Hello Friends,

The POA team has been hard at work for the past couple weeks and we have some exciting updates to share with you all. We have made great progress in the areas of community building, governance, POA Explorer, event attendance, ambassador programme and announcing three exciting partnerships. Lets get right into it!

1. Bancor Protocol to be deployed on POA Network!

We are happy and excited to announce that Bancor Protocol will be integrated with POA Network for a new initiative to leverage blockchain technology in Kenya! Bancor and POA Network will work as a solution to enable a new network of currencies aimed at alleviating poverty in the region.This is a very exciting collaboration as Bancor, a top Ethereum DApp will be deployed on the POA Network and make use of the sidechain benefits. Check out the announcement here.

2. POA partners up with Infura!

We have recently announced our exciting partnership with Infura for blockchain infrastructure support! Infura, part of the ConsenSys umbrella, will be providing access to POA mainnet nodes through https://poa.Infura.io. It will be the first time that they have provided access to nodes for a sidechain project! Our community members and POA Dapp developers can expect reliable uptime for all our mainnet nodes. We will be releasing some video tutorials over the next couple of weeks to talk about the partnership in more details, including setting up your MetaMask and deploying your DApp on POA Network. Be on the lookout for those! Check out the announcement here!

3. POA Network partners with Sentinel Chain to develop ERC20 to ERC20 bridge

We are happy to announce that POA Network and Sentinel Chain are forming a partnership for joint development of ERC20 to ERC20 EVM cross-chain bridge! This partnership allows the EVM-based blockchain community to have access to a closed market running on private blockchain. Benefits of the partnership include the ability of SENC and POA20 tokens to be concurrently utilized on Sentinel Chain and POA Network. Check out the announcement here for more details.

4. New validators added for on-chain governance

We are thrilled to announce that we have added two new validators on the core network, James McGrath on June 23, 2018, and Kristina Yevseyeva on July 13, 2018 which brings the POA Network up to a total of 19 core network validators! Currently there is also an ongoing ballot to add validator candidate, Oxana Kunets to the core network! Please also welcome our newest addition to the Sokol Network Artiom Curencov who was added on June 12, 2018. Thanks again to validator candidate Alexander Beal for keeping the validators guide up to date on the forum and check out the guide here!

5. Community update

The POA team has recently expanded with the addition of our two newest community administrators, Adj(@adjansi) and Daniel(@ViismMarketing)! They are very willing to assist with any POA related issues so feel free to ask them any questions in our telegram!

6. POA Explorer released into Sokol Test network

The POA team is excited to announce that POA Explorer first version has been released into Sokol testnet! This is an exciting step for the team as we have now done multiple deployments to the testnet and are excited to share with the community what we have been working so hard on!

Currently available block explorers (i.e. Etherscan and Etherchain) are closed systems which are not independently verifiable. As Ethereum sidechains continue to proliferate in both private and public settings, transparent tools are needed to analyze and validate transactions. The first release will include a block explorer for the POA core and Sokol test networks. Additional networks will be added in upcoming versions.

7. POA Events: Igor Barinov at TechCrunch + more!

We have been busy with multiple events since the last update! On July 6th and 7th, Igor Barinov spoke in Zug, Switzerland as part of TechCrunch Sessions: Blockchain 2018. Ned Desmond, COO of TechCrunch, introduced Igor and POA Network to the stage for his presentation on Interoperability between Ethereum networks! The presentation included a demo of the POA Bridge, as well as a demo of our upcoming upgrade consisting of an ERC20 to ERC20 bridge!

Igor Barinov speaking about interoperability between Ethereum Networks

Bancor co-founder Galia Benartzi and Igor Barinov

POA hosted its second official meetup in Toronto where validator Ilmira Nugumanova gave a talk on Governance and the POA Bridge.

On July 25th, validator Jim O’Regan will be giving a talk on POA Network at “Las Vegas Government Blockchain Group” meetup. The meetup will be focused on how POA Network can benefit the blockchain groups within the government!

On July 26th, Igor Barinov will be talking about on-chain governance at Polkadot Berlin meetup. Igor will be one of four guests that include Ethereum and Polkadot founder Gavin Wood, Tezos co-founder Arthur Breitman, and Colony co-founder Jack Du Rose. As part of the on-chain governance presentation, Igor will present multiple of POA Network’s governance DApps including POA Ballots DApp, POA Validators DApp, Proof of Physical Address and more.

For all of our upcoming events, make sure to check out our event calendar: https://cryptocalendar.pro/events/poa-network

7. POA Ambassador Programme

We would like to thank all the applicants who applied to our POA Ambassador Programme. All candidates should have received emails regarding the next steps to enroll in the programme. Once we officially launch our ambassador programme later in the year we will resume accepting applications for candidates so we can accelerate the growth of the POA community.

Humans of POA #11

Our “Humans of POA” this week is POA Network’s technical writer, Andrew Gross! Andrew has been keeping busy with updating our technical documentation and helping with all other content related aspects of POA Network!

What is your name: Andrew Gross

What is your role: Technical Writer

What are you currently working on: I get the opportunity to bounce between projects and learn about many different aspects of the POA ecosystem.

One of my current projects is optimizing README files for several of our GitHub repositories. This is fun work because I can deep dive into the functionality and protocols and come to the surface with a few gems to share. A successful open source project needs a clear README — it allows interested contributors to quickly understand the basics of the project and how to get it up and running — so they can get down to coding.

READMEs can also shift quickly, as I’ve seen with the “Honey Badger Byzantine Fault Tolerant consensus algorithm project (HBBFT for short!). This project has been an incredible learning experience as the development team builds a resilient, time-independent consensus protocol from the ground up. Each day the algorithms evolve when new issues are discovered and deciphered. It’s exciting and challenging to help document this living, breathing codebase.

I’ve also been exploring and writing on the POA governance process. The more I’ve learned the more I realize how unique and game-changing this model is. “Proof of Authority” governance combines the efficiency and transparency of on-chain processing with the vigilance and accountability of known, ethical validators. I’ve yet to find another public blockchain that follows this approach.

It has been interesting to research the many different models of governance to see what’s working and what isn’t. As Fred Ehrsam mentions in his piece Blockchain Governance: Programming our Future, “Governance is the most vital problem in the (blockchain) space”. I believe POA network is doing an excellent job addressing the governance problem, and I’m excited to keep learning more and spreading the news about POA governance.

What is a typical day working with POA: Well, no two days are ever alike! In the morning I may be polishing up a Medium post and then move to reading and editing developer docs or researching protocols. I work with some amazing developers who are really pushing the boundaries of what is possible in a consensus protocol. In order to keep up, I do a lot of research, reworking and refactoring of my own writing. Just as with code, getting to that place of ‘optimized simplicity’ takes a lot of time and effort.

I enjoy the days when I can meet face-to-face (over video chat :)) with teammates on various projects. It’s a really diverse team of talented individuals, and I think everyone at POA challenges one another to do their best work.

How do you see POA Network evolving in a year and going forward: There are so many projects in the POA pipeline with potential to improve the blockchain user experience. I see a lot of time and effort going into

R&D right now that will pay off in the next year. I think POA is positioning themselves as a technical leader, tackling difficult problems and coming up with novel solutions.

I’m really looking forward to the release of the new POA Explorer. I think this project will bring a lot of new users into the fold. People really want an open-source alternative to Etherscan, and POA Explorer will provide more functionality and transparency to view and analyze transactions across all networks.

As the main Ethereum network gets more congested, smart contract developers will have to look for faster, cheaper and secure solutions. POA fits the bill, and with interoperability, developers and users can move between networks with ease. I believe further adoption will be driven by smart contract developers in the upcoming year.

Warmly,

POA Network Team

Connect with us:

Website: https://poa.network/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/poanetwork

Medium: https://medium.com/poa-network

Forum: https://forum.poa.network/

Reddit: https://reddit.com/r/poa

Telegram: https://t.me/poa_network/