RaiBlocks Newsletter 6th August 2017 (Issue: 2)Welcome to the second issue of the RaiBlocks Newsletter which is published every 2 weeks and aims to summarise developments in the raiblocks cryptocurrency ecosystem.
Core Wallet/Node DevelopmentSince the last newsletter there has been a lot of work on the core wallet/nodes, there have been 26 commits including work to reduce the IO load of the nodes, additional RPC commands, updates to the submodules including an big update to the latest Beast git, and a lot of work on improving syncing. Code as been from 3 contributors with 1018 line additions and 16343 line deletions. For more details see
https://github.com/clemahieu/raiblocks One of the contributing factors to the slow sync reports is that there are people running old versions of wallets/nodes, please upgrade to the latest release as this will help support the network. In the future old wallets/nodes will not be supported and are likely to be forced off the network.
Third Party Services - RaiWalletBot achievement: 50,000 users, 75,000 xrb accounts
- YapRai Wallet has now over 3500 users
- BlockFevr (
https://blockfevr.com/game/dice/XRB) has 600+ users, 131000 bets, in total 91000xrb has been bet, biggest profit was 900xrb for an 80xrb deposit - the team are now working on version 2
- RaiGames (
https://raigames.io/) has 7700+ users, 25000000xrb have been wagered and someone won a jackpot of 55518xrb
User Interviewicarusglider (@icarusglider on slack, @icarusglider on twitter)
1)How did you find out about RaiBlocks?I found XRB in June of this year while looking for worthwhile projects to become involved with and invest in. This was during peak ICO hype and someone compared it to IOTA at a lower market cap. I investigated and was hooked- it reminded me of when I found bitcoin in 2010 on Slashdot, early and rough around the edges but promising!
2) How have you used RaiBlocks?I've been using RaiBlocks primarily as an investment and have been buying and trading it since I found it. I'm a fan of bustabit so of course I've played some rounds at raigames.io
3) How can we make RaiBlocks more accessible?Right now, the main barrier to mass adoption is ease of use. As the wallet reaches maturity and these issues are ironed out, adoption into other exchanges will certainly help with exposure to the public and it can really start growing. I'm fascinated by Colin's idea for using RaiBlocks as a micro transaction platform to support sites, allowing you to send small amount when browsing in order to avoid seeing ads on sites. Further, I am actively working on my own understanding of the protocol and code to develop a mobile wallet for Android and IOS.
Scam AlertPlease be aware that a scam ‘light online wallet’ has been published called myraiwallet.com (this is different to raiwallet.com) - please be cautious as it asks for your wallet seed, by handing this over you also hand over control of your wallet.
Dev ProfileMikeRow (@mikerow on slack)
1) What Projects Do You Work On?I'm actually mostly keeping faucet running, with the cooperation of Timothy. It consists on keep your eye on distribution payout several hours per days. When updates are available I usually update my easyraikit scripts on GitHub.
2) When did you get involved with RaiBlocks?I knew XRB as investment more than 1 year ago. After some troubles I decided to run a new website which was then used as "official" website and faucet.
3) Where do you see RaiBlocks in 5 years time?With a good core team, useful tools (lightwallets for every device) and a bit of adoption by services as payment option, I see it very very fine.
4) If someone wanted to help RaiBlocks whats the best way they can?I suggest to fill the lacks we are having in terms of tools, talk about it or help the devs core with commits. Some interesting devs joined and I hope good things will come out next months.
Technical Analysis of a FeatureWhat is PoW?All cryptocurrencies are at risk of spam transactions where someone sends a large number of small transactions which clog up the network. As RaiBlocks has no fees and is fast it would be particularly at risk to spam attacks and so every transaction requires Proof of Work, a small calculation is performed to send or receive a transaction. Therefore if you try to send lots of transactions it will take up CPU time. This works well but does provide a challenge to bigger services such as exchanges or online wallets - this can be overcome with more cpu power, using a GPU for accelerated calculations or in the future off loading the work to another service.
Next NewsletterIf anyone would like to review a 3rd party service then please get in touch, will be happy to donate some xrb for your time (depending on the quality of the review!). Also if you have a service you want included or just wanted to get involved please contact me @jaycox on slack.
