Project Update #5: August 2018
Having had the time to reflect on our performance after Blockshow and the launch of iExec V2 and having since seen the Marketplace and XtremWeb-HEP and cloud infrastructure live in action on Ethereum Main Net for the first time ever. We will take this opportunity to bring you up to speed with what’s going on with our team, partnerships and business development.
To follow the progress of the more technical developments of iExec, please refer to our ‘Dev Letter’ series.
The First Public Workers on the iExec network
We were happy with the outcomes of our iExec ‘Workerdrops’, it was amazing to hundreds of individual machines connected from multiple countries and joining forces on the iExec network for the first time ever. However, there was still a lot to be learned from the tests. Our latest Dev Letter explains how it helped us further test, validate and scale the iExec network on Ethereum’s Main Net. We also included answers to some of your most frequently asked technical questions during the event. Definitely worth a read if you plan on contributing as a worker on iExec in the future.
Partnership Development
Intel
A working project coming together through the Ethereum Enterprise alliance, click here for a refresher of the partnership details. iExec was recently visited by Sanjay Bakshi, our working group partner from California. Together we spent a week working on our next steps for the decentralized applications ready to integrate Intel® SGX. We’ve set ourselves the target of a proof of concept fin-tech Dapp to be presented alongside Intel at Devcon4.
Watch back our previous presentation from Consensus back in May 2018:
Ubisoft
iExec continue to meet regularly with Ubisoft and explore how iExec’s blockchain tech could be of used in the gaming industry. Ubisoft’s blockchain initiative manager, recently gave an interview with EthNews on this topic.
“We are proud to collaborate hand-in-hand with amazing partners such as B2Expand, iExec, Azarus, or EverdreamSoft, within our Startup Program at Station F, and share with them Ubisoft’s expertise in video games and knowledge of players, beyond blockchain.” — Nicolas Pouard
RSK
RSK have recently released their ‘Bamboo’ version. Their focus will be on attracting developers to build decentralised applications that can be run on on top of Bitcoin’s blockchain. This expands the potential applications for which computation can be powered from the iExec marketplace. Learn more about the advantages of this partnership for iExec here.
Other Developments
Richard Moore, who won second place in the Underhanded Solidity Coding Contest, will be visiting the iExec team in Lyon part of his prize. The aim of this sponsored entry was to give back and contribute to the Ethereum ecosystem. We’re looking forward to meeting and further exploring Solidity coding best practices. You can check out Richard’s submission, jokingly named ‘Merdetoken’ (MDT), here.
Elastos project co-founder, Han Feng, visited the iExec headquarters to discuss how iExec may be able to get involved in helping build the decentralized internet of the future.
Team Development
Hadrien Croubois, the computer scientist behind the PoCo consensus algorithm, will be joining the team full time, after completing his PhD studies. Hadrien’s primary will focus on research and development of potential sidechain solutions alongside François Branciard.
In expanding the iExec Community over multiple regions. As our community begins to expand, we would like to officially introduce two new community managers.
Colan Chen is our new community manager for the Greater China region. Based in our Hong Kong offices, Colan works closely with our PR agencies in Asia, runs the Chinese Wechat group and organises events such as our recent Dapp Coding Workshops in Shenzhen and Shanghai.
We must also give a thank to our Korean community manager Jae Seo Kang for his support during the iExec Workerdrops this summer, guiding our Korean participants through the process. Kang also runs the Korean Twitter, Facebook and KakoaTalk channels.
Hugo Gervasoni, a student of Programming and Telecommunication Engineering has started an internship position within the iExec team. Alongside Eric Rodriguez, Hugo is working in partnership with the 3D Animation School, ENSI. The school’s GPU rendering farm will be able to be monetized during ‘off-peak’ times by shifting resources and running a Workerpool on the iExec network. Hugo proposals also include how, even during busier times, iExec can facilitate their overall rendering workflow. And, as some of you have noticed in our Github activity, a secondary assignment, involves Hugo testing an XMR (Monero) CPU-mining Dapp that he’s developed. And it worked! 🤑
iExec Summit and Party
iExec will be hosting their own event directly after the Devcon4 conference in Prague, Nov. 2nd. The event will be free, an opportunity for Ethereum developers and community members to come together and discuss all things blockchain, cloud and iExec. As well as our own workshops, the event will involve talks from our working partner Intel and other very special guests.
We’re sending out an open invite to anyone to join us for the free event. More information coming soon, so keep an eye on our website!
Strategy Development
The main focus of our business development towards the end of 2018 is targeting devs to stimulate demand on the iExec marketplace. We would advise checking out our Dapp of the Week series, if you haven’t already. After all, developers will be some of the main users of the product. Utility is key.
With tough times in the overall crypto asset markets, the team more aware than good-tech alone is not enough for iExec to strive. During the release of iExec V2, an international press campaign resulted in features in 500 independent websites with a potential reach of over 180 million. A separate campaign ran exclusively in Asia, which was summarised in this newsletter. With these press campaigns, timing is key.
We are ready to go ahead with further campaigns closer to the time we are on-boarding public workers, we are certain this is something the entire crypto community can get excited about!
We hope you are excited as we are in getting involved in two of the fastest growing industries in recent history. We’re happy you’ve joined us in the blockchain revolution of the cloud computing industry!
What’s coming up?
We are currently on track with our roadmap. Our next development letter will detail our next steps with the technical aspects of our Marketplace and XtremWeb-HEP cloud infrastructure.
A full list of all events iExec is attending shows that it is going to be a busy few months coming up for the project:
- 18 Aug: Open Source China — Chengdu, China
- 7 Sept: ETH Berlin Hackathon — Berlin, Germany
- 26 Sept: Blockchain Game Summit — Lyon, France
- 30 Oct: Devcon4 — Prague, Czech Republic
- 02 Nov: iExec Summit & Party — Prague, Czech Republic
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