Pikcio welcomes 2019 with exciting new projects
At the beginning of the new year we want to take a moment to look back at what we have accomplished, as well as into the future to see what the new year will have in store for Pikcio AG.
Our start-up has experienced incredible growth, both in terms of infrastructure, experience and global footprint. We managed to take some big steps with regards to our technology and would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the incredible work of both our technical and commercial teams who have worked tirelessly to build the foundation that 2019 now stands upon. In unison they have responded to every challenge we faced and found suitable solutions at all times.
2018 — A year of accomplishments
2018 saw some incredible achievements: our successful Token Sale, big advances with regards to our core technologies and many awards, praising our vision of personal identity and the technology to turn this vision into reality. Furthermore our family grew and branched out globally. Let’s look at some highlights in more detail:
R&D Developments
Dr. Jorick Lartigau, Director of the R & D Department, whom you all know from our #AskPikcio sessions, has released incredible improvements to our core technology that will open up tremendous opportunities for us, using a mixture of Peer-to-Peer technology, Matryoshka and distributed ledger technology, which will make our PikcioChain truly secure and cutting edge. The technical expertise of our combined teams in Montpellier and Belgrade were able to give life to this vision of personal data protection. This is the basis for the coming exciting developments, that you can read more about in our 2019 lookout below.
Awards
Our award for the “VISA Everywhere Initiative” is probably the most remarkable sign of recognition for our brand and our vision and will continue to help us prosper. Next to this award there were many others, that are strengthening our international profile as a top technology provider and will help us grow in 2019:
- Joined the Fujitsu accelerator program 2018
- Joined the Tokyo metropolitan Government 2018 program
- NTT DATA Finalist and ZAMMA Award 2018
- 2nd place at the Banking technology award in London 2018 (Best use of emerging or innovative technology)
Global Markets and Expansion
As mentioned Pikcio AG grew exceptionally in 2018, with the opening of different offices around the world. Our new offices for example prime locations like Beijing, Tokyo, Singapore and Manama in Bahrain. This truly global presence helped us to adapt our technology to the different philosophies of privacy and personal data, as the challenges arising are not the same across different regions or continents. The ability to adapt our services and products to different environments is the key to stay competitive.
We had our strongest impact in Asia, namely in China, Japan and Bahrain. These will be the key markets we will be targeting 2019.
2019 — Outlook
2019 will center more and more around our prize-winning technology. Of course, our commercial efforts will continue to grow but we will only communicate when things are finalized, so we can all grab our cigars at the same time and celebrate.
We want Pikcio not only to be known for its outstanding technology, we want the technology to be actually used by people and businesses alike. Therefore, 2019 will see an increase in user adoption efforts for our solutions that have the Pikciochain at the center of our core business, as a new protocol within a whole new ecosystem.
To give a little bit more substance to these lofty words, we want to introduce some of the things our R&D department will be introducing in 2019:
The Pikcio-Browser
Decentralized and completely private web search browser on which all DAPPS, running on the Pikciochain, can be seamlessly integrated (More information to follow in the coming weeks). By the end of Q1 2019, we will be able to offer a peer to peer and fully decentralized alternative to your current search engine and browser.
The general idea is to simplify the adoption of P2P and DLT through a commonly used tool like a browser. There will be several stages of extension with the following development stages:
What will be available in stage 1:
- Fully functional standalone browser
- Privacy search: your search stays locally on your device allowing for a truly anonymous search, no one else will be able to know what you searched for.
What will be available in stage 2:
- Decentralized and encrypted chat functionality
- Social Networking
What will be available in stage 3:
- Exclusive Media content with the ability to tip directly, e.g. with cryptocurrencies
- Sending and sharing documents (video, images, documents) with on-demand certification
What will be available in stage 4:
- Crypto Wallet Management (BTC, ETH, NEO, PKC, etc.)
What will be available in Stage 5:
- With the implementation of FIAT gateways we will complete the empowerment of our idea to build an end to end payment process for the usage of KYC and customer data
All of that with a simplified management of private and public keys. You will be able to send funds with the click of a button without knowing your counterparts address, simply click on their profile and send it directly to them, no further crypto knowledge needed.
All these features will be accessible with the release of the Testnetversion[FE1] being deployed at the end of February. The first official version of the search browser is expected to be released at the end of Q1 2019. Open Sourcing our code as well providing a Software Developer Kit (SDK) will allow the implementation of new DAPPS into the interface of the Pikcio Browser through a common marketplace.
The Pikcio Browser will be the first of its kind, offering anonymous search (using the Matryoshka technology) yet fully personalized thanks to a local AI so that your data never leaves your device, it’s yours and it should stay yours.
The PKC token will be the fuel of the entire ecosystem, giving power to an unnamed amount of use cases and DAPPS that will be covered within the final version, to ensure an intensive use of the token.
PKC/ Proof of Usage / Masternodes
PKC will stay at the core of the entire ecosystem, its first utility will be to act as GAS to the network and to run all smart contracts. It will be the unique currency to be used on the ecosystem. Additionally the growth in use cases and DAPPS will ensure extensive use of the token after the release of the later stages of the Pikcio- Browser.
PKC has always been the backbone of the Pikcio ecosystem and will remain as such, powering the Pikciochain and all our applications, starting with the Pikcio-Browser.
With regards to the Masternodes program, a specific article will be published at the beginning of February with the long-awaited details.
Proof of Usage will be integrated on the Mainnet at the end of Q1.
Mobile Wallet
The mobile wallet, will serve as an interface to log onto your browser or any other site without having to manage private keys or credentials. How so? Thanks to QR technology, all your login data will be stored onto your device.
Meanwhile, the team is working, to build up the full mobile node, ensuring Matryoshka P2P and complete decentralization capabilities. The expected time of arrival is Q3 2019 to provide the Pikcio Browser on Android devices.
PikcioChain Development Team
Our first community members have joined Pikciochain development team. For example, we have seen a fantastic new acquisition in Moshe Malawah who is the first member of the community to be integrated into the development team of Pikciochain. In the future, we hope to be able to integrate more developers coming from the community and to see many DAPPS blossom on our protocol.
Helpful with that will be the open sourcing of our code and the easy implementation of DAPPS to the Pikcio Browser via a common marketplace.
If you would like to work at Pikcio you can contact us at our Discord channel:
Moving forward
In the coming weeks we will have more information in regular intervals about the state of our development in the form of a “bi-weekly tech update” which will showcase the newest developments in tech.
To sum it up, the last year has been very successful and we are now in a comfortable position to bring blockchain technology to the market that has the potential for mass adoption via an easy to operate interface. Fueled by the PKC token and supported by a developer community that will soon extend the range of use cases and DAPPS, our vision of Privacy and protection of personal data will take very graspable forms in 2019.
Lastly, we want to take a moment to thank our community for supporting us throughout 2018, we are confident that the best is yet to come.
You can find us here:
URL: www.pikcio.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/pikciochainpkc?lang=en
Telegram: https://t.me/PikcioChain
Discord: https://discord.gg/EQSm579
