Weekly Update #25
As this will perhaps be the final weekly update before 2019, the Stipend team would like to wish everyone involved in the project a “Happy New Year” and to thank you all for your continued support in both the good and bad times experienced throughout the project’s lifespan. This update will consist of a recap of everything that we’ve accomplished over the year as well as our future plans once we finalize the platform.
Yearly Recap
It’s only been ten months since we launched in February, and yet we’ve accomplished quite a bit. Given that this will be the last Weekly Update before the new year, we felt it fitting to go and recap all of our major accomplishments throughout.
Initial Launch
We first launched Stipend’s blockchain on February 10th, 2018, and in spite of the few initial hiccups, were able to produce a stable chain that’s still active and running today. We were able to launch at a point when the demand for MasterNode coins was reaching its peak, and as such hit the ground running, with quite a bit of initial speculation and rapid growth.
Exchange/Site Listings
Crypto-Bridge opened their doors to us on February 14th, just a few days after our launch, and as such we’ve been trading there ever since. Following this, MasterNodes.online listed us on their site shortly after while Delta listed us the very next day. It took until late March until CoinMarketCap followed suit, but this was quite a highly sought-after listing and meant quite a bit for the developing project.
Demo Release
This was our initial iteration of the Stipend platform. We’ve come QUITE a long way since, and have since scrapped pretty much the entirety of what was worked on for this initial showing.
Future Blockchain Summit
In the first week in May, we attended the Future Blockchain Summit in Dubai, in an effort to further market Stipend to a larger audience and get the word out throughout.
The event as a whole was a huge success. We were able to attend quite a few private meetings throughout and had a lot of people visit our booth to learn about our demo and developing platform.
Initial June/July Hard-Fork
This point was the first instance where we realized that Stipend’s code-base that we were working with wasn’t quite up to par with some of the other alternatives, such as DASH or PIVX. The coin that we forked from, Bithold, came with a ton of problems and exploits, and as such we’ve continuously been patching or fixing them as necessary.
Although we’ve been able to turn this code into a somewhat secure option for newer coins, the fact remains that we’re still light-years behind established code-bases, whom have had quite a long head-start on such. The hard-fork at this point was primarily done to fix three major exploits.
- The first had to do with a “difficulty” glitch, in which if a specific, malicious block were added to the chain, then the “difficulty” of the chain would overflow and reset to zero, making it quite easy for the next few blocks to be found
- The second was a “payee” exploit that allowed for an individual to determine which wallet a MasterNode reward would get paid out to. If an individual with a modified wallet were to find a Proof-of-Stake block, then they could specifically decide to payout their own MasterNode with the returns from said block.
- Finally, the last exploit had to do with a “hashing” function that improved the speed at which an individual could search for Proof-of-Stake blocks, giving them an unfair advantage as a result
After some time, we were able to patch and fix each one of these individual exploits as necessary, and get the chain back on track as we continued to work on developing Stipend’s platform.
Proof-of-Work/Mining End
As planned, the option to mine blocks instead of staking came to an end with Block #210,000, on June 4th, 2018. As of this point, the only way to earn coins, rather than buying them, is from simply staking or running MasterNodes.
Platform Development
In mid-June, we made the decision to scrap all the initial front-end work that we finalized on the demo version of the platform, to instead build a scalable, professional version coded with VUE.js and outlined by a professional designer. Although this set us back quite a bit regarding functionality and everything, this decision will absolutely help to differentiate ourselves from the competition, as the final product will look and function much better than the alternative.
We also made a concerted effort a bit later to not only host the platform where everyone could watch development (https://platform.stipend.me/), but also to keep track of every update and bit of progress made, recorded as bi-weekly updates on Medium. Feel free to check them out and browse the many changes made over the last few months.
- Medium Account: https://medium.com/@StipendOff
Delta Conference
The Delta Conference was one of, if not the most important event attended by the Stipend team throughout the year. Not only did it allow for us to meet and talk with important players such as the CEO of Binance, but also to pitch and spread the project to individuals whom had never heard about the coin as a whole.
Just like at the Future Blockchain Summit, the event was quite successful, and we were able to display the first iteration of the platform to extremely positive reviews throughout. To read further about our experiences at the event, take a look at the Weekly Update written:
Conclusion
These events and more primarily conclude Stipend’s first year of existence. As with everything in crypto, it’s been quite a wild ride, with both ups and downs throughout. As we move towards the finalization of both the platform and the preparations necessary to implement a much more secure code-base, we, the Stipend team, would like to thank each and every one of our investors for being involved in the project. Your support, especially in these trying times, is greatly appreciated as we continually work to develop and improve Stipend as a whole.
Future Plans
Over the last eight months, we’ve been building our freelance platform from scratch. As the initial development of such finally draws to a close, we’d like to express a few of our plans for features and further developments to improve its usability and help us to establish a foothold in the market. The fact remains that in spite of the platform’s soon-to-be finalization, our work is truly only beginning.
Perhaps the most pressing matter deals with Stipend’s blockchain, however. For the last few weeks, an individual has been using a script to take advantage of an exploit in Stipend’s MasterNode functionality to earn a decent amount of coins maliciously. Although this exploit was quickly fixed in Update #5.1.0.1, the decision of users to continue to stake on Update #5.1.0.0 as well as the fact that this individual has already earned quite a number of coins has ensured that we either need to hard-fork once more or instead make swap preparations as we move to a more secure code-base. For the security of the project in the long-term, we’ve decided to take the latter route, and as such have been preparing for this eventuality as necessary.
Recently, we’ve also made the decision to close deposits on Crypto-Bridge, in order to stop the individual responsible for the exploit from doing any further damage to the coin throughout. Regarding the swap as a whole, however, we’ll be making a later announcement in which you’ll be able to go and swap your coins for those on the new chain.
On a lighter note, however, there’s just a few more things we need to finish on the platform before it’s ready to be fully released throughout. While these swap preparations have thrown a wrench in our payment module’s development and forced us to put it on hold until the new chain is finalized, the rest of the platform on our servers is pretty much complete — at least functionality-wise.
There are a few things that still need to be cleaned up and the CSS could be improved a bit, but the swap should ensure that we don’t have to worry about the chain’s stability, allowing us to focus on the platform development.As of right now, we expect to finalize the updated chain within the next few days and make the announcement for the official swap as soon as it’s completed.
Besides this, though, to speak further on some of our “actual” future plans, we’d like to reiterate a few individual systems mentioned in previous Weekly Updates that we are actually currently working on implementing throughout the platform, each of which we expect to help make Stipend stand out as both a freelancing platform and a currency throughout:
We expect this to be an important part of the platform. The ability to “lock” funds to their fiat value throughout the job’s lifespan will remove the problem of volatility when it comes to discussing how a Freelancer/Client will receive/pay for the job completed.
The increased promotion and utility aimed at larger companies is something that we expect to improve Stipend’s ability to become more mainstream, as well as something that even established Freelance platforms are lacking in their entirety.
This system is something that we expect to implement in the future, which will in turn reward both individuals involved in a job if said job is completed without any problems throughout.
Overall, though, we expect that each of these systems working in sync with one another will truly help Stipend differentiate itself from other platforms and allow for us to solve many of the problems inherent in using volatile currencies as a form of payment.
Exchange Voting
We’re also currently involved in a few voting competitions in which the winner get’s a free listing. You can help us out by pledging your vote using the links below:
- Cryptaldash: https://www.cryptaldash.com/new-coin-listing/stipend
- Aiodex: https://aiodex.com/vote/stipend
- Shardax: https://shardax.com/votes/coin?coin=Stipend%20(SPD)
- Oodlebit: https://oodlebit.com/coinvoting.php
Thank you again for all your support in the last few months! We’re working hard daily, doing all that we can to build up Stipend as a world-class cryptocurrency!
Donations
SPD Donations : Sjy1V27DxWtwcGVEHgaRV688WjWxzDqYsX
BTC Donations: 14dKcsrFTVvhWbEw1K4KHibRPGzhjiSNar
ETH Donations: 0xb4142B7cC3A2Be7bAc437482CeBB1867e89a056e
LTC Donations: Ld2fe8voH5eTzqNCmfwenbrA66FzASfnMT
Social Media
Twitter: http://twitter.com/StipendOff
Telegram: http://t.me/StipendOfficial
Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/stipend
Discord: http://discord.gg/Q6vyckx
Note that we are most active on our Discord, with us and over a dozen Community Helpers/Managers, offering 24/7 support. We’d be happy to answer any questions and inquiries that you may have.
