NXTER.ORG

Nxter News | December 2018 (II)

Attitude is a Little Thing
that Makes a Big Difference

Welcome, dear Nxters and other followers!

Attitude. If you haven't been building, testing or playing around with all the Ignis functionality on testnet, you might have forgotten that Jelurida recently speeded up Ardor to generate new blocks every 10 seconds. No hiccups, it's just fast. Jelurida is in no hurry to bring this to the mainnet - not until it's necessary, they say.

You can't read that in the news.

It's a matter of attitude. Some teams focus on GUI first, expensive video commercials and PR's about killer features they haven't even started to code yet. They show attitude. They prioritize influencers, "partnerships" with tech celebrities, little progress > big announcements. How else to make headlines? You gotta look like a million to make a million. Why? They find it necessary. And maybe it is just that.

If the users are impressed, it'll start their engines. You'll find them promoting the product to friends, sharing their belief in it on social media, youngsters so eager to be seen as first movers that "found" this awesome new tech, sooooo cool! Attitude.

The NRS (Nxt Reference Software) Client, which is still Jelurida's official client for both Nxt, Ardor, and all child chains, was developed by an early Nxt community member, and it was one of 5+ great wallets back then. When the Nxt core developers decided to adopt it, other wallet devs stopped developing theirs, and the client GUI hasn't changed much since, only more and more features have been added. Today, most people forgot - or wasn't told - that it's a "reference software client", originally meant to be a dev tool. Every little button in it makes perfect sense for the core devs, but new crypto users, who aren't expecting an advanced dev client, are scared off. What used to be the most impressive crypto wallet in existence has become overloaded, simply because core functionality has exploded. Now, we, the community, talk about the tech and the endless possibilities of combining Nxt's and Ignis/Ardor's features into new functionality. We get tired of talking... and then we talk some more, we can't really onboard people by pointing them to an attractive user-friendly client, web wallet, or "official" mobile app, or an easy-to-understand website. 

Do we have a problem? Yes. Is there a reason for it? Yes. And a good one:

Second generation smart contracts, lightweight, stateless, oracles, check. Easy KYC-and AML-ready token creation, 1-click dividend payments, inbuilt cross-chain DEX. Zero-fee transactions. Check, check, check. Parent-child chain architecture running in production. Scalable PoS solution. Subnets coming. And this week: another new stable Ardor main net version was released. Our problem? Who knows.

It's a red sea, and many of those well funded, well-marketed blockchain visionaries that made it to the media and CMC top 20 are taking new headlines again: they have already burnt their millions it seems - even before launching a mainnet. Their celebrity promoters are being hunted down by TAX authorities, and yes... mainstream reporters LOVE IT! Breaking! Blockchain: oversold, overhyped, overbought, run by stupid inefficient market-crashing money-spending unregulated big fucking attitudes. With pretty but featureless wallets, mockups, whitepapers, and high market cap, all over the news. Large corporations must love it too, gives them a chance to catch up. But that's the reported truth we're up against. Backed by the market mayhem. They said they would have our features. They failed.

It's a good time for Jelurida to show a new product. An attitude. To attract customers. To get more devs and blockchain-ready businesses to understand their BaaS offering. We're so good, but others must build Dapps and attractive GUI's to kick off any network effect. So darn good, that it's a fact we have a better core tech than IBM, Amazon, Microsoft, Ethereum. What we do NOT have, though, is obvious proof, In-Yo-Face-proof, because proof is presented in an inaccessible way, unless you're Jean-Luc, dev by the age of 2. For 4 years the core dev team's attitude has been: build it and they'll come. For 1 year it's been: we're here to sell our tech and do business. Spark a revolution, but make money and protect our IP. Scale and develop the shit out of the competition, decentralize everything, but also make sure that we, as real people, as a legal entity, can't be convicted for anything illegal, even if it's all decentralized.

To go viral, we need to start building useful Dapps, with UI/UX designers to onboard masses. 10 sec block times on the main net - not necessary, they say. Sure. Mainnet doesn't have enough transactions at the moment for it to make sense, and Jelurida develops solutions for developers and businesses, not just for show. FOMO, ignore it, troll it, or love it. Nxt PoS, Ignis, and the Ardor platform, and the new version release might turn the tides. Win a great market share for what it is. Jelurida is a software company. They are here to build and hire. And show attitude. If you're reading our newsletter, you know blockchain won't go away. You might as well start programming. Choose an undervalued, scalable blockchain platform to work on, and come with a good attitude. Let us know what you're working on. We are here to help.

 

JELURIDA

> Ardor v 2.2.1
> Jelurida Is Hiring 
> New Hackathon Deadline and Events

COMMUNITY

> A Week With Triffic
> Tarasca DAO Auction

BUSINESS

> AEUR
> MPG Accepts AEUR
> EZYcount ICO: Final Days!

EXCHANGES

> Top 3 Exchanges by Volume This Week

DEVELOPMENT

>Contracts Security


This week's newsletter is put together by apenzl, Jose, and rubenbc.
Translations are published as they come in - Spanish | Russian | Chinese | Korean

Jelurida Status Update

 Ardor v2.2.1

All nodes must update. This new stable release introduces Lightweight Contracts to the main net, new Max Crowdfund (formerly Dominium) child chain, Asset Properties and API additions. This is a stable release and a mandatory upgrade for all nodes, with block 543000 (Jan 10) as final deadline.

Release 2.2.1
https://www.jelurida.com/

This release adds support for the new Max Crowdfund (formerly Dominium) child chain, token name MPG, to be activated at block 543000 expected to be reached on January 10, 2019.

At the same block, the new Lightweight Contracts and Asset Properties features will also become enabled on mainnet.

Revealing a secret using the ApproveTransaction API will now approve all phased by hash transactions which specified the hash of this secret regardless if they are listed in the phasedTransaction parameter or not.

A new GetHashedSecretPhasedTransactions API will return a list of phased by hash transactions with phasingHashedSecret and phasingHashedSecretAlgorithm as specified.

sha256 checksums:
https://www.jelurida.com/ardor-client.zip
4e6a3075141847252724e13a49d3e8110694a49a08fc22dfd986b53a39f3770d  ardor-client-2.2.1.zip
https://www.jelurida.com/ardor-client.sh
a85546d0e51b58fb9de02f2d3ac0381111c8b739e2798b632825516c61167c2c  ardor-client-2.2.1.sh

The exe and dmg packages must have a digital signature by "Jelurida Swiss SA".
https://www.jelurida.com/ardor-client.exe
https://www.jelurida.com/ardor-installer.dmg

Android Mobile App:
https://bitbucket.org/Jelurida/ardor/downloads/ardor-client-2.2.1.apk
SHA256 784a7159e489418d7b060330ca4d8c8271d5d0076b84b6be1b61a302279beb77

Release log

(Back to the Index)



 

Jelurida Is Hiring

Web and mobile developers
Senior server-side Java engineers
website designer and UI/UX specialist

Get rich quick - burn money quick, that seems to be the consensus mechanism behind many blockchain companies which ran ICO's based on beautiful mockups and whitepapers the last couple of years. Reports of bankrupts and ICO companies now only having funds left to cover expenses for one more year or less is all over the news. Wow. Really, from the bottom of my heart: truly wow.

Nxt and Ardor aren't in the news, as Jelurida didn't burn millions on getting headlines. Instead, they've kept developing their Full Blockchain-as-a-Service product in accordance with their business plan and vision.

Lior writes:

"We have a strong team, great community, enough funds to survive and prosper and amazing challenges and opportunities ahead."

You are invited. Job offers:

Experienced website designer and UI/UX specialist

Senior server-side Java engineers

Web and mobile developers, with strong knowledge of web technologies, including Javascript, CSS, and Node JS

Join the only scalable blockchain platform with a working multi-chain, lightweight contracts, and secure 100% PoS.

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New Hackathon Deadline and Events

> Hackathon Deadline

The deadline for submitting your contracts for the Ardor Lightweight Contracts Hackathon has been set to January 10, 2019. Winners will be announced on January 31, 2019.

> One more time for Africa!

Adedayo attended REGIONAL BLOCKCHAIN & DIGITAL ASSETS SUMMIT 2018 in Nigeria.

Adedayo wrote:

And it was of course a great experience and privilege to present Ardor once again to Africa as we open minds to endless possibilities and benefits of decentralization.

> Pitch Battles 

Jelurida pitched Ardor at the HardFork Decentralized Pitch Battle in London, December 12, as a POST-ICO finalist.
Mobs were there too, selected as 1 of 10 pre-ICO projects to pitch. No cigar, but both projects got some good attention.

Raquel (Mobs CEO) wrote:

Thank you for the support and for sharing. It was a great opportunity and we have received really good feedback! We stayed networking and assisting to other events. It was great to share stage with Ardor and push together in the same direction.

On December 13, Jelurida pitched before a panel of investors & entrepreneurs in Madrid, at Venture Networks, Area 31.

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COMMUNITY

Nxter Puzzle | A Week With Triffic

Every week a puzzle is released for your pleasure. Inside the puzzles lie an IGNIS reward, that the first person to solve the puzzle can lay hands on. Seek Thou Must, to find the hidden passphrase, then withdraw the IGNIS in the account it opens.

This week's special guest: James Malach, founder and CEO of Triffic, and Coinerz Group.

In the Triffic Early Bird Sale that runs from December 3 until December 17, 2018, you can buy GPS tokens for $0.4 per token. 7,500,000 are for sale; first come, first served. There's a bonus for those who purchase for $500 or more: a 12 month's free upgrade to the subscription version of Triffic. Investors who purchase with ARDR will get a 10% additional bonus.

Meanwhile, James is announcing words for this week's Nxter Puzzle. Follow his Twitter feed, pick up the words - if you catch them all, and come first to the prize account, you can claim 100 IGNIS. Prize account is ARDOR-76PT-QZX8-7M82-AYNZX. But wait! THERE'S A BONUS ACCOUNT TOO!

All Nxter Puzzles are listed on nxter.org/puzzles - there more NXT and IGNIS to be claimed.
The puzzle prize is - again - created by Madfox, and kindly sponsored by the Ardor & Nxt Group. Thanks!

Tarasca DAO

The blockchain auction for 5 original Mythical Creatures artworks is live. Bid with IGNIS or AEUR in your Ardor Client . Tarasca introduces the cards and their history on a new website.

Here's the website: https://tarasca.org.

Tarasca is using the Ardor Asset Exchange to auction 5 physical paintings, along with their proof of ownership- and authenticity tokens, which the creator herself has registered on the Ardor blockchain. We've written about Tarasca DAO's project here, and you can find links to their articles about how to register and tokenize art on the Ignis blockchain here.

The five paintings are auctioned from December 10 to December 17. The highest offer will be accepted, whether in Ignis or in AEUR, provided that it exceeds the minimum price of €100. The winner will receive the painting at home by courier, and the property token in his Ardor account. To participate in the auction, log in to the Ardor wallet, enter the ID of the asset corresponding to the painting you wish to buy, and place your purchase order. Here is a tutorial on how to join the auction and place your bid.

The paintings are hand-made by Ana, using the technique of watercolor on paper. Its dimensions are 12.5 cm by 13 cm, except one that is 12 by 13 cm. Learn more about the artist.

Palheiro (from Tarasca DAO) writes:

This week's auctions are an important step for Tarasca, and we would like to explain some of the reasons why we believe it is important that they go well. We encourage you to participate, to those who like the paintings and are thinking whether to bid for them or not.

-Of course, Ana's paintings are great and valuable.
-When the card game is working (end of January or February), if it is successful you can expect the originals to be more valuable than now. And being tokenized, they could be sold easily. That is, more than "spending" it can be an "investment".
-Although we do not expect to get much money from these auctions, the truth is that Tarasca does not currently have funding at all. The money raised will be used to pay the costs of launching the game: server, domains, network fees, translations, etc.
-These auctions will be proof of Ardor's utility for artistic services, specifically for auctions, but also for the effectiveness of the registration and tokenization of works. If they go well, it can be a good publicity tool for the platform as a whole, and it can attract other artists to use it.

The registration and tokenization of 1 artwork had a total cost of 0.145 € (0.005 € registration, 0.14 € creation of the token). The registration serves as proof of authorship and possession by Ana. The registry also specifies the license under which the author’s IP rights are protected. In this case, the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC 3.0). The records and tokens of these works can be monitored publicly, and the works can now be sold or auctioned in a comfortable, fast and cheap way, with the assurance that they are authentic works and not counterfeits.

Talk to the team

Tarasca DAO welcomes your feedback, and you can soon join the open test of their lightweight contract.
https://ardor.rocks/groups/mythical-creatures-of-the-world/forum/

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BUSINESS

Let's get down to business.

AEUR

If you like "real money" but want the advantages of the blockchain, you should look into the AEUR child chain. This Euro-pegged token is not just for money transfers and trading.

AEUR is part of the Ardor platform, so you use it for way more than simple money transactions!
We created this page to let you know more about its inbuilt smart contracts and other advantages. Read it:

You've probably heard about Stablecoins, blockchain tokens pegged to fiat by some entity. Ardor has them too. AEUR is backed 1:1 by Euro, and it works like this: You create a bank account at MisterTango.com, which is fast and easy to do with their mobile app. Then you deposit Euro to the account, and use the Ardorgate service to convert the Euros to AEUR and transfer them to the AEUR child chain. You can now make Euro (AEUR) transfers to others at low rates (€0.0001), use them on Ardor's DEX, trade them against Bitcoin on STEX.com, and withdraw them to your bank account when you want.

And what's more: MisterTango's open API makes it possible to see that the amount of Euro held by Ardorgate equals the amount of AEUR in circulation. Again, not many know this, and that's a shame. In the end, this price stable Euro pegged blockchain token has more functionality than fairly estimated 95% of all blockchains tokens out there. It is just more stable in monetary value.

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MPG accepts AEUR

Max Property Group (a.k.a. Dominium) accepts AEUR as a currency equal to EUR, which earns investors 20% more tokens this week. AEUR allows foreigners to also get this Euro discount.

The rebranding efforts are ongoing, as the new MPG identity is being pushed forward on Twitter, Facebook, Medium, YouTube, and not least there's a new website, https://maxpropertygroup.com, where you can now download brochures, prospectuses, and get insight into the MPG property bonds they offer investors from as low as €1000.

Also announced last week, Max Property Group (MPG) - besides the name change from Dominium - has decided to stop their ITO during Phase 1, on December 31, 2018. There's a massive bonus for early investors, 0.10€ (from January 1st, all remaining MPG tokens will be set for sale at €0.25). On top of that, if you buy with Euro or GBP, there's a 20% discount this week, and next week 10%. No more discounts for ARDR, ETH or any other cryptocurrencies. Except for one.

Martis (CEO, Ardorgate):

I confirm AEUR deposits for MPG are working. Let's not HODL AEUR but show it is a good payment option!

If you are not living in Europe but want to invest in MPG property bonds, this could mean missing out on the 20% bonus. AEUR to the rescue. AEUR is pegged to the Euro and can be bought with IGNIS, ARDR, and BITS on the Ardor DEX, Bitcoin on STEX.com, or with your local fiat currency via bank transfer to Ardorgate, through the MisterTango bank (how-to guide here).

EZYcount's ICO: Final Days!

EZYcount offers lifetime software licenses for its existing accounting software, in form of an innovative software license model based on the Ardor blockchain. It's last chance to buy in.

We've followed EZYcount closely since before they launched their ICO.

During this time, they have attended startup events, won competitions, mingled with experienced advisors and other startups, and been taking care of the existing accounting business, and showcasing their inbuilt willingness to help new startups.

EZYcount wants to fully automate accounting. To develop a system that uses the latest advancement in Machine Learning (ML), Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Document Recognition Technology to fully automate accounting. So what's for sale?

EZYcount introduces a new licensing model: Token as a License (Taal). EZYcount TaaL is a utility token, representing a lifelong (99 years) tradeable software license, that grants access to the EZYcount software suite. The number of the EZYcount TaaL tokens (20M) is fixed. The value of each token is directly related to the number of clients EZYcount will acquire going forward. 1 year subscription licenses will cost customers CHF 400, while the lifelong license costs CHF 2000. And if the lifelong token license can be re-sold for that same price later? Yeah, you see it. You invest in 99 years use of invoicing- and accounting software, and of course the EZYcount team's ability to build it, make it awesome and fully automated with AI, and bring it to market. EZYcount aims for a market penetration of at least 5% in the accounting software market for small businesses in Switzerland, followed by an international expansion.

Vivien Fuhrer, co-founder and CEO of EZYcount writes:

We are looking for investors in our CHF 2Mio round. This is a challenging amount to raise but it is only with this amount that we will be able to fully automate accounting for the self-employed and deliver breakthrough value for our customers. The kind of value that is not easily copied.

Now it's the final week of their public offering. It runs until December 18.

Download the white paper and learn the details and numbers behind EZYcount's offering and future plans. Always DYOR!

(Back to the Index)

EXCHANGES

TRADE

IGNIS | NXT | ARDR

TOP 3 EXCHANGES BY VOLUME THIS WEEK

NXT

coinbit.co.kr
hitbtc.com
poloniex.com

IGNIS

coinbit.co.kr
upbit.com
bittrex.com

ARDR

hitbtc.com
coinbit.co.kr
binance.com

DEVELOPMENT

Contracts Security

Lior Yaffe explains the design that prevents Lightweight Contracts from locking user funds if the contract runner stops. Then he shares how to create uncrackable secrets.

Not only 3rd party developers can enjoy that Ignis has all the features of Nxt . Ardor's core developers enjoy it too. When the core devs at Jelurida started on Lightweight Contracts, they had not yet figured out, how they would prevent a contract from locking user funds in case the contract runner failed (or didn’t want) to run the contract. The solution was found in Nxt, and the reason behind the new API's that were added to the latest Ardor release. You can read about it here.

Lior writes:

NXT has a little-known feature we call “phasing by hashed secret”.
Now we can leverage this small gem (...).

The client funding the contract will specify a hash of a secret only they know. The contract, running based on this trigger transaction, will submit its own transaction using the same “hashed secret”. Once the client reveals the secret, both transactions will be applied together as one atomic operation. If the client decides not to reveal the secret, both transactions will remain in the blockchain but their balance changes will be ignored. Therefore, if the contract fails to run, the client won’t reveal the secret so when the phasing height is reached, its funds will be released. Simple local solution, no need for mass-exit or the like.

How do you create and keep a good secret then?

Lior states:

...code cracking is no longer reserved for Hollywood blockbusters - many people make a decent living from cracking private keys and hijacking cryptocurrency accounts by revealing their secrets.

The secrets we generate must be:

1. Difficult to crack — ideally it should be as strong as an account passphrase.
2. Unique — secrets must be unique since once a secret is revealed its hash can never be safely reused.
3. Simple to remember — in some cases, we need to reveal a secret long after its hash was submitted. Ideally, it should be simple to remember a secret and even possible for the secret generator to recover a secret in case it was lost.

Read here, in another blog post from Lior, how to go about it: https://medium.com/swlh/too-many-secrets-9730f2293e83

(Back to the Index)

- BTW -

Got news for us? Let us know here.

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