The first production Lattice1s assembled at our contract manufacturer, VirTex Enterprises.

The pace of work behind the scenes is accelerating on multiple fronts as the GridPlus team pushes to complete work on the Lattice1 software and firmware. We’ve got some exciting updates to share in the meantime along with details on what remaining steps must be completed to get your Lattice1 into your hands.

GridPlus Energy

Effective immediately, customers paying with cryptocurrency will be able to pay their entire bill using GRID. GRID payments are live now. As always, GRID will still grant access to wholesale pricing by eliminating markup on 500kWh of energy for each token redeemed, but now a new and separate floating monthly rate will be available to pay the entire bill using GRID.

The rate will be in kWh and determined monthly; this December each GRID will be redeemable for 2.5 kWh of energy from your base bill. Third party market prices fluctuate, but as of publishing this would save most customers more than 60% by paying with GRID compared to USD.

To pay with GRID just go to your energy account normally and select the pay with crypto option. If you have an open balance the option to pay with GRID and the exact amount to send will be displayed automatically. Please note that this is separate from the GRID you have deposited for access to wholesale rates; your previously deposited GRID balance will not automatically be applied to your base bill.

The rate is determined in relation to the prevailing wholesale cost per megawatt-hour and the current third party market price of GRID. GridPlus Energy manually set the redemption rate for launch but hopes to soon formalize and automate the mechanism.

Real-time wholesale energy market prices will vary throughout December, but at an estimated 75–80 USD per MWh this should mean each GRID can be redeemed for approximately 19-20 cents. This has no impact on the GRID used to access wholesale rates which yielded an average $2.97 per redeemed token for energy customers during the November billing cycle.

This week GridPlus Energy also began rolling out new prepaid plans. The initial launch is limited in scope; once we are certain everything is functioning as intended it will be deployed more broadly. Customers with lower credit ratings or insufficient histories that preclude them from getting the best rates will soon be able to be able to prepay and redeem GRID to get access to wholesale pricing.

We are also working with a third party to make acquisition and redemption of GRID easy for customers that might be unfamiliar with cryptocurrency. A new payment widget integrated directly on our site will soon enable users to purchase GRID from the open market using their credit or debit cards, Apple Pay, and Android Pay in just a few clicks without the cumbersome process of registering for a cryptocurrency exchange and manually transferring tokens. We’re excited to share more once this option launches!

On the back end we’re developing a unified database aggregating all the external energy market data we pull in from third party systems. This will provide us with a reliable “single source of truth” that simplifies future energy software development and cryptocurrency payment integration.

Signing Integration

We are continuing to assist external projects with the integration of our signing SDK so that they can leverage Lattice1 hardware security directly in their DApp or service.

Additionally, Alex Miller has begun researching touchscreen interfaces for popular DeFi DApps, starting with Compound. These intuitive interfaces will enable Lattice1 owners to take advantage of powerful tools to lend, borrow, earn interest on their crypto, and much more directly from their secure storage — without the need for a phone or computer!

If your DApp or service can benefit from the implementation of hardware security or a simple touchscreen interface for Lattice1 users, reach out, we’d love to demonstrate what GridPlus can do for you.

Hardware: The Road to Shipping

With the Lattice1 hardware finalized, work still remains on the firmware and software side. We know that pre-order customers are eager to get their hands on the Lattice1, but we have opted to not announce a final ship date until their devices are ready to head out the door. Instead, we want to provide a glimpse into the firmware and software teams’ remaining tasks and provide more detailed updates on each work stream so that the community can transparently follow our progress.

The list of remaining tasks is very technical, but we want to share this with those that follow GridPlus closely:

Logic functionality for how the Lattice1 manages SafeCard reader events requires further effort. Each SafeCard is a flexible cold storage device in its own right and there is a great deal of complexity in how the system is managing this extensibility. Work remains to make this powerful approach logical and intuitive for laypeople and power users alike. Recent spec changes impacting the device firmware need to be flowed through to the GridPlus MobilePay wallet and the SDK. We need to refactor our device pairing manager to conform to changes in the device firmware. Additional system screens and elements of the user interface need to be built out. Firmware stress testing and revisions to completed functionality will continue throughout the completion of the above tasks.

Our hope is that in being fully transparent about remaining work, the community members that have been following us closely since day one can better understand what we’re doing day to day. If you would like to dig in at this level, join our Telegram and directly ask the team about these efforts.

Summary

2020 is shaping up to be an exciting year for GridPlus as we look forward to two years of hard work coming to fruition. Each part of GridPlus is heads down and making tremendous progress towards both our innovative approach to retail energy and shipping a unique hardware device that enables mainstream use of digital assets while giving a unique new toolkit to developers and power users.

Our new energy products are truly unique offerings — if you live in the Oncor or Centerpoint regions of Texas stop putting it off and sign up today to save with GridPlus Energy! Following the directions on our token page and paying in GRID will cut your bills and soon this process will be made even simpler for customers that are unfamiliar with Ethereum and other digital assets.

For the latest developments follow us on Twitter, talk with us directly on Telegram, and discuss the project on r/GridPlus!

Disclaimer

The forward-looking statements in this update are subject to numerous assumptions, risks and uncertainties which are subject to change over time. There are many risk factors, including those relating to blockchain and cryptographic technology generally, as well Grid+’s business, operations and results of operations, that could cause our actual results or developments anticipated by us not to be realized or, even if substantially realized, to fail to achieve any or all of the benefits that could be expected therefrom, We reserve the right to change the plans, expectations and intentions stated herein at any time and for any reason, in our sole and absolute discretion, and we undertake no obligation to update publicly or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future developments or otherwise. ACCORDINGLY, WE RECOMMEND THAT YOU DO NOT RELY ON, AND DO NOT MAKE ANY FINANCIAL DECISION OR INVESTMENT BASED ON, THE STATEMENTS CONTAINED IN THIS UPDATE — INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY SELLING OR TRADING OF GRID TOKENS, ETHER OR ANY OTHER CRYPTOGRAPHIC OR BLOCKCHAIN TOKEN, OR THE SECURITIES OF ANY COMPANY.