IoTeX Project Update #7–8/10/18–8/31/18
Token Release Schedule
Since we issued the IOTX token in late May, we have learned a great deal regarding the role of our token in the broader IoTeX ecosystem. The IOTX token will play a crucial role in the IoTeX Mainnet — it will be used as “gas” for the blockchain, root/subchain management, network-wide governance, and more. After much deliberation, and taking these considerations into account, we believe the most effective approach to guarantee a thriving IoTeX Mainnet is to align our token distribution schedule with the public launch of the IoTeX Mainnet in Q1 2019.
We couldn’t have made this decision alone. We are lucky to have the support of our community, who have provided valuable feedback to us every step of the way. Over this past month, we have also discussed several potential options with our private sale investors, IoTeX core team, and advisors, who are most affected by this decision due to the extended lockup of their tokens. We are appreciative to have their overwhelming support, which reaffirms their long-term belief in our project, and are even more motivated than ever to deliver on our vision.
Token Release Schedule Update Details
Distribution and Locked IOTX Tokens
On August 24, we have announced the rotation of accounts holding locked IOTX tokens to ensure security best practices. This is highly necessary as we prepare for the upcoming distribution of IOTX tokens. Before the end of August, as scheduled, 1.9% of the total token token supply will be released. For the full details of our token distribution schedule. As scheduled, the tokens will be distributed from the IoTeX Ecosystem and Community Reward Program buckets.
Testnet Beta (Codename “Epik”) Release
On August 29, we launched the last of our Testnet phases, Testnet Beta (Codename “Epik”)! It was an extremely thrilling day as this is not only the last phase before IoTeX enters Mainnet, but also the first opportunity we have allowed you, our community, to send transactions and directly interact with one another within our Testnet environment.
You can check out the code on Github here
IoTeX firmly stands behind prioritizing usability, which plays a crucial role in bridging users, developers, and IoTeX. This priority has navigated us in highlighting the implementation of smart contracts and wallet in Epik, allowing us to begin gathering feedback on usability features that are crucial to the developer experience. We encourage you, our community, to interact and send transactions to your friends to test out our wallet features!
Detailed instructions for running the Epik code are provided in this README.file , and our detailed demo videos can be found here
Testnet Beta (Codename “Epik”) Details
Welcome Tian Pan to our Tech Team!
Tian has just joined us as a Staff Software Engineer to architect and develop products. Prior to IoTeX, he was a senior software engineer and tech lead at Uber, improving user experiences and security through sign-in, sign-up, account management. From Yale University, Tian studied computer science and decentralized systems.
Partnerships
From our last project update, we have since announced 5 additional amazing strategic partners to join our Partnerships program. We have ambitious goals for each one and are striving to make them a reality as soon as possible in alignment with our own roadmap as well.
Strategic Partner — Weeve: Partnering to Enable Trusted IoT Data Marketplaces
On August 15, we unveiled our fourth strategic partnership with Weeve, a Berlin-based project building a decentralized platform to transform IoT data into tradeable digital assets. Weeve uses patented cryptographic technologies to attest data (i.e., certify the originating source, harvest, process, transport etc. of ‘digital asset’ to the blockchain for trading) and curates a platform for entities to deploy novel data monetization services based on this certified data.
With Weeve, IoTeX aims to offer a promising alternative to securely store and trade IoT data as a digital asset, while pushing data ownership to the end user.
Weeve Strategic Partnership Details
Strategic Partner — Celer Network: Bringing Internet-Level Scalability to IoTeX Blockchain
Following our announcement with Weeve, we introduced our strategic partner Celer Network, one of the premier projects working on off-chain scaling solutions and research. Co-founded by four Ph. Ds from MIT, Princeton, UC Berkeley, and UIUC, Celer Network is blockchain agnostic and horizontally scalable, combining a unique technology and economic architecture to drastically increase the scalability of blockchains through off-chain scaling techniques.
IoTeX and Celer are partnering to change the status quo and increase the scalability, flexibility, and usability of the blockchain. Throughout our technical development, IoTeX will explore and utilize Celer’s off-chain scaling technology to improve the performance of the IoTeX root chain and sub-chains.
Celer Strategic Partnership Details
Strategic Partner — GSENetwork: Empowering an IoT-Driven Global Sharing Economy
Most recently, we revealed yet another strategic partnership with GSENetwork, a Singapore-based project building a decentralized sharing economy network with the goal of eliminating the need for centralized intermediaries and solving trust issues that currently burden the growth of the sharing economy.
The primary purpose of our partnership will be to expand the capabilities of today’s sharing economy by incorporating smart IoT devices, blockchain technology, and token economic incentives. In addition to addressing existing sharing economy issues, our long-term goal is to design and launch a brand new features usable in several sharing economy domains, such as enhanced process automation (e.g., smart locks), traceability of assets (e.g., shared bicycles, shared cars), and privacy of user data.
GSENetwork Strategic Partnership Details
Community Updates
IoTeX General AMA — August 17, 2018
On August 17, we connected with our subreddit community again with another bi-weekly general AMA. We appreciate your continuous curiosity and efforts! We also held another AMA today (8/31) focused on our recent code release of Testnet Beta (codename “Epik”). We will cover the details and recap of this AMA in the next project update!
IoTeX General AMA — August 17, 2018 Details
IoTeX Meetup & Galactic Blockchain Community Happy Hour
On August 19, IoTeX’s Head of BD joined NKN and Theta Network is hosting a great panel discussion in SF for the Galactic Blockchain Happy Hour! Bringing the SF blockchain community together, we would like to thank Starfish Mission for collaborating with us and co-hosting such a successful event. Huge thanks to everyone who came out as well! We had a great time spurring intriguing conversations around blockchain and the crypto space.
International Cryptography Conference 2018
From August 19 to 23, IoTeX’s Head of Cryptography, Dr.Xinxin Fan attended Crypto 2018 which is the 38th International Cryptology Conference held at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). We are honored to have been able to sponsor such an esteemed conference and to create a fruitful discussion with researchers and industry practitioners related to recent progress in areas of blockchain and cryptography who have established great foundations for conducting further collaborative research between IoTeX and crypto communities.
More on this conference, it is organized by the International Association for Cryptologic Research (IACR) and attracted more than 700 participants all around the world this year. Crypto 2018 was preceded by three days of workshops on a wide range of topics such as cryptocurrencies, post-quantum cryptography, TLS 1.3, etc. The main conference focused on advanced cryptography research topics including secure multi-party computation, zero-knowledge proof, homomorphic encryption, and more. As mentioned before, IoTeX sponsored this conference alongside 24 various companies, investment firms, and government funding agencies.
Partnerships & Founders Livestream Campaign
From August 24 to August 28, we held our Partnerships and Founders Livestream Campaign on Twitter! We are overwhelmed with the amount of participation this garnered. You guys were on fire with this! Congratulations to everyone who was able to figure out part #1 and/or part #2’s correct answers. Points will be distributed no later than September 5th!
We also held our Founders livestream today which was made eligible for participants who successfully completed part #1 and/or part #2 of our Partnerships campaign. An updated recap and summary will be posted on this project update over the weekend!
Crypto BBQ
On August 23, our Community Manager Alina attended the first open-air conference to be held in Russia. 30 lectures were given from experts in cryptocurrency, blockchain, and fintech. Among the attendees, we had a chance to meet crypto-enthusiasts, developers, businessmen, investors and representatives from exchanges and VC’s!