IS IT BLACK FRIDAY YET?
HURRY! Sign in to your account and enjoy all of the new opportunities to earn stakes that have been added to the contest!!!
You can now earn up to 1250 stakes by completing tasks 29-33!
Be sure to follow instructions! If you mark a task as completed and you didn't follow our terms/conditions you will be disqualified!

At OPEN, we’re all about mass adoption of cryptocurrencies and blockchain tech, and to that end keep an eye on the world stage for clues that it’s gaining traction.
Next on the line seems to be Russia, who as early as March could be passing a new bill to legalize cryptocurrency trades. These will have to be done in official, regulated exchange platforms.
For more info, feel free to visit our new Medium post! Be sure to follow us too!

https://medium.com/@theOPENPlatform/all-eyes-on-russian-blockchain-policy-926437c1d7fa

Hi there folks!
We have recently noticed that there are quite a lot of you that haven't joined our fast-growing community in Telegram.
It is incredibly important that you join our Telegram group. Here is where we will be updating you on anything that happens at the OPEN HQ. From daily updates to big announcements. Everything will be posted there.
To try to motivate you a little bit, if you still haven't completed our "Join our Telegram Group" task in our bounty contest... Be sure to get do so! You'll earn up to 100 stakes.

Hi there folks!

Today has been a tough day for the cryptoworld. But don't worry. We've been here before and we'll come back from this to become even stronger!

To keep your mind off from the price drops of some currencies, we wanted to give you a reason to smile!

We have just posted two new tasks in our bounty contest. They are super easy to complete and hopefully they will keep your mind off all the negativity around forums!

Hi there everyone!
We want to remind you that we are being extremely active on Medium! We have published a fine article today about scaling the blockchain.

https://medium.com/@theOPENPlatform/why-scaling-the-blockchain-is-about-more-than-just-transaction-volume-9181cdefe4a4

Be sure to give it a read!

Hi there everyone!
We want to remind you that we are being extremely active on Medium! We are a few followers away from reaching 1000!
If you haven't completed task number 23 in our bounty contest, please do so! You will earn 200 stakes by simply following us on Medium!

Hi there folks!

We recently just published a new medium post to help you understand a little bit more about what counts as a Security. All around, it's an awesome read!

Feel free to check it out:

https://medium.com/@theOPENPlatform/what-counts-as-a-security-f52d2e77b407

Hey everyone - one of the key ideas that OPEN has been talking about since the very beginning of our project is the upcoming mainstream adoption of cryptocurrencies.
In fact, today we published an article analyzing whether we're fast approaching a tipping point. One thing to consider is that as the blockchain permeates the way people and companies do business, they don't necessarily have to have a deep understanding of the underlying mechanics of the technology.
Platforms like OPEN will make it easier for developers (and people in general) to utilize cryptocurrencies without the need to become "experts".
Check out our Medium post and let us know what you think!
https://medium.com/@theOPENPlatform/cryptocurrencies-are-we-approaching-the-tipping-point-57642dcb0106

Hey everyone, are you stoked about OPEN? You should be! Today we'd like to share with you some stats that show just how awesome a community we've built together over the last few months.

We've collected 80 thousand emails, have over 40 thousand active participants in our bounty program, have 5,357 followers on Facebook and 12,200 on Twitter! And just check the Telegram stats - over 5,000 and growing!!!

Hey there,

We will be announcing important updates very soon regarding our ICO and the overall future of OPEN.

**2018 is definitely going to be an exciting year for us, and we are ready to rock and roll!**

That said, I feel obligated to say that we need to make things clear for all the participants of our bounty contest. We have one of the biggest crowds ever seen in a bounty contest and we are completely aware of what this implies. **Having a big crowd behind us is an amazing thing**that we're incredibly proud of. However, there are a few negatives that go along with the huge audience that we've created...

We have noticed that there have been quite a few of you who have tried to cheat our system.

Some of you have submitted inadequate responses to our calls for content. Others simply haven't followed our terms and conditions hoping to earn a few extra stakes in our contest.

**This is not going to be allowed.** All accounts will be audited before we distribute tokens and any irregularities in your activity within our contest will be thoroughly revised. **Cheaters will be subject to penalties and disqualifications.** It's not worth trying to outsmart us. You will only lose time.

If you want to make things right, feel free to shoot us a message on telegram or slack. We have people willing to help you.

To the huge majority who are participating correctly, following our terms and conditions, thank you. It means a lot to us.

We appreciate everyone's patience and collaboration.

Thanks again and I sincerely hope you have a wonderful 2018.

If cryptocurrency is to become mainstream, and we at the OPEN Platform believe it will, changes or additions will need to be made to current systems in order to help usher in its adoption in a seamless manner, to heal those growing pains. We take the roadblocks to consumer adoption very seriously, so naturally we asked the question: what’s missing for the would-be cryptocurrency consumer?

Aside from the obvious – you can’t yet use cryptocurrency in conventional applications or on most existing websites as a form of payment, something we are actively solving – the thing that struck us as much-needed are receipts. Where are they?

As it stands, it’s convoluted at best and impossible at worst to produce an actual receipt for a cryptocurrency transaction. Outside of using a service like ethscan or blokchchain.info to prove a transaction occurred between digital wallets (and even this isn’t a complete solve), it’s pretty hard for the average person to prove they sent payment to a specific person for a specific thing, and conversely pretty difficult to prove the opposite.

That’s why we’ve created the OPEN State – an immutable, irrefutable, permanent receipt that lives on the blockchain. It can handle any type of payment transaction you can imagine, from movie tickets to subscription services and more. And, since its backed by the blockchain, it’s a receipt you can’t lose or alter. Not only is this great for cryptocurrency adoption, it’s great for businesses and consumers at large.

For more information, check out our white paper!

Recently, we have seen a single game, CryptoKitties, take up 15% of the network capacity for Ethereum. This is a perfect example of the primary issues that are faced when preparing the blockchain for the mass market. To fully realize its potential, the the platform needs to have faster transaction flow while maintaining its decentralized state.

Right now, the volume of transactions that can be processed on the blockchain at any given point of time is slow, whereas Visa can process around 50,000 transactions per second, Bitcoin can only take about 3 per second, and Ethereum can take about 15 per second.

 When we consider that Visa accounts for 150 million transactions per day on its own, the need for change is clear. There is no clear winner for scalability on the blockchain, but from the scope of the applications the basic goal is to increase the volume of the throughput by “sharding the chains” and then connecting them with some larger chains.

OPEN is committed to providing software developers the tools they need to overcome scalability issues that may effect their applications. By leveraging the benefits of both on-chain and off-chain databases, we allow them to continue to utilize their traditional database technology while porting to the blockchain only the functionalities that make sense to do so.

For more information, check out our white paper.

Hey everyone - just a reminder: The number of entries/stakes earned in the bounty contest does not correspond with the number of tokens that each participant will earn. Instead, at the end of the bounty contest (when the public ICO has concluded) the dedicated pool of tokens will be divided proportionally between all valid participants based on the number of entries/stakes earned.

The current payment structure for in-app purchases relies on accepting payment through various centralized systems that finally result in the application’s protected database being updated. What if there was a way to bypass all of those centralized entities, immediately accept and process payment in a multitude of currencies including crypto, and update the application database accordingly?

 This is what OPEN Platform accomplishes by bringing a decentralized solution to the developer. By connecting the developer’s centralized database to the blockchain, they can avoid the centralized payment structure that causes delay and fees, but also without completely altering their existing backend.

 OPEN’s solution is easily implemented and modular, taking the best parts of a decentralized approach and leaving the strength of existing centralized databases for developers. This is accomplished by the OPEN platform stacked solution: API, Scaffolds, OPENWallet, OPEN Node and more. Read about it in our whitepaper!

Today we'd like to discuss the OPEN Token economics a bit. OPEN Token gains the network effect of Bitcoin and Ethereum as it is utilized to enable all applications to accept all cryptocurrencies as infrastructure on the OPEN Platform.

A 20% Developer Pool is Maintained Daily
- For incentivizing developer on-boarding
- Staking and network user distribution mechanism for security 3% of all cryptocurrencies application payments are converted to OPEN daily
- Converted to Open via a public cryptocurrency exchange to maintain developer growth pool
 - Covers self sustaining ecosystem growth costs 20% Maintained to incentivize developers' new applications

Can you see how powerful this architecture is?

One of the unique aspects of our solution for developers to accept cryptocurrency for their in-app purchases is the Scaffold. The Scaffold is a smart contract that bridges the gap between the developer’s database and the end user. They can be created through our API and customized to suit the developer's needs.

Each Scaffold is created for a specific type of in-app purchase. When payment is sent from the user to the Scaffold, the Scaffold automatically transfers payment to the developer and returns to the User an OPEN State that acts as the purchase receipt.

For example, a Scaffold can be customized to issue subscriber status for a customer. The Scaffold will ultimately accept cryptocurrency from the user, provide the user with a subscriber state, and immediately send payment to the developer. No more lag time for developers to accept payment!

The scaffold is very modular and can be implemented with minimal modifications to their application. The OPEN API makes this a seamless and simple operation. Find in depth details and use cases regarding the Scaffold system in our whitepaper!

Developers who wish to develop applications (games or others) utilizing the blockchain should rely on a mix of on-chain and off-chain application architecture with respect to their application stack, especially until the Ethereum network has resovled its scaling issues.

 Off-Chain - Utilizing a traditional database or application layer for an application's heavy lifting. There is nothing wrong with utilizing a database for what it's meant to do, and helps to keep only components of an application that can truly benefit from being decentralized on-chain.

On-Chain - Relying on what blockchains are good at now, on-chain components of an application could very well just focus on payments, ownership of digital assets, game assets bought with cryptocurrency, and authorization/verification that you indeed bought x item to interact with smart contracts that are part of application.

Game settings, design algorithms (i.e the GeneScience or KittyAccessControl code in CryptoKitties), admin aspects, pricing models, should be done off-chain if utilizing something like OPEN.

Want more info? Check out our white paper!

One of our most important architecture ideas is that not every aspect of every app needs to be decentralized. There are still advantages to centralized systems. There are clear benefits when applied correctly to solve a problem and not all situations call for a blockchain solution. In OPEN Platform’s case, the problem we address is the in-app purchasing system: how payments are received and ultimately affect an application’s centralized platform. The application database is complex and protected, necessary for the developer. Attempting to apply a blockchain for the database would not be practical; loss of efficiency and re-work by the developer.

The centralized systems that are replaced by our blockchain solution are all the payment channels needed today: user’s bank, merchant bank, payment provider, etc. Our Scaffold smart contracts allow payment to be direct between User and Developer. The Scaffold also acts as a link between the User and the Application Database. Payment for the specific purchase can be confirmed and affect the Database, completing the transaction.

The advantage for this solution is clear, avoiding the fees imposed by those centralized payment entities, accepting cryptocurrency, and instant access to the transaction funds. Selectively applying blockchain technology can provide great benefits for a system, leaving the centralized and decentralized portions to do what they do best. For a more comprehensive description of the OPEN Platform solution, please have a look at our whitepaper!

One of the unique aspects of our solution for developers to accept cryptocurrency for their in-app purchases is the Scaffold. The Scaffold is a smart contract that bridges the gap between the developer’s database and the user. They can be created through our API and customized to suit the developer who doesn't need to know or learn a blockchain specific programming language like Solidity.

Each Scaffold is created for a specific in-app product or subscription. When payment is sent from the user to the Scaffold, the Scaffold automatically transfers payment to the developer and returns to the User a State that represents the purchase.

For example, a Scaffold can be customized to issue subscriber status for a customer. The Scaffold will ultimately accept cryptocurrency from the user, provide the user with a subscriber state, and immediately send payment to the developer. No more lag time for developers to accept payment!

The OPEN scaffold is very modular and can be implemented with minimal modifications to their application. The OPEN API makes this a seamless and simple operation. Find in depth details and use cases regarding the Scaffold system in our whitepaper!

How's your cat doing today? Lately, it seems like everyone in cryptoland has a cat! Seriously, we at OPEN love CryptoKitties as much as anyone else, but we also think it is a perfect example of poor application architecture. Why should a game like this be a pure decentralized app? We believe that by using a hybrid architecture, the important on-chain aspects of the app could coexist with a more traditional in-app database. This would reduce the drag on the Ethereum network and increase scalability. Guess what? This is exactly what OPEN provides! Want more information? Check out our white paper!