2019 retrospective and what to expect in 2020
Dear community,
2019 has been an intensive year of efforts through the development and release of many milestones of our project.
What is X-Cash
As a reminder, X-Cash is an open-source and no-ICO cryptocurrency project. Our goal is to build a privacy-centric protocol that offers the best trade-off between anonymity and transparency. To this goal, we have been building since 2018 a cryptocurrency derived from Monero that includes Hybrid transactions, Delegated Proof-of -Private-Stake consensus and Sidechains technology. In 2019, we started to build with the community additional products such as X-Bank and X-Payment to power this ecosystem.
If you care about data privacy, want to help us build a new type of blockchain protocol, or just want to know more about what we do, feel free to check our docs here.
Delegated Proof-of-Private-Stake (DPoPS)
Last year, we have worked heavily on the development of the core of X-Cash which is its new consensus protocol. DPoPS allows a faster, more secure and efficient consensus in our blockchain and is also the first consensus protocol to combine privacy and delegated Proof-of-Stake.
In 2019, we released the yellow paper and have extensively developed the first version. As of today, we are counting a total of 814 commits and the dPoPS is being validated as part of the alpha tests. Since October, we are testing it with selected testers and many additional improvements have been made.
In 2020, after validating all the components from delegates elections to block production, we are now closer than ever to switch to the open beta which we will announce in the next weeks. The beta will be the final public testing of DPoPS before announcing the switch to mainnet.
After more than a year of development, DPoPS will offer new perspectives in our network and better decentralization. Thanks to it, we will be able to implement sidechains during the rest of the year as well as other exciting features on top of the built-in decentralized database.
New exchange listings
In 2019 we have decided and announced that we would not plan to list on additional exchanges. We believed the panel of existing exchanges was sufficient and in line with the advancement of the project. Also, considering the fact that X-Cash remained a self-funded project, we did not want to burn additional funds on listings and preferred to focus 100% on the development.
In 2020, following the release of DPoPS, we will have another feature and reason to grow further our community. In that context, we will resume application to additional exchanges that are in line with our transparency and quality values.
Our goal for this year is to get X-Cash listed on a tier 1 exchange but for this to happen we will need to keep delivering qualitative products and extend our user base.
X-Bank
In 2019, we created the X-Bank to allow easier funds management and online wallets operation as well as distributing the airdrop in the easiest and fairest manner.
In 2020 the X-Bank will grow further and follow the developments made to X-Cash. Below are some of the features we are reviewing:
- Cryptocurrency Exchange
- Swap Features between XCASH and MXCASH (X-Cash issued on another chain)
- X-Bank Mobile App
X-Payment
2019 was quite intense for X-Payment with the release of Both the Alpha and Beta versions.
In the last version, we added a new interface that provides an easier user experience as well as gaming pool features and a 5seconds onboarding process. If you want to play with X-Payment in your own community, all you have to do is adding the bot and start playing with it!
For the next year, we want to keep on improving X-Payment based on users' feedback as we have done in the past. For 2020, we notably have the targets to make it open source and onboard more builders with amazing ideas in its development.
Wallets
In 2019, we have preferred to focus on the 1st layer of the X-Cash blockchain as we had first working versions of GUI and CLI wallet. But we heard you and acknowledge how having an easy to use wallet is important from a user perspective and general cryptocurrency adoption.
Making X-Cash easy to use is our next priority for 2020. To this extent, we have started to work on the GUI 2.0 that we will release in a few weeks.
The wallet will onboard all XCASH cryptocurrency features (send, receive, contact management, sign data, reserve proof…). In the future, we will add the possibility to vote for a delegate directly from the GUI wallet and managing reserve proof and their voting destination.
Community
Like in any cryptocurrency project, the community remains one of the most valuable components. In 2019, we started to communicate more about the project through regular medium updates, interviews and AMA with the community.
In 2020, the release of DPoPS will strengthen the community by unifying users behind their delegates. To go further, we want to offer the opportunity for anyone in the community to join the team and help with the development of X-Cash.
We have been preparing a Builders Program where you will be able to contribute through Github in many areas: development, content creation, community management, and business development.
If you are interested, please get in touch with us on Discord and we will provide more information about the timing.
Miscellaneous
And because we could not write about everything here is some additional interesting stuff that was done during the year:
- A segregated funds tracker: transparency is key and we wanted to allow anyone to track what we are doing with the premined funds
- Continuous releases of X-Cash Core including our mining algorithm variant Cryptonight HeavyX
- Filed a patent on anonymous digital voting
- Joined the startup incubator Pépinière27 and received grants from the French Public Investment Bank
- Created a non-profit organization to better manage the governance of X-Cash
- Attended more than a dozen events to share the passion of blockchain and crypto, notably in France, Austria, Malta, Singapore, and Hong Kong.
In 2020, we will keep on working diligently and with transparency. We are confident this year will show great results for the cryptocurrency space and more particularly X-Cash as we continue to deliver.
Thank you for your continuous support.
