It’s Official: Lightstreams is Launching!
Mainnet Go-Live on 31 March 2019


I am pleased to announce that the Lightstreams Main Network (mainnet) will be live on 31 March 2019. Pending a final security audit, the total supply of Photon (PHT) tokens will be allocated in the first genesis block of the Lightsteams blockchain, ready for distribution.

This momentous occasion is something that I know many of you have been waiting for and I am truly grateful for your patience and support while we made sure that everything was in place to be able to commit to this date.

More information on our main-net launch can be found via this link: https://medium.com/lightstreams/its-official-lightstreams-is-launching-5a6c7cbaabf4.

Announcement: Lightstreams Token Sale - Pre-registration

Pre-registration for the Lightstreams Token Sale is now open
Today, we’re very excited to announce that the pre-registration for the Lightstreams token sale is now open. People interested in contributing during our token sale can submit their registrations by following the “Pre-register” link on the Lightstreams website.

What is Lightstreams?
Lightstreams is an Ethereum-based blockchain that has been developed with enhancements for improvements in speed and privacy. Decentralised Applications (DApps) built on Ethereum are 100% compatible with Lightstreams. With secure private file sharing, Lightstreams is the best alternative to Ethereum & EOS available today.


Why pre-register?
Users that pre-register are guaranteed to be able to participate when the token sale goes live (as long as they meet the minimum requirements for participation).

When is the token sale?
An official announcement will be made and all preregistered users will be notified by email when the token sale goes live.


To pre-register, join or mailing list or find out more please visit https://www.lightstreams.network/.

We've been neglecting bitcoin talk for too long, so, here's an article on how we're releasing an API based coin creation framework (CoinFactory) as part of the Lightstreams Network SDK.

https://medium.com/@mikesmolenski/icos-without-the-pain-coinfactory-180a94a9e01

We'll be using CoinFactory as a foundational piece for Fanbase the 1st real-world DApp that runs on Lightstreams.

Next question:


We have split our growth strategy for Lightstream into 2 separate paths.

Growth Path 1 - The Network & bringing developers and partners on-board.

We strongly believe the future of Lightstreams depends on the developers and organisations that choose to work with the Lightstreams SDK. Technically these are not customers but peers, and, as such we are now moving towards replicating the great developer communities you can find though communities such as what monzo or ethereum has. It is a lot of work to get us there and right now most of our resources are focused on dev but we have already started the transition (We also have great educators such as Lukas Lukac on board helping with developers learning .

Growth Path 2 - Our in-house DApps (eg Fanbase) and getting them to be popular

Our plan for our DApps is to license or sell rights to the technology to 3rd parties who already are involved within the industry. Fanbase is already in the radar of music industry executives as they see it as a way to stop having Facebook/Instagram/Spotify as intermediaries between their artists and the fan community. Most likely we’ll partner with an organization that wants to fund Fanbase such that their artists can get on board (and bring with them a lot of fans!).

For us it is somewhat of a chicken and egg scenario as we know that without Fanbase (or LightDrive) gaining traction then we won’t have as much exposure as we like, and we feel this is necessary to get more people onboard to Lightstreams (as they’ll see what cool things can be done).. But at the same time we need Lighttreams live first before Fanbase

I hope I did a good job, but you can always hit up Andrew Zappella on our next AMA for concrete steps he's bringing into play on these topics.

Thanks for that question. Actually, you can try it by yourself as we have all the basic documentation ready for you:

Getting started with Lightstreams is quite simple. It is a simple as executing this command:

$ leth init --noderid=1 --network=rinkeby

Lightstreams requires downloading each of these components:


Leth - The Lightstreams SDK which is an abstraction of the Lightstreams’ Ethereum-based blockchain and Lightstreams’ enhanced IPFS protocol.
Geth (current)- Currently required for running against the Rinkeby test network (showcasing Ethereum compatibility).
Lightchain (Q1 2019) - Geth + Tendermint. The application layer of the Lightstreams blockchain that runs Tendermint Proof of Authority (PoA) as opposed to Proof of Work (PoW) consensus for Ethereum.
DSSN: - The Lightstreams’ Distributed Secure Storage Network is an enhancement of the IPFS protocol for storing protected content in

The Leth SDK becomes your single point of contact for utilization of all of the ethereum and IPFS related API end-points.

Once these services are up and running you can then start integrating with the Lightstreams SDK to utilize the network.

Wiki HOWTO
https://wiki.lightstreams.network/getting-started-with-lightstreams-node/

API Specification
http://wiki.lightstreams.network/docs/#tag/user

Thanks for your feedback. I will update the intro by including these links.

To be honest, we have a Telegram channel and a Telegram chat as well. But mostly it is about token sale issues (and we have our token sale postponed to the next year due to market conditions).

And we came here and on reddit to join the discussion around blockchain technology, the use of tokens, privacy on the blockchain, and also get the feedback from the community for sure.

Our AMA is still ongoing. It is your chance to get some inside information about what's happening inside a blockchain company, TGE related information, and more.

Next question was:


The Lightstreams’ Distributed Secure Storage Network is designed to ensure DApps running on Lightstreams can only access content that the content creator has given access permission to. This is the primary guarantee that Lightstreams can offer to entities running on the network.

If a user of a DApp (that is running on Lightstreams) subsequently extracts from this DApp the content and then stores it locally or sends it or distributes it to others, then this is a simple matter of breach of copyright.  The outcome would be no different to someone copying music from Spotify or extracting a video from Youtube.

There is however no limitation stopping DApp developers from adding their own DRM or watermarking to make creatives/content traceable and then the individual who copied/shared would be directly punishable by law.

The first question was about Lightstreams technology and how we built it:

Lightstreams is an enhanced Ethereum compatible network that utilizes core technologies that include Tendermint, IPFS, and Ethereum (Geth).

One of the key features that Lightstreams brings is what we have termed the "Smart Vault" - a decentralised data store for sharing protected content. The Smart Vault is an enhanced version of IPFS that is integrated with the Lightstreams blockchain. In case you don't know, IPFS is a distributed storage protocol for content. A lot of our work has been focused on enhancing IPFS with an authorization layer such that access control (ACL) to content can be managed by smart contracts on the blockchain. This is important as any content recorded to a blockchain is accessible to everyone on the blockchain network.

The Smart Vault allows blockchain developers to build applications that have:

* Permissions & Privacy - An app can have special links where the user is able to share content privately with other users. The data addressed by the link is not accessible by the app's creators or any other third party except those that the user has approved. It is a true peer-to-peer way of distributing content - the data never touches the app creator's servers.

* Monetizable Content - Users of a DApp control, manage and monetize their own content directly with other users. This way, users can maximise revenues by avoiding fees associated with traditional content publishing services.

* Multiple Permission Groups - Lightstreams apps enable users to create distinct firewall-style rules for granting access to content in a granular manner. This means that selected content can be distributed to a defined group of nodes / users in the decentralised network.

The project started in 2017 when we won a hackathon award for the first prototype of Lightstreams demonstrating how protected content can be distributed is a decentralised manner using access control permissions in combination with blockchain technology. We believe the Smart Vault is a key piece of technology for developing more sophisticated apps that are going to help bring greater adoption to this space.

Make sure to join us at our AMA session on Reddit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/a7kru9/lightstreams_the_smart_vault_for_ethereum_our_ama/k/lightstreams_ama_is_on/

Our core team of Michael, John, Lukas, and Gabriel is ready to answer all of your questions, including:
- Lightstreams and how we built it
- How to build dApps on LS
- What is in the pipeline for our upcoming products
- Privacy
- Our remote team / environment
- Blockchain/PHT
- Proof-of-Authority
- How to develop useful skills in the blockchain industry
- Self-sovereign identity

AMA would be running for 24 hours, so make sure to join at any comfortable time.

Coming soon...