Pitchfork Countdown May Begin Next Week

[xeroc]

[Ander]

If all goes well next week and no unforeseen snags occur, 
we think we will be able to announce the start of our 30 day countdown to the BitShares 2.0 Pitchfork.

This never happens, but I do appreciate that we are getting closer now.  It looks like you will probably get there prior to Sept 21 or whatever is the 'last day of summer'.

Well done everyone involved!  We know youve been working incredibly hard to get this out.

[Stan]

ANNOUNCEMENT 9 - Pitchfork Countdown Could Begin Next Week

Those of you who attended today's Mumble Hangout with Bytemaster heard it there first.  This expectation shaping pre-announcement announcement is for the rest of you.

If all goes well next week and no unforeseen snags occur, 
we think we will be able to announce the start of our 30 day countdown to the BitShares 2.0 Pitchfork.

To make this date, we have prioritized our initial feature set to achieve the following key objectives:

• Full tested functionality of all 2.0 features available at the Command Line Interface (CLI) level so no forks are needed before the next major release.
• A quality web wallet we are proud to introduce to newcomers that provides at least all the existing features folks have been using already.
• Wallet support for the new DPOS 2.0 witness based governance model.
• Twice as fast as the current system (5 second blocks) with the ability to double the block rate a couple more times (to 1 second blocks) without hard forking to shift gears.  One full order of magnitude increase overall.
• Implementing the referral system so the gold rush for new users can begin.
• Full support for partner integration so they can proceed with their big plans.

These were judged the minimum requirements needed to jump start the anticipated growth boom.  Every other new feature can be brought online without interruption or forking to upgrade, so we felt that there was no reason to delay getting the above advantages into the hands of our partners and users.

Our team will make the final call next week, but we feel we are very close.  The exact 30-day countdown date will be posted in a follow up announcement at that time.  If you are a Partner or 3rd Party developer waiting to begin integration, this is your one week pre-notice to recall your integration teams from summer break in Kokomo and harness them up to their keyboards.

If all goes well, this means that:

• We will have demonstrated the MVP and started the countdown while it is still "This Summer".
• We will go live with BitShares 2.0 and our partners while it is still "Indian Summer".
• We will be moving on The Next Big Things in time for  "Aussie Summer".

and, most importantly, when Marty and Doc get back to the future this fall, BitShares 2.0 will already be here waiting for them, with weeks to spare!