DEVELOPMENT UPDATE
PL^G development continues to progress during October, and we are pleased to announce we have reached a couple of key milestones on track for our public release plan. PL^G’s security Audit milestone has been completed. The team are currently working through the findings of the report. Overall the audit completed source code review and penetration test of the PL^G framework. We were pleased the receive this and achieve this milestone in our development cycle. One comment by the team that we would like to share was “It was clear that the PL^G team has emphasized security during the development process. The overall code quality was high and the platform successfully rejected malicious attempts.” Its vital that we go through these processes and find issues so that when the code is released its strong and reliable.
This month we continue to extend our testing of the PoS+ consensus algorithm to a larger node network and improving metrics tracking so we can better understand the network effect of PoS+ iterations and improvements. This is a novel consensus approach that we feel will address a number of longer term weaknesses with POS networks and when we release it we want to have strong mathematical proofs, peer review as well as benchmark tests of the real protocol in as close to real network simulations as possible before introducing unknown external factors.
We are collecting and implementing feedback from developers working on PL^G and are looking forward to finalising the alpha release of the framework. Through the Blockworks Hackfest earlier this month, we were able to ascertain feedback directly from developers both familiar and unfamiliar with Python and the Plug Framework. This was the first market exposure of our PL^G framework to external developers and we had some great key learnings including:
- For those new to Python was setting up a development environment was key to success on the day. Many developers hadn’t written much Python, but having Linux as a daily driver made it fairly easy to get pipenv etc up and going.
- PL^G itself, was a relatively intuitive API to work with. Having an easy way to query it helped (via the web interface or curl).
- The library was a suitably lowered learning curve for someone with zero blockchain experience.
We are incorporating all feedback from Blockworks Hackfest into our ongoing improvement and development of PL^G.
PL^G will be one of the most user-friendly platforms on the market so we are continuing to work on our documentation. Making it clear and easy to follow, while constantly iterating and improving tooling around automated deployment. This will ensure PL^G is simple and easy for developers to build on.
BLOCKWORKS HACKFEST, WORKSHOP & CONFERENCE
We’ve been busy at PL^G’s NZ HQ with BlockWorks Hackfest, Workshop and Conference and we’re thrilled to back two innovative projects to come out of our hackathon.
On the 6th & 7th October we hosted the BlockWorks Hackfest in conjunction with Centrality at Auckland University of Technology with support from web development school Enspiral Dev Academy and business accelerator Lightning Lab. Hackers had two days to develop a blockchain-enabled solution using the PL^G framework. This was the first showcase of PL^G to our local NZ community and enabled developers to build on PL^G and test PL^G and its capabilities for the first time.
We sold out the event with over 80 people attending. More than 13 different applications were presented across the weekend by developers and businesses passionate about the practical application of blockchain, with many of the ideas initially being developed on PL^G.
The two winners of the Open Hack category were CarbonClick and Āhau. Carbon offset marketplace CarbonClick enables consumers to purchase carbon credits and track their impact down to the tree being planted. Māori blockchain project Āhau empowers individuals with a self-sovereign digital identity solution to track their genealogy, iwi and whakapapa. The blockchain-enabled identity solution has the potential to be utilised by indigenous communities around the world.
Talks are underway with both projects to enter the Accelerator programme, powered by Lightning Lab. The package, which includes a rigorous programme of support and resources, will be worth over $100,000 for both winners.
General Manager of Strategic Partnerships at Centrality, Andy Higgs, said the hackfest showed how blockchain opens up people’s imagination about what solutions are possible.
“The weekend produced a vast array of ideas that harness the power of blockchain technology and showed how the concept of bringing minds together in a hackfest can get the most out of emerging tech like decentralised ledgers.”
“Kiwis are world famous innovators and this was very evident at the hackfest — ideas flew, solutions were created and we had a lot of fun. Anyone who took part, whether they won or not, would have learned a lot, as did we,” he says.
Both winners have been offered the overall prize that provides a physical space within the Centrality Accelerator where developers, businesses and entrepreneurs work in close collaboration with the on-site team of blockchain experts.
An important part of this is entering an intensive programme and receiving support to scale their idea within a blockchain ecosystem to make it commercially successful.
“This is a prize beyond just monetary value and we’re delighted we have two winners,” adds Andy Higgs. “Our aim is to provide the support and the encouragement to help bright minds produce successful blockchain applications — and we’ve achieved this from the hackfest.”
The proposal Dread Snarfle also won $2,000 of Centrality (CENNZ) tokens as part of the “take the challenge” stream where a blockchain task was set to create a blockchain game that focused on non-fungible assets.
Founder of Blockworks, Justin Flitter, says the Hackfest was an ideal way to start what is being billed as New Zealand’s premier blockchain event.
“Our aim is to show people the potential of blockchain technology to transform the way we do business, govern and how we live. On any scale the tech can provide real solutions that will bring prosperity to Kiwis and New Zealand by giving people control of information and data.
“While there are many who still sit in the naysayer camp about blockchain, the resounding success of the hackfest blew us away because it showed there is a growing community that believes in its potential,” he says.
Checkout all the action from the day here: https://vimeo.com/295077169.
Blockworks continued on Thursday 11th October with a full-day of workshops, including a live demonstration of PL^G by Ahmed Hilali – Full Stack Blockchain Developer. The workshop gave PL^G another opportunity to showcase how our framework is shaping the new wave of blockchain development to an engaged audience of developers, experts and decision makers.
On the 12th BlockWorks brought together leaders from Business, Government and community organisations to learn about Blockchain. The theme of the conference was showcasing how blockchain is transforming supply chain, finance, transport and services.
Six international experts spoke alongside Kiwi innovators including Aaron McDonald, Co-founder of PL^G, who talked about New Zealand’s economic potential as we take back ownership and control of information.
Three hundred business leaders registered for the event at the ASB Waterfront Theatre in Wynyard Quarter, Auckland and was great showcase of how our technology is paving the way forward.
EXPERIENCE PL^G AT FINTECH FESTIVAL SINGAPORE
Watch out Singapore, PL^G is coming to town. If you’re attending FinTech in November then look out for us. We won’t just be talking about what PL^G will do, we’ll be showing you what PL^G is doing right now. PL^G will be exhibiting alongside Centrality, SingleSource and Sylo to demonstrate a PL^G-powered ecosystem at work.
PL^G Co-founder, Aaron McDonald says he is excited to show the PLUG-powered ecosystem to one of the world’s largest gatherings of the global FinTech community.
“Like many blockchain technologies we’ve been talking about what we will do for some time as we develop PLUG into one of the most interoperable and user friendly blockchain solutions available.
“But now we have the ecosystem up and running on PLUG, we can show the benefits of PLUG in real time using SingleSource and Sylo’s world-leading DApps.”
Fintech Singapore will run from 12 to 16 November so come and visit us at stand 3G17, diagonally across from Google. More information can be found here.
PRESS
We’re peaking interest across national NZ media with the progress we’re making in Blockchain.
PL^G Co-founder Aaron McDonald talked with two nationally syndicated Radio New Zealand on the use-cases of blockchain and what it takes to be world-leader in this space
He also spoke with RadioLive on the issues of sharing data with social media companies – and what they might be doing with that information without us knowing.
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