As you know, a few weeks ago we launched our first code update on GitHub as part of our Alpha release. Today, we are proud to announce that the Alpha prototypes for X Cloud and X Core are out. From now on, you can quickly install and test X Cloud and X Core on Mac, Linux, and Windows. You can go to our X Cloud page and quickly download and install X Cloud Alpha. Similarly, you can install X Core Alpha directly from our X Core page.

As we progress with development, we will update the installable versions of X Cloud and X Core, as well as the GitHub code. We will announce all future relevant code/prototype updates on our social media accounts. As of this first prototype release, you can already upload files on X Cloud. Files uploaded to the X Cloud folder in your computer are already being end-to-end encrypted, distributed and replicated in X Core. You can also run X Core to start hosting user files. These two services are still in a very early stage, so expect bugs and very raw interfaces and processes. Companies don’t usually release Alpha versions of their products, but since we’re all in for transparency, we believe it’s always a good idea for users to keep live track of our progress. The truly exciting stuff will come in the Beta and of course the commercial releases. So for this Alpha release do not expect anything close to what the commercial version will look like. Now that we have all the basic infrastructure running, we are working on significant functionality and user experience improvements from their very roots. We aren’t asking for any testing feedback yet, as we are aware of what is to be fixed for the commercial release. Remember that this is only our very first release. We’ll be open to feedback in our beta release in around 2 months from now, as the interfaces and many more bugs should have been solved. The beta release will already show a version of our services similar to that of our commercial release.

Until we release the commercial versions of X Cloud and X Core in Q4 this year, running X Core is done on a volunteer basis, and users running X Cloud do not have to pay for the service. We want our prototypes to be free and available for everyone. Since we want everyone to be able to test our prototypes as we make progress, we have established a 3 MB storage limit per X Cloud user. We will play around with this file limit as storage’s demand and supply in the infrastructure vary. Currently, the network is thought to be used for testing purposes only, so that you can keep live track of our progress and how the code we’re pushing on GitHub looks in real life. Once the commercial version is out, X Cloud users will start paying for the service to X Core users. X Core users will therefore start getting rewarded based on how much disk space they contribute to the network and for how long, their uptime, and the amount of INXT they hold, amongst other variables. We’ll soon publish the full formula that will be computed to process X Core payments. The exact pricing structure of X Cloud is also in the works.

Next steps!

As explained before, we’re still running yuuuge debugging processes on X Cloud and X Core. We’re also working on the front-end of X Cloud and X Core. The X Cloud front-end consists of a folder for desktop (which you can already see, but which we are improving way further), and a beautiful web interface (on the works). Additionally, we are working on implementing Civic’s sign up system on X Cloud, as explained in our partnership announcement. X Core consists of an incredibly simple and brand new desktop interface (currently still using Storj’s old interface, but we are almost done implementing ours). We’re also designing specific logos for X Cloud and X Core, and improving Internxt’s logo. We’re also updating our website design and adding all our pricing information there. Once the mentioned tasks are completed, X Cloud and X Core will go commercial. We’re nearly there.