**Corrected some typos**
Spread Project Weekly Update #328th August 2015Development UpdateDevelopment has been much slower than the team has been aiming for. The reality is that we all have day jobs that we need to pay our rent, mortgages, bills and mining hardware addictions. The result of this is that whilst there has been plenty of planning and discussion taking place, little progress has been made in terms of progression towards the next round of testnet testing.
Our current position is that the developers are going to be mainly occupied with their day jobs for at least the next two weeks, subject to change due to various variables. Whilst progress in other areas can continue at pace, the team agreed yesterday to find a solution to the resource shortage.
Yesterday there was a lengthy discussion about the possibility of reaching out to competent people who can help with the aspects that Georgem and Chaos think can be taken off their list of things to do as the scope of the overall work is becoming more tangible. Essentially, the proposal is that we create peripheral work packages and terms of engagement and look to the crypto community for assistance in delivering those work packages.
In terms of overall project position we are approaching a tipping point. Once we have Proof of Bitcoin Node in testnet we hope and expect that the community will grow and that this will lead to a greater number of people helping with testing allowing us to focus our developer resources in either a tactical or strategic way, whichever is more appropriate for the path of the project.
The difficulty we have right now is that whilst we have the skills to get PoBN to testnet, we don’t have the time to do so quickly enough to keep up with the future plans identified in the PoBN whitepaper and the recently issued BIP (more on those later).
We would be very grateful for views and suggestions from the community on the issues described above. We know of some very experienced developers who might be able to assist and would welcome any suggestions or offers for us to consider. In the meantime, the core team will continue to focus on the sections of work that contribute to the overall project but might seem less important compared to getting testing started again. The foundation work is never truly appreciated but it does need to be done. (More on that next week when we might be able to talk about the masternode debugging tools).
Bitcoin Improvement ProposalWe have published a draft BIP via the Bitcoin Development Mailing List outlining a proposal to create a new mechanism to fund mining which may obviate the bitcoin block size debate over the long-term and permanently remove fees as a barrier for users.
Some excellent feedback has been received and most criticism has been constructive. As a result of the feedback, we are going to split the BIP in to two separate BIPs in order to make the overall proposed objectives more manageable.
Spread, Openstream & PoBN Web SitesA web site has been set up for Openstream, PoBN’s future portal. The initial content is currently being written by Stonehedge and the new site will be live as soon as possible.
The Spread team have realised that Spreadcoin.info requires some updating, especially with links to the BIPs and whitepapers and Stonehedge will make the changes in due course.
Spread not SpreadcoinThere was a proposal to change project name from Spreadcoin to just
Spread. While a decision has not been formally made, we wanted to live with the change for a week or two to get some feedback.
ShibesMoonA pilot of the vanity gen competition is ongoing on the Dogecoin sub-Reddit. There has been some interesting feedback and some good points raised. More on this next week.
Chaositec’s MultipoolChaositec’s multipool (
http://miningcores.com/) has finished testing and is up and running with impressive performance statistics. Two separate 24 hour tests showed that it is possible to rent Sha256 hashing power from Miningrigrentals.com and make an overall BTC profit using the pool! If you have any miners available we recommend you give the pool a try for a few days. Obviously performance depends on market conditions but at the moment, the results are excellent.
Chaositec has hired a front end designer who will be implementing a nice shiny front end around the 31st August.
Chaositec reports that the overall exchange project (including Spreadcoin payouts) is about 80% complete but Chaositec is about 70% depleted ☺
Please note that the pool is currently down for maintenance and a few bug fixes. Normal service will be resumed soon.
CommunicationsStonehedge apologises for the lack of update last week. As promised the updates will continue on a weekly basis.