This is not financial advice.
The testnet release of Shift’s decentralized storage solution — Shift Core v7.0t will be on April 18th, 2019! Activation will occur 7 days later. Shift Core v7.0t will introduce four new transaction types: LOCK, UNLOCK, PIN & UNPIN. These are all you need to host content on a decentralized Simple Storage Service (S3), permanently. Integrating Shift’s Phoenix Cluster and blockchain, these functions grant real token utility. Also, the team will release the install script for their Phoenix Cluster software. An open source approach helps ensure code quality and integrity. Therefore, Shift will make 13k$ in SHIFT available for bug fixes and code optimization of their storage related blockchain code, with bounties distributed based upon the impact of the contribution. After the release of the new core and Phoenix the team will be focusing on a command line/API interface for interacting with Phoenix, as well as the necessary client work, i.e. an updated blockchain explorer, Nano wallet 2.0, etc. As for marketing and social encounters, the team is still fully focused on development. As Shift vice-president Werner Heisenberg mentioned: “The concept of conferences is something for the future”. During these weeks, Shift showed little activity in the media landscape. The community of shifters continues to grow slowly. Social media dynamics shows that it remains virtually unchanged. There is a slight fluctuation in the number of subscribers of Shift social media channels these weeks. For those who aren’t familiar, the team switched from Ryver to the more popular Discord, as one of the team’s goals is to build a larger community and the crypto scene represents a major source of potential members. Well begun is half done. Stay tuned!
Development
The table above illustrates the low development activity.
Last commits on public GitHub were made on March 4th, 2019 in shift-js repository (JavaScript library for sending Shift transactions from the client or server).
A lot of the information is private at present. Shift has also private GitHub repositories.
Shift Core v7.0t will be released to the new Shift Project GitHub on Thursday, April 18th, 2019.
Activation will occur 7 days later (22,400 blocks), once testnet delegates have been allowed to upgrade to this latest release. During the transition, a closed source installer of the Phoenix Cluster software will be made available to all those wishing to contribute to the network by pre-installing a storage node.
In order to incentivize participation during this new stage of the Shift Project, the team will be making 30k SHIFT available (≈13 000 USD) for bug fixes and code optimization of Shift open source software, distributed based upon the impact of the contribution.
Recent news:
A month ago Shift team made the announcement that they have now completed the major milestone of integrating the Phoenix IPFS Cluster software with the Shift blockchain. This achievement represents the first instance in which IPFS infrastructure has been successfully combined with the automation and management functionalities enabled through blockchain, allowing them to debut a fully decentralized and censorship-resistant storage and hosting platform with the ability to render data immutable.
Since making the announcement, the team has been receiving the support of a number of external developers, who have been performing a code audit. This audit included a thorough review of the code itself, and has now moved onto the stage in which the various components of the platform are tested by sending transactions in multiple scenarios, ensuring that they are correctly recorded on the blockchain and their contents implemented at the storage layer.
In anticipation of completing this task and moving ahead with Shift testnet release, the team has created a demonstration page that will allow the community to experiment with the four new transaction types at the earliest possible opportunity. Through a browser-based interface, users will be able to broadcast the four new transaction types (LOCK/UNLOCK and PIN/UNPIN) directly to the testnet. This will render the platform functional and available for public testing while Shift completes their easy-to-use storage user interface accessed through the upcoming version of the client wallet, Shift Nano 2.0.
From Official Discord channel:
Ralf S (Shift President and Lead Developer) on February 1st, 2019:
“In response to the market downturn, we began minimizing team expenses a good deal of time ago. This is perhaps something that has been evident in our decision to focus on development rather than marketing. In light of that decision, we have been able to sustain progress on the Shift Project, and have the funds necessary to continue in this manner long term, if necessary.”
From Official Ryver chat:
Ralf S (Shift President and Lead Developer) on December 20th, 2018:
“Still making progress on the backend every day. But I admit it’s an awful lot of work. We’ve received various request in DM to show something to the public. But it’s mainly code work we’re doing now, no eye candy. But I guess I can share a bit of what we’re working on right now. I will paste some screens in our Discord channel.”
Social encounters
- From Official Telegram Group:
Werner Heisenberg (Vice-president and Operations manager) on October 23rd, 2018:
“The concept of conferences is something for the future”.
Finance
- SHIFT is now listed on Cryptofacil Exchange (powered by Bittrex Exchange).
Cryptofacil provides Latin American and Caribbean customers with a platform to access some of the world’s most innovative Blockchain projects.
Register now and get free trades until April 30th, 2019 (Invite Code: FREETRADES).
Partnerships and team members
- From Official Discord channel:
Werner Heisenberg (Vice-president and Operations manager):
Roadmap
From Official Discord channel:
Werner Heisenberg (Vice-president and Operations manager) on February 1st, 2019:
“The next development milestone will focus on a Proof-of-Spacetime algorithm that is used to verify whether storage providers are hosting the content they should be hosting. Based on those results storage providers will be rewarded (at the blockchain level) for their services.”
Development:
100% completed:
- Proof of Concept: New Shift Website
- Introductory White Paper (First of Four)
- Storage Cluster Optimization
- Hydra Decentralized CMS: Pre-Alpha Release
- Shift Core 6.7.1t
- Shift Core 6.7.2t
- Shift Core 6.7.3t: Block Reward Division
- Shift Core 6.8.0t
- Shift Core 6.8.1t: dApp Ready
- Decentralized Blockchain Explorer
- Shift Core 6.7.1: Emergency Patch
- Shift Core 6.8.2t
- Shift Core 6.8.2
- Fully Stable Sidechain
Hydra Decentralized CMS: Alpha Release — Q2, 83% completed.
Phoenix — Q4, 90% completed. Priority.
Blockchain Integration with Phoenix — Q4, 83% completed. Priority.
Nano Wallet Update v2.0.0 — Q4, 33% completed. Priority.
Atomic Swaps — TBD, 0% completed. New.
New Shift Core: New Consensus Algorithm — TBD, 37% completed.
Phoenix Websocket Communication — TBD, 0% completed.
Decentralized Cluster Consensus — TBD, 5% completed.
Improved Shift Chain — TBD, 33% completed.
New Shift Website — TBD, 50% completed.
Public awareness:
100% completed:
- Animation Series: Blockchain
- Collaboration: Coins and Steel
- Screencast: Phantom dApp Quickstart Guide
Shift Project Progress Report — Q4, 80% completed. New.
Partnership: To Be Revealed — Q4, 0% completed. New.
Phoenix Pilot Program — Q4, 0% completed. New.
Screencast: Decentralized Storage Solution — Q4, 0% completed. New.
Applying for New Exchange Listings — TBD, 0% completed. New.
Introductory Business White Paper — TBD, 90% completed.
Financial White Paper — TBD, 0% completed.
Rumors
From Official Twitter page:
- Shift team retweeted on April 9th, 2019.
Coins & Steel will ‘just’ use Shift for hosting a back-up.
From Official Discord channel:
- After release:
- Telegram:
Use the Shift Bot, which provides real-time insight into the blockchain events of the Shift Project.
Social media metrics
- Community Update: Forum transition from Ryver to Discord.
As one of the team’s goals is to build a larger community and the crypto scene represents a major source of potential members, they switched from Ryver to the more popular Discord.
Shift community grows slowly, social media dynamics shows that it remains virtually unchanged. There is a slight fluctuation in the number of subscribers of Shift social media channels these weeks.
Telegram — Discussion about updates, voting, marketing and coding.
See also unofficial Shift Telegram News Channel.
Facebook (since March 2016) — Announcements, 10–30 likes, 1–2 shares.
Twitter (since February 2016) — Average number of retweets is 25–50 for one post (tweet about new decentralized website got 351 retweets, December 31st, 2017).
Official Discord channel — Discussion on voting, roadmap, and bounties.
Reddit — The longest thread in 2018 is about 1 million stolen Shift from the team’s dev fund (it has 29 comments).
Bitcointalk.org: since August 17th, 2015. Discussion on FAQs, latest news, videos, exchanges etc. Last post — on April 6th, 2019.
See also unofficial Shift forum: Delegate proposals mostly.
There are also Tools for Analyze Delegates:
- Analyzer tool ( develop by snatic delegate)
- Dutchpool (created by dutchpool team)
- Dpostool (created by delegate Vekexasia)
The graph above shows the dynamics of changes in the number of Shift Reddit subscribers, Twitter followers and Facebook likes. The information is taken from Coingecko.com.
