OriginTrail Monthly Report #6: June 2018
June was another exciting month for the OriginTrail team. The team visited seven countries, developed and nurtured multiple implementation prospects, welcomed new Trace Alliance members, and participated in ten events. The lion share of events were international, world-class B2B conferences where the protocol was presented to new audiences in Asia and Europe. The most anticipated milestone in June by our community was the launch of the test network (testnet), which was deployed publicly on the June 29th and will run for three months before we launch the mainnet. In the next paragraphs, we present core business and technological achievements achieved in June 2018, as well as selected community updates.
Trace Alliance’s Protocol Adoption Updates: Partnerships in Vietnam and Global Recognition of OriginTrail’s Technological Excellence
At the beginning of June, OriginTrail announced a partnership with the Food Integrity Center (FIC) in Vietnam. The country is one of the biggest agricultural exporters in the world, making the FIC globally significant. The first results of this partnership came about soon after. In mid-June, we announced our first global software development partner: TMA Solutions. Companies can now engage directly with TMA Solutions to develop applications based on the OriginTrail protocol. A proof-of-concept pilot followed right after this partnership. Four organizations — Belgian company Entobel, TMA, the Vietnam Food Integrity Center and OriginTrail — joined forces to bring blockchain traceability to fish feed companies and pet food suppliers. Visit this link for details.
Global recognition of OriginTrail’s technological excellence is evident in our role in the EVRYTHNG Blockchain Integration Hub. The hub works with several blockchain solutions and makes it easy for brands to achieve traceability and transparency for their smart products. The integration of this IoT platform with OriginTrail allows decentralized data sharing across supply chain partners based on the Ethereum blockchain. This enables EVRYTHNG’s customers to share certain parts of their data using the OriginTrail protocol. For instance, shared information can include that required for compliance purposes or data to provide greater transparency in environments where trust is lacking.
Members of the Trace Alliance are already implementing the OriginTrail protocol using our implementation kit. In June, L.Co, Asia’s leading producer of ecologically conscious premium wood finishes, announced they will use our protocol to achieve complete transparency of the ingredients for L.Co products. The company’s products are, among other things, used during the production of children’s furniture and kitchen elements, so the utilization of the OT protocol will provide error-proof and verifiable safety and health data for all L.Co customers.
OriginTrail also gained significant exposure in B2B media and amongst the professional public. We were featured as a case study and interviewee in Ti (Transport Intelligence) Insight’s expert report on the blockchain. If you haven’t had a chance to check out the report, here you can find 9 highlights from it aimed particularly at executives.
After the successful launch of the OriginTrail Decentralized Network (ODN) testnet, we expect more companies to start working on proof-of-concept and pilot projects for setting up working prototypes for different use cases in their industries. The testnet and it’s well-rounded services are designed to allow companies to go beyond proof of concept and will give further information about the cost aspect of data handling on the ODN, which we instigated in the Token Demand Model. In the next few months, we will help companies understand how blockchain technology will disrupt their business models and provide an effective way for them to take an advantage of the technology without interrupting their existing processes.
Protocol Development Updates: Testnet Launched
June was a very intense month for OriginTrail’s protocol development. After the initial alpha network phase, which featured several pilot projects, the team released and deployed the testnet on June 29th, fully opening the network to the public. Ahead of the testnet launch, the team published an overview document, taking a closer look at the protocol mechanisms and OriginTrail stakeholders: A Look into Network Mechanisms, Incentives and Market Forces
Prior to launching the testnet, OriginTrail’s protocol development team launched two technology releases in June:
- v0.9a Explorer was released on June 4th, and brought the implementation of the “Web Of Things” standard to the protocol, as well as updates to the privacy layer and multiple general improvements. More about the release here.
- v1.0b-RC Lunar Orbiter was released on June 18th, and was the final code release before the testnet. It brought the latest versions of the payment mechanism and zero-knowledge privacy layer logic. More about this release here.
These two releases lead to the much anticipated public testnet launch on June 29th, dubbed Apollo v1.0b. Apollo is the first beta version of the OriginTrail protocol and implements the full feature set. To find out more about the testnet release, visit this blogpost. As the protocol gets used more and more, further testing is performed, and enhancements are made via improvement proposals, we will be moving towards a mainnet launch in Q3.
Live use cases are already running on the testnet and we opened the network to new external participants — node holders — who can interact with our product team on a new channel, Discord for node runners. To enable node runners with no or limited tech background to participate in the network as well, our team also launched the Houston app, which offers a visual user interface for OriginTrail’s node management (configuration, reports, stats, etc.). The testnet runs on test TRAC tokens.
Branimir Rakić, Co-Founder and CTO of OriginTrail, made the following comment on the testnet performance and community engagement so far: “OriginTrail’s team is delighted to have both the community and companies very interested in participating in the testnet. So far, many of the tests were limited, due to the alpha stage of the protocol, and we are finally at the point of being able to onboard the development community and node runners effectively in the ecosystem. We will be soon publishing more material on how to engage in developing applications on the testnet and participate in the development of the protocol, and more information on node running and plans for the time ahead. I want to invite everyone to participate and help with ideas, feedback, questions and code. Join in and meet the team via our communication channels.”
Events in June: 10 Events in 7 Countries
In May’s monthly report, we highlighted the most important events in OriginTrail’s Spring Roadshow, which was a series of important business events and supporting activities to benefit protocol adoption and build new opportunities. The Roadshow continued throughout June, resulting in many more events than originally planned, as OriginTrail’s founders and other team members were invited to speak at more business events aimed at the selected corporate audience. At some of the high-class events for a professional audience, they shared the stage and panels with representatives of Deloitte, IBM, Cargill, Starbucks, Bayer, and many more companies with global supply chains that are working on innovative solution for both transparency and efficiency.
In June our team presented OriginTrail at the following events:
- June 8th: AmCham Shanghai’s Nanjing Next Summit in Nanjing, China (Tomaž Levak)
- June 11th: IoT & Blockchain Technology Meetup in Belgrade, Serbia (Branimir Rakić)
- June 11th-13th: AG/SUM Agritech Summit, hosted by Nikkei, in Tokyo, Japan (Žiga Drev)
- June 14th-15th: 10th Global Cold Chain Summit in Tianjin, China (Tomaž Levak)
- June 18th: Living Bits & Things IoT conference in Bled, Slovenia (Branimir Rakić)
- June 20th: OriginTrail Meet&Greet in London, UK; community event (Tomaž Levak)
- June 21st: Digital Ship Maritime CIO Forum in London, UK (Tomaž Levak)
- June 22nd-23rd: TechSauce Global Summit in Bangkok, Thailand (Žiga Drev)
- June 23rd: SAE Institute presentation for students in Belgrade, Serbia (Vuk Djorić)
- June 26th: World Food Convention in Berlin, Germany (Žiga Drev)
All the relevant business events are linked to tweets with event photos. OriginTrail does not report about being at events where team members did not speak and actively promote the protocol.
Žiga Drev, Co-Founder & COO of OriginTrail, who has been leading the South-East Asia market development strategy since 2016, commented on the success of the spring/summer roadshow: “Last month was packed with events — in addition to public speaking engagements, they also bring along other opportunities to present OriginTrail to high level executives around the world. The majority of activities were focused on Asia, where we have already established two local offices, in Hong Kong and Shanghai, to facilitate the adoption of the protocol. I was especially amazed to see so much interest for decentralized solutions at the transportation industry events. The digital transformation of this traditional industry is under way and blockchain is bound to play an important role. Companies already have a good grasp of the technology and can clearly see the benefits for safe and trusted data exchange, where OriginTrail enables them an efficient way of adding the blockchain layer to their business model.”
Community Updates and Developments
In June, we had several community updates. We conducted a survey among token holders, with the purpose of gaining invaluable insights on what technology preferences are, in addition to experience level and system specification of future node holders. The survey findings helped us to prepare good onboarding materials and support channels for the testnet.
The launch of the testnet was accompanied by a plethora of onboarding and support materials that help community members — including less experienced users — engage with the network and get a grip on the nodes. You can find all resources in one place in this Reddit post.
OriginTrail team members also did two interviews with crypto YouTubers:
- Crypto Love: Interview with our advisor and chairman of Trace Alliance John G. Keogh; and,
- CryptoSomniac: Interview with co-founders Tomaž Levak and Žiga Drev while they were in OriginTrail’s project office in Shanghai (office tour included!)
Here are the selected community Tweets from June 2018:
In our roadmap, we are also planning to carry out the first open call for projects in Q2. The intention of having an open call live during the testnet is to motivate companies to get engaged in performing the first tests. Due to the existing demand for implementing the protocol, which was created through our other activities, we realised that doing an open call at this point would have a more limited impact.
To make the most of the open calls, we therefore moved the first call to the period after the mainnet is launched. More information about this topic will be communicated around the time of the mainnet release. Until the deployment of the mainnet, the team has decided to place significant efforts on developing an effective structure for the office in Hong Kong because of the observed opportunities in Asia. Services introduced will help businesses utilize the protocol in an optimal way and adopt the technology without disrupting their processes.
The beta program of the testnet will run throughout July, August and September. In the meantime, we will launch several engagement campaigns for node holders, create new explainers (text and video), as well as share exciting updates and usability improvements regularly with our community. Starting this week, we will begin revealing several partners and continue to do so throughout the summer. We have been forming relationships and polishing use cases with them for months and, in the summer, we will proudly share these developments with the community, inside the Trace Alliance webpage ecosystem (which will be launched later on in July) and outside the Trace Alliance channels. OriginTrail interacts with its community on a daily basis. You are always welcome to reach out if you have some feedback or questions via your preferred channel.
Thank you for supporting OriginTrail.
Trace on & stay tuned for regular summer updates!
