(picture courtesy of Dreamtim)

Preamble

Happy Halving Pirates! February was another excitement filled month for the most private cryptocurrency! There were loads of developments including an updated whitepaper, and upgrades to the our homepage to include translations in 20 languages, progress on material milestones with several wallet developments, and significant expansion of support for our Pirate ecosystem. Our Pirate Chain team is proud to bring you this month’s updates, read on to learn more!

Pirate Chain Halving event #2

Pirate Chain underwent its second halving event on 2/28/20, at block height 777770! Rewards per block were halved from 128 ARRR to 64 ARRR.

Check out our article published on pirate.black for a brief explanation of the halvening, and what it means for the most private cryptocurrency with a stock-to-model analysis of the potential price implications due to the increased scarcity. https://pirate.black/the-pirate-chain-halvening/

(picture courtesy of pwnz)

Project Development

Pirate Whitepaper 2.0

We have updated the Pirate Whitepaper! Version 2.0 is published on pirate.black. This 21 page document is truly a pleasure to read. Starting with the Pirate Chain Code, we define the mission statement of Pirate Chain and our dedication to Privacy. The paper provides a succinct history of monetary privacy and presents the need for privacy in digital currencies. If you’ve never understood the method behind the marketcap leader of privacy sector, we provide an easily digestible explanation of Monero and highlight its shortcomings. We next explain the superiority of the zk-SNARKs algorithm, and the inadequate implementation by ZCash to protect privacy. In the second half of the paper, we recap the origins of Pirate Chain and explore the key components of Pirate Chain that make it the most private and secure cryptocurrency, namely forced peer-to-peer z-transactions and delayed Proof-of-Work! Finally, we proudly close the paper with the roadmap, listing the tremendous number of accomplishments our community has achieved in the short time since launch, and the exciting developments coming up!

https://pirate.black/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/The_Pirate_Code_V2.0.pdf

Pirate Chain is founding member of the Blockchain Privacy, Security & Adoption Alliance

Led by Captain Draeth of Pirate Chain, and in collaboration with Turtle Network, Sentinel and Ether-1, the Blockchain Privacy, Security & Adoption Alliance was formally announced.

About the BPSAA

The Blockchain Privacy, Security & Adoption Alliance (BPSAA) is at its core, a think tank. Founded based on a shared desire to collaboratively improve the blockchain ecosystem, four groups decided to establish the alliance, Pirate Chain, Turtle Network, Sentinel and Ether-1. In addition to the increased brain trust, an alliance such as the BPSAA imbues its members with numerous intangible benefits including shared resources, augmented expertise and a potentiated voice empowering the opinions and efforts of the group.

As an illustration, Turtle Network is building a gateway to Pirate Chain, the most private cryptocurrency in the industry. This will integrate and harness the power of Pirate Chain’s anonymity into Turtle Network’s operations while at the same time, increase Pirate Chain’s liquidity. A second example is the customization of Sentinel’s dVPN nodes into GalleonOS, the second iteration of Pirate Operating System (PirateOS), to increase user privacy while increasing Sentinel’s node network. These are two examples of the kinds of interoperability collaborations that the BPSAA aims to consistently churn out. In the spirit of the blockchain industry, the BPSAA is committed to partnering and working together with likeminded, purpose-driven teams. There is a rigorous vetting process by all current members, although importantly, membership is free to all.

As a member of the BPSAA, I have been very proud and honored to witness the collegial and synergistic discussions that go on daily. Find out more about the BPSAA at its website.

(pictures courtesy of Dreamtim)

Articles about the BPSAA

(@Draeth/HR is watching!)

Pirate.black homepage update

Pirate.black translations is now available in up to 20 languages! Thanks to +dreamtim and team for all the coordination efforts! Languages include: English, Mandarin, Dutch, French, Arabic, Italian, Russian, Slovenian, Romanian, Serbian, Catalan, Danish, Bahasa Indonesia, Greek, Portuguese, Polish, Czech, Spanish, Japanese and Croatian! Translations of the whitepaper and our blogs are currently in the works.

PirateOS development

The next iteration of Pirate Chain’s own privacy-focused operating system, GalleonOS, will boast of decentralized Virtual Private Network (dVPN) nodes. Currently, the Sentinel dVPN blockchain, co-founder of BPSAA and Pirate Chain partner, is developing a customized dVPN for PirateOS. A goal of the joint effort is to enable GalleonOS users running a sentinel node to earn sentinel token rewards as an added bonus.

Wallets

Mobile wallet incoming!

It was just last month that we announced that work on the mobile wallet GUI was started, well, Pirate Chain is proud to announce that our mobile wallet is almost ready! Thanks to Forge for his hardwork! As thanks to Forge for this valuable contribution, we are raising a thank you gift with a target equivalent of 100k ARRR. Show some love for Forge,

Us Pirates Love You, Forge!

BTC – 1NPDRvwb1xrrjsZ54UiUXir1ceTyhUxMov

KMD – RYERpddrg2FBrapeQG5YRbjcwFx9JYWgKj

ARRR – zs1rddsftmcz8pf2sg3yh0yttyq3ku5j0dstlggj4eje3mvmr4hvflun07aqumkg4wqz2w6ysfaxud

New Important Wallet feature developed

Thanks to Forge, Pirate Wallets will have the capability to “autoprune” which dramatically decreases wallet sizes by up to 90%! This will allow the full wallet to run smoothly and quickly similar to a “lite” wallet! Shoutout to Lootz and again to Forge for their contribution! Look out for the wallet updates upcoming!

Agama wallet discontinued, replaced with new Verus Desktop

Please note that the Agama wallet has been discontinued and will no longer be supported. Developed by the same team that managed Agama, the new Verus Desktop multiwallet boasts a smoother user experience and a cleaner interface!

The Verus Desktop wallet is the first GUI application to support Verus ID protocol, along with full node wallets for KMD ecosystem coins, BTC based Electrum servers, and Ethereum/ERC20 tokens. The wallet also includes an intuitive mining/staking interface with estimated earning predictions, and private transactions/messages.

Pirate Chain truly appreciates the inclusion of ARRR with third party wallets. As these wallets are independently developed and supported by the VerusCoin community, please contact the wallet developers at veruscoin.io with any technical issues. Download the Verus Desktop wallet from their website here, https://veruscoin.io/wallet.

New Wallet being developed by TurtleNetwork

Wolf is customizing the Turtle Network wallet for use with Pirate Chain. This wallet will allow direct in-wallet trading via the Turtle Network gateway. The wallet is estimated to be ready by next month!

Kaks’ User Guide to using the most Private Messaging app, available in the Pirate Wallet

Thanks to Kaks for making the video! A step-by-step guide on how to send private and secure messages from one user to another through the Pirate Chain wallet. All messages are as anonymous and secure as $ARRR transactions.

Exchanges

ARRR listed on Bitcoin.com exchange

Our exchange listing team is proud to announce that $ARRR is listed on Bitcoin.com exchange. Bitcoin.com has a normalized 24 hour trading volume of $2.8 million (according to coingecko.com). Notably this exchange has No KYC with a 1 BTC/day withdrawal limit, up to 5 BTC/month.

Along with the listing, Bitcoin.com published an insightful article delineating the landmark achievements and goals of Pirate Chain, the most private cryptocurrency. Written in a Q&A format, this is an easy to read and enlightening expose on $ARRR. Read about it here, https://medium.com/exchange-bitcoin-com/catching-up-with-pirate-chain-d1f08c9447cc

Altsbit exchange hack and closing

The exchange which originally started out as DigitalPrice.io which then later revamped its website and renamed itself to Altsbit has permanently closed its doors. With a storied past about ownership prior to the renaming, DigitalPrice was the first known exchange to list and capably support a fully private, z-to-z only transaction blockchain. Unfortunately, Altsbit’s wallets were purportedly hacked leading to a sizeable loss of funds. The Lulz Boat has claimed responsibility to this hack according to their twitter post: “We assure that @altsbit didn’t had proper security to stop Lulz Canon. Many others to follow. Better Stack up the Security – Note to other Exchanges” – @Lulzsec https://twitter.com/LulzSec/status/1226018613666041857?s=20

As the exchange operators had fortunately kept a portion of their funds in cold storage, they will be refunding these to users. Based on informatoin on their website, this includes 53.1% of BTC, 59.2% of ARRR and 97.77% of KMD. https://altsbit.com/info/fees

Refunds have begun on February 10 2020 and will end on May 8 2020, after this date it will no longer be possible to request a refund as the Altsbit platform will be terminated. If you have not already, please retrieve your funds soon.

Conferences

CoinFestUK

Thanks to our amazing community, Pirate Chain has fully raised the funds for attending and being an official sponsor of CoinFestUK in Manchester, UK on April 2020. Two of Pirate’s crew members, Crypto Rich and +DreamTim are proud to bring the most private cryptocurrency Pirate Chain to the conference and they already have plans to interview organizer of CoinFestUK.

In its 5th year, the CoinFest conference will cover a wide range of topics including speaker presentations, workshops, crypto art gallery, Bitcoin lightning bar, a crypto panel session covering topics on cryto adoption, the future of crypto and a Q&A with the audience. Fun events include a crypto treasure hunt (hidden private keys throughout the CoinFestUK 2020 Venue), a B2B VIP Party and Trading Corner.

The meeting will be held in Manchester UK from April 3rd to 5th and free to attend, if you are available, grab your tickets here, https://coinfestuk.org/CFUK20/

Social Media

Crypto Rich BPSAA & Pirate Chain interview

CryptoRich interviews Captain Draeth, from Pirate Chain. He had a very special announcement about how the most private cryptocurrency, Pirate Chain will be expanding its ecosystem to increase blockchain adoption, privacy and security.

Crypto Rich review of Pirate Chain halving and BPSAA updates

In this video, Crypto Rich looks at the price action of the previous Pirate Chain halving in May 2019 and suggests what might happen around the current halving. He also updates his viewers on the latest news from Pirate Chain including the new BPSAA alliance along with upcoming festivals and developments!.

https://bittube.tv/post/85ef0eae-a171-42c5-bc35-e87d40af09cc

CryptoBeast Pirate Chain interview

Captain Draeth interview with Crypto Beast. In this chat, Draeth talks about recent progress and upcoming game-changing developments for the most private cryptocurrency, Pirate Chain.

Summit on Decentralization

Crypto Rich hosted a 7 project summit meet to discuss the topic of decentralization. Projects include: Pirate Chain, Komodo, AtomicDex, Holochain, Skycoin, BitTube and 3Speak. Luminary representatives from each project are Draeth from Pirate Chain, Jason Brown from Komodo and from AtomicDex, Synth from Skycoin, David Atkinson from Holochain, Saber Maram from BitTube and Matt Starkerz from 3Speak Online.

Crypto Beast

In this video, Crypto Beast picks his 6 promising Altcoins that you need to watch, and that he predicts “will 1000x in 2020”.

From Crypto Beast: “These are my top 6 low cap coins that could explode! Learn more at https://BitBoyCrypto.com Everyone in crypto is always looking for the next small-cap coin that can get them rich overnight. I know one person in real life who put $500 in a coin in 2017 and made a million dollars that’s not an urban legend. We are going to be taking a look at extremely six low caps coins or like to call them mini caps. That’s because these coins are outside the top 300 but they’re ranked lower than the number 1000 coin. I’ve scoured coin market cap dot com to find six projects that I believe have a future and could outperform other low cappers. Privacy coins were under attack for much of 2019. But what we’ve seen over the past several months is it is looking more and more like privacy coins are proving their use case. Simply by the surveillance state that we live in. As governments and countries scramble to watch our every move and every transaction privacy coins give us a way to be private with the way that we spend our money. While many of the top privacy coins like Z cash Manero and others get a lot of the attention there’s definitely room for another privacy coin to move its way up into the top 100 or higher. Pirate chain is currently sitting at number 359 and I can envision it definitely making its way up the ladder.”

ARRRmada news

ARRRmada.com, which is comprehensive emporium of merchants accepting ARRR as payment, has been making waves! We are happy to announce Four new businesses joining the ARRRmada!

Bitcoin Meister

The Bitcoin Meister offers services in crypto-business. You can buy and exchange cryptocurrencies, and the project also offers extensive consulting services for retailers.

Bitcoin Meister also handles the storage of coins in cold wallets and staking of PoS coins.

Checkout the store on https://arrrmada.com/bitcoin-meister/

Ancient Path Naturals

We sell super easy beginner friendly Mushroom Grow Kits that can grow ANY kind of mushrooms, especially the Magic ones. Our shipping is discrete, our support is awesome, and it’s all organic.

At this time, Ancient Path Naturals is offering a 25% discount on your entire order if you pay with ARRR!! The code for the discount is ARRR and can be entered at checkout. Learn about the health properties of some of the mushrooms that they sell on their blog section, https://ancientpathnaturals.com/blogs/news. Ancient Path Naturals has a “100% grow guarantee” for all their spores and provides detailed instructions on how to grow your own mushrooms!

Checkout some of their merchandise at https://arrrmada.com/ancient-path-naturals/

VPS Coins

VPS coins is a gighly competitive virtual private server hosting service for the crypto space! They accept payment in ARRR, many other cryptocurrencies and fiat. VPS Coins was created to support cryptocurrency growth and for support of the Masternode space.

Checkout their store if you’re in the market for a VPS, https://arrrmada.com/vps-coins/

LotPot

On LOTPOT you can buy vaporizers, liquids, CBD flowers, CBD oil, CBD liquid, terpenes, bong, pipes and much more at low prices. More than 6,000 products can be purchased online in the LOTPOT shop. There are new offers every day. The owner of the two stores is based in the UK and ships the items worldwide. Especially for British people this Vape-Store should be interesting. Worldwide customers and Europeans have to pay higher shipping costs. From a purchase of £50 in ARRR the British receive the goods free of charge. Have fun with the CBD flowers and a new pipe.

LotPot is a partner site of IdealVape, who also accept ARRR as payment. Checkout LotPot for all your CBD needs, https://arrrmada.com/lotpot/

Members of BPSAA

For the next few months, in place of the merchant/social media influencer-of-the-month section, we will introduce each BPSAA member and highlight some of the ongoing collaborative efforts.

About Turtle Network

Mortimer, a community developer, introduces Turtle Network

“Turtle Network was a continuation of the TurtleNode crowdfund back in January 2018, growing from a Waves Node to an independent blockchain network (and further from there with the support of the community). Turtle Network is based on Waves technology, translating to some of the best blockchain tech in the world. Low fees, a very fast blockspeed of 1 block/minute and Turtle Network can do up to 100 transfers/second, theoretically the network can reach 100*100 transfers/second with mass transfers.

A key part of Turtle Network is its DEX. With an upcoming release of a new wallet with integrated DEX, and the ability to create Smart Contracts, Smart Assets and dApps, there are a lot of possibilities for Turtle Network, Pirate Chain and its communities to explore. Currently Turtle Network is working on a Pirate Chain gateway to enable users to transfer $ARRR between the Komodo and Turtle Network blockchains. The cooperation in the BPSAA was only the first step in a long way of collaboration between Turtle Network, Pirate Chain and the current and future members of the BPSAA.”

About Turtle Network – Pirate Chain collaborations

Wolf aka Grandpa Wolf, developer for Turtle Network, expands on the collaborative projects between Turtle Network and Pirate Chain, and how the product will benefit BPSAA and the blockchain ecosystem at large:

“Among the first collaboration based partnerships, TurtleNetwork was the first to engage other communities, specifically, Pirate Chain. The first phase of the collaboration involved establishing a rudimentary sidechain between Pirate Chain and Turtle Network, via open gateway frameworks, which is still under construction. The second phase is to begin to allow certain smart contracts, to be powered by Pirate. These two phases will lead both communities towards the interoperability movement we stand before today. Things always work better when they are done in pairs, or in groups, both Pirate Chain and Turtle Network have amazing strengths, which adequately fill each others deficits, without causing hinderance to either project.”

Last words from the editor

Privacy needs vaccines. Herd immunity is the strongest defense. You’ll wish you have it when you’ve lost it. Optional privacy is no privacy at all. Pirate Chain protects against loss of privacy by building up your immunity with 100% default, non-optional, private-only txns, shielded by zk-SNARKS.