Welcome to the November 2019 newsletter. We have been working hard to understand the changing cryptocurrency landscape and the upcoming, very tough, regulations that will be imposed on cryptocurrency businesses. Both exchanges, custodians, wallet providers and others will come under extreme scrutiny over the coming year and there will be an intensification of regulations by governments all over the world. We want Spectrecoin not only to survive, but to thrive in this increasingly crypto hostile environment and stay ahead. Therefore we are moving forward with a range of changes and improvements. The objective is to ensure a productive, creative and worthwhile future for the this project and get us some wider recognition in the crypto community.

Rebranding

The first major change we can confirm is that Spectrecoin will move forward with a new name, rebrand and update both in terms of our image, graphics and a repositioning and more concise mission presentation. We seek to get a clarity of project expression and a truly professional image. We will announce further details as this process gets underway. None of the actions taken will detract from our core duty to improve the privacy of our software. Rebranding, if done right, can have a profound effect on how we are seen and attract a lot of new attention from disparate groups of interested parties. I know you will all support us in making this decision and carrying this forward. In order for this to have the greatest chance of success we are inviting you to suggest a name and a new ticker for the project.

Naming Competition

We want ideas from the community for a new name for Spectrecoin. We are offering 4242 XSPEC for an idea if we decide to use it in the upcoming re-branding process. You need to follow some simple rules and take into account the disclaimer at the end of this section. The deadline for any submission of a name will be 30/11/2019 at midnight UTC. The e-mail address will expire after this time.



The foundation and the team will then compile a shortlist and hold a community vote to decide on a top 10 list of suggestions. The top suggestion, if not used in the rebranding, will get 500 XSPEC, the runners up on the top 10 list will get 100 XSPEC (places 2,3,4), 50 XSPEC (places 5,6,7) and 25 XSPEC (places 8,9,10) so there is a chance for many to get a reward even if your idea is not used.



The Foundation and the team will make the final decision.

The ideal name for the project needs to be relatively short and catchy. We are looking for ONE name + ONE ticker. The dual-coin system will be represented in another way and not by the ticker. We will not consider names that has the suffix ...coin . The name must NOT have been used before by any crypto / blockchain project. The name cannot be seen as offensive or ‘dark‘. The name must have a suitable ticker that is not in use. Please add your XSPEC address to the e-mail if you want a chance to get the final reward or the 50 XSPEC for being on the top 10 shortlist. Please add your Discord @tag to the e-mail if you are a member of our Discord server.

DISCLAIMER: We will consider all entries carefully that adheres to the rules above. We will publish a shortlist of all the names suggested. The final decision will be made by the Spectrecoin Foundation and the team and will NOT be up for a public vote. We are also searching for a name ourselves and we may choose NOT to use any entries if they are not suitable. If two people submit the same suggestion the ‘winner’ would be the first submission by time. We will only accept submissions via e-mail.

Submit a name via e-mail to: name@spectreproject.io

Development Update

Android Mobile wallet

One of the main focuses for our developers right now is to deliver a fully featured mobile wallet. Work is underway but it is not possible to give an exact timeline for the final product. The work is time consuming and there are technical challenge to overcome. As there is no ‘visible‘ output regarding the port of our wallet to Android, here’s a short wrap up about the current state.

The base for a maintainable Android port is clean cross compiling of our code base. With cross compiling it will also be much easier to generate binaries for other platforms like the Raspberry Pi and similar systems. As we have some dependencies to external libraries, all these dependencies must be available for the desired target system. But this is nearly impossible. So the dependencies must also be compiled during the cross compiling steps. The chosen basement for cross compiling itself is the usage of CMake as build system. At the moment we’re able to build most of the dependencies together with our code using CMake, which is the first important step towards a static binary. As soon as “the whole thing” could be build using CMake, the next step will be to switch the underlaying toolchain to Android, so the CMake build will generate an Android binary. Yves (@Helix)

Payment Proof

Since Stealth Staking (PoAS) was implemented, the last missing feature of private SPECTRE transactions is a secure payment proof, that could be generated and provided to a third party when needed. Currently, the only available option to prove a private SPECTRE payment is via the so called “Scan Secret” that you obtain by running the liststealthaddresses show_secrets=1 in the console. This however could reveal all the transactions associated with a Stealth Address. The new payment proof however does not reveal any history.

Imagine if Alice sent a private SPECTRE payment to Bob and Bob for some reason should deny that the payment was made or lie about the amount that was paid. With the new payment proof the only thing Alice needs to do is to provide the TXID, the ‘Transaction Key‘ and Bob’s Stealth Address to a third party, Charlie, to prove that she made made the payment. Charlie would then be able to confirm that the transaction was completed as claimed by Alice with the correct amount to Bob’s Stealth Address. This payment proof is transaction specific and would not reveal any information on possible future or historic transactions involving that Stealth Address. When this implemented goes live a ‘Transaction Key‘ will be generated when you complete a private SPECTRE transactions. This ‘Transaction Key‘ can later be deleted and it is not stored on the blockchain and therefore does not compromise the privacy of the SPECTRE transactions. This kind of payment proof may increase the chances of SPECTRE being useful as a means of payment in the future.

Marketing

As part of the rebranding process we will hire a professional company to do sustained marketing over a significant period of time, involving different methods and media. We will base the upcoming marketing on the re-branded project and seek to establish brand awareness in this initial phase. We aim to become a ‘household name‘ in the crypto world, so when privacy is discussed people will think not only of Monero and Zcash but also think about Spectrecoin (…or the rebranded project). We have been in discussion with a well know marketing firm that have represented other blockchain projects and we endeavour to move ahead with this shortly after we have settled on a new identity for the project.

Legal

Over the last few week the foundation has been working closely with a London based law firm to discuss where we are now and what we can expect to face in the future with regards to laws and regulation. Once this process has come to an end we will issue a separate publication with the details of this process, the conclusions drawn and how this might affect us. The latest news from the UK government is that open source projects do not need to comply with any specific regulations to release software. This has yet to be confirmed 100% but it seems overwhelmingly likely that any future AML/CTF/KYC will linked to various activities, such as asset sales and not to software development as such. We will update you as we know more. Most of the new regulations are likely to take effect from 10/01/2020.

Foundation Wallets (balances)

In the interest of transparency we will publish the wallet balances controlled by the Spectrecoin Foundation below. The staking reward from the ‘Community Chest‘ is currently being distributed to the community via the PandaBot on our Discord server every Monday.

‘Community Chest’

Current balance is: 300,000 XSPEC currently worth around £22,000,- / $28,280,- that is available for community initiatives. We have a form available for detailed proposals below, but if you just want to submit a simple idea then click the ‘Simple Proposal’ to send us an e-mail.

We still have very little constructive community engagement and we remind everyone that there are funds available for genuine proposals and ideas. Please either fill in the form to submit a proposal or if you have something that doesn’t fit the form, please talk to us on Discord.

‘Reserve Fund’

The reserve fund currently accumulates all the ‘Development Contribution Blocks‘ (DCB) and is seen as the fund to use in the future when at some point the generated coins of the ‘Main Fund‘ have been put to good use. The balance increases by about 2200 XSPEC weekly.

‘Foundation Main Fund‘

The main fund is at the time of writing: 1,468,100 XSPEC

https://chainz.cryptoid.info/xspec/address.dws?Sd51FYBxEWfqcJDd17FJV4u1wfS7EF1sbB.htm

The main fund is the current ‘operating fund‘ from where we will pay developers and also raise BTC or fiat for the purpose of paying for services such as Amazon Web Services, GitHub and other subscriptions. We will use parts of this fund to raise money for the upcoming marketing partnership.

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