracker (PT) and try to ease new readers and new-to-crypto people into the updates. Not anymore though! Cosmos has been rocking its mainnet for almost a year, ATOMs have leaped into the top ten cryptos on CMC once in a while in the last few months, and the projects are starting to kick the tires (DM me if you’re unfamiliar with this phrase).
So it’s a new 2020 for the PT. Maybe I’m getting spoiled having been in crypto for a few years and my writing will have a bit less context. If so, and you want some training wheels, seriously follow me and ping me on Twitter. I LOVE onboarding new people and helping folks understand what they need in order to join the crypto revolution. Maybe with the recent price surges, we’ll see more of that this year 🚀.
Cosmos projects. Can we talk a sec? I know some of you read this, and we need to have a talk. You’re busy, I get it. But your information sharing and outreach is not great. Please consider doing more user outreach and messaging before you’re years into delivering products. Staking rewards ALONE should be taking the world by storm, and should be able to bring people to Cosmos.
And Cosmos community can we talk a sec? The claps on the medium posts I see are terrible. IRISnet, one of the biggest projects in the space had just 2 claps on a major update post. Community is how any of this will ever work, and yes it’s one more thing, but it’s part of decentralized life.
Anyways sorry to rant, people are doing cool stuff and here it is.
The Updates:
Akash has been hinting at a lot of upcoming beta testing for feedback for their supermini. I suspect they have them in testers’ hands but aren’t saying much about them yet. The supermini program could be a complete gamechanger to the cloud computing space. Also, testnet is coming.
Althea reconfigured their client to also act as a phone client. If you’re going to have distributed localized ISPs, phone is kind of an essential service, especially in more remote areas. They also updated their routers to handle the updated multicollateral DAI stablecoin.
BitSong launched their testnet at the end of January. At time of writing I have not seen how that’s progressing, but they have an explorer you can check out for stats if that’s your jam.
e-money launched their 5th (and final) testnet. They’ve got validators, a DEX, and a currency-backed fee system. That is, centralized fees to provide a consistent experience trading, but the buyer-seller network is decentralized. They are actively looking for market makers and more coins for the platform, so if you’re rich get in touch.
Foam put out a Haskell-Tendermint SDK, which is obscure but cool.
Hashgard: It’s weird that this big project hasn’t updated social or submitted any github repos in over a month.
IOV has rolled out a really excellent UX for their starname service. Preregistering for a starname costs nothing, so swoop in there and grab something you like. Tip: *andy is taken.
IRISnet always has a ton going on, and they do a nice job of laying out their 2020 goals midway through this post. Updating code, refining partnerships, and bringing new partners on. They are making a blockchain hub play and connecting as a partner hub to Cosmos. With their presence in south China, there is amazing business partnership potential. They also have announced their monthly updates, fixes, and partnerships.
Kava, the leading defi project on Cosmos is putting up 1.158 million USD for grants to projects that further the mission of Kava, defi, & Cosmos. They are funding tech and nontech projects, and if my assessment of the Cosmos community above is any guide, there should be plenty of money if you have a neat project.
Paradigm is building a DEX using Cosmos, but using IBC to make it cross-chain. A cross-chain DEX is a pretty neat idea, and if it works the way Uniswap does on Ethereum (or better —it’s hard to imagine because Uniswap is dope), it can give Cosmos projects a ton of new markets to grow into. Anyways they gave some technical updates that they are coming along with that.
Regen has provided a summary of 2019, but used it to explain how they are starting to expand in 2020 with specific locations and projects that are using Regen’s tech. It’s pretty amazing how they are crossing many ecosystems and problems and working with farmers on individual levels at, sometimes, massive scales. Regen is also making progress on their testnest and will launch it Q1ish.
Sentinel released a Telegram bot. I don’t get Telegram bots but people release them a lot so I’m guessing devs like them.
**Update, Sentinel just put out a new website on https://sentinel.co/ that’s focused on crypto and noncrypto user acquisition. That’s excellent. Live products with real users. This is hot fire.
Thorchain is getting closer to finishing their testnet and releasing it to validators. This includes several security and financial audits that have been completed. Thorchain is another cross-chain DEX that is amazingly complicated.
Summary
These project updates were researched from git repos and project blogs. If you have a project that’s active but not listed here, please reach out to the Cypher Core team to make sure your update is included in future posts. Cypher Core is dedicated to the Cosmos ecosystem and community and is here to help as a validator, as well as to help projects solve business needs like getting your project the sunshine it needs to thrive.
Until next time Cosmonauts, keep shipping!
