Hello to all, and a very warm welcome to the new members joining us. In order to engage better with the community and to update you all on what we are doing both on the development side of the project and others such as meetups and partnerships, we have decided to publish updates on a bi-weekly basis. We are happy to share with you the first set of updates in the form of the following blogpost: https://blog.zilliqa.com/zilliqa-project-update-1-71fac5b3170b

Please feel free to give us your feedback on the format of these updates and what you would like to see going forward. We look forward to embarking on this journey with all of you. Thank you again for your support. Cheers!

PS: For a quick reference, the new set of slides that we have presented at the recent meetups is available here: https://docs.zilliqa.com/zilliqa-slides-updated.pdf

Some members of the community have raised concerns that the Zilliqa team has sold off 20 million ZIL. Here is the official reply from the team.

Team members have yet to be allocated tokens and therefore selling them off is simply infeasible.

The transaction in question was a deposit to an exchange. Most exchanges usually request for a deposit to guarantee enough liquidity. Those transactions selling our tokens are aggregated records from an exchange address.

The team strongly believes in the project and we have no intention to hamper team’s credibility and core values. Thank you for your understanding and for your trust.

Dear all, we are happy to make the following two announcements:

1. The third part of “The Zilliqa Design Story Piece by Piece” series is now available. This last part of the series talks about the optimizations done to the underlying consensus protocol to make it more scalable. Give it a read and let us know your thoughts.

https://blog.zilliqa.com/the-zilliqa-design-story-piece-by-piece-part-3-making-consensus-efficient-7a9c569a8f0e

2. We will be presenting at NUS Greyhats in Singapore. Details are given below. Do join us if you are around.

Event Link: https://mailchi.mp/3f68edba0b7d/security-wednesday-22-zilliqa-a-secure-scalable-blockchain-with-sharding-and-multi-signing

*Time and Venue:*
Date: *Wednesday, 7 February 2018* (this coming Wednesday)
Time: *6.30PM - 8.00PM*
Location: The Hangar by NUS Enterprise (i-Cube), 21 Heng Mui Keng Terrace, Singapore 119613

Dear all, in order to better engage with the community, we are planning to do an AMA session on *Feb 10 at 3:30PM SGT (GMT+8)*. As community members may come from different timezones, we request you all to post your questions (as comments) on the following subreddit post:
https://www.reddit.com/r/zilliqa/comments/7vlxyx/ask_us_anything_zilliqa_ama/

We request you to post your questions as early as possible and not wait until the AMA starts. The actual format for answering questions will be announced closer to the AMA date.

Thank you for your support. Cheers!

PS: You may use https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter-classic.html to convert to your timezone.

Dear everyone,
We are happy to inform you that Huobi Pro will be launching ZIL/USDT pair at 18:00 on February 8th, 2018 (GMT+8).
https://www.huobi.pro/notice_detail/?id=1003

Dear All, we will be starting our AMA on Reddit in approx 20 mins from now. Please post any questions you have here https://www.reddit.com/r/zilliqa/comments/7vlxyx/ask_us_anything_zilliqa_ama/

Dear all.
We have come to the end of our first AMA. Thank you for participating.
For those who missed it, you may view it at https://www.reddit.com/r/zilliqa/comments/7vlxyx/ask_us_anything_zilliqa_ama/

Security advisory
=================
There are ongoing scam activities related to the use of slackbot (on slack) for scamming related purpose. Any message sent by the slackbot on the NuCypher presale is a SCAM. Official announcements will only be made through #announcements channel. Please stay vigilant and always check with admins/moderators if you are unsure.

DO NOT TRUST THE SLACKBOT. The team does not use the slackbot to communicate with anyone.

Hello everyone. We are very happy to announce that we will be collaborating with Bluzelle. Bluzelle is next-gen database protocol for the decentralized internet. We will be working together to provide an integrated solution so that users building dApps with Zilliqa as the underlying blockchain can use Bluzelle for decentralized data storage.

https://blog.bluzelle.com/bluzelle-first-wave-of-collaborations-efb2bd0cf33d

Dear everyone,

Update on bounty program
For the bounty program, we have send out an email to everyone who has participated in the bounty program. Please note that we will need you to do a few thing by 20 Feb 2018 23:59 (GMT+8)
1) Confirm your ETH address with us
2) Fill up the form for KYC (if you did not go through KYC by Bitcoin Suisse previously)

Please refer to the email for the details.
All bounty enquiries will be handled through bounty@zilliqa.com

If you did not received the email, please check your spam box. If you are using gmail, the mail get classified under "Social", "Promotional" or "Updates" by gmail.

Security advisory
We will not ask you to send us any cryptocurrencies or private key of your wallet.

On a lighter note, chinese new year is around the corner. The Zilliqa team wishes everyone who is celebrating, a Happy Chinese New Year!

Dear all,

Wish you a very Happy Lunar New Year.

We are also pleased to share the second biweekly update on the project. This update covers our recent community engagement activities, a newly formed partnership, an addition to the team and of course updates on the technical front. As always, please have a read and let us know your feedback.
https://blog.zilliqa.com/zilliqa-project-update-2-c6bd00f2f572

Thank you and have a restful weekend ahead.

Hello everyone.

- We are having a meetup in Taipei. Do join us if you are free!
Time: Mar 3 2018 19:00PM
Venue: Bitzantin - Crypto Cafe & Lab
No.265, Sec. 2, Neihu Rd., Neihu Dist.,Taipei City
https://www.facebook.com/events/1671072562938496/?active_tab=about

- We have released an animation video about Zilliqa. Enjoy!
https://youtu.be/gQiG_ilPGG0

- Yaoqi, Our Blockchain Architect presented about Zilliqa at Neo DevCon 2018 last month. The full video is out. Do check it out!
https://youtu.be/UTZJkKbNstg

Security Advisory
=================

Dear all,

We are aware of ongoing scam via spoofed email. Do note that the team will not ask you for cryptocurrencies nor tokens.

Do note that we (zilliqa.com) do not use sendgrid services. If you received any mail coming from sendgrid (on behalf of zilliqa.com), it is likely to be a scam.

Stay safe.

Dear all,

We are glad to be part of the list of nominees for Round 6 of “Community Coin of the Month” organized by Binance. Voting has started and will end on 2018/02/25 10:00 AM (UTC).

Do show your support by voting for us at https://www.binance.com/vote.html.

Thank you.

Dear everyone,

Update on bounty program

We are extending the dateline for the submission of required information for the Bounty program (Held between 4 Nov to 1 Dec) to 27 Feb 2018 23:59 (GMT+8). For those who have yet to submit, please refer to the email, dated 14 Feb, for the instructions.

(If you participated in the bounty program previously and did not received the email, please check your spam box. If you are using gmail, the mail get classified under "Social", "Promotional" or "Updates" by gmail. )

Due to logistic reason, please note that we may not be able to process your bounty claim if you do not submit the information before the cut off date.

All bounty enquiries will be handled through bounty@zilliqa.com

Dear community members,

We would like to thank you all for your effort in the ongoing community voting. We are immensely grateful to the community for their support and their expression of confidence in Zilliqa. Seeing the community being at the helm of this campaign makes it unique and shows the strength that we all strive to build. Your support means the most to us.

Heartfelt thanks to you all.

Let’s all vote.

Security advisory
=============
Dear all,

We are aware of sites/forms claiming to be conducting Zilliqa airdrop. Please note that these are not official Zilliqa airdrop and may be created by scammer. We advise that everyone refrain from providing any information to such forms/sites. Stay safe!

Dear community members,

Thank you for the overwhelming support that each individual has given us in the recently concluded community voting.

While we may not have the highest voting numbers, this campaign has shown that our community is strong and is ready to lead a united effort to push for Zilliqa’s adoption. We are sure this brings both pride and humility to all of us.

An uncountable number of you have worked tirelessly and selflessly for this campaign. We owe you all an immense debt of gratitude.

Please take good rest.

With the best of our thoughts,
The Zilliqa Team

Hello everyone,

1. We are going to be speaking at the opening event of Bitzantin Crypto Cafe & Lab in Taipei this Saturday and will also be hosting a meetup right after at 7pm. Come join us and also collect Zilliqa stickers at the event.

*Date and Time:* Mar 3 2018 7:00PM
*Venue:* Bitzantin - Crypto Cafe & Lab
No.265, Sec. 2, Neihu Rd., Neihu Dist.,Taipei City
https://www.facebook.com/events/1671072562938496/?active_tab=about

2. We were also covered by CryptoIncome in a recent review http://cryptoincome.io/zilliqa-review/ which includes a comprehensive explanation of our technology. Do give this a read!