Greetings Qortians! As we kick off the new year, development continues to take large strides in the right direction. Qortal is bigger than “crypto” – and the roadmap is ever-evolving as we build from scratch! By utilizing blockchain technology, Qortal aims to provide the world with true peer-to-peer solutions (P2P) in areas of local wallets, cross-chain trading (atomic swaps), e-commerce, communications, data hosting, application hosting, and more! Envision a base platform that offers alternatives to rebuilding the Internet, crypto space, and internet service itself!
QORTEX
The first iteration of a fully open source block explorer has arrived! QORTEX offers a way for users to review certain data on Qortal from a web browser (without having to access through a Qortal node). Eventually, QORTEX will become a Q-App and be available within the Qortal UI as well! We thank our lead UI developer AlphaX Projects for starting the development of this explorer and look forward to seeing more features be released soon!
Q-Apps
Q-Apps will be the first time for EXTERNAL developers to directly jump in without any ‘approval’ of any kind, and start developing on Qortal (excluding projects seeking asset issuance). We’ll build an App Store that will list all of the applications as Apple and Android app stores do, including ratings and reviews! For those who understand how the GitHub works, you can read an explanation about all the various ways websites and apps can interact in the first iteration’s framework here (note that the core side is done, but the UI side will need at least another month or so before this is live): https://github.com/Qortal/qortal/blob/q-apps/Q-Apps.md
Price Charts
Thanks to AlphaX Projects, beginning with UI version 3.0.0, the UI now has the ability to navigate between price charts for each trading pair! You can change the date range or simply press a button to export and view full screen. Enjoy!
Trade Bot Update
When a buyer selects a sell order, the buyer’s foreign coin (BTC, LTC, DOGE, RVN, DGB, ARRR) is removed from the local wallet and placed into an on-chain escrow (using a P2SH address), and the trade is then coordinated via the the buyer and seller’s trade bots. If either node goes offline for whatever reason, the buyer’s coin is returned of course, but the transaction fee on the foreign blockchain is NOT refunded. This can be frustrating, discouraging, and costly for users on the Trade Portal. Thanks to CalDescent, the next release includes a feature that will prevent foreign coins from leaving the local wallet when there is a high probability that the trade will fail; a check for unconfirmed transactions related to the seller’s QORT offer will identify if someone else is trying to buy the order as well as if the seller is canceling the trade.
https://github.com/Qortal/qortal/commit/876658256f735853040e930b057ee1db025d54a2
Q-Chat
Q-Chat has more features in the works! Recent updates include the ability to: 1) post pictures, 2) react to messages with emoticons, 3) reply to messages in group chats, and 4) tip users.
Soon we’ll have file attachments (more than image files), and a GIF repository where you’ll be able to create a collection of GIFs and/or subscribe to them! Check out the quick video below and learn how to tip a user from within any chat inside Qortal’s UI, as well as by clicking on the person’s name from any group members’ list they are in:
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/357242391750508545/1061701152216985600/Qortal_Tip_User.gif
AT Lottery System
Be on the lookout for the next decentralized automated lottery within the Qortal UI! Your chances of winning are completely random! Nobody handles any aspect of this manually (it’s all managed by what is called an Automated Transaction often referred to as “AT”). In order to buy a ‘ticket’, you must send QORT to a specific address (the AT’s address), and you can only buy one ticket per Qortal Account. The system will then select a winning ‘ticket’ at a predetermined block arrival. This is one of many alternate use cases for the AT system of Qortal and makes for a great demo! The AT address will be different for each lottery issued. In the future, the ability to create these lottery ATs and many other types of ATs will be built into the Qortal UI.
Ticket price: 10 QORT
Read more about the Lottery System here: https://wiki.qortal.org/doku.php?id=lottery_system
Community Services
Crowetic Hardware Development “CHD”
Qortians the winter sale is still going on! Get the easiest, fastest, and most efficient device to run your Qortal node! Whether a custom laptop, or a QORTector utilizing the RaspberryPi, CHD is offering these products worldwide (shipping out of Reno NV USA). Custom laptops include upgraded storage to SSD, a deactivated Intel management engine, and visual and performance tweaks for full functionality, including the battery and power adapter. Custom laptop builds are also offered if desired! QORTectors include custom kernels (software) to provide optimized cryptographic and security functions for a reasonably priced 5W dedicated minting machine! https://crowetic.com
Developers Wanted
We’re currently looking for experienced pool developers to assist in a new project. If you know how to work with https://github.com/tpruvot/yiimp or NOMP, NGINX, APIs, etc, and have experience building pools for chains, also looking for a python/os developer that can customize Qubes-OS for Qortal. Please let us know and contact: Captain Loo✟z#2749 in our discord server: https://discord.gg/UqhQCYjVw2
Social Media
CryptoTips
Listen to this great chat with the CryptoTips tribe with Crowetic. He shares his own journey in cyberspace before continuing to inform the audience about the various possibilities that Qortal provides to modify how we utilize the Internet. He places emphasis on the notion that true decentralization only happens when the individual has complete control over their machine and equally important, are true peer-to-peer (P2P) solutions without any central points of attack (centralization). This talk is incredibly educational and easy for everyone to understand as these points are explained. The era of Qortal is here!
https://odysee.com/@CTClub-Community:a/Speaker—Jason-Crowe:1?&sunset=lbrytv
GreyWolf and Crowetic
Superb AMA with Polarity Exchange’s GreyWolf! In an easy-to-read and technical manner, Crowetic covers the amazing QDN, a full dissection of the AT (automated transactions), the advent of Q-Apps, the Qortal Git, as well as some of the challenges over the years of development and what’s in store for the future! This is a quick and easy read: Here:https://qortal.org/qortal-ama-with-crowetic-and-greywolf/
Final Words
The recent events in the crypto space have created awareness to the risks associated with centralized services that control user’s keys… remember folks: NOT YOUR KEYS, NOT YOUR CRYPTO! With Qortal, each user is in complete control over their account, keys, and data. This is just the beginning! We appreciate all of you and as we often say, TOGETHER WE ARE THE CHAIN!
“Today’s tears water tomorrow’s gardens.”
Join Us!
Discord: https://discord.gg/UqhQCYjVw2
Twitter: https://twitter.com/qortal_official
Telegram (general chat): https://t.me/qortal_official
Telegram (tech support): https://t.me/qortalchat http://qortal.org/
Website: http://qortal.org/
Qortal Wiki: http://wiki.qortal.org/