Monthly Newsletter #6:
What Does “Crypto Winter” Mean to the Industry, Crypto Transaction Fee Primer, Logos Events, Tyler Storm Spotlight

Logos Network

Published in

Logos Network

7 min readFeb 14, 2019

*** *** *** *** *** Logos February Newsletter *** *** *** *** *** ***

WELCOME TO THE LOGOS NEWSLETTER

Blockchain and digital currencies have become a priority topic in almost all enterprises, including traditional finance. Just over ten years after their inception, cryptocurrencies have emerged from obscurity to capture the imagination (and a dose of skepticism) of the public, media, traditional institutions, and regulators. However, despite the hype and investor frenzy, we still have not seen the blockchain revolution and mass adoption of the tech that was originally trumped. On the other hand, as the market steadily matures past the bloated ICOs and over-hyped projects, many do see a clearer path to success.

At Logos, we wanted to dive deeper into what to look out for when evaluating projects that will pave the way for blockchain making its way into our everyday life — from fintech to supply chain in fashion and consumer goods to social impact — and changing how we look at privacy, consumer rights and ownership of information.

We will also explore whether the much written about concept of “crypto winter” is an advantage or hindrance for the industry.

On February 21st, we are putting together our first event to discuss this very topic. I will be joined by Carl Hua, our Head of Engineering, and full stack engineer, Tyler Storm,who will be conducting an onsite workshop training for Logos’ JavaScript Software Development Kit (SDK).

This will be followed by a Q&A session with all the speakers and an attendee spotlight feature, where the audience can have a turn at the mic to showcase their projects.

If you are interested in joining us at our brand new offices in downtown Manhattan, please sign up here.

Michael
Zochowski

Founder | Logos

Logos Tech Update

After a string of major development milestones coming in at the end of 2018 — the conclusion of the R1 build in November and the launch of the permissioned test net in December — we have hit an intermediate period where we are heads down working on the R2 build, to be completed by the end of February.

In the meantime, the engineering effort has had several notable achievements. Prime among them was the release of the core software development kit (SDK) in early January, which has enabled us to work on integrations with some of our early partners. Since we last recapped our progress, there have been several additional developments:

Token Capability is under active development and is to be released with R2. Logos’ token capability provides a superset of ERC-20 capabilities at the protocol level, making it as easy as possible to release fungible tokens natively on the Logos platform.
Initial release of Logos Web Wallet SDK. This enables developers to interact with the Web Wallet API to develop additional integrations and tools.
Planned permissioned test net upgrade. Bug fixes and performance enhancements. Continuously deployed.
Automated distributed test infrastructure implementation kickoff. We are converting the prototype into a streamlined automated test infrastructure to better perform sanity checks during integrations.

After R2, we will have most core features implemented, with the remainder to be put into place in R3, due in May. We’ll continue to release additional features on the test net for integrations and testing. If you are not already using the test net and would like access, please contact us and we’ll be happy to get you connected!

We’ll continue to send out development updates going forward as part of the regular newsletter. Stay tuned!

Logos Reads: Crypto Transaction Fee Economics Primer

Our founder, Michael, did a deep dive to explain the economics behind crypto transaction fees and the optimal fee model on our Logos Medium channel.

This foundational primer discusses how steep transaction costs are proving to be a large hurdle to the broad adoption of cryptocurrency.

Agree/disagree, have comments, or want to learn more — throw us a like, follow us, or spark a discussion. Full article: Crypto Transaction Fee Economics Primer.

Team Member Spotlight: Tyler Storm, Full Stack Engineer

For this week’s Community Spotlight, we sat down with one of our full stack developers, Tyler Storm, to hear his thoughts on the Logos project, the blockchain industry, and the coming year. For the full interview, take a peak at the video below.

Hi Tyler! Thanks for joining us today. Could you give the readers some background on yourself?

Great to be here! I’m a full stack engineer here at Logos Network, and my primary mission is to make Logos easier to use than credit cards or fiat.

I’m a recent college graduate from the University of Cincinnati. While there, I worked for Always Education, a start-up that blends social networking with context-based tools. While working there, I helped create a web application for large-scale educational institutions and businesses from scratch, utilizing Node.js and Angular.js.

What got you into blockchain technology, and, more importantly, what excited you about being part of the technological build out of Logos?

I first got into blockchain technology through Bitcoin back in 2011 when I was running a Minecraft server in high school. One of the players on my server donated me a Bitcoin to cover the costs of running the server, and, from there, my interest was born. In 2017, I finally started to get involved in the more technical details of Bitcoin and the technology that was behind it.

When looking at cryptocurrency projects, I tend to focus on two things. The first is making sure the technology is decentralized, innovative, and solves the problems that face other cryptocurrency networks and the industry as a whole. I look into how the project will acquire the mass adoption needed in order to be successful. While reading the Logos white paper, I was impressed with the mathematical rigor that was shown in proving the capabilities of the technology and its clear architectural structure to help solve real-world problems.

The second thing I look at is the team behind the project. Are they professional and qualified? The team members on a cryptocurrency project should be experts in their domains and have the right backgrounds. After checking out the Logos team, I was blown away by the quality of the people working on the project. The engineering team is truly out of this world, coming from backgrounds including NASA JPL, LimeWire, and 3M.

Within Logos: Tyler is a full stack engineer focused on building Web Applications such as the Block Explorer, Workbench, Webwallet SDK, and the Javascript RPC SDK. Tyler also participates in the design discussions over parts of the Logos protocol.

READ MORE

Logos in the News

PoW Will Struggle to Grow to Broader Adoption, Claims Michael Zochowski

BlockPublisher reporter, Shehryar Hasan, sat down with Michael to discuss his thoughts on the Proof-of-Work protocol and the flaws relating to this function.

READ MORE

Upcoming Events

We have two exciting events coming up and hope to see you there! Please register as space will be limited.

Crypto Winter — media myth or reality?
Thursday, February 21st
Time: 6:30pm — 8:00pm

In this event, we will explore whether this concept is a myth or an industry reality, and what to look for when distinguishing between blockchain projects, specifically around their utility, strength and validity of tech architecture, and practical adoption — no matter how much hype and attention a project is getting.

SIGN UP HERE

Doubters vs. Die-Hards: Blockchain Battle of the Minds
Thursday, March 7th
Time: 7:00pm — 9:00pm

A deep dive with both pro- and anti-blockchain experts, to reach across the aisle and wrestle with the industry’s foundational questions:

Is cryptocurrency the future of money, and will we have only one coin?
Is blockchain in 3019 or does it have practical application right now?
Will it make as much impact as was originally promised?
Will everything move to encryption and decentralized networks?
What’s next for the technology?

SIGN UP HERE

Open Roles (we love referrals!)

We are a rapidly-growing team and looking for more talent to join us. In particular, we are currently recruiting for the following positions:

If you know of someone who’d be a skill/Logos culture fit who is looking for create meaningful impact in the space with their work, we’d love to chat!

READ MORE

If you’d like to keep up with what we are doing: