Last week, we broke down Q3 and many of the milestones that we accomplished during this period. If you missed it, you can check it out here.
Q4 - A Brief Introduction.
Q4 will probably be the most development intensive quarter Bitgrin has gone through thus far. The core dev team will tackle technological challenges that have yet be resolved in the mimblewimble ecosystem; these include non-interactive transactions and secure IP-based transactions with NAT hole-punching. Both of these technical developments will make transacting in Bitgrin a seamless and effortless experience putting us one step closer to widespread adoption.
We are also pushing forward in the community development and growth aspect with the introduction of new exchanges and pools for Bitgrin, documentation for miners, developers and the like, a technical whitepaper and much more.
Q4 ADOPT, is all about introducing developments to make Bitgrin more adoption-friendly, growing the community and providing people the necessary tools to learn, mine and develop on Bitgrin. I hope you enjoy this writeup and are looking forward to the coming Quarter as much as I am.
See you on the other side, enjoy!
Another take on non-interactive transactions
Bitgrin has no addresses; this is due to the fact that transactions are created by computing a shared secret. Both the sender and receiver agree on a blinding factor for the transaction or in more simple terms, both parties exchange data with each other, and create the transaction.
This type of transaction is "interactive” as both parties have to interact with each other to create the transaction. Once the transaction is created, it is broadcasted to the network.
Having no addresses can be seen as an advantage as there is nothing to link you to you counter-party, ensuring the maximum degree of privacy and anonymity.
Although, it can also be a major disadvantage. Most cryptocurrency participants are accustomed to non-interactive transactions and sending their coins to an address. Therefore, there is an additional layer of friction and difficulty to transacting on Bitgrin in comparison to other blockchains.
Current Methods for Transfer
HTTPS
HTTPS transfer is the quickest way to transact Bitgrin. The sender specifies the IP address he wants to send the coins to, the receiver turns on his HTTP listener and receives the coins.
A major disadvantage with this method of transfer is that both parties have to be online during the time of the transaction. Imagine having to have your email open 24/7 in order to be able to receive emails, it would be chaos. HTTP transfers work for now, they are still cumbersome as participants have to open their ports on their router, something that requires a certain degree of technical savviness.
The Bitgrin community has worked to improve HTTPS transfers in two ways.
BitgrinPay - Allows users to transact with exchanges & pools without having to open their port
Nat-Transfer - Allows users to transact with each other without having to open their port. This is a development that is coming this Quarter.
These two solutions solve the port-forwarding issue but users still have to be online to transact with each other. This is where file-transfer comes in.
File-transfer
The file transfer method is a multi-step process that allows participants to move transaction forward while the other party is offline.
The sender creates a transaction file that he/she sends through email, messaging, etc. to the recipient. The recipient acknowledges the file through their wallet(Kingfish), and sends it back to sender. The sender finalizes the file and broadcasts transaction to network.
This method of transfer requires little to no technical prowess and prevents users from sending coins to the wrong address mistakingly. However, this process adds significant friction to transacting Bitgrin as it is a multi-step process and requires a 3rd party to transfer the files.
Bitgrin Introduces Non-Interactive Transactions
Non-interactive transactions will be introduced for the first time ever to a mimblewimble coin this Quarter. Lead dev, Pharazen, has been developing this solution for several months now.
As for details or the progress on this development, there isn’t much information out there aside from what has been made public already.
Maybe the community could conduct a Q&A with the core dev team to get a better grasp on the progress of this development.
This is a groundbreaking development for the space and will change the way people transact.
Documentation for miners, developers and users of Bitgrin.
Documentation is a fundamental pillar for open-source projects. Without the proper documentation it becomes difficult for developers to contribute to the project, cumbersome for miners to get started and contribute hashpower to the network and confusing for the user as the educational resources are limited.
The need for documentation is especially apparent for pioneering projects such as Bitgrin where the technology is sophisticated and there is an overall lack of resources.
This quarter, several community members have tasked themselves with improving the available documentation for the Bitgrin community. In this section, we will go over several initiatives that have been set in motion to improve the documentation and education in the Bitgrin ecosystem.
Odin, FAQ, website, and more.
Odin, has been working on a comprehensive FAQ for the past month or two. This FAQ covers mining tutorials, wallet user guides, Bitgrin education, and a host of other resources. The FAQ will be hosted under docs.bitgrin.dev.
The documentation will be especially helpful for new developers joining the Bitgrin Ecosystem as this resource will help them get set up.
Odin has also been working on a community website for Bitgrin, similar to getbitgrin.com. More on this later as he reveals the progress on these initiatives!
Bitgrin.dev Redesign
As announced recently, Pharazen and Smaug are working on a complete revamp for bitgrin.dev.
The website will include an improved UI, new documentation(being developed by Odin), a mining calculator and much more.
Below is a screenshot that illustrates the mining calculator that will be present in the future website.
A New Block Explorer for Bitgrin.dev
This new block explorer goes back to the redesign that was shared several months ago here. Smaug is currently working on the new iteration that includes includes many of the features listed on the block explorer specifications page on Github.
Bitgrin Base
Bitgrin Base is an independant organization with the mission of expanding the Bitgrin ecosystem by increasing the awareness and education of Bitgrin among other cryptocurrency holders, privacy enthusiasts and the world.
This Quarter, Bitgrin Base will be launching a Youtube channel to further Bitgrin education, create biweekly educational content for Bitgrin on Medium, distribute airdrops, create a Bitgrin merch shop and maybe even host an NYC meetup.
Origination of transactions with NAT hole-punching.
“Hole punching (or sometimes punch-through) is a technique in computer networking for establishing a direct connection between two parties in which one or both are behind firewalls or behind routers that use network address translation (NAT).”
Currently, as explained in the “Current Methods for Transfer - HTTPS” section, every user transacting on Bitgrin through HTTPS has to open their port. This process is cumbersome and requires a certain degree of technical skill.
Although the Bitgrin core devs have come up with a solution to transact through HTTPS with pools and exchanges(BitgrinPay), it is still impractical for user-to-user transactions.
The development of secure IP-based transactions added with NAT hole-punching will allow people to transact between each other without having to open their ports. Bitgrin will be the first mimblewimble-based coin to implement this innovative solution and will make transacting much more seamless.
This is a development other projects can adopt into their blockchains thus improving the mimblewimble ecosystem as a whole!
Trade Bitgrin on More Exchanges.
Third Exchange around the corner.
This listing will be happening before the end of this month.
Adding a 3rd exchange will increase:
Transparency Platforms
With the 3rd exchange, Bitgrin will be able to apply to all the platforms listed in the picture below. Being listed in all these platforms will not only increase the exposure of Bitgrin among the crypto community significantly, but it will also increase the transparency as information will be more readily-available for everyone(investors, speculators, miners, etc).
Additional mining pools.
Currently, there is one pool that supports Bitgrin mining. BladeDoyle has been a great pool administer; he has constantly answered questions and helped new miners get setup. Props to BladeDoyle!
Lead dev, Pharazen, recently announced that there is a new pool listing coming soon. This is exciting as hashrate will likely increase and become more distributed, making the Bitgrin network stronger.
This Quarter, we aim to be listed in at least 3 different pools. This is a community effort and can be led by anyone who wants to contribute. I will personally be reaching out to various pools, so if you’d like to collaborate hit me up!
Whitepaper to be released.
“Its in stage 2, meaning drawing a rough draft... then making visual aids, then rewriting, and then making a website to present it since none reads PDFs. And i think it’s more of a marketing material than anything.” - Smaug
Not much information is yet available on the whitepaper being released. We do know that Smaug is currently working on it and it is in “stage 2”. Will we see the whitepaper come out this quarter? That is yet to be known but we do know it is on the way.
More To Come
This is not everything that is to come for this quarter. These are just some of the highlights we could gather and expect going into Q4.
The Bitgrin Ecosystem is growing and with the new exchanges, pools, documentation and technological innovations being introduced this quarter, the ecosystem will grow even further.
Upwards and onwards!
- Gatsby
To stay up-to-date with the Bitgrin community you can continue the conversation at:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/BitGrin
Discord: https://discord.gg/Z6gEfZS
Telegram: https://t.co/jnKORmesBi
Website: https://bitgrin.dev/ ; http://getbitgrin.com
Block Explorer: http://bitgrinx.com
Trade Bitgrin: https://www.citex.co.kr/#/trade/XBG_BTC
This newsletter is curated by Crypto Gatsby, for the Bitgrin community.