Jumping around Slack, Telegram and Discord channels the mood isn’t to positive at the moment. We had an incredible run up a couple of months ago but price-wise we’ve been going down for a while now and by the looks of it, this isn’t stopping any time soon. Tough luck, part of the deal. Things can’t go up forever and you need to deal with the bad times just as much as the good times. Now as we are all depressing about the price, let’s look away from that factor and focus a bit more on some research and upcoming developments. Spoiler alert! I am a delegate in Ark and Persona and will focus my attention there, so in case you don’t have an interest in those areas or feel like this is an attempt to shill, click away my friend.

Ark 2018

Well, price in 2018 wasn’t that glorious but let’s be fair… most projects haven’t done that well price-wise if we compare it to where they were January 1st 2018. Forget about that for a second, think long term, and focus on what projects are actually doing right now. I was fortunate enough to be able to attend consensus and talk to team members personally as well as join some of the presentations that were given. This trip gave me a re-vitalized confidence in Ark and their long term objective to make blockchain accessible and interconnected.

For one, Ark promotion was everywhere at Consensus. On elevators, escalators, in presentation rooms, stairs, lunch hall, you name it. At Consensus itself this has a great effect. I’ve personally had several conversations with people coming up to me asking more questions about Ark and afterwards explaining the desire to dive deeper into it. Now does Consensus all of a sudden makes us well known all across the globe? No, but see it as a piece of a puzzle, and maybe this was a nice corner piece upon which Ark can build further. One special call out to the biz_delegates and Del, they gave a great Ark meet up the Friday before consensus and also on consensus were an incredibly positive influence.

Besides talking to people myself, much more importantly, it was clear that Ark core team members were incredible active and open in engaging with people. There wasn’t a moment without people chatting with team members at the Ark booth. I also thoroughly enjoyed the conversation I had myself with them in which to me it became clear the focus they have on executing V2 well. There is a focus on delivering a solid product. I can tell you from my own experience in working at a large company that many times we launch something before it’s ready and it causes such a shit ton of issues, stress and setbacks.

I admire the stance Ark takes where the will launch when it is good and ready and not before. The way the team spoke in general about the future of Ark gave me confidence that the team is in it for the long haul and because they stand by the vision they have created. I believe that Ark’s Core V2 will start a new time for Ark, again that doesn’t mean that right upon launch everybody goes to the moon a millionaire and drinks White Russians all day long. It means a fundamental stepping stone has been created allowing Ark and it’s community to take on new endeavors. Plus, later this year we’ll see the Ark and Blockport partnership crystallize!

Persona 2018

Talking about stepping stones! Persona (short intro to Persona here) has launched, delegates are forging and first partnerships have been announced. Now in my honest opinion, Persons was off to a rocky start. But let’s not forget, these are start ups. Sometimes we might confuse these fresh blockchain companies with giants such as Google, Facebook, Amazon or Microsoft. These are start ups that have a lot to learn, make mistakes and every now and then prove to be a rare gem. I think Persona has a decent shot at being a gem especially if Ark’s Core V2 proves to be a boost to grow the Ark Ecosystem. And even without Core V2 Persona is hammering away now:

It’s a project you need to be in for the long haul, it will take some time to build up a good base. But then you’ll have a solid position. To me personally the delegated proof of stake system also mentally always makes it a little bit easier to just put everything on my ledger and store it away as the staking continues. There is something re-assuring about the idea that more coins are being added to your stack on a regular basis.

Interested?

As stated, in both Ark and Persona I have a delegate running together with tk0n called The Foundry. If you have an interest in either one of these projects, check out our proposal (Persona & here for Ark). However I do want to stress, you don’t have to vote for us if you have an interest. There are 51 forging delegates. Check out some of the other proposals as well and especially proposals of delegates that have a positive influence on the development and community of a project. Personally I am wary of proposals that merely exist to share a maximum percentage of rewards and nothing else. I like a delegate that invest in either developing the project further or growing the community. That will also have a much larger effect on any rewards long term.