Pocket Network News - JUNE 2020
With mainnet on the horizon, this is a juicy edition of our monthly newsletter!
Developer Updates:
Earlier this week, the Pocket Core protocol was upgraded to RC-0.4.0. It’s the most stable and reliable release as of yet. This release delivers major improvements to the existing protocol and rolls out an update to the Javascript / Typescript libraries for Pocket-JS and Web3-provider. A full changelog can be found here.
Pocket Core RC-0.4.0 contains all the major features that’ll be live for mainnet. It sets a new standard for blockchain node infrastructure!
On June 15th, we will be launching a lineup of Pocket native applications to make the user journey for mainnet easier to navigate. These products include:
Pocket Wallet
Pocket Block Explorer
Pocket Dashboard
Pocket Gateway
See screenshots of the products available below in the behind the scenes section.
Pocket integrations for Matic and Portis are in QA.
Economic and Governance Updates:
For people in a hurry, we’ve put together a short summary of the economic model and monetary policy behind Pocket Network. Read the Economics Brief.
At the same time, we pushed an update to the Pocket Economics page of our website. There you’ll find a portal to explore our economic model, a new staking calculator for both apps and nodes, as well as, a revamp of the content.
A discussion in our Discord server led to Michael O’Rourke spinning up a Twitter thread on how Pocket Network leverages useful proofs of work to create new $POKT!
Here’s a peek into how governance for the Pocket DAO will work with Aragon Courts:
News:
In May, the Pocket team ran its first community call. If you missed it, you can watch a recording here:
We partnered with DAppNode to do a DAppNode Advanced Giveaway celebrating the launch of our Pocket DNP. Two winners were chosen: Kevin Gaspar and Shawn Gaspar. Congratulations to the Gaspar brothers!
Behind the Scenes:
Over the next few weeks, we will be monitoring and load testing the updated protocol to make sure everything is working properly ahead of the mainnet launch.
Here are screenshots and descriptions of the Pocket products:
Pocket Wallet
This is a simple GUI wallet that will provide the means for anyone to transfer POKT between accounts without having to use the CLI. We made a strategic decision to build our own wallet for mainnet in order to reduce barriers to entry and provide ease of use for our users.
Pocket Block Explorer
This will be the first completely decentralized “serverless” block explorer of its kind. It’s a native block explorer for Pocket, running on Pocket and IPFS via our friends at Fleek. The modularity and composability of these infrastructure legos mean that any new blockchain will be able to take this framework and launch their own block explorer easily and quickly through Pocket. With Pocket, a base blockchain would get the additional resiliency and robustness of querying data from a dynamic set of multiple nodes instead of just one.
Pocket Dashboard
Another key piece of our launch strategy, the Pocket Dashboard will give application developers and node operators the ability to view and manage their infrastructure. It will also operate as our sales funnel where users will be able to make direct purchases of POKT.
Pocket Gateway
Alongside our dashboard, we will be launching a Gateway that provides a seamless integration for applications built with centralized infrastructure provisioning in mind. The gateway is an interface and abstraction layer sitting on top of the Pocket Network as a platform. This allows any existing app connected to a legacy API endpoint to easily switch over to Pocket by changing the URL from their centralized provider to point to the Pocket Gateway. After doing so, the application would be automatically connected to an underlying decentralized network of infrastructure providers and node operators running all sorts of blockchain nodes. Thereby, further driving the economics and network effects for the node side of the marketplace.
Inspired by the MetaGame, we are continuing to work on adding a gamification and reputation layer to our community channels. By participating in Pocket through running nodes, building applications, or participating in governance everyone has the opportunity to unlock roles as they complete quests and progress through individual paths. These include fun and evolving roles such as but not limited to the Rampart, Vanguard, Wayfinder, and DAOsensei. We are expecting to have this rolled out by the end of June!
In addition, we are also working on creating a governance section within our developer portal(v2.5) to help potential members of the Pocket DAO find the information they need.
Last, we have heard your requests and we are pleased to announce that the node walkthrough videos are underway to help our node operators setup creating a Pocket Node and a Pocket Validator node using all of our deployment artifacts:
Docker
Homebrew
Binary
Connect with Pocket:
🦜 Follow Pocket on Twitter at @POKTnetwork
💬 Chat with the Pocket team and community in Discord
🏗️ Join the Pocket Incentivized Testnet