Quote from: jayycox on September 12, 2017, 05:34:21 AM

RaiBlocks Newsletter 11th September 2017 (Issue: 4)

Welcome to the fourth issue of the RaiBlocks newsletter, apologies for the delay in releasing this newsletter, Ive been caught up in a lot of RaiBlock related projects!

Core Wallet/Node Development
After a lot of work Version 8.0 was released on 26th August 2017, it included significant improvements in syncing especially from zero as well as reduced IO load. It is recommended that users upgrade to this version, more information can be found here https://github.com/clemahieu/raiblocks/releases/tag/V8.0
Since the release there has been 4 further commits and development will continue.

RaiBlocks Road Map
After a bit of work the Dev team have put together a road map showing our plans for the next few months. https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/e/2PACX-1vTFdRMiusLr7K7OfpaoyUBPyFuFTwGeKZ-uBz_70h4tHhaa7v5joUcHv6-N1qYMJAwbZG-34ko338sU/pub?w=960&h=720

Third Party Services
YapRai Shop
RaiBlocks has its first webshop, built as a demonstration but also functioning with real products you can check our the YapRai Webshop (https://shop.yapraiwallet.space). Current products are vinyl laptop stickers and all transactions are in XRB, well ship anywhere in the world!

@xrb_giveaway
As demonstration of possible uses we have put together a example about how RaiBlocks could be used as a microtransaction system on twitter. In @xrb_giveaway if you have your xrb address in your profile and retweet a tweet youll get a small reward. To know whether there is a reward look for RT10:1XRB, this means that the first 10 retweets will get 1XRB.

User Interview
Luis Hidalgo (on Telegram)
1. How did you find out about RaiBlocks
I found about raiblocks thanks to a friend who gave me an account to test the faucet. Then I started to learn on my own

2. Where do you think RaiBlocks will be in the next 6 months
I believe raiblocks will reach a lot of people around the world, thanks to the greatness of the xrb and the faucet itself. It is easy to claim and it is fair for everyone. Hope that all the systems (wallets, faucet, coin, exchange) get to bigger services, such as bittrex and more...

3. What do you use RaiBlocks for?
I use raiblocks for the reward in xrb. With it I have learned how to trade in different currencies and read the growing market. If it wasn't for raiblocks, I wouldn't be able to see the potential of the cryptocurrency. I have been months using it and it has been a fulfilling experience

4. What is the coolest feature of RaiBlocks
The coolest feature about raiblocks its his diversity of wallets. You can use the official or third-party such as yaprai or telegrambot with no problems at all. The faucet it self it's the main feature, but it still has a lot to improve to become perfect

Technical Analysis of a Feature
What are representatives?
To keep the network healthy there is a system of voting and consensus, if you left your wallet online all the time then your wallet helps contribute to this. A representative is an account that you chose who can vote on your behalf but cannot spend your balance. This way you can keep your wallet offline and your balance can still be used for consensus. Voting and Consensus is key for the network to overcome forks (however due to the wallet and protocol design these are near non-existent). The more representatives on the network the better so if you are running a node/wallet 24hrs a day then this would be a great thing to do.

Next Newsletter
Still keen for submissions, reviews and news, happy to donate xrb for your time.

Great! 2018 will be the boom year of raiblock. Thanks dev for your efforts