Hello Fellow Rupsters

Welcome back with another blog update. Today we are going to discuss several different topics, from market performance to upcoming and new developments on the blockchain platform, and our new team additions.

PRICE DEPRESSION & EXCHANGES

Let’s be clear, 2017 will be remembered as the year cryptocurrencies boomed. Just as at the end of the 20th century, during the Dot Com era, people speculated this new technology was going to change the face of the digital age. The returns we all experienced through the last months were unsustainable, simply because we still don’t have clear evidence of blockchain impacting upon our daily lives. Hence we could not price cryptos correctly.

There is no reason to panic, even though every coin has lost at least 50%, and as much as 80%. It happened almost two decades ago and it’s happening again, as we speak. Even 95% drawdowns were common during the Dot Com era. Long term it meant nothing. We are at point where what matters most is continuing to develop a project which has a real life use case, that will be proven to impact upon society. Rupee Blockchain was conceived to disrupt the remittance industry and we are still pursuing this dream.

This year will be a tough one for cryptocurrencies, especially in regards to the possibility of regulation from governments. The much anticipated G20 in March didn’t provide any clues as to how governments are going to proceed, and luckily for us, there was no negativity from any quarter to influence opinion. Of major importance to the crypto ecosystem is certainly the ICO market. Without doubt, this phenomenon amplified price fluctuations. During 2017, this segment opened the door to retail investors, a fact that has drawn a lot of attention from the media. Just to give you an idea of the magnitude of this wave of speculation, on average for each ICO, 7 million dollars was raised, over a total of 881 ICOs, the biggest of which was Filecoin with $257 million in fundings. In comparison, the recently listed Dropbox Inc. raised 600 million dollars. Here is the problem: how could a supposed-to-be start-up obtain such an enormous amount of cash when you are not even given the right to vote at a so-called shareholder meeting ? In Alan Greenspan’s words, this is merely “irrational exuberance” or FOMO in crypto-speak. Not to mention the fact that an IPO takes up to 3–6 months to be completed. Of course, the much-debated issue of regulation plays a role in this, but let us be clear; in some form, regulation is essential to avoid scams which, we believe are the number one cause of concern in the crypto world. Fortunately for the crypto world, this aspect has not deterred big names like Telegram or Kodak from launching their ICOs.

Market’s dynamics have driven this revolution. Blockchain is here to stay. In 2017 we probably went too far, too early. The explosion was exponential. 2018 is about building solid foundations for the future. Now, it’s time to review the fundamentals of our project and build upon our successes. The future is in decentralisation. And the future is coming. Fast.

DEVELOPMENTS UPDATE

This section will focus on some new features the team at Rupee Blockchain have been developing over the last couple of months, that are now ready to be implemented.

Team:

As time passed, it became apparent that for us to be able to deliver the best product and solutions to our community, we needed to recruit more people onto the team. We wanted individuals who could bring fresh ideas, skills and abilities to the table. New, talented people have now joined our team, from graphic designers and social media managers to software developers. All of them incorporate the values and passions that inspired our founders. We are confident this strategy will yield extraordinary results. As a result of this, the team section will soon be updated and made available to the public through our website (www.rupeeblockchain.org).

Logo Update:

We have opted for some tweaks to the logo. The reason for this is simple. We felt our logo was not fully reflecting our vision of a cryptocurrency for South Asia. With this in mind, the update keeps the main layout, but adds a more modern touch by changing the font to Italic. It’s a subtle change, but reflects our commitment to every aspect of the RUP project, no matter how small. We hope you like it!

Code change:

As you may know, the vision of Rupee is to bring a reliable blockchain infrastructure to India and South Asia, with all the conveniences this technology implies, i.e. fast and cheap transactions. For these reasons, the team has spent many hours debating which features it should prioritise in order to bring such a characteristic cryptocurrency to the masses. Lyra2REv2 is one of these features, as we believe it embodies a powerful structure. In practical terms, this means the new code implementation will bring consumer-GPU-only mining. In other words, it’s mining for the people. We will finally rid ourselves of the unpleasant ASICs’ tyranny that has plagued Bitcoin and was threatening Rupee’s future.

TipBot:

Every day we feel your passion and engagement with Rupee on our Telegram group. Therefore, in the very near future, we are going to release a tipbot for Telegram and Reddit. This will make transactions between Rupsters easy and fast. This is a fun thing to have and we think our community will appreciate it.

Desktop Wallet:

We are currently working on a new desktop wallet, with a new GUI. Additionally, we are trying to integrate a mining option. This exciting addition will mean everyone can simply start mining with a single click of your mouse. No technological expertise will be required. This option is of critical importance, as the up-coming code change aims at giving ordinary people an out-of-the-box mining rig set up. As always, Rupee is sticking to its vision of a cryptocurrency “By the People, for the People”.

Mobile Wallet:

This is something we are still working on. We had a product we were not satisfied with, and so we took the hard decision of going back to its fundamentals. We understand the role that such a critical application plays in Rupee’s ecosystem and so we postponed its release for two reasons. Firstly, we didn’t like the idea of delivering something we were not proud of, to our community. We are proud of RUP and our wonderful community. So we must show that pride in everything we release. Secondly, we felt the timing was incorrect. We came to the conclusion we would rather release the wallet when we have a bigger community. This would also give us time to work on a better product. As previously mentioned, we strongly believe in this tool as it could be an enormous catalyst for adoption in the south Asian market. There, the average population age is exceptionally low, with the median age of the population being around 30, as of 2015. These people have rapidly adopted smartphones in every aspect of their lives, from simple calls and messages to payments and healthcare. We, at Rupee Blockchain, have an ambitious goal; we want to bring a blockchain platform and a cryptocurrency, with a legacy name, to the unbanked. These people deserve the very best technology available. The team is fully committed to that vision. We will not compromise.

BountyCampaign:

As mentioned above, we want to expand our community awareness.. Therefore, in the coming months we will launch an extensive and exciting bounty campaign. This campaign will target social media and will consist of Twitter and Facebook campaigns coupled with giveaways.

Exchanges:

NEXT Exchange and CoinRecoil Exchange will both list Rupee. We do believe these exchanges are in line with Rupee’s vision of making crypto accessible to everyone. Both of these exchanges will support FIAT pairing, making it easy for everyone to log in and buy Rupee directly. NEXT will hopefully be open to the public very soon and CoinRecoil during the summer. Besides these two exchanges, we continue applying to the major ones, because we believe they will be instrumental in unleashing Rupee’s hidden value. Smaller exchanges are now contacting the Rupee team, and we envisage several more exchanges coming onboard this year.

WORKING TOGETHER TOWARD A COMMON GOAL

All this would not be possible if people had not believed in Rupee’s vision. The blockchain revolution resembles the years when a project could be started from a garage with just a few spare bucks. Both Apple and Microsoft started this way. Now, this project is becoming more self-aware and mature. Rupee Blockchain is rapidly evolving and it is humbly progressing with the same passion and commitment every day, now more so than ever.

To conclude, we would like to take some time to thank all our friends in the Rupee community, who are showing great support, even during this difficult period. Remember, vision, community and development is what matters the most, not price action. Price will rise as a result of our hard work, but our vision is to change South Asia and the world, and this can’t happen overnight. The team is fully committed to the Rupee vision. We love Rupee and if we all work together, we are assured success. Don’t forget, all of us are at the cutting edge of the next great revolution. We had the Industrial Revolution. We had the Internet Revolution. Now we have the Blockchain Revolution. Each and every one of us is playing a role in changing the world for the 21st century and beyond. It is a great privilege and a great opportunity. We believe in the RUP vision. We will succeed.

For those of you who don’t follow us on social media, we urge you doing so by following us on Twitter (www.twitter.com/RupeeBlockchain), Facebook and Instagram.

Disclaimer

The information contained on this article is for general information purposes only and should not be taken as financial, advisory or legal advice. No advisor-client relationship attaches to any information contained on the article. If you have a specific concern, please contact a financial advisor, accountant or attorney to assist with your query. Reference to third-party resources and materials contained within here are provided for informational purposes only and should not be viewed as an endorsement of their contents, warranties, accuracy, and representations. Rupee is a decentralized open-source blockchain cryptocurrency and has no relation to fiat rupee currencies (backed and issued by the respective governments). Unless otherwise stated, the mention of “Rupee” anywhere in this document refers to the cryptocurrency Rupee (symbol: RUP).