X-Cash Foundation, contributions, the builders’ program and so much more
Dear community,
In the past few months, we have been working intensively on the various projects we have for 2020.
Today, we want to tell you more about some big changes to the X-Cash project.
Since 2019, we have had a growing number of individual contributors and an increasing number of requests to help us working on this project. To address these requests which are extremely valuable for us, we have prepared a comprehensive open-source framework for contributors.
The framework includes general guidelines about contribution, templates to submit requests and guidance for the retribution in X-Cash.
🚀 X-Cash Foundation
To provide more efficient governance and add another layer of transparency, we have decided to create a non-profit organization called The X-Cash Foundation.
This foundation will have three key roles within the X-Cash project:
◾ Definition of the long term vision & roadmap for X-Cash
◾ Management of the segregated community funds and their allocation
◾ Governance of the project & Builders’ Program
In the sections below, we are going to detail the structure we have set up and how contributions will have to be made from now on. The fundamental goal of this structure is to allow us more efficient management of the projects while making sure we are very consistent in terms of retribution.
🔨 Builders’ Program
TL;DR: Funded community-driven projects to develop the X-Cash ecosystem. And a new mobile wallet.
To its core, X-Cash has always been an open-source project. People who came forward to propose their help and participate in the project in the hope to make it better make a good part of the team. However, since the beginning, X-Network has been the sole maintainer of the code and different programs relating to X-Cash. We have brought you the GUI wallet, the X-Bank, X-Payment, FlexPrivacy, etc… and soon we will be the first privacy coin operating with a custom DPOS consensus.
We have established the base of the vision for the X-Cash project. Today, we believe that we arrived at a point where we can open the gates and bring people to help us carry this vision.
So, what’s the builder’s program?
The builder’s program will enable people to participate, develop, and promote the X-Cash Foundation through the funding of community-driven projects.
We call🔨 Builders the people that propose or undertake the community-driven projects
In practical terms, we will create a centralized hub for the community to create and propose projects, ask for funding, and make their case to bring the project to light.
The founding team will also propose projects to the community, where anyone will be able to apply and propose their skills to complete the project.
These projects will be large endeavors and could span several weeks depending on the complexity, and the funding of the project will reflect the amount of work needed. In practice, the Foundation will establish project milestones with the Builder to split the payments and ensure the sustainability of the project and builder.
🚧 This is still a work in progress, and we will describe the program in its own article really soon, but in short:
- The projects can fall in three categories (Development 👩💻, Marketing 💡or Others 🎁)
- A Builder proposing a project would have to fill thoroughly a form for the team to consider. Notably, a description, budget, background, milestones, cost-benefit analysis, etc…
- The projects should always be related to the X-Cash Foundation and the promotion of its ecosystem. We are thinking notably of Ledger Integration, iOS Wallet, JS Libraries etc…
- We will integrate a way for the community to vote for projects that would like to see first.
The first project
In the background, we have run off a first iteration of the program with a willing member of the community. That is why today we are glad to introduce SnakewayPasser who built on his own a fully functioning Android wallet for X-Cash.
For the moment, the wallet is not officially released yet. But soon we will integrate it into our official GitHub organization and enable other people to participate in its development (localization, theme etc…) for bounties.
With the Builders’ Program, we are hoping to see this kind of project and initiative multiply, growing the X-Cash ecosystem even more!
SnakewayPasser will be retributed with the Builders’ Program fund, which we are detailing more below.
💎 Community Funds and Airdrop changes
TL;DR: Adjustments to the current airdrop (30,000 XCASH/users), builders’ program community fund is 5,8B XCASH, and monthly financial reports coming.
For a few months already, we have had discussions about making some changes to the airdrop and allocate more funds to bug bounties, community funds, etc…
These discussions had always brought some heated arguments against changing the airdrop, but in the vast majority, we observed that the community is positive to redirect the airdrop funds toward project funding for X-Cash or a more positive promotion.
That is why, starting this month, the current airdrop will be adjusted and we will inject all of the remaining airdrop pool in the builder’s program community fund.
As you may know, once the mainnet of our Delegated-Proof-of-Private-Stake rolls out, it will be possible to stake a minimum of 2M XCASH by voting for a delegate and earn rewards by participating in the network.
Until it is possible to stake, we will continue a minimum airdrop of 30,000 XCASH to every user in the X-Bank who hold 2M XCASH and registers.
Most of the current claiming rules will be unchanged (you will still need 2M XCASH to register), however, the airdrop will be a bit different:
- We want to reward those who have been supporting us until now, so we won’t accept the registration of accounts created after this article.
- The number of referrals won’t increase the final amount. It will be a flat 30,000 XCASH for everyone.
We are excited to be able to fund projects such as the Android wallet, which we believe brings much more value to the project than the airdrop did.
Builders’ Program Community Fund
Because all of the remaining airdrop pool is going to the builder’s program community fund, it will have 5,800,000,000 (5,8 Billion) XCASH (5B remaining from the airdrop pool + 0,8B that we have been provisioning from the last airdrops) at its inception.
The community fund will only be used to pay bounties, contributions, and to fund projects.
Development and Financial Report
As one of our main values is transparency, we will provide every month a financial and development report of the spendings and fundings of the Builders’ Program Community Fund. The wallets containing the Community Fund will be held and managed by the X-Cash Foundation and will be fully auditable by anyone with the help of reserve proofs.
Also, every payment toward community projects will be made using public transactions and displayed in the monthly financial report.
👐 Open Source and Contributions
You may have seen in the past few weeks, we have been making some changes to our GitHub organization to have a better framework for contributions. Pretty soon, people that want to contribute to the variety of X-Cash related programs will be able to!
When someone makes a bug report, or asks for a new feature or enhancement through GitHub issues, an active community member will be able to take charge of them and propose solutions or work on the code directly, as in any open source project.
While free contributions are the centerpiece of any open-source project, the X-Cash Foundation will retribute some contributors with XCASH depending on the difficulty and the time taken to finish the task. We are also thinking about launching a contributor of the month program where the most active contributor will get a bonus every month.
👉 You can already have a look at our CONTRIBUTING guidelines.
There will be multiple ways to participate in the development of the X-Cash ecosystem, and we can’t wait to onboard skilled developers and contributors!
📰 General News
DPOPS Alpha phase
The alpha phase for our DPOPS consensus has been running for quite a while now. We understand that most of you are eager to start voting, creating a delegate and staking and you will soon be able to. We thank you for your patience.
Our mindset has always been to deliver a polished product. For something as critical as the creation from the ground up of a new consensus, it is imperative that we spend time testing, testing, and testing again.
The alpha phase has enabled us to pinpoint many enhancements, changes, and general UX improvements to ensure that the experience of using DPOPS is as smooth as possible.
Here is a breakdown of what has been done and what remains in the scope of the alpha phase:
Core functions
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ 100%
Core blockchain functions
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ 100%
PoC mining blocks
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ 100%
Stability test
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬜⬜⬜ 85%
Shared delegate functions (API and auto payment to voters)
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬜⬜ 90%
Delegates explorer
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬜ 95%
Installation script and containers
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬜⬜⬜⬜ 80%
Bug tests with alpha-testers
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬜⬜⬜⬜ 80%
New GUI Wallet
These past months, we have also been working on the side on a new multi-platform General User Interface wallet to store XCASH securely. It is long overdue that we prepared a new GUI Wallet, as the current wallet still harbor the first version of the X-Cash logo 😐
As in any other program of the X-Cash Foundation, you will also be able to contribute to the development of the wallet. We will notably propose bounties to, for example, increase the test coverage, create new themes, develop plug-ins, etc… So if you know your way with Angular, keep an eye on GitHub 😏
X-Bank iOS App
Additionally, we have been working on porting the X-Bank to an official iOS app! We have worked a lot on design and user experience. We should be able to release it officially very soon, once we have had the approval by the Apple App Store.
🙏 Conclusion
Thanks to the builders’ program, we believe that the X-Cash ecosystem will grow tenfolds. This comprehensive framework will help us easily on-board skilled people to the project and ensure the continuous development of X-Cash.
