Espers (ESP) Dev Q&A 6/28/17

Espers Dev Updates 6/28

Today the Cryptocoderz development team hosted a community development update for Espers Coin (ESP) via Discord. Espers has enjoyed one hell of a run since May, and many early adopters have been eager to hear about the next steps in this ambitious underdog project. FYI: I am not a part of the dev team, just a fanboy with a lot of ESP.

The biggest note of interest for me personally was that the dev team announced the next update, which aims to improve PoW block times, will drop as early as Monday of next week.

The update was thorough and refreshingly transparent and left community members with a firm sense of where the Espers team is taking the project. I've transcribed the relevant portions of the update below, followed by copy & pastes from the Q&A.

You can follow Espers Coin on Twitter & Facebook, and you can get the Espers wallet here.

Espers Coin currently trades on Coinexchange.io, NovaExchange, and CryptoDAO.

---

1. New team member announcement

"@Raudii is officially a part of the dev team. The website will be updated to reflect this over the coming days. He's a talented programmer and we're very glad to have him come on board!"

2. Status update on livecoin

"With Livecoin they are apparently still understaffed and not accepting listing with the same previos excuse of "we're just too busy". Here is a screen shot for reference:

It is a bit annoying but at least they still talk to us unlike what yobit has been doing..."

3. Status update on bittrex

"For Bittrex we've breifly spoken with their staff who informed us to re-submit the application.
When we went to do so we realized that we need a "enhanced verified account" which isn't an issue and something that we can get (I'll be getting my account verified soon) then we can submit the application once more and speak with them. This is the proper way according to their methods.

There have been those who've offered their accounts to submit the application but after discussion the team decided that this isn't an integral way to continue and we don't want to do anything remotely "shady" or overall just not a good idea.

That being said, bear with us as we are working on it."

4. Status update on mobile wallet

"The mobile wallet is further along, we're setting up a few final things today then going to be tying the front end to the back end. In short expect it in the upcoming days to a week.

Not too much news on it otherwsie, we'll be showing more of it and talking about it more throughout the next few days."

5. Status update on websites on the chain

"Websites on the blockchain demo is coming this July, it should show the overall design and intended function so that everyone can get a feel for what we're going to be building in. The final implementation will still take some time and is planned for later this year or at latest early next, utilizing side chains for any heavy data storage and processing, this will be handled by the masternode system that is coming up and not by normal clients or standard full nodes.

The side/data chains would only be connecting to the client when accessing particular data required to be loaded from that chain and then disconnected after use. The main chain that will be synchronized will be messaging and transactions, other tasks will all be handled by side chains. Which is part of the our cross chain communication platform as we're handling things quite differently than currently attempted. We'll of course keep everyone posted on progress but this is currently where we're at."

6. Status update on messaging

"With messaging we've taken so long because we're also taking a slightly different approach from messaging like the way for instance it is implemented in Insane.

Reasoning for this is because more and more RSA keys and other "standard" encryption methods are becoming weaker and some are completely penetrable which negates the point of having the encryption for the messages being sent.

So that being said we're going to be putting the messages like transaction straight through the chain and encrypting it with the HMQ1725 algo that already encrypts the transactions and look at having both be processed simultaneously through the next blocks after being sent."

**7. Adaptive block rates **

"Now, with adaptive block rates what we're talking about is something along these lines:

The more TXs per block the faster the blocks are generated.
The less TXs per block the slower the blocks are generated.

This is of course within a hardset limit in either direction slower or faster,
also the reward would skew depending on block rate to maintain the same value payout even when the blocks are generated more rapidly

Arguably the downfall is it could lead to more blocks being created more often in the chain, however it is also faster TX times and it would react to chain utilization.

Something I figured we could all discuss and decide if it's something that should be brought into Espers"

**8. Upcoming patch to vrx **

"In regards finally to PoW and PoS mining I'd like to discuss the new upcoming patch to the VRX hybrid difficulty retarget system.

We'll be making some changes to it that will affect the way PoW and PoS are generated or found.

Firstly we're patching an incorrect value set on the skew that has caused PoS blocks to still be found considerably more often than PoW blocks.

While correcting this value we will also introduce a skew curve that will improve the PoW/PoS swinging selection considerably more allowing for a much more mixed block generation that will have considerably more PoW blocks coming in and a further stability improvement to PoS generation

This is planned for the next upcoming update. This will make PoW easier to mine, as right now it's really hard for PoW to be mined.

Currently PoW blocks show up ever 4 hours. With this update you'll see PoW blocks more like every 20-30 minutes or more. We are going to run through a few stress tests still to make sure.

The next update is coming Monday."

8.a PoS Issues

"Currently what's going on [with PoS issues] is that we're running a reference implementation of BlackCoin's PoSv2 which is starting to show its age as you can see with the smaller stakers not geting stakes hardly ever.

The solution to this that we've come up with is as follows:

1. Upgrade the PoS to PoSv3 BlackCoin reference
2. Modify the reference implementation to reset the stake weight of a staking wallet once the wallet stakes a portion of its balance.

What this means is anytime you stake a portion of your balance like you normally would, your network weight is set back to 0 and begins to gather weight again from that point on until it stakes once again.

This results in a distributed staking method as even smaller coin holders would stake as large bags would stake and reset their weight allowing for the next lowere weights to have a good chance at receiving a stake as well.

So big or small wallets would stake more often and consistently even with the user load we have and more."

9. INSN and ESP cross chain communication

"INSN and ESP will be working together later on this year and through next to fire up cross chain communication.

The intended goal for this is to send information from one chain to the other or to reference information from one while on the other. This would allow for us to share messaging systems and interact with community members and users from both chains unifying communities instead of segregating them. This is also intended to be used for teh website on a chain feature which with cross chain interfacing would allow users to utilize any participating blockchain to access the encrypted internet so to speak and not be limited to the features accessibly by only one chain.

In a sense this brings us closer together while keeping the projects themselves separate and free to specialize in their own ways as Espers and Insane have different intended end goals and will not be the same. Also this way each chain has its own respective workload so we don't see side-chain issues such as ETHs congestion."

10. Community open floor (copy & pastes from Discord as most of the rest is conversational)

Lunier - Today at 5:24 PM
When do you release the whitepaper?
CryptoCoderz - Today at 5:24 PM
well it's very community driven and there are still Insane team members that came with the merger
@Lunier whitepaper is this week
Quite possibly tomorrow
I'm still working on it :smile:

---

Mokota - Today at 5:26 PM
what system do you use for websites on chain. ipfs or an own development?
CryptoCoderz - Today at 5:26 PM
@Mokota custom written
the webcode will be stored on the chain itself (on a side chain)
and accessed then renderred client side

---

N00BonICE - Today at 5:27 PM
i don't really understood that messaging on the block :weary: does it mean you, you put a message on your ESP TX and this can read anonymous by the other part, or are you working on stuff like a real messanger?
CryptoCoderz - Today at 5:27 PM
@N00BonICE oh not a simple "comment" thingy that's already done and not really too useful to be honest unless to provide a description for your own transactions, no we're working on a full on messenger
Mokota - Today at 5:27 PM
wouldn't it make the blockchain huge stoing it all in the chain?
CryptoCoderz - Today at 5:28 PM
@Mokota not with the utilization of side chains to lessen the load
and have them work together
each would have their own workload
Mokota - Today at 5:28 PM
ok, will it be accessible with any browser?
CryptoCoderz - Today at 5:29 PM
can make it that way but running a web based client that is accessed by a normal website via any browser, so yes. but natively provided on the client itself

---

@CryptoCoderz can web on site
Can web on site be used by anyone without coding knowledge
CryptoCoderz - Today at 5:32 PM
@m33lucky it should be as easy as opening chrome on your phone or computer
N00BonICE - Today at 5:33 PM
how fast do you think will you send messanges? blocktime 5 min.?! how fast can work the sidechains?
CryptoCoderz - Today at 5:33 PM
@N00BonICE should be instant
as long as you're sync'd

---

m33lucky - Today at 5:33 PM
Sorry I mean will other users be able to build on it. Like add on our own web site?
CryptoCoderz - Today at 5:33 PM
your message would broadcast immediately
and confirm similarly to a TX

---

Mokota - Today at 5:34 PM
i like graphics, would be nice if the cc team could make nice visualisations or videos about the plans
CryptoCoderz - Today at 5:34 PM
@Mokota hehehe that's planned
Mokota - Today at 5:34 PM
nice
CryptoCoderz - Today at 5:35 PM
@m33lucky yes users will be able to add their own website
but in the beginning it will be raw code
so web devs would have to build the sites or you'd have to access the code to a built site to load it onto the chain

/Fin