Verge Currency Development 202001
This is how weāre gonna roll
As volunteered software engineers we somehow have to find some extra time to work on these blog posts š. In the last part of last year, we skipped some release dates for these posts because there wasnāt enough inspiration for content or there wasnāt enough time. This year we tent to release a new post at the end of each month.
Verge Codebase
Well, long time no see I guess. But a lot has been changed during the holiday season. Firstly moved the codebase on a new level by simply upgrading tor to the latest version, improving peer discovery, investing time in DNS tor-peer resolution and many other smaller improvements. Overall this a basic overview of what has happened on our core.
ElectrumX + ElectrumV4
Way more time has been invested in getting electrumX (our preferred electrum lightweight server) compatible with Verge. Therefore we have slowly but surely migrated the open-source repository for Verge. As of now itās available and can be tested. We also serve on a server on one of our hosts to ensure a small network is always running (see electrum.verge.dev) this server is also referenced as a trusted (known) server inside the electrum wallet.
Next up is the electrum wallet which has been migrated the same way to support the latest verge core. We have as usual tried to modify as little as possible to integrate verge in order to stay compliant with the original electrum APIs/RPC calls etc. As you might have seen itās still in a very early alpha phase, which means that there could be disturbing bugs when trying some exotic features. So be aware that you could lose all your money although chances are quite small.
Furthermore, Iām currently extensively testing the current hardware support for Ledger (owning) and Trezor (emulator) to ensure also these modules. Also here keep in mind that I will yet again try to reach out to these hardware companies in order to get their software supported for Verge by providing them a working example with Electrum. I, for myself, set a deadline of two months to get feedback from them. If thereās no feedback at all I will abandon hardware support in electrum. (deactivating these features)
But anything else has been tested very lightly and seems to work for now! So if you want to give it a shot and maybe find some bugs and even fix them you can visit: https://github.com/vergecurrency/electrum/releases/tag/v4.0.0-alpha15 and download it for either macOS or Windows.
Any support is always appreciated. Keep in mind that we are not the wallet support š
Verge Android Wallet
Hey ho! After this nice EOY break, development has restarted in a regular basis for the android wallet that youāre all dreaming for.
As I started a new position, Iām busier than ever but Iām trying to dedicate a few hours per week on the wallet development and SEVCO is still around helping with advancing the tasks remaining until alpha, that are now well defined under GitHubās Issues tab here : https://github.com/vergecurrency/vDroid/issues
Besides checking the Issues on GitHub, every development Iām doing on the wallet has become for me an opportunity to do some live streams on Twitch, where I essentially continue writing the wallet while trying to explain what I do to ānon-techiesā, for free and fun. If you enjoy hearing about a developer ranting about his developer life, you can follow Manuel here : https://www.twitch.tv/cabrasm
Overall, we can say that the overall status for the wallet is around 80ā85%. Missing features are being implemented according to the issues list and since development resumed at a regular pace we can expect an alpha version for testing soon. Keep tuned for further updates!
Verge iOS Wallet
For the iOS wallet we are working on fixing some bugs that have been found during the last update. We also plan to work on adding a help view, or a view where you're redirected to a place where to get help for using the application.
Electrum Mnemonic Sweeping
Weāre also working on enabling users to sweep their Electrum mnemonic into the iOS wallet. This means youāll just need you mnemonic and fill that into the sweeping feature in the iOS wallet and it will transfer all your funds to an iOS wallet address. Easy peasy!
