Several Testnet iterations: 7.0-7.3, Mainnet claiming process integrated, Ethereum Bridge live on Rinkeby, a new GOLD/EUR price feed, internal and external audits, ETHCC presentations, Testnet Incentive Program Phase 2 plans, and public Sprint Reviews. 

📺 Keep up-to-date on our YouTube

With crucial Witnet updates being deployed constantly, you can now keep up-to-date with all Witnet-related developments on our bi-monthly Community Sprint Reviews; subscribe to Witnet's YouTube channel now.

Our first public Sprint Review for March is viewable below:

🏗️ Development Update

Witnet Testnet Version Updates

With the help and enthusiasm of Phase 1 participants in the Testnet Incentive Program, the community has managed to break (and fix) the Testnet a few times this month, with significant milestones along the way:

• T7.0 was the first release bootstrapped from a “Genesis File”. This allowed the community to define the initial state of the system, and assign Testnet Wits for Phase 1 participants to play around with.
• T7.1 saw addresses (and their owners) retain their Testnet WIT balances.
• Among other improvements, the latest version — T7.3 — adds every node to a default known peers list, allowing for a much more even spread of connections, and a more stable network.

Node

• Probability of a node to mine a consolidated block in the Witnet chain can now be calculated and displayed.
• Improvements have been made to consensus-forming among peers, greatly reducing the frequency of node desynchronizations.
• P2P peer discovery bugs have been addressed in T7.3. As mentioned above, this now means every node is now a “bootstrap node”, inter-connecting in the network with other nodes.

Sheikah — Desktop Wallet App

• “Claiming process” flow has been fleshed out and integrated. The simple process will allow users to import a wallet from existing mnemonics, and thus claim WIT tokens in the Mainnet Genesis Block.
• A new style has been deployed to Sheikah (see demos at the end of the latest Sprint Review).

Ethereum Bridge and Smart Contracts

• Smart proxies for WitnetRequestBoard have now been implemented, which are upgradeable.
• A full, thorough and end-to-end internal code audit was carried out on all solidity libraries (crypto libraries; vrf-solidity and elliptic-curve-solidity; the block relay; the witnet-ethereum-bridge) covering both coherence and structure.
• A full external audit has been initiated.
• Solidity contracts have now been deployed on the Testnet, and the first bootstrapped bridge node is live, relaying requests and results to Rinkeby!

Other

• A Witnet price feed for GOLD/EUR has been designed by the community — it queries 4 different APIs, and retrieves and delivers the price of 1oz of gold in Euros, using only the power Witnet (Magic!✨)
• Lots of effort has been put into implementing the first formal Witnet Improvement Proposal, which will introduce collateralization of witnessing activities.

🤑 Witnet’s Incentivized Testnet Program!

The Witnet Testnet Incentive Program is your chance to explore and experiment with Witnet before Mainnet, and get generously rewarded for doing so.

Phase 1 of the Witnet Testnet Incentive Program is full steam ahead — the new community scoreboard has definitely encouraged a little bit of healthy competition among the participants! Thank you all for your input, enthusiasm and (just a little) patience 🙈.

Special shout-out to:

• Bertrand for his advice, engagement and codebase contributions
• vbstreetz for deploying the Ethereum Bridge smart contracts by himself
• Eager Igor for his contributions to documentation
• DeHero for his help within the community and for some solid memes 😂
• Jaroslav for his interest and enthusiasm with regards to p2p bucketing

Phase 1 applications are closed; Phase 2 is imminent. Look out for announcements and details in mid-April. Full details on the program (and how to apply for Phase 2) can be found here:

Announcing the Witnet Testnet Incentive Program!

Calling all tech-savvy node operators: get your portion of the initial $10,000 DAI bounty!

🎉 Events

Some of the core Witnet development community attended ETHCC on 3–5th of March.

Alongside meeting lots of other projects and teams, Witnet representatives presented on various topics related to Witnet. Check them out below:

1. Bridging non-PoW/PoS sidechains with Ethereum : Claudia Bartoli Duncan & Adán Sánchez de Pedro

2. The Case Against Using TEEs in your Crypto Project : Gorka Irazoqui Apecechea & Mario Cao

3. Decentralized Workload Distribution with VRFs and Algorithmic Reputation Systems : Gorka Irazoqui Apecechea & Mario Cao

4. RADON: a Domain Specific Language for Oracles : Adán Sánchez de Pedro & Tomás Ruiz

With the COVID-19 crisis unfolding, most of our community members are suspending attendance to all physical events.

We are, however, on the hunt for online events, channels and forums to discuss Witnet. If you have an online event you’d like to see Witnet represented at, let us know.

For more Witnet-related content:

• Read the Witnet whitepaper 📃
• Check out Witnet’s code on Github 🤖
• Read Witnet core documents❓
• Subscribe to our blog 📬
• Join the community Telegram group and Discord 💬
• Follow @witnet_io on Twitter 🐦