Essentia March ’19 Monthly Update

Spring is here! While nature awakens, we continue moving to our goal of the decentralized blockchain-based world. Looking back at the last month, we can proudly say that we managed to improve the overall user experience of both mobile and desktop versions. Apart from that we were and are focused on the blockchain development, as well as on building the solution for the Finnish government. Without further ado, let’s take a look at what progress was made during the last few weeks!

Development

Mobile

We continue working hard to make the decentralized world at your fingertips possible! Every week we add more useful functionality to the Android/iOS application. February was full of milestones, for instance, we made it possible to log in to Essentia using Jaxx and Exodus. You can also use your Essentia Web account and synchronize it across all your devices.

We were also working on dividing the app to various modules, such as EssStore, EssCore, EssUI and EssWallet. This now allows us to make the development and testing processes significantly faster, as well as to better the application’s support.

Push notifications is yet another feature we are eager to implement. To make this possible, we already added Firebase to the applications.

Desktop

When it comes to the Essentia Desktop, we are mostly working closely with the code and structure of the application. For instance, during the last four weeks we:

• Updated the structure of the database.
• Updated templates structure, split big templates to many little parts.
• Refactored Essentia API bridge.

Among the new features that were added, we can emphasize the functionality to store all user settings and data on the remote config and correctly show updating status and spinners.

We were also working on creating classes for simple adding of new ERC20 tokens with custom images and data, as well as for all API bridges.

Blockchain

This month was especially fruitful for the development of the Essentia blockchain. First of all, we were working full gear on the development of the Essentia mainnet in order to create the best possible solution.

Currently, we run the blockchain node on the remote servers (VPS) and testing its functionality. To automatically deploy the nodes to the server we are using Docker. To be brief, we’ve basically rolled out the test version of the mainnet.

During the last few weeks, we also dedicated our time to update all the needed technical documentation.

MTK

The development of the blockchain-based solution for the Finnish Government is moving forward at a breakneck speed. We are largely focused on the structure of the application, the backend part. Among the most notable developments of the month:

• Creation of extensions for the application, which make it a lot more responsive, allowing to add additional features and functionality. These extensions are based on the ORM system for Node.js.
• Creation of models structures to work with the additional database. This database will act as a basis for storing the general information of the application — the data about versions, changes in the app, as well as the public info about employers and employees.
• Creation of migrations and seeders environment to work with the database. This will allow to work with the information stored in the database, load it and make copies.
• Setting up the web pack, adding babel and minifier to simplify the working process with images, their converting, and transfer/
• Creation of webpack configs (for build and dev mode), the creation of demon to follow all changes in the project, which will help to control the process of the development a lot better.

Not so long ago we published an article dedicated to the MTK project, where shared the workflow, application designs and future plans. Make sure to check it out!

Partnerships

Not so long ago, we have announced that Essentia is partnering with Blockacademy — an institution dedicated to education in the blockchain sphere through immersive practical courses in different cities across Europe. Not only that but a few developers from our team were involved as teachers in the most recent course in Amsterdam, that was held on March 2–3! This partnership is another step for us on the way towards our main goal — global blockchain adoption. It was super exciting seeing all of the enthusiasts who were there to master the blockchain development. See how the course went in our photo recap article here!

What’s next?

Mobile

As of now, we are planning on implementing the most often mentioned community suggestions — integration of other cryptocurrencies into the wallet. Just a reminder, currently you are able to store, buy and sell more than 700 coins and tokens using Essentia, and the number will soon be increased!

We have also already started to prepare the ESS IOS repository for the open source access. This way, anyone interested will be able to look “inside” the Essentia application.

Desktop

We are already working full gear on the perfecting the overall user experience of the application. For instance, we plan on making the loading and calculation of balances and rates a lot faster.

We’re also working on creating the caching system. This way it will be possible to cache all loaded data and rates and use them in other wallets and queries.

It goes without saying that we’re constantly fixing bugs that occur during the layout.

Blockchain

We have quite a lot on the agenda if talking about blockchain development. Probably one of the most important things we plan on adding in the nearest future will be the implementation and testing of the token swap. We have already started working on it in order to ensure all our users will be able to smoothly swap ESS tokens to ESS coin when it’s time.

During the next few weeks, we will also be testing the performance of the masternodes on the remote servers, as well as preparing the main servers for the boot nodes roll out.

We are also already working on the blockexplorer creation, and we plan on finishing it in the nearest future.

MTK

MTK is the project of the special focus now. Among other functionality we still have to create, in our plans:

• Creating an authorization system to authorize all types of users.
• Creating functionality to restore user account, when user forgot their username or password.
• Generating a unique ID, based on registration data, that will be used to identify the user in the blockchain
• Creating classes and helpers to store and read user data from the blockchain

Are you following our weekly updates already? Every Monday we share what developments we were working on — check them out for more technical details.

If you have any questions about the milestones we hit or anything else, reach us out on our social media outlets!

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