Here is a newsletter update on some of the things the Peercoin and Nu communities have been working on...
Peershares Sale for Blocks & Chains Decentralized Exchange
Jordan Lee, the creator of Peershares and NuBits has introduced plans to develop a decentralized exchange based on Peershares, called Blocks & Chains or B&C for short. Shares are currently being sold in order to fund the development of the exchange. As of May 17th (One day after the sale started) backers of Jordan's exchange project had pledged around $90,880, which is around 45% of the target goal. If it hasn't already happened, the price per share will soon be rising to $5.10.
Core Peercoin developer Sigmike will join Jordan along with others from the Nu team in developing the exchange if the fundraiser is successful. B&C Exchange will be an open-source decentralized exchange that completes cryptocurrency trades between users by utilizing multisig signers that compete for blockchain rewards based on their effectiveness and honesty.
Trades will occur using real cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Peercoin and NuBits, as opposed to artificial proxy cryptoassets like those found in NXT or BitShares.A web based interface that will be familiar to users of centralized cryptoasset exchanges will be offered. Unlike centralized exchange websites, exchange operators will have zero access to funds and zero responsibility for customer account information. If an exchange website disappears suddenly, a user can simply go to another site that uses the same open source exchange software, or use another application that supports B&C Exchange and continue using the same account without interruption. This is because all account information will be stored on the blockchain, as the attached design document will explain.
Equity ownership in B&C Exchange will be held by users who own “BlockShares (BKS)”. Users will pay transaction fees on the exchange with “BlockCredits (BKC)”. You will not need to own BlockShares to use BlockCredits, and vice versa. Profits from the sale of BlockCredits will be returned to BlockShares holders through a Bitcoin dividend mechanism in the protocol.
B&C Exchange will be fully controlled by everyone who owns BlockShares. For example, BlockShares holders can set the transaction fee cost (in BlockCredits) of using B&C Exchange, the number of multi-sig signers required to successfully conduct a trade (such as 7 out of 11 or 8 out of 15), and much more. It is expected that if B&C Exchange is successful, many BlockCredits will be purchased to transact on the exchange, and thus many Bitcoin dividends would be returned to BlockShares holders as a reward for operating a safe and convenient exchange. In contrast to centralized exchanges, B&C Exchange will have:
- Significantly less counterparty and theft risk because of the multi-sig capabilities of its design.
- Far fewer operating expenses due to the absence of costs like employee salaries, supplies, and rent.
- Lower trading fees for users if BlockShares holders choose to vote for competitive low transaction fees.
- The ability to distribute Bitcoin dividends to all BlockShares holders from profits earned, using an existing dividend protocol mechanism present in the code of NuBits and NuShares.
B&C Exchange will also use NuBits to solve a major problem faced by decentralized exchanges – the inability to use stable fiat money. NuBits have closely held a 1.00 USD peg since September of 2014 and will be offered on B&C Exchange trading pairs as a synthetic substitute for US dollars. Because NuBits is a fork of Bitcoin and Peercoin, using NuBits will be a familiar experience for Bitcoin users. Substantial liquidity will be brought to the exchange through NuBit liquidity operations that have already been established.
If B&C succeeds, it could help loosen Peercoin's dependence on btc-e. It could also help foster the creation of a marketplace for trading Peershares as the number of implementations continues to grow. If you would like to read more about how B&C works and find out the details for purchasing shares, check out the official thread. Jordan has used that thread to answer lots of questions about the technical aspects of the exchange. Feel free to ask anything you'd like to know. You can also read the design document.
Sunny King Will be Releasing Peercoin v0.5 Upgrade Soon
While an official release date has not yet been set, Sunny King has been talking more frequently in his weekly updates about the v0.5 upgrade for Peercoin. Here are some direct quotes...
Update #138: "We have made some adjustment to peercoin's release plans. The support for peermessage will be joined with some protocol adjustment to enhance peercoin's network security, which will then be bundled into a release v0.5.0. The current develop branch will become v0.6."
Update #139: "OP_RETURN small data transaction support is now added to peercoin. This feature is requested by the peermessage project and will be included in the coming release."
Update #141: "v0.5 release will be mandatory upgrade, with a 2 month upgrade window. Once testing completes on the protocol change, I will announce a release schedule."
Editors Needed for Peercoin Wiki
The Peercoin wiki has been coming along nicely and now contains around 45 pages of content. If you would like to contribute to the wiki, just click the "Request Account" link in the upper right corner of the page and register. FuzzyBear, the admin of Peercointalk will then approve your account.
Ppcsuite Progress Report
Ppsuite is a port of the Btcsuite tools written in Go. The project is being developed by Mably. Two of the components being ported are btcd (ppcd) and btcwallet (ppcwallet) Some of the main goals are to facilitate Peercoin integration with the Open Transactions project, other exchanges and payment processors and allow Counterparty to be easily ported to Peercoin. Recently, ppcwallet minted its first block on testnet. Mably is also scheduled to give a talk about Peercoin and proof-of-stake at the BdxCoin event in France next month.
Peercoin Book Releases Soon
Tyke will soon be releasing the Peercoin book he's been working on since January. The book will provide a historical account of Peercoin's first year. Keep checking the main thread as it should be released within a few days.
History of the Nu Network
Peercoin and Nu share a lot of community members and developers, but sadly there are still many Peercoin supporters that aren't involved with Nu. Usually the reason is either the initial trouble some had purchasing NuShares from Jordan Lee back in September when Nu released or it's because after reading the whitepaper, they came to the realization that the parking mechanism made Nu unsustainable with an ever increasing supply of NuBits due to parking interest. It seems that many people don't yet realize how greatly the Nu system has evolved since its launch. Many aspects of the design have completely changed to make the system more sustainable. For example, the NuBits supply can now be increased and decreased at the will of shareholders.
Catching up on the NuBits forum to discover these improvements can be a daunting task though, so I took several days to write up a history of the Nu Network for people that want to quickly catch up and become more involved. The history shows how Nu has evolved since launch, details all the major events and includes links to the original threads. While this is only a first draft, I felt it was complete enough to show off. I hope it's helpful to those of you who have been wanting to catch up with Nu.
Regards, The PeercoinTalk: Official forums for help, advice and news about Peercoin (PPC) and Primecoin (XPM) Team.
https://www.peercointalk.org/index.php
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