Like, totally random? | August 12, 2019

We’ve been up to a lot recently! Still pushing as hard as we can towards MainNet launch. In the last couple weeks, Alex published a new paper on Randomness, Illia talked to Nervos and Holochain for two new whiteboard series videos (linked below), and Jess and I did a short workshop in preparation for the IDEO+Coinlist hackathon. The hackathon has kicked off! If you’ve got an idea, you’ve got plenty of time to jump aboard here! 

After a successful round of applications for the Beta Program, we’re announcing the next thing: the NEAR Ambassador Program! If you want to create or support a NEAR Protocol community in your area, check out some info on the program. We’re particularly looking for diverse applicants (age, gender, ethnicity, geography, and more!) so if that is you, please feel encouraged to apply.

On top of that, the Beta Program is done taking applications (although if you have an epic team and idea you can still apply late). In engineering, we’ve been battling bugs and kicking out new features based on what you’ve been saying. So keep building and telling us what’s missing.

COMMUNITY AND EVENTS

We’re heading to Germany for Berlin Blockchain Week, from Aug 18-25. Come say hi if you’re in town! Also, we’re looking for self-starters who want to create community around blockchain in their area. 

If you’re the type of person who sees themselves as a founder, you should definitely join our ambassador program. We’re allocating tokens to people who want to create a movement.

• The IDEO hackathon is in progress. Don’t miss out! 
• We’ve kicked off the ambassador program. Set something up in your community!
• We’re hiring aggressively. If you don’t see anything that fits you, email us!
• We’ve gotten a ton of great applications for our beta program and have already onboarded our first projects. If you have a late application, it’s still worth sending it in here: /beta

The @ideocolab + @CoinList online hackathon has officially kicked off! Register and get started building your project to make blockchains more useful and useable, using @ethereum @NEARProtocol @OasisLabs @StellarOrg @tezos: https://t.co/lUpATGol4i pic.twitter.com/uQRvElf3E9

— IDEO CoLab (@ideocolab) August 7, 2019

UPCOMING EVENTS

We’ll be involved in a couple of events at Berlin Blockchain Week:

• Illia will present at a Pantera event on Aug 19th on the Web3 Stack
• Illia will be on a panel on the Road to Adoption for the decentralized web on August 20th, with Celo and Nexus Mutual
• Alex will be presenting at the Web3 Summit on sharding
• Illia will be on a panel on August 22nd for Berlin Blockchain Week

ENGINEERING HIGHLIGHTS

Chunks are in a mega-PR; you can take a look here. We’re also polishing staking, and adding features to make building stuff on NEAR faster and better. You can now send money through the command line! Check out the wallet API proposal below as well. If you want to add some features, or have a cool idea don’t forget that everything we do is entirely open source!

71 PRs across 14 repos by 16 authors. Featured repos: nearcore, nearlib, near-shell, and near-wallet

Here are the highlights of what’s been added in the last two weeks:

• Enabled sending telemetry data over HTTPS in near core 
• Updated testnet genesis in core
• Near shell updated to 0.9.4
• Improve error handling for login in near shell
• Display transactions per second (tps) and max tps in explorer
• New enhancement proposal for Wallet API
• Validator rewards implemented and merged in core
• Kickouts added to validator manager and account deletion added to core
• New calls added for sending money through the command line
• New testing pipeline in CI added to the online IDE
• Block search added and major performance boost to block explorer

WRITING AND CONTENT

We’ve released a paper and a post on randomness. When Illia was in China recently, he had a chance to sneak into a room with a whiteboard and break down Nervos with Haichao Zhu. Later, Eric Harris-Braun from Holochain came by our office and explore the concepts behind DHT. Check out the links below!

• Alex’s post on Randomness
• The formal paper on Randomness
• The new Whiteboard Series Episode 25 with Nervos here. (There were some technical difficulties, but it’s still comprehensible)
• The new Whiteboard Series Episode 26 with Holochain here
• Workshop for IDEO + Coinlist on getting set up quickly for the hackathon here

HOW YOU CAN GET INVOLVED

Join us: there are new jobs we’re hiring across the board!
If you want to work with one of the most talented teams in the world right now to solve incredibly hard problems, check out our careers page for openings. And tell your friends!

Learn more about NEAR in The Beginner’s Guide to NEAR Protocol. Stay up to date with what we’re building by following us on Twitter for updates, joining the conversation on Discord and subscribing to our newsletter to receive updates right to your inbox.

Reminder: you can help out significantly by adding your thoughts in our 2-minute Developer Survey.

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