RChain update (Debrief 87), July 25th, 2018

Update summary

Greg M starts the hangout by giving a brief update on the validator focus group, then Medha takes over with development update. The technical team is progressing, with basic improvements in performance testing, interpreters, and implementation of the proof of stake contract into the RChain state. The Reflective team closes a deal with Govurn and reaches out to validators in Asia. About five companies are up for final due diligence from Pithia. A significant part of the hangout emphasised issues concerning RCon3 and node validators. Read on for more details.

Timeline

Technical update

Reflective update

Pithia update

European co-op update

Marketing update

H3Uni update

Further update on RCon3

Content in brief:

Technical updates

Medha has been working with Jeremy on metrics and performance testing.

Jeremy is working on implementing more metrics and dashboard in Grafana.

The team had great progress during node testing; fifteen peers connected. They also reproduced a non-deterministic behaviour for Michael Birch.

Cut RNode 0.53.

Rholang

Improving the pattern matching to include stable marriage to algorithm.

Cost accounting in matching in review, including the interactions necessary within RSpace.

The team is updating the wiki documentation on the interpreter to include how it interacts with the tuple space. They’ll also have detailed documentation on cost accounting.

Optimising the fetching of block dependency in Casper by using doubly linked DAG.

Implementing the proof of stake (POS) contract in the RChain state.

They are including sender info in block api.

There is a written formalized specifications for SPV proofs in Casper.

More work on the registry design

Writing pseudocode on how the REV transfer is going to work for sharding.

Work on the security of purses and what will be needed for contract deployment is in progress.

On-boarded to new developers.

Node team

Suspect we may be swallowing the LMDB exceptions, leading to non-deterministic behaviours.

Created the libsodium project in Sonaltype following the same pattern as the SECP256K.

Block storage implementation is in review.

Added additional integration tests to cover deploy and propose. Tests were failing silently.

Refactoring Kademlia. Likely going t on feature branch to make sure it’s stable before it’s merged in.Implementing the RNode configuration file.

Building metrics dashboards in Grafana.

Roscala

Working on Rosette object import and doing some additional work to properly account for inherited objects.

Continuing work on the PR for parallelization.

Website

Updated the RNode user guide.

RHOC holders should sign up to receive updates on the token web page, which is the only place for official announcements related to the RHOC to REV swap.

RCon3

Validators are needed to participate in the launch and testing at RCon3.

Volunteers in Berlin are needed to attend local tech meetups and help with marketing the event. Interested persons should contact events@pyrofex.net .

Registration still open and there is an Early Bird special until July 31st. Scholarship applications are being accepted until August 6th.

Node testers should contact kelly@pyrofex.net for registration discounts.

Q&A/Comment

Christian: “One comment about the RHOC-REV. I would recommend that the announcements still be on the page, but it also gets updated in Japanese, Korean, and Chinese.”

Kelly Foster: “We’ve been asked to provide Russian, simplified Chinese, and Spanish at this point. I think we can be open minded but a formal request for other languages needs to be made, with a sensibility about how broad that audience might be. The determination so far has been based on visitors to the site, based on their geographical location.”

Jacob B: “Is there a chance that we delay anything? Testnet release or even mainnet launch?”

Greg M: “There is definitely some risk based upon the non determinism bugs and some resourcing issues, but so far we’re still on track. I never try to pull the wool over people’s eyes. There are definitely some risks that we’re seeing right now, but so far we haven’t had to make a hard call.”

Medha: “We focused on the project risks and the risks specifically to Node 0.6 during our project planning meeting. Everything is documented on the wiki. Anyone is free to go and take a look at it. I believe the resourcing risks we can address, but the non determinism errors is definitely a wildcard.”

Greg M: “The number one reason why we are doing the whole behavioral type stuff and currently just based upon the maturity of everything, we have more of the implementation down below the Rholang level. This means we cannot apply the formal methods to that code. Whatever we can get up above the Rholang line, we can begin to employ the formal methods approach as we start to roll that out…”

Jacob B: “Is there a chance that we’re ready to launch the root shard but not the child shards and is that one of the possible scenarios that plays out towards December?”

Greg M: “It seems very unlikely to me. I don’t see that as an outcome at all…”

Reflective update

The team has closed a deal with Govurn.

Success in garnering a lot of interest from validators in both Korea and China.

Q&A/Comments

Greg M: “I know that Deanna Duke is engaged with Govurn, but I just want to make sure that they begin talking as soon as possible with RChain Europe, since RChain Europe’s remit is on-chain governance tools. It would be really good to make sure that conversation is underway.”

Kevin V: “Yes, and that also brings up another point. Myself, Deanna, and Tim from RChain Europe also had a conversation with a wallet developer, so we’re going to be working out terms to have them connect to RChain. So that also really helps us out as it relates to adoption.”

Greg M: “Fantastic. I really appreciate that. That’s good work.”

Pithia update

Met with the Ministry of Trade and Finance in Canada. Four companies showed interest in RChain.

Five companies are wrapping for final due diligence.

Working locally with University of Washington and University of Oregon. Will be creating a Cascadian network of universities.

European co-op update

The documentation for European cop has been submitted for auditing.

The co-op now has a registered bank, and its website development is underway. The website is to be in uniformity with that of RChain U.S.

The Board held a special meeting on July 23rd to organise a deal with an on-chain audio company (name for now remains anonymous). The company is expected to present at RCon3. The Board is amazed by the audio experience they had, and encourages people to be at RCon3 to have a similar experience.

Q&A/Comments

Christian: “Right now, who controls the developer.coop site?

Is it the co-op or is it Pyrofex?”

Kelly: “It’s the development team.”

Christian: “from Pyrofex or the co-op?”

Kelly: “Pyrofex manages the development team, but there’s also co-op involvement. It’s a collaborative effort.”

Christian: “When the European co-op is launched, will there be something like a European developer page, and how does that blend into the central repository we have right now for developer resources?”

Greg M: “Remember that the European development is going to be largely focused on tools.”

Christian: “Okay, that clears it up.”

Jacob B: “Are we expecting a financial update in Berlin from the co-op’s side?”

Greg M: “Absolutely. We have a budget, a financial update that’s ready for presentation.”

Jacob B: “Logistically, when it comes to distributing 80 million RHOCS to validators, is that going to be done from a team within the co-op? What’s the plan for logistically rolling that out over the next couple months?”

Greg M: “We have a group that’s devoted just to this. It’s planned out.”

Marketing update

The team gave feedback to Girvin on the logo concepts; 2A and 2B logo are most preferred.

Subsequently, the team will be resurfacing the official website and is confident to deliver by RCon3.

The team has launched the blog, populated with a few posts, and has selected five authors for posts ranging from technical to semi-technical to announcements.

The team has on-boarded a full-time technical evangelist.

Working on a strategy for collaborative learning by developing the proof of concepts that demonstrate RChain capabilities.

The team’s syncing with the Futurism concept and getting aligned with partnership releases.

Email marketing outreach is commencing with blockchain and non-blockchain influencers.

The team will be on-boarding validators as soon as the validator focus group results are delivered.

H3UniI update

Greg M got in touch with Peter Kawalek (Member of the H3Uni Board of Trustees). He has significant influence in the UK with academics, and will aid the community in getting university support for RChain.

Q&A/Comments

JiM: “People that have been active in the governance working group who would be interested in attending, is it possible or too late?”

Kenny: “Too late…”

Further update on RCon3

The program for RCon3 is ready and will be published after invitation notice is sent to speakers.

If you fall under any of these categories, RCon3 is for you:

Persons with an interest to becoming a dApp developer.

Those interested in learning Rholang and getting familiar with the RChain platform.

Those interested in being a node validator/operator.

Investors interested in investing in the RChain platform.

Persons interested in knowing the science behind blockchain technology.

RHOC holders interested in the RHOC-REV token swap.

RChain supporters and well-wishers.

Persons interested in signing the genesis block and being a validator at the launch of the testnet should send an email to kelly@pyrofex.net .

Other updates