End of Month (EoM) Update June 2019

Ethos and Practice what you Preach

Welcome to the first of what will be many End of Month (EoM) updates for the Swap project. As we continue to grow and expand, we are constantly looking for ways to improve our reach and inform those who have an interest in this project as to what is going on. Please remember that this is a community-based effort and we are always open to those who want to help further our goals of becoming a fast, safe, secure, and private cryptocurrency. There is always something to do and skilled volunteers are appreciated. We even have some bounties that need filling rather regularly, check our bounty channel on our Discord server for more information!

It has now been almost eight months since our genesis block was hashed into existence. It’s hard to imagine so much time has already gone by, but it really does feel like it was years ago that we were mining CN Superfast before our fork to C29s. During this time, we have had a very healthy and stable network. The decisions that were implemented in the beginning design phase for the characteristics and functionality of our network have now been proven to perform as expected. To date we have had ZERO network failures or attacks. We have not had to suffer at the hands of Nicehasher’s manipulating us, we haven’t had any rollback attempts, and our coin hasn’t gone offline on any exchange we have been on because of any issues with US. How many coins can say that?

This last week a few things have happened that we would like to draw attention to because we believe it’s a good way to reinforce what our ethos is and to draw a line in the sand as to where we stand on certain market forces. Ethos is a word that has personal meaning for me and for what this project represents. Ethos is not the Linux mining operating system for Ethereum, but the characteristics that guide us as developers, founders, and ultimately as a community.

It came to our attention that last week some individuals were attempting to manipulate the market. This should come as no surprise as this is crypto after all and manipulation is rampant in every sector of this space. However, just knowing that we had nothing to do with these actions isn’t good enough for us. We feel that we need to put on record that the team does not endorse or participate in such activities. We are extremely confident in the technology we have deployed and honestly believe that in due time with enough WORK we will get to where we want to be of our own accord. We DO NOT believe that we need to manipulate the market for gains like other projects.

There was much internal debate about releasing this statement because it is understood that revealing this information to the general public can cut either way. However, we MUST be true to ourselves and the values that we have built. We VALUE transparency and because of our desire to remain open about what transpires, even knowing that this information could be taken negatively, we MUST release it. So, because of this ethos of being transparent about what goes on I give you the following report about the incident after some investigation.

A private investor who frequents the Discord decided last week that he was going to get Swap on CoinMarketCap’s biggest gainers list. In order to do so, he initiated a series of wash trades to increase our volume and he was successful in completing his task. This led to what we believe was an organic pump and we’ve been trading a bit higher and holding our own through the alt bloodbath that has been occurring. Some of you might recall that another private investor was upset a month and some change ago that we did not prop up the price of Swap when we bounced below 1,000 Sats. He ended up rage quitting with a solid QQ and decided to dump his 100k+ coins over a span of time to artificially keep the price of Swap down in an effort to destroy us. The private investor who performed the wash trading to get us on CMC’s biggest gainers list did this because he felt the other investor’s actions were unfair and that we needed a correction. The deed has been done and we as a team can’t do much about it. We cannot control individuals, especially when there is money involved. All we can do is distance ourselves from the activity and give you, our community, our word that we had nothing to do with it.

Outside of that small incident we wanted to report, we’ve been very busy. This is true for a variety of reasons. To stay true to our ethos, I must reveal what many of you have already noticed, Seb Green has taken a small hiatus as he deals with some personal issues that have demanded almost the entirety of his attention. This is a privacy coin because we believe that privacy is important and a human right. However, those of us who started this project are not anonymous. We have sacrificed that which all of you enjoy and many hold very dear for several reasons. Transparency is the first one to come to mind. Do you see a repeating trend here? An ethos if you will? In truth, how can you take this or any project seriously if the developers and founders hide behind masks?

Sacrificing our privacy is good for you but in some ways bad for us. We are now open and exposed to attacks from a variety of vectors, unable to hide behind the anonymity that the Internet grants those who chose to use the tools available. Every single member of this team is all very human. We cut, bleed and hurt physically and emotionally just as much as you do. We simply and firmly ask that everyone respect Seb’s privacy while he deals with the things he needs to resolve and give him the time he needs to get back in his groove and return. His return is not in question in any way, shape or form but his attention is currently on something that is far more important to him personally than anything else. We as a team respect his need for time and privacy and implore you all to do as well.

While Seb has been dealing with the things he needs to, we have been busy trying to improve what we already have. Leafy is not just Robin to Seb’s Batman, he is a well-versed developer in his own right who spent the greater part of the last year working side by side with Seb. He has got Swap 3.0 completed which greatly improves sync times. You guys talk and WE LISTEN. Complaints of sync times, especially from people who want to use the MicroPool have been out there and they were valid. Version 3.0 includes upstream fixes that virtually eliminates all syncing speed problems. Finally, this is working as it’s supposed to. Remember, block verification in C29s is trivial and it’s finally showing off it’s speed!

Leafy has also been hard at work on a technology demo to showcase what developers can do when you have a blockchain that runs as quickly and efficiently as ours. Swap Kitty is a real time RPG blockchain game, where players can adopt and raise their own digital kitties to go adventuring with. A first of its kind, Swap Kitty utilizes the concept of trustlessly verifiable game play. The game features no save states and lives in real time on the blockchain. Every player’s action is recorded on the blockchain, and every AI and RNG are decided using live blockchain data. Any cheating, hacking, or save scumming will not be possible under this system. As a blockchain game, player’s kitties can be accessed, restored, or verified from any computer. Unlike other blockchain games, however, there will be no fees directly associated with Swap Kitty. Each wallet can generate a single kitty, which will not be tradable. Beyond the transaction fees needed to record player’s action on the blockchain, Swap Kitty is free to play. There is still a good amount of work left to accomplish but the game is in an alpha playable state. We had hoped to coincide the alpha Swap Kitty release with the EoM update and our version 3.0 software upgrade, but alas it was not to be. Look for it’s release here very shortly!

In other news, we were just added to Coinbase’s price charts. While not actually giving us the ability to be traded on Coinbase, it is however a very nice addition to what monitoring tools already exists and will surely help introduce new people to Swap. Perhaps one day in the future we will be able to do other things than just monitor our price on Coinbase. 😉

Cryptoxic has helped us improve ledger support by updating it to work with version 2.8. Version 3.0 support is coming soon! Supercircles has stepped up in a major way. We have CancaB to thank for the original website but Supercircles really has taken over all front-end developer work and is absolutely crushing it! While all his work has yet to be seen in some unreleased features that will be coming soon, we can thank him for his hard work on the following:

1. The website redesign and continual improvements — look at the details he has put in!

2. The MicroPool UI with a ton of cool new features set to drop in the upcoming update.

3. The rework to the block explorer making it easier on the eyes.

4. The web wallet design.

Marketing has picked up quite a bit. We are very grateful to those who have donated so that we can help spread awareness of this project. In the last month we’ve started various bounty campaigns and we are looking to expand this. We’d like to thank the person responsible for the anonymous donation that is funding 20 translations of the Bitcoin Talk ANN thread along with future bounties. If you are interested there might be a few still available and we are paying 100 XWP per translation. Check our Discord for more information.

I’d like to close this with a thought about where we are today and what is possible in the future. For the last month, the team has really rallied behind getting things done. I’m proud of what we’ve been able to accomplish as we learn and grow. We knew Seb was dealing with some difficult issues and needed time to resolve them. We are very happy to report that progress is being made in his efforts but for at least the next few weeks he will still be working on his personal things full time. I call again to respect his privacy and allow him to accomplish his tasks. The takeaway from this situation I believe is one where everyone should realize that all the decisions we have made and the hard work that was completed in the beginning is paying off in spades. Our network is strong, it is secure, and it functions like the finely tuned piece of software that it is. This is not a one man show, it is a team effort. Teammates stick up for their own and carry them when necessary.

Even without Seb around for the last month, we’ve been able to hold our own against the bloodbath that is befalling alts in general as Bitcoin exerts its dominance. We were able to push updates and fixes to our code, even beating Monero to merge release 0.14.1 into our codebase and deploy. Malkoha 3.0 has greatly accelerated daemon sync speed, blockchain pruning which will reduce the entire blockchain database by 50%, and openalias which links domains to wallet addresses, like “donate.xwp.fyi”. Most importantly, IT HAS A DAY / NIGHT MODE. Totally OP! Malkhoha is not a mandatory update but we feel that everyone will have a superior experience when using it over 2.8. Mac OSX wallets will be ready soon but you can continue to use 2.8 for now with no ill effect.

Mobile wallets have been slightly delayed due to Seb’s time off to deal with that which he must. They will be coming soon. There is a new version of the MicroPool with more data to be displayed so you can better assess your performance and earnings that is almost ready for release. The playable alpha of Swap Kitties is eminent. Our marketing department is ratcheting up our efforts to help spread the word of what we are accomplishing here. We are more determined than ever to deliver and prove naysayers wrong. We have always asked to simply be judged by our actions. We will never ask you to do anything more than that. This ended up being far longer than I anticipated but we had a lot of ground to cover in our first EoM update. I will always make the EoM’s as long as they need to be so that we can continue to be transparent about all that we do. We have a very bright future ahead of us. We fully believe more coins need to die so that gems like us can truly rise above. Don’t weep at the reapening that is occurring in the alt markets, instead embrace it as it will be the catalyst for those who have been found worthy to rise up.

Swap on!

Greg Almeida