An update from w/ Fedoracoin: The dedicated Fedoracoin payment platform

Hi Bitcointalk!

It's been a while since we updated here so it's time to let you know what's happening.

First off, here's the email we sent to all registered developers last Sunday:

Newsletter to registered developers

Quote

** Hello developers, site owners and fans of w/!
------------------------------------------------------------
A lot has happened since our last newsletter so we're writing you to give you a few updates.

**
On our development progress
------------------------------------------------------------
We're happy to announce that both the REST API flow (http://dashboard.withfedoraco.in/docs/payment_flows/rest_api) and the Simple client-sided flow (http://dashboard.withfedoraco.in/docs/payment_flows/simple_client) are working great.
The simple client-sided flow offers the user-friendly approach we were looking for.
There's still a few minor issues we need to look in to (for instance, users can't refresh the page right now since they'll lose the in-memory transaction secret).

Our main goal with w/ was to provide not only a great UX, but also a great DX.
We're confident that we're well on our way to achieving these goals.
Both finished flows are easy to implement.

We're currently finishing up the most advanced flow: the JS client-sided flow (http://dashboard.withfedoraco.in/docs/payment_flows/js_client) .
Once we're done with that we'll release an example web-app so users can see what it's like to use w/.
This will happen before the platform goes live as a form of stress-testing.

**
On the health of the network
------------------------------------------------------------
You may or may not have seen our announcement on the sub-reddit (http://www.reddit.com/r/FedoraCoin/comments/1wms4h/update_from_w_were_considering_pushing_back_the/) that we were considering pushing back the launch because of the state the network is in.

If you're not familiar with what's happening, you should give this post (http://www.reddit.com/r/FedoraCoin/comments/1wo8jl/a_simple_summary_of_what_is_happening_right_now/) a read.
It indicates the problem and why we're having it.

As you can see in this graph (http://zoom.it/w6oL) (courtesy of icanprogram), the network is a bit messed up right now.
If you're not sure what you're seeing: The line indicates the number of seconds it took to find a block.
For w/, the finding of a block means that we can confirm a transaction.
The target time for finding a FedoraCoin block is 60 seconds, the red line in the graph.
The graph shows that there were blocks that took almost 4000 seconds to solve, which is more than an hour!

When checking a transaction, w/ FedoraCoin uses a minimum of three confirmations as a default.
This means that completing a single transaction could take three hours instead of three minutes!

Because of this, we feel that releasing the platform right now could possibly give users that aren't familiar with the problem the wrong impression of both w/ and FedoraCoin.

We'd love to hear what you guys think about this.
If you have a reddit account, please comment here (http://www.reddit.com/r/FedoraCoin/comments/1wms4h/update_from_w_were_considering_pushing_back_the/) .

**
On coin mixing
------------------------------------------------------------
If you've been following the development of FedoraCoin you probably noticed that it's the first coin to implement coin mixing (https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mixing_service) in the main client.
This will practically make payments untraceable.

We've been working with the FedoraCoin lead developer to ensure that payments sent using this mixing service are handled correctly by w/.
After a few tests we've concluded that everything works fine.

However, during this stage there's only one node online that takes care of mixing and that node only sends transactions every 7 minutes.
Because of this, mixed transactions can take a little longer to reach the network.
Once there are more coin mixing nodes online, this should be solved.

That's all folks!

If you have any questions for us, don't be afraid to reply to this email.

** Regards,
------------------------------------------------------------

** The w/ team

If you haven't registered as a developer yet, you can do so at http://dashboard.withfedoraco.in/

Some screenshots of the client-sided flow

One of the more exciting visual things that have happened is the completion of the client-sided flow.

This is what a user sees when he/she opens the pay link

Once the payment has been sent, we show this screen immediately

When we get a confirmation from the network, we show the user the progress

Once the desired number of confirmations has been reached, the user can continue

Progress on the JS-sided flow

We've started to adapt the simple client flow into the JS-sided flow, which opens up a javascript modal so users don't even need to leave your site.

So far it works great and we feel like we've really captured true DX here.
Developers will be happy to know that all they have to do is include a single JS script, after which which they can create a pay button with this simple element:

Code:

<div class="btn-w-fedoracoin" data-amount="10000000000" data-callback="callback"></div>

Here, callback is the name of a JavaScript function defined anywhere on the page.

This button will render like this (though we're still thinking about branding, so this isn't final):

When the user clicks on that button, this dialog will show up:

As soon as the payment is sent, the screen will update to the following:

When the transaction gets more and more confirms, the screen will update to show that and finally confirm.
After this, the JavaScript callback will be run.

Unfortunately, with the status of the network, we can't show you this right now.

Which is what brings us to the next point...

Development of w/ and the status of the Fedoracoin network

Right now the network is really damaged.

The lead developer of Fedoracoin has implemented a new difficulty re-targeting algorithm which should improve everything in roughly 200 blocks.
However, it's proving a bit difficult to find those blocks.

We'd like to stress that we still believe in Fedoracoin for its technical and social merits and we will be continuing development of w/ Fedoracoin.
Unfortunately though, this whole business the last couple of weeks has really slowed us down.

We've reached a point where we're almost ready to release w/ into the wild, but we haven't tested it enough.
With blocks not coming at the regular intervals, it is impossible to get any real-world testing done.

Because of this, it will take some more time to get all the bugs out.
On top of that, as we've stated before on Reddit, we're afraid that launching in an unhealthy network will scare newcomers away.

To sum is all up

We still believe in Fedoracoin
The payment processor core is done
All payment flows are done
We're still testing but the network is causing troubles
We can't launch with the network like this
The network should improve very soon

Don't forget to visit https://pay.withfedoraco.in/ and don't be afraid to ask any and all questions in this thread!