Particl Community Update #10
Did you miss our last AMA/FAQ livestream with Arnold Bansemer, Particl Desktop’s Lead Developer? Don’t worry, this update should keep you up to speed with all the latest developments and news surrounding the project!
You also don’t want to miss the News & Updates part of this Community Update as we’ll reveal some details about Particl’s new team member, Lina!
Note: This edition of the AMA/FAQ livestream features Arnold Bansemer as a guest. Some of the answers to the questions included in this summary have been paraphrased and shortened to fit with the Community Update format. Please refer to the provided timestamps for the exact answer from Arnold himself!
“I’ve taken over from Kewde as Lead Developer for Particl Desktop, however, I still refer back to him from time to time as he’s been a huge part of building Particl Desktop, so he’s not entirely relieved from its “duty”. What I mostly do is code reviews, manage merge and pull requests as well as help other developers when they have difficulties or issues with some specific tasks. I also have my own development workload, of course.”
“If my help is required, I’ll always be there to assist the marketplace developers. As a matter of fact, I’ve already submitted some PRs (pull requests) about it, although I am still finding my way myself through the marketplace code. In fact, there’s a lot of code done on Particl Marketplace! The Marketplace Team is also very strong and experienced and I don’t think I’m needed that much to assist them, but if there is a need I’ll be there!”
The cold staking pools are more or less ready to be released. If you are already on the #testing channel on Riot or Discord, you can see Tecnovert has already made the code publicly available. Not only has the code been made available, but testing as well. In fact, in the #testing channel were posted instructions on how to test the staking pool on both testnet and mainnet networks. The more testers we get, the quicker we can identify and fix issues and get it officially released.
It’s important to note that the publicly available staking pools do not have any GUI interface and are very barebone. While the GUI has been under development for some time now, it will only be available on the official launch day of the staking pools.
The code itself is not hosted under Particl’s Github account, just like Dasource’s Partyman cold staking app. The code for the cold staking pools is hosted under Tecnovert’s personal account here: https://github.com/tecnovert/particl-coldstakepool. We encourage everyone to test, study, tweak, or fork the code if they want to.
Keep an eye out for any update about cold staking pools in the coming weeks!
“One thing that particularly stood out when I first joined the Particl project is the passion, dedication, and technical skills of the team members. I can even say that at first, I was a little bit intimidated by that as everyone really is on top of their game, I was wondering how I would measure up to them. There is so much that has been accomplished code wise and it’s pretty impressive. I can say this is what really stood out for me as a new team member.”
“As far as what we are behind with…well we are always “generally behind” when it comes to any project development. It’s a bit difficult to put into perspective because there’s a lot of work to be done, but we’re also moving as fast as we can given the size of the team. I don’t see, however, any particular aspect of the project that is specifically behind other aspects or being neglected. We’re still on track to wrap up governance this month, and probably get Beta ready for the next month or so. One thing we gotta be careful about though is to finish what we start working on first before implementing new features/functions, or else it becomes hard to finish things up properly. I think we’ve been pretty good on that end though.”
“Yes, but it’s a bit different than what I am used to. I come from the more traditional 9 to 5 job model where you work in an office and have a set schedule. Usually, during your first day at the office, you are directly introduced to everyone you’ll be working with and so it is easy to get to know your new co-workers quickly.
Particl being a decentralized team, it’s a bit different. You kind of have to make the first steps because everyone is so busy and caught up in their work. There’s also the fact that most conversations happen over text in chat, so it’s not as easy to get to know your new co-workers as an in-office job. But yes, I did feel welcome, and so far most team members have been willing to sacrifice some of their time to chat a little and get to me know better!”
“Yes, I’ll be there! I actually live in South Africa so it won’t be difficult for me to get where the meetings are. I’ll surely be taking part in some of the developer meetings and will be there to finally meet the rest of the team in person! This will definitely be beneficial to get together, in person, to flesh out ideas in a more direct way than over chats or conference calls!”
“I can’t comment on what the Foundation does and who they hire, but I definitely recommend participating from a community contribution perspective. Do it, please, it’s important and helps a lot! This is a community project and contributions are welcomed in more than one way. If you’ve got an idea for a feature or just a general proposal, then, by all means, log it on Github or code it up then submit a pull request. I’ll definitely review it for integration and it might just make it if the review is positive. We’ll never say no to contributions, especially as we have a small team. There’s only so much we can do at a given time. Right now, we’re really busy with the marketplace code. If there’s something that’s not within our immediate focus, you can contribute and we will look into each submission for sure!”
“A couple of them are easy fixes and have already fixed in internal builds. There have been, however, one or two bugs that have been trickier in fixing, notably due to reproduction issues (recreating the bug internally) and figuring out how they’re happening. We’re making good progress on them though, especially on the [object Object] issue lots of people have been having.
In most cases, the fixes are pretty simple, it’s more about figuring about how the bugs are generated and not breaking anything else while fixing them. That’s pretty much what automated test cases are for, and I think we need to have more of them. It’s one of the goals we’re all currently working towards at the same time as shown in the status report. Also, as mentioned before, more community testers definitely helps to identify and troubleshoot these issues.”
“What we’re trying to avoid with the 10-day expiry limit on download links is the number of available bugs out there. We don’t want people using old builds and reporting bugs and issues that have already been fixed in new releases. There’s also a second aspect to it in that we ideally want to include new stuff for the community to test everytime we do new releases to keep it interesting to the community to keep the number of testers high! There should be a new testnet build coming out soon so keep an eye on the #testing channel!”
“I’ve actually been discussing with Cryptoguard in private chats the other day ideas we and other people from the community and team have had over time. There’s a couple of them floating around, but currently, the main focus really is about getting the marketplace up and we need to push that hard. We’re hesitant to mention anything specific at the moment because we don’t want to switch the focus on other stuff.
What really excites me in that regard though is that there are many ideas out there that would be possible to implement. Getting ideas from the community is what we need to go forward, and is a great mental exercise to identify what we need to focus on next after the marketplace. For the moment, I won’t elaborate too much and keep that for after the mainnet release of Particl Marketplace!”
“That’s extremely important to have that baseline of privacy, and then everything built on top of that is beneficial. Getting the community involved as well, in the long run, is going to really push the project forward and will probably be the driver for mass adoption. There’s already going to be the marketplace available, but taking it beyond that is really going to transform the GUI (Particl Desktop) into essentially a platform with a similar approach to a plugin-based platform architecture. Whether future Dapps and features are developed by us or by the community…I really believe this is going to be the driving force for mass adoption!”
“My very very first introduction to cryptocurrencies was back in 2011–2012 when I first heard about it. I didn’t really know about it at the time and kind of pushed it to the side to see what would happen before I do anything about it. Then, one of the companies I was working with started to look into crypto and that’s when I really could evaluate what was happening in the space. That’s around the time I first bought Bitcoin as well as some other coins. But strictly related to actual development, yes, Particl is my first crypto project as a developer.”
“I’m born carnivorous, so any kind of meat is welcomed on pizza, especially bacon! Also, I’m in the more controversial side of the debate…but pineapple can definitely work on a pizza.”
“There’s no immediate plan for this. That being said, that doesn’t it won’t ever happen, but as Arnold said, it’s important to focus on one thing at a thing and not spread ourselves too thin, otherwise, lots of stuff get started but few of them actually get finished up. We are actually going to consider various solutions to reduce volatility and a two-token system might be part of the solution, but it’s not part of the current roadmap.”
“Yes, the website is constantly in evolution since we launched Particl. We’re also in contact with HackerBay, a German-based company focused on communication and marketing, among other things, to help improve the way our message is being communicated.
We are currently working on a page specifically made for the marketplace and will update the rest of the website accordingly.”
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If you want to read more questions and answers from Arnold, please head over to the link below and read Cryptoguard’s interview with him!
Last weekend, we’ve teased pictures of a mystery woman hanging out with Miguel Cuneta, CCO and Co-Founder at Satoshi Citadel Industries and Particl advisor. Now’s the time to reveal a bit more about Lina, Particl’s newest team member!
Originally from Germany, Lina is a former Youtube-singer-turned-blockchain-advocate — with a few stations in between.
Scouted online by a Japanese artist, she made the move to Asia to undergo extensive studies in music, language, and business administration, eventually turning to the latter to become chief manager at a Kuala Lumpur-based management company. Her entrance into the blockchain industry came through her position as the PR Manager and Evangelist for a Tokyo-founded cryptocurrency hedge fund platform where she would break down language barriers launching global roadshows and marketing activities.
Her extensive experience in PR management and event organization is going to help the project a lot. Particl will also benefit from her skills as a public speaker, writer, event organizer, and much more. We are already bouncing many event ideas and, with Lina, you can expect Particl to start gaining more “boots on the ground” exposure at conferences and meetups all around the world!
Lina will introduce herself to the community next week with a video, you definitely want to keep your eyes open for that!
While the team is currently mostly busy working on finalizing the governance system with coin weights, building the private markets, and fixing the various issues identified by community testers of the last Particl Marketplace Alpha build, an interesting item has popped up in the newest Status Report: the ability to view a list of reported items to cast a vote. This feature will allow users to quickly access listings that have previously been flagged by other users and either vote them as undesirable or not undesirable. This should increase the number of votes cast, thus making the reporting more accurate.
zDEX, a privacy-focused decentralized exchange using PIVX’s second-tier network, has launched its Alpha (testnet) version with Particl as one of its 6 first coins to be made available. Make sure to visit zDEX’s website and test this promising exchange!
In the last few weeks, there have been interesting discussions on Discord and Telegram as to how Particl’s MAD escrow system is going to reduce the circulating supply of the PART coin.
In fact, as the escrow system generally requires the buyer to pay for an item, make a security deposit equal to the value of the purchased order, and have the vendor also make an equal-value security deposit, it can be estimated that, in average, three times the value of an item is locked in escrow for a certain duration (until both parties agree the transaction is done).
If we are to estimate that an escrow could take on average 14 days to complete (the time it takes to process, package, ship, and receive an order), then it is possible to estimate the total amount of money, in PART, locked out of circulation at any given time.
To not miss any of these interesting discussions, join our of our chatrooms on either Discord, Telegram, or Riot. As all chat platforms are linked together, it doesn’t matter which one you join as you’ll be connected to the rest of the community automatically, so pick the one you prefer!
Some members from the community have started a fan website for Particl and have been teasing its content for the past few days.
They have revealed on the 26th of October a gorgeous and thorough statistics page to keep track of all Particl-related data and metrics, and are promising more interesting features to their website in the near future
What do you think they have planned for the community? Be sure to follow them on Twitter to not miss any update on this great community project!
Particl was added on Delta Direct, an advanced Blockfolio-like crypto portfolio tracker, on the 31st of October.
Delta is the ultimate Bitcoin & cryptocurrency portfolio tracker app. Keep track of all cryptocoins, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin and over 3000 altcoins. Use the free app to get the latest coin prices and market charts in your local currency and get alerts to make sure you don’t miss out on your next crypto investment.
There is going to be a second community meetup in Brazil on the 16th of November! If you are in the area, make sure to make a stop at Galpão da Pizza and join our Brazilian community to partake in the Particl discussion!
We wish you all a good weekend and don’t forget to follow our particl.newspage to not miss any update and #BePART of our great Discordcommunity!
The Particl Team
Originally published at particl.news on November 2, 2018.
