Word on the BLOCK: January 15th

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Blocknet

10 min readJan 15, 2018

Hello everybody and welcome to the first Blocknet newsletter update of 2018! We are planning to release two newsletters per month to keep the community and new users up to date on what is happening with Blocknet. We have listened to your feedback and have created this newsletter to improve communication between the core team and larger community. This is only the first iteration of this newsletter and we are open to your feedback. As this is the first newsletter of the year, there is a lot to get through.

Let’s dive in!

Decentralized Exchange UI — The first official beta release of the new DX UI is scheduled for March 1st and will coincide with the reveal of the Blocknet Decentralized Exchange official brand. VSA has delivered the DX UI to the Blocknet core team. Users will be able to conduct trades in real-time via manual order matching and liquidity providers can begin integrating with the DX API.
The official Blocknet Decentralized Exchange brand will also be revealed on March 1st. After meeting them in person last week, VSA is submitting a proposal to the Blocknet team this week for branding and associated design work.
The first version of the Blocknet White Paper will be released on March 15th.
An official Blocknet Roadmap will be revealed on January 30th.
The Blocknet wallet redesign will be revealed on April 1st.
An official Blocknet Marketing Plan for Q1 will be released on February 1st.
An official Blocknet promotional video is in development and will be completed in February.

The Blocknet core team will moving into an office in Austin, Texas in February. Austin is one of the tech capitals of the world and provides a healthy offering of technical talent to build the team with. Core team members Michael(michael), Shane(shane) and Hanni(hanniabu) will be setting up the office. Having core team members working in the same time zone and physical location will allow the team to collaborate at greater efficiencies.
We’re proud to announce the addition of Shane Burgett to the core team as the Marketing Director. He will manage and facilitate Blocknet’s marketing and advertising campaigns, including video production initiatives. He will work closely with the core team, as well as strategic partners and vendors with the sole purpose of promoting Blocknet and growing awareness in the platform and promoting its capabilities. 2018 will be the biggest advertising year to date for Blocknet, as we are committing to investing a significant portion of the Blocknet marketing fund into advertising initiatives and promotional content. You can find Shane on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shaneburger/.
Joe Caterina(beijingjoe), a new addition to Blocknet’s network, will act as a Chinese liaison and will provide an integral role in setting the framework for marketing strategy and outreach in China (and Asia in general).
We are creating a Support team to ensure there is proper assistance available for the DX when the full launch happens. Blocknet core team member Jeff(86b) will be leading the team. We are still exploring tools to help in this process, such as a ticketing system. Blocknet did not use a series of ICO’s to fund itself, as a result the support structure has been been built out from the community until this point. It is vital this team is in place before the main launch.
From the community’s feedback on using Rocket Chat as a platform, we are having a poll on other platforms to consider. The platform options presented are Discord, Mattermost, Riot, Ryver, or to continue using Rocket Chat. You are able to select multiple options if there are more than one that you like, but it’s recommended to choose only your favorite options. When the voting has concluded a decision will be made on what platform will be used moving forward.
A #designers channel has been added to discuss graphic design opportunities. A Google Drive folder has been put together for blocknet that includes a preliminary style guide, branding, fonts, graphics and even a meme library!
A trading bot channel has been created for those interested in building or testing bots. Join #trading_bot and get started!

The Blocknet core team is developing an official Roadmap with milestones and dates. This Roadmap will be released in the next Newsletter (Jan 30th).
DX API is scheduled for release on March 1st alongside the DX UI Beta launch.
Dates for SPV wallet support will be revealed in the official Blocknet Roadmap slated for Jan 30th.
The team has made significant improvements to the security model of XBridge, the Blocknet protocol (in v3.8.x branch), which now includes DOS protection as well as an orderbook verification system. The new system provides DOS protection by requiring users to include UTXO’s (with proof of ownership) in the order-submission process. Additionally, XWallets are leveraged to watch the chains. If XBridge detects the UTXO’s are being used/spent, the order is flagged.
The DX is currently undergoing stress testing and reviews for bugs.
Error and bug tracking for the wallet updates have also been taking place.
A trading library is in development, which would consume the DX API and make bot trading simpler.
Jeff(86b) has reached out to Ledger to begin conversation on the process to achieve Ledger support, as well as Ledger integration for the DX.
Work on support for Ethereum and ERC20 tokens is 50% complete. The team is in contact with the 0x team to complete 0x integration. The completion of this task is reliant on the completion of the DX API.

Members redbaron(Baron) and stormingj have been chosen as community representatives as the bridge between the core teams and the community. They will provide feedback and insight on various topics and help ensure the opinions of the wider community reach the core teams and vice versa.
Community members mav137 and Bob are working on a high quality introductory Blocknet video that is expected to be completed in February. The script of the movie is now complete and has been given a green light by the core team.
redbaron is working on some t-shirt designs and hopes to have some mock-ups in the next month or so.

For Superblock 216000, there were a total of 8 proposals submitted to the network for voting. In order for a proposal to pass, it must have a majority in favor and at least 10% of Service Nodes must have voted for that proposal in either direction or abstained. At the time of the Superblock there were 409 Service Nodes meaning each proposal required a minimum of 41 votes. The results of this Superblock are as follow:

ATC Team — Yeas: 111, Nays: 0 — PASSED
Core Development Team — Yeas: 111, Nays: 0 — PASSED
Testing Team & Test Currencies — Yeas: 99, Nays: 0 — PASSED
DX Unit Test and Tooling Team — Yeas: 111, Nays: 0 — PASSED
Project Coordinator — Yeas: 78, Nays: 1 — PASSED
Exchange Fund — Yeas: 79, Nays: 3 — PASSED
Euro Team — Yeas: 73, Nays: 1 — PASSED
Marketing Team — Yeas: 89, Nays: 0 — PASSED

The next Superblock (259200) will consolidate the core team proposals to reduce submission fees as well as make it easier to vote for this team.

The most recent meeting with VSA took place on January 10th and went very well, with Michael(michael), Shane(shane), and Jeff(86b) attending in person. VSA will provide a proposal for the official DX branding this week.
Plans are underway for Core team members to attend as many events as possible in 2018 with the purpose of maintaining a visible presence of Blocknet throughout the year. Details are forthcoming.
There are interviews with ChicoCryptoConsultants and Crypto Lark that are being rescheduled, along with other interviews being planned.
An extensive article is underway currently titled “What is a Decentralized Exchange?” aimed at potential users in Blocknet, which is being worked on by PhilipMarshall, redbaron and Hanni(hanniabu).
Blocknet’s marketing strategy is in the works and the Q1 marketing plan will be released on February 1st. Marketing ambitions include working towards the launch of a new website, web and social media ads, walk-through and informational videos, and event evangelism. There is a growing team of vendors working with the core team to polish Blocknet’s public appearance and create marketing materials. VSA and other larger vendors are being considered for large scale marketing endeavors.
With Blocknet growing over 42,000% last year as well as being in the top 10 coins for growth in 2018 with minimal marketing, we hope a full and extensive campaign will continue the trend with Blocknet emerging from below the radar to reveal itself to a much wider audience in preparation for the full release of the DX.

Ethfinex and the Blocknet team have ongoing communication and Blocknet remains a promising option.
Duality Solutions will be using Blocknet to connect their dual-blockchain architecture for Dynamic(DYN) and Sequence(SEQ).
Bitnation, a platform for decentralized governance, will be using Blocknet to communicate with other blockchain services.

So far 151 coins have been addressed. 38 are currently finalized (21 unannounced, 17 announced) The 17 announced are:

79 coins are in progress for error resolution + finalization.
In addition 23 coins are being reviewed for possible custom integration.
There have been 117 successful orders placed.
The unannounced coins will be revealed through a greater marketing initiative.

Price: BLOCK reached a new all time high of $56.00 on 28th December topping the previous all time high of $43.00.

Circulation: 4,971,950
Market Cap + Ranking: $238.6M USD | 16,898 BTC | Rank 119
Exchanges — BLOCK was recently added to the CryptoBridge exchange and can now be traded there as well as on Bittrex and Upbit. Because Bittrex are not currently accepting new customers it makes strategic sense to have BLOCK available on more than one centralized exchange. Applications have been submitted to major exchanges including Binance, Huobi, and Kukoin.

Current wallet: v3.7.36
Block height: 228345
387 service nodes are currently active.
1,264,531 staked coins are currently active.
The APR 7-day average for service nodes is currently at 18.74% and for staking it is currently 13.58%.
Lockup percentage from service nodes: 38.92%
Blocknet has been added to MasterNodedPro.com; Stats can be viewed here.

Since New Years, Blocknet’s Telegram channel has grown roughly 65% to 740 members.
The proposal forum will be expanded to meet the needs of the community. It will loosely reflect the channels in rocketchat but is still in the early phase of development. ETA is Q1 2018.
A Blocknet Wiki page is currently being created and is approximately 50% complete. Rough ETA is late Q1 2018.
Social Media and Websites: Steemit / Newsletter / Blog / Facebook / Twitter / Reddit / Telegram / Rocket Chat (Primary) / Slack (Phasing Out) / BitcoinTalk / Website / Protocol Website / Proposal Forum

Many thanks for reading. We hope that you are excited as we are with the future of Blocknet. If any of the above has resonated with you, then please let us know because we need and value your contribution. A decentralization project fundamentally requires an engaged community. If you would like to help with anything, have something to add, offer your professional skills or have a problem, we want to know about it. You can share your feedback for the newsletter in the surprisingly named #newsletter-feedback channel in Rocket Chat. Please also be aware that a community project is run by a diverse group of people with varying time-constraints (in a number of time-zones) and personal lives, so remember to be kind and patient!

Our next update is due on January 30th, 2018. You can subscribe to this update here. Until then we look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

The Blocknet Team

Word on the BLOCK: January 15th

Written by The Blocknet Protocol