NEWS

Phase 1 of the Stacks 2.0 public testnet is still on track to go live the week of April 20th. You can check on the daily progress of the testnet on GitHub (where there are currently 23 items done, 7 in-progress, and 11 to do).

→ View on GitHub.

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COMMUNITY

First, the CodeVsCovid19 hackathon, and now, the #BuildforCOVID19 global online hackathon: Congratulations to Blockstack evangelist, Anthony Albertorio and the CoronaTracker team for placing in the top 5% out of 1,560 projects!

→ Check out their profile on #BuildforCOVID19.

If you've joined any community calls recently, you've probably been lucky enough to meet Harold Davis. Harold is a Blockstack evangelist who is blending his passion for building out a social layer in indigenous populations with his work for Blockstack. Get to know a bit more about him and be sure to thank him for his inspiring contributions.

→ Read Harold's evangelist spotlight.

Blockstackers welcomed four new evangelists from India, Korea, and The Philippines: Allen Joseph, GM Chung, Kenneth Berey, and Ludy.

→ Say hello on Discord.

The Stacks 2.0 Testnet Ambassadors had their first successful Meet and Greet which was a great way for community members to connect with one another in smaller group settings. We'll be hosting more of these sessions in the near future to help community members meet their "Blockstack buddies".

→ Sign up to join a future Meet and Greet.

The deadline to enter Blockstack's first-ever Meme Challenge is April 14th. Submit a meme for a chance to win a Blockstack-branded backpack and socks!

→ Share your meme on Discord.

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DEV

The Stacks blockchain engineers continue to make progress toward the Stacks 2.0 protocol upgrade, with features like the ability to specify post conditions for several different transaction types.

→ Check out the updates in detail on GitHub.

The react-blockstack package now supports Blockstack Connect authentication, facilitating integration into Blockstack apps using React.

→ Take a look on npm.

Blockstack evangelist and app developer, Dan Trevino, hosted a livestream on how to set up a Blockstack node on raspberry pi, as well as how to get the Stacks testnet up and running locally.

→ Watch the full stream.

Webby has integrated Blockstack Connect!

→ See the new login.

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EVENTS

→ Reminder that Blockstack has partnered with Hack Quarantine, a global, online hackathon bringing people together to combat issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic. This is the last weekend participate so sign up before April 12th!

→ Blockstack evangelist, Philip Roe will be hosting the next remote meetup for the Blockstack Chile community on April 14th.

→ Our newest evangelists, GM and Ludy will be hosting a remote meetup for the Blockstack Korea community on April 16th.

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WATCH, LISTEN, READ

→ Read this interview with Tom Shaughnessy of Delphi Digital and see how Blockstack fits into Tom's vision of the crypto industry in 2021.

Revisit the lengthy list from last week's newsletter:

→ Watch Balaji Srinivasan talk about novel concept, Proof-of-Hodl, at the Blockstack x Nakamoto meetup in Austin.

→ Listen to Muneeb Ali talk to Knotel Co-founder, Amol Sarva, about Blockstack's journey, Bitcoin, and internet ownership on the In the Know podcast.

→ Listen to Patrick Stanley talk to writer and CoinDesk report, Leigh Cuen, about everything from the ongoing impact of COVID-19 and navigating crypto media, to Bitcoin memes and truth seeking on episode 10 the Stacks Podcast.

→ Listen to Patrick talk to Joel Monegro of Placeholder VC about an investment thesis that spans Joel's career, the evolution of business models in crypto, and the concept of user-staking on episode 11 of the Stacks Podcast.

→ Listen to Andreas Antonopoulos discuss interoperability and revisit his talk from Blockstack Summit 2019, "One Network, Many Chains" on episode 23 of the Unscrypted podcast.

→ Listen to Muneeb and Kyle Samani of Multicoin Capital tackle big questions like, "What is crypto good for?" and nerd out about the Web 3.0 stack, whether Ethereum can evolve, DeFi vs. centralized finance, the polarization of exchanges, native chain communication, Bitcoin finality, scaling Layer 1, and more on episode 12 of the Stacks Podcast.

→ Read Muneeb Ali's op-ed in Bitcoin Magazine on how Bitcoin can become the foundation for Web 3.0.

→ Read the recap of the community AMA session with Blockstack Head of Engineering, Diwaker Gupta.

→ Read Founder of New Internet Labs and former Blockstack Core Engineer, Larry Salibra's blog examining the way that user intent is treated in today's web climate, and how creating a new "Can't Be Evil" terms of service could change everything.

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GET INVOLVED

→ Join the effort to develop a governance model for the Blockstack ecosystem by filling out this survey.

→ Help select a Community Lead for the PoX Working Group.

→ Add to-do list items to the Testnet Ambassador project board.

→ Sign up to learn more about PoX and STX Mining on Stacks 2.0.

→ See what the working groups have been up to.

→ Join the Governance Working Group.

→ Join the Business Model Working Group.

→ Join the PoX Working Group.

>> Read the previous newsletter.