Every week Paradigm Fund team provides the cryptoworld with fresh biweekly updates on numerous cryptonetworks. However, a lot of substantial projects lie beyond our analytical reach. Thus, we decided to create a short recap of processes and news from entities, contributing to the bright future of blockchain technology! Feel free to share your feedback!
Algorand
- Algorand was named the #1 Blockchain Project of the Year by Odaily China at the 2019 FAT Blockchain Awards! See the full awards list here.
- Algorand Transparency Report: January 9, 2020
To date, there have been two primary uses of tokens held by Algorand:
1) incentives to build and contribute to the growth of the Algorand platform
2) development and growth of the financial ecosystem.
Incentives to contributors and application developers through token grants, competitions, and investments.
Total Algos: 155M (up from 111.2M at last report)
- Initial Investment in Algo Capital: 100M tokens were contributed to Algo Capital at launch.
- Equity Investments: Approximately 52M Algos have been used to date to invest in ecosystem partners.
- Market Development: Approximately 2.2M Algos have been used to date to build global awareness and promote Algorand through both technical and marketing partnerships.
- Application Development: Approximately 570K Algos have been used to date to pay developers, vendors, and contractors for applications and services benefiting all members of the Algorand ecosystem including wallets, custody solutions, etc.
- Introducing Sandbox: The quick way to get started on Algorand. Sandbox makes the process of node creation and configuration seamless with several helpful commands for containerization and process management. It is simply a quick and easy way to create and configure an Algorand node using Docker.
- 2019 Wrap-Up for Algorand Devs — check a review of the three features launched on Algorand at layer-1 in 2019 with links to content to help developers get started quickly.
Horizen
- Sphere by Horizen: Progress on performance issues, adding new UX component for users, reducing the time taken to synchronize wallet addresses, added infographic on the addresses refresh progress. New build sent for testing.
- Block Explorer: Progress with mainchain Block Explorer update related activities.
- Horizen Sidechains: Continued consensus and stake delegation implementation strategy regarding NodeviewHolder processing logic changes and the Sidechain History updates. Determined next steps.
- Mainchain changes required by the sidechain model: Continued the developments for the required changes to allow backward transfers.
- Mainchain changes for sidechain supp: Identified necessary improvements.
- New whitepaper: First review complete and was positive.
Fusion
- Fusion Foundation awarded “Best Real-World Application of Blockchain” at Prestigious FAT Awards Ceremony in China. Fusion was one of 36 companies recognized for best real-world application of blockchain at the FAT awards held in Beijing, China on January 9th 2020. The prestigious award was given to Fusion not only for its cross-chain DCRM technology developed in conjunction with the 4 world-class cryptographers, but also for its diverse financial application and partnerships that include:
- reducing automotive fraud and increasing capital liquidity to auto lending with AXP
- working with Realio and YAD to fund the underbanked SME industry
- tokenizing real estate, mining rights, and other opportunities with Nvelop
- Community Update for the Year 2020 — learn about the changes, growth of the community and a community management incentive plan, where funds, starting in the form of time-lock tokens will be set aside to reward active members of the community.
NuCypher
- Phase 1 (Core Staking and Node Operations)
Estimated Timeline: January 20 — February 7 — Because the start of this phase coincides with Chinese New Year, they will keep it open until at least February 7. Phase 1 is the foundation for future phases and will require you to complete a variety of tasks like staking, launching a node, accepting policies, and performing re-encryptions.
- Phase 2 (Advanced Staking and Node Operations)
Estimated Timeline: February 3 — February 17 — This phase will focus on more advanced staking commands like dividing your stake, initiating a stake wind-down, toggling re-staking of rewards, and more. It will also help you fully understand all the various staking configurations and how they interact with each other.
- Phase 3 (WorkLock)
Estimated Timeline: February 17 — February 20 — This phase will test the WorkLock token distribution mechanism.
- Phase 4+ — As they progress through Come and Stake It, they may introduce additional phases.
- Contributor Phase (Technical Contributions) — this phase will last for the entirety of Come and Stake It and is unique in that it doesn’t have narrowly-scoped tasks. Instead, it is more open-ended and designed to reward high-impact contributions to the NuCypher Network.
NULS
- NULS Bi-Monthly Report — learn about business & community progress, events, global news, and tech updates.
(Technical Progress)
- NULS technical team urgently repaired the mainnet transaction verification problem and released V2.3.0 to upgrade all consensus nodes.
- Team performed a cross-review of the mainnet code and conducted security review on the account transaction signature verification logic.
- Both the front-end and back-end development of Chain Factory has been completed and has progressed to the joint debugging phase.
- Completed DEX front-end interface development, completed back-end development and began joint debugging.
- The development of USDI mobile version has been completed and is currently in the testing phase.
(Community Governance Updates and Progress)
On 30th December 2019,
- NULS African Ambassador released his campaign proposal.
- NULS Turkish Ambassador also released his campaign proposal.
Proposals currently being carried out:
- NCG20191122NULS Chinese community content contribution proposal
- NCG20191120Contributor Role — Community Lead — Community Funding Proposal
- NCG20191110West Business Plan Proposal and Budget
NULS team plans to complete a mainnet wallet upgrade V2.4.0 by January 20, 2020 (Singapore). This version will fix some known bugs. As a result of this upgrade, the POCM platform will not be available for use until the wallet upgrade is completed.
As was previously reported, on December 22, 2019, NULS mainnet was compromised and 2 million NULS tokens were stolen from the NULS team account. After a thorough investigation of the compromise, a vulnerability was discovered in the NULS transaction signature verification logic. The team then released a new version of the mainnet wallet (see the point above) and decided to perform a hard fork at the block height of 878,000. The upgrade is now complete.
Of the 2 million NULS transferred by the hacker(s) from NULS team account, 548,354.34696095 NULS have entered the trading market, and we have communicated with the relevant exchanges to attempt freezing those assets. After the hard fork, the 1,451,645.65303905 NULS that did not enter the trading market has been destroyed by permanently freezing them to avoid any further potential loss.
Ontology
- Ontology: Staking 101 — recent article containing extensive information about the Ontology Staking system.
Ontology uses the VBFT consensus mechanism to secure its network. At any given time, there will be 7 nodes who have been voted in by the community to participate in consensus every block. Users vote for nodes by staking ONT tokens in multiples of 500 tokens per stake. Users are free to stake ONT in any node, change their stake, or withdraw their stake back. Staking is managed in terms of rounds, which are comprised of 60,000 blocks each (previously 120,000). Each block can range from 1 second to 30 seconds, which means each round can range from 16 hours to 20 days.
Wanchain
- EOS is live on the Wanchain testnet. This release also brings support for all ERC20 tokens to the Wanchain wallet (Including ones that do not yet have cross-chain support).
- Celebrating 2019 — A Year of Many Milestones — learn everything about Wanchain’s past year!
- January — Telefonica Partnership
- February — Lanched New Documentation Website ExploreWanchain.org
- March — Staking Pilot Program
- April — iWan Goes Online
- April — Established the WanDevsDeveloper Community
- September — Galaxy Proof of Stake Consensus Launches on the Mainnet
- August — Wanchain Light Wallet, New Website (& other new product updates)
- October — Released Cross-chain DEX Prototype
- December — Established East China Office
- December — Published roadmap for 2020
The UCCT is a standardized framework to build cross-chain connections for data and assets between heterogeneous, public&private blockchains (with different consensus mechanisms and architectures).
Feel free to share your feedback about the format!
