In the months leading up to and after our October launch, the Metronome team has been hard at work building wallets, SDKs, and some new features we would like to announce. The Metronome team has been on a roadshow–listening to, evaluating, and incorporating the feedback from the people and communities we’ve spoken to. This feedback is vital to achieving the Metronome vision. With this in mind, below are a few updates that we just announced at Coindesk: Invest in New York.

They are:

We have developed the world’s first ERC20 mining service, to be deployed to the community first with the MTN Metronome token. This enhances the value proposition for Metronome, and makes available a very new and unique method of acquiring MTN. We are launching a new ERC20 token pegged to Bitcoin, which enables Bitcoin (BTC) participation in Metronome auctions and holds BTC in Metronome’s Proceeds contract. We have updated the development and launch schedule. To incorporate the BTC feature into Metronome, as well as incorporating community feedback and holiday considerations, a target launch of February 5th, 2018 makes the most sense.

Metronome Mining Service

Members of the community made it clear that they wanted more ways to acquire Metronome. Since Metronome is a unique cryptocurrency with many unique features, any accoutrements and points of community interaction need to be just as novel.

The Metronome team is excited to announce Bloq will be launched a Metronome mining service, an advanced version of today’s mining pools. The Metronome mining pool is a new and unique way to acquire Metronome in addition to the Initial Supply Auction, the Daily Supply Lots, and the Autonomous Converter Contract.

Few have thought to try and mine ERC20 tokens, because of the nature of ERC20 contracts themselves. The Metronome team had a “eureka moment” and chose to challenge the status quo. Metronome community members will be able to mine Metronome using Ethereum mining equipment. Participants in the Metronome mining service will be paid in Metronome for providing hashpower to the pool to mine Ether. All of this occurs on-blockchain, and does not use any external exchange service.

Think of it like a traditional mining pool with a cryptocurrency converter built into it, but there is no actual conversion because members earn Metronome not Ether. In other words, the user experience will not see any exchange of Ether to MTN, but instead will just receive their MTN for providing hashpower service. In short: Users will experience the mining service as if they were mining Metronome itself.

The implications of this new, novel concept may be enormous, and it is worth the excitement. This mining service model is expected to improve upon many current Ether mining pools, and be cheaper when it comes to payouts. Since Metronome has Mass pay as a feature, it will only incur one transaction fee for the batch payments sent out. Mass pay is new to the Ethereum universe and can make mining payouts — or batch payments in general — more cost-effective.

Adding the Metronome mining service will offer more opportunities for community members to acquire Metronome how they please, and interact more broadly with the Metronome ecosystem.

Bitcoin support in Metronome

In an effort to never stop focusing on improvements to the system, developing features for the community, and making Metronome more accessible, Metronome will feature a BTC-pegged token. This BTC-pegged ERC20 token will enable purchasers to participate in the auction using bitcoin as well as ether. This will not require exchanges and it will all happen on-chain.

Providing the best avenues for the community to participate is central to Metronome’s vision of a self-governed, reliable, and portable cryptocurrency. We are proud that Metronome is the world’s first cross-blockchain cryptocurrency, it is fitting that our Initial Supply Auction and Daily Auctions are also cross-blockchain.

This is entirely on-chain and managed via smart contracts, and does not rely on any external exchange; indeed there is no BTC-ETH exchange needed at all — that’s the whole point!

February 5th, 2018 Target Launch

Taking into account these additions, most notably on-chain Bitcoin participation in Metronome auctions, and also, one common piece of feedback we received in both our online and in-person conversations with the community was a concern over auction timing and, particularly, the length of the initial supply auction.

As described in an earlier update, the length of the Initial Supply Auction was extended from one day to one week in an effort to better accommodate international interest in Metronome. Addressing this concern, however, made another apparent.

With a launch window in the first half of December and a week-long Initial Supply Auction so close to the holiday season, many in the community were not going to be able to participate in the initial auction in the way they had hoped. This also left little time for potential participants to perform due diligence processes and extensive evaluation. Even non-institutional potential purchasers hoped to have more time for conducting their due diligence and research. The Metronome team decided to update its launch scheduled based on these considerations, coupled with the meticulous audit of Metronome’s autonomous smart contracts. Metronome is now targeted to launch on February 5th, 2018 with its Initial Supply Auction.

Conclusion

The Metronome team welcomes and encourages feedback from the community. We listen to what the community says, what it needs, and what it wants. To align Metronome with the voices of the community, we have updated Metronome to directly support BTC on-chain participation, will launch a Metronome mining service for even more ways to participate in the community, and have adjusted the initial auction schedule to target Metronome’s launch on February 5th, 2018.

We thank everyone in this great community for providing valuable feedback and participating in defining Metronome. We encourage that you keep it going. Participate in the conversation on our Telegram and Reddit, and follow the latest news on Twitter.

The Metronome Team

Update: The Initial Supply Auction is now set for June 18, 2018. Please see this most recent post for up to date information: https://medium.com/@MetronomeToken/metronome-launch-date-set-for-june-18-2018-ff47bd6c117d

UPDATE: For various reasons, the Metronome team has chosen to use the new ticker “MET.”