AMA/FAQ Livestream Summary

Last week’s livestream was a special edition as we had the great pleasure to welcome Gerlof van Ek, Particl’s Lead Designer, on the livestream as a guest.

Gerlof, more commonly known as Crz within the community, has gained valuable experience working for international companies like Disney, Yves Rocher and other major design companies. He’s made a name for himself working and freelancing for various successful crypto and blockchain projects such as Shadowcash, which he co-founded with Ryno and Tecnovert. He has also had a hand in EOS (logo/branding), Nexus, CryptoFR, BitcoinFR, Blocktix, a few exchanges and — of course — Particl, to name a few.

Gerlof works full-time on Particl, a project he has absolute passion for, and is in charge of the branding, GUI design, and much more. For more details about Gerlof’s journey, watch him break it down on last week’s livestream starting at 2:10!

(10:10) Could you please elaborate a bit on the Bitcoin DDoS bug that was disclosed? How is it possible Particl isn’t affected since it’s built on the Bitcoin codebase?

The Bitcoin DDoS bug that was recently disclosed about Bitcoin was actually pretty critical, some people even speculating it may have been one of the largest, if not the largest, exploit ever found on Bitcoin. This exploit was inadvertently introduced in Bitcoin Core 0.14 and has been present in all further versions, meaning projects with older versions of the Bitcoin codebase weren’t affected by it (for example, PIVX).

As for Particl, our codebase is always on the heels of Bitcoin Core and is simply not a copy-paste version Bitcoin at some past point in time. Indeed, our core development team is super diligent and focused on security, and this vulnerability was spotted long ago by them as they built Particl Confidential Transactions on Bitcoin 14.2. In fact, this issue was fixed by our team even before we went live with our genesis block, meaning Particl has never been affected by it at any moment of its history. When we say that security is one of our core value, we really mean it, and we have the developers to live up to this claim!.

(13:48) Has the Particl UI been designed in such a way that will make it easy to apply skins to it?

Yes. Particl Desktop is 100% open-source and users can code their own themes using HTML and CSS. Particl itself is planning on introducing two default themes, a light one, which is the current one, and a dark one, for those using Particl Desktop at night. We have had an idea where users could go to their Settings page and set up their client to automatically change the theme at a specific time of the day, as chosen by the user itself. Additional themes can be coded by the community and might make it to the official repo if they are popular or particularly appreciated by the team.

(15:44) Gerlof, it’s been said that you’ve helped other crypto teams with their graphics and branding (such as EOS), so with that in mind, what made you choose to join Particl as a team member as opposed to any of the other teams you’ve worked with?

Paraphrased: Particl really is my passion and what I consider to be my main project. I absolutely enjoy working on it and taking what was once simply an idea to what it is now. I keep wanting to improve it, make it better, and see how far it can go. Another reason I made Particl my full-time project is that we have a super great team composed of genuinely great AND really talented individuals. The atmosphere “behind the scenes” is super positive and motivating, which makes for a great work environment.

(17:39) When you first started working with Ryno, was it just the two of you or was Tecnovert, or any other developer, part of the initial team?

Paraphrased: We were basically like the three musketeers. We had members come and go throughout this journey but us three were basically the core team. The vision and scope of the project has severely evolved since we started working on it and we found new core members along the way which are now important components of Particl. The team has pretty much become a well-oiled machine now with around 15 developers actively working on the project and it is amazing to see!

Everything is carefully planned, and we have daily meetings (sometimes more than one per day), and the entire project has evolved from a hobby project to a really professional one. Ludx is one great example of a super top quality team member we’ve picked along the way and he’s now working full-time and around the clock on Particl, leading the marketplace side of things as well as a lot of the backend stuff. He’s really passionate about Particl and definitely helps taking Particl to the next level!

(20:31) Will Particl Desktop’s page eventually default to the marketplace for the sake of usability and mainstream potential?

Yes and no… Right now, the wallet is what you see first when you launch Particl Desktop, but we do want to redesign/rebuild the Overview page to change it to a more customizable one with the help of Particl widgets. That is because buyers and vendors will probably not want to see the same thing when they launch Particl Desktop. A vendor might be interested in quickly overviewing their sales data, orders, or inventory whereas a buyer might be more interested in their purchasing history or favored items.

Similarly to regular eCommerce websites, it would be more familiar to shoppers if the first thing they see when loading up Particl is a search bar where they can immediately start looking for what they want. Of course, both types of users might be interested in the same data as well such as messages, shipping statues on ongoing transactions, and so on. This would make the Overview page of Particl Desktop a true dashboard.

Because every user has different needs and expectations, we want Particl Desktop to be very customizable. One of the way we aim to attain that customization is to have a complete installer that launches the first time you launch the client. This installer will allow users to choose what decentralized applications they want to be included in their personal version of Particl Desktop as well as set their client up with various parameters and setting options. For example, a user might be only interested in the passive income aspect of Particl, therefore she could disable the marketplace altogether to make the client more lightweight in terms of resources. This will be up to the users themselves to choose and design their most optimal Particl Desktop setup.

It’s important to understand that Particl is still pretty much in a heavy development phase and mostly a testing environment for now.

These are all options we’ve been heavily considering but as with everything being built alongside blockchain technology, it takes time to develop and everything has to be included in a priority queue. We highly recommend users to test the various iterations of Particl Marketplace and Particl Desktop and give us as many feedback as possible, either by writing about it in our #testing or #Open-Development channels or directly on the Issues section of Particl Desktop on Github. It’s important to try different approaches at this stage of development and see what works best and what doesn’t.

(24:59) Is Particl making plans to have more sponsored ambassadors, per country?

Yes. We’ve had some community members step up already. As a prime example, JoaquimF, a Particl fan from Brazil, has been working with us for the past 2 or 3 weeks to organize a local meetup in Saō Paulo, Brazil. We provided him with a ton of information as well as some PART coins for the attendees to play with on Particl Copay. Additionally, we’ve created flyers both in english and portuguese for the people that are going to be present as well as some custom and exclusive t-shirts. Brazil is big on marketplaces in general and we do see this country as a good place where Particl Marketplace could shine, so with that in mind, we’d like to take this opportunity to thank JoaquimF for his implication and go-getter attitude as well as the effort put in in organizing this these past few weeks!

We also had motivated folks from the United States, France, Switzerland, and UK pointing out to us their interest in contributing in a more pro-active way. Note that we will always support and give resources to motivated individuals with a desire to spread the Particl word in the “real world”. We highly encourage anyone that wants to step up or have ideas on how to spread the word to contact us, either through Paul Schmitzer, Cryptoguard, or any other team member. We’ve also started to take a deeper look into potential conferences, and while it may be hard for us sometimes to make it to these conferences due to the fact that we are still in that heavy development phase, we will always consider great opportunities. Going to conferences will be something we’ll increasingly be looking for the closer we near to the mainnet release of Particl Marketplace and beyond.

(44:03) Is there a limit to the number of listings Particl Marketplace can support?

No! There is no upper limit to how many items Particl Marketplace can support!