Did you miss our last AMA/FAQ livestream with Arnold Bansemer, Particl Desktop’s Lead Developer? Don’t worry, this update should keep you up to speed with all the latest developments and news surrounding the project!

You also don’t want to miss the News & Updates part of this Community Update as we’ll reveal some details about Particl’s new team member, Lina!

AMA/FAQ Livestream Summary

Note: This edition of the AMA/FAQ livestream features Arnold Bansemer as a guest. Some of the answers to the questions included in this summary have been paraphrased and shortened to fit with the Community Update format. Please refer to the provided timestamps for the exact answer from Arnold himself!

(2:34) Arnold Bansemer Introduces Himself

“I’ve taken over from Kewde as Lead Developer for Particl Desktop, however, I still refer back to him from time to time as he’s been a huge part of building Particl Desktop, so he’s not entirely relieved from its “duty”. What I mostly do is code reviews, manage merge and pull requests as well as help other developers when they have difficulties or issues with some specific tasks. I also have my own development workload, of course.”

(3:56) Are you only working on Particl Desktop or do you also work on the marketplace?

“If my help is required, I’ll always be there to assist the marketplace developers. As a matter of fact, I’ve already submitted some PRs (pull requests) about it, although I am still finding my way myself through the marketplace code. In fact, there’s a lot of code done on Particl Marketplace! The Marketplace Team is also very strong and experienced and I don’t think I’m needed that much to assist them, but if there is a need I’ll be there!”

(6:20) Is there any update on the cold staking pool?

The cold staking pools are more or less ready to be released. If you are already on the #testing channel on Riot or Discord, you can see Tecnovert has already made the code publicly available. Not only has the code been made available, but testing as well. In fact, in the #testing channel were posted instructions on how to test the staking pool on both testnet and mainnet networks. The more testers we get, the quicker we can identify and fix issues and get it officially released.

Sneak peek of the cold staking pool’s user interface

It’s important to note that the publicly available staking pools do not have any GUI interface and are very barebone. While the GUI has been under development for some time now, it will only be available on the official launch day of the staking pools.

The code itself is not hosted under Particl’s Github account, just like Dasource’s Partyman cold staking app. The code for the cold staking pools is hosted under Tecnovert’s personal account here: https://github.com/tecnovert/particl-coldstakepool. We encourage everyone to test, study, tweak, or fork the code if they want to.

Keep an eye out for any update about cold staking pools in the coming weeks!

(10:21) Arnold, what’s your fresh perspective of the project?

“One thing that particularly stood out when I first joined the Particl project is the passion, dedication, and technical skills of the team members. I can even say that at first, I was a little bit intimidated by that as everyone really is on top of their game, I was wondering how I would measure up to them. There is so much that has been accomplished code wise and it’s pretty impressive. I can say this is what really stood out for me as a new team member.”

(12:41) What do you think the project is “behind”?

“As far as what we are behind with…well we are always “generally behind” when it comes to any project development. It’s a bit difficult to put into perspective because there’s a lot of work to be done, but we’re also moving as fast as we can given the size of the team. I don’t see, however, any particular aspect of the project that is specifically behind other aspects or being neglected. We’re still on track to wrap up governance this month, and probably get Beta ready for the next month or so. One thing we gotta be careful about though is to finish what we start working on first before implementing new features/functions, or else it becomes hard to finish things up properly. I think we’ve been pretty good on that end though.”

(14:50) As a new team member, did you feel welcome?

“Yes, but it’s a bit different than what I am used to. I come from the more traditional 9 to 5 job model where you work in an office and have a set schedule. Usually, during your first day at the office, you are directly introduced to everyone you’ll be working with and so it is easy to get to know your new co-workers quickly.

Particl being a decentralized team, it’s a bit different. You kind of have to make the first steps because everyone is so busy and caught up in their work. There’s also the fact that most conversations happen over text in chat, so it’s not as easy to get to know your new co-workers as an in-office job. But yes, I did feel welcome, and so far most team members have been willing to sacrifice some of their time to chat a little and get to me know better!”

(17:14) Are you going to the South Africa trimestrial team meeting?

“Yes, I’ll be there! I actually live in South Africa so it won’t be difficult for me to get where the meetings are. I’ll surely be taking part in some of the developer meetings and will be there to finally meet the rest of the team in person! This will definitely be beneficial to get together, in person, to flesh out ideas in a more direct way than over chats or conference calls!”

(19:40) What would you say to others who may want to join the development? Would you recommend it?

“I can’t comment on what the Foundation does and who they hire, but I definitely recommend participating from a community contribution perspective. Do it, please, it’s important and helps a lot! This is a community project and contributions are welcomed in more than one way. If you’ve got an idea for a feature or just a general proposal, then, by all means, log it on Github or code it up then submit a pull request. I’ll definitely review it for integration and it might just make it if the review is positive. We’ll never say no to contributions, especially as we have a small team. There’s only so much we can do at a given time. Right now, we’re really busy with the marketplace code. If there’s something that’s not within our immediate focus, you can contribute and we will look into each submission for sure!”

(22:19) What’s your opinion on the few bugs identified on the latest Particl Marketplace Alpha builds?

“A couple of them are easy fixes and have already fixed in internal builds. There have been, however, one or two bugs that have been trickier in fixing, notably due to reproduction issues (recreating the bug internally) and figuring out how they’re happening. We’re making good progress on them though, especially on the [object Object] issue lots of people have been having.

In most cases, the fixes are pretty simple, it’s more about figuring about how the bugs are generated and not breaking anything else while fixing them. That's pretty much what automated test cases are for, and I think we need to have more of them. It’s one of the goals we’re all currently working towards at the same time as shown in the status report. Also, as mentioned before, more community testers definitely helps to identify and troubleshoot these issues.”

(25:22) Will you guys put new testnet builds out now that the download links have expired?

“What we’re trying to avoid with the 10-day expiry limit on download links is the number of available bugs out there. We don’t want people using old builds and reporting bugs and issues that have already been fixed in new releases. There’s also a second aspect to it in that we ideally want to include new stuff for the community to test everytime we do new releases to keep it interesting to the community to keep the number of testers high! There should be a new testnet build coming out soon so keep an eye on the #testing channel!”

(28:07) You mentioned in your interview with Cryptoguard that you were excited about future use-cases, features, and Dapps for Particl. Do you have any idea on top of your head you can share?

“I’ve actually been discussing with Cryptoguard in private chats the other day ideas we and other people from the community and team have had over time. There’s a couple of them floating around, but currently, the main focus really is about getting the marketplace up and we need to push that hard. We’re hesitant to mention anything specific at the moment because we don’t want to switch the focus on other stuff.

What really excites me in that regard though is that there are many ideas out there that would be possible to implement. Getting ideas from the community is what we need to go forward, and is a great mental exercise to identify what we need to focus on next after the marketplace. For the moment, I won’t elaborate too much and keep that for after the mainnet release of Particl Marketplace!”

(30:44) What are your thoughts on the potential of the coming developer SDK? How do you see Particl as a decentralized and privacy-focused economy rather than just a currency?

“That’s extremely important to have that baseline of privacy, and then everything built on top of that is beneficial. Getting the community involved as well, in the long run, is going to really push the project forward and will probably be the driver for mass adoption. There’s already going to be the marketplace available, but taking it beyond that is really going to transform the GUI (Particl Desktop) into essentially a platform with a similar approach to a plugin-based platform architecture. Whether future Dapps and features are developed by us or by the community…I really believe this is going to be the driving force for mass adoption!”

(33:30) Has Particl been your introduction to blockchain development?

“My very very first introduction to cryptocurrencies was back in 2011–2012 when I first heard about it. I didn’t really know about it at the time and kind of pushed it to the side to see what would happen before I do anything about it. Then, one of the companies I was working with started to look into crypto and that’s when I really could evaluate what was happening in the space. That’s around the time I first bought Bitcoin as well as some other coins. But strictly related to actual development, yes, Particl is my first crypto project as a developer.”

(36:07) What’s your favorite topping on a pizza?

“I’m born carnivorous, so any kind of meat is welcomed on pizza, especially bacon! Also, I’m in the more controversial side of the debate…but pineapple can definitely work on a pizza.”

(39:01) Paul, Does Particl plans on creating a two-token system to reduce the volatility of funds held in escrow?

“There’s no immediate plan for this. That being said, that doesn’t it won’t ever happen, but as Arnold said, it’s important to focus on one thing at a thing and not spread ourselves too thin, otherwise, lots of stuff get started but few of them actually get finished up. We are actually going to consider various solutions to reduce volatility and a two-token system might be part of the solution, but it’s not part of the current roadmap.”

(41:46) Will the official website be updated in time for the mainnet release of the marketplace?

“Yes, the website is constantly in evolution since we launched Particl. We’re also in contact with HackerBay, a German-based company focused on communication and marketing, among other things, to help improve the way our message is being communicated.

We are currently working on a page specifically made for the marketplace and will update the rest of the website accordingly.”

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If you want to read more questions and answers from Arnold, please head over to the link below and read Cryptoguard’s interview with him!