Hi All,

Zilliqa Project Update #13 is here https://blog.zilliqa.com/zilliqa-project-update-13-building-on-zilliqa-812603157713

We have launched a dedicated website for Scilla at https://scilla-lang.org/, attended and hosted events in China, Korea and Singapore.

On the tech front, we’ve successfully migrated our public testnet to Kubernetes and have constantly been making improvements to the consensus layer.

On smart contracts - we have been working hard on the interpreter and also implemented a non-fungible token standard a la ERC-721. Jacob who specializes in programming language semantics and compiler implementation has joined the team as compiler engineer.

Thank you to all those who have submitted applications to the Zilliqa Ecosystem Grant - we will be sharing the first batch of awardees with everyone soon. Anyone keen to submit an idea/application for the grant programme can connect with our dev team or find collaborators at https://gitter.im/Zilliqa/.

Cheers!

Hi All,
Recently, Amrit, Head of Research at Zilliqa sat down with CoinCrunch to discuss Scilla - the smart contract language that Zilliqa will be using and how it can help prevent bugs in smart contracts. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2A8amo_pjE
Enjoy!

Dear all,

We are happy to announce that our Scilla codebase is now open source: https://github.com/Zilliqa/scilla. Scilla is a safe-by-design smart contract language being developed for Zilliqa. We take this opportunity to invite the community to contribute to the project and help us find bugs (if any).

Cheers!

Dear community members,

The Zilliqa team is committed to building a secure, scalable and decentralized blockchain platform. Amongst all existing solutions to achieve scalability such as off-chain, sidechains and others, we believe that sharding is a very promising one towards linear scalability. We are happy to have made sharding a reality by releasing the first testnet network that is sharded.

We have also finalized the design to run smart contracts on a sharded architecture which will be incorporated in the first production release of Zilliqa. This design ensures that transactions involving smart contracts can be processed in parallel across shards and the directory service committee. The entailed protocol will have no restrictions on the type of Scilla smart contracts that can be run. We will soon be releasing a blog post to explain the architecture that we have started to implement.

Since the release of our technical whitepaper back in August 2017, we have come a long way and have modified part of the initial design and implemented new techniques to make the protocol more performant and more secure. For instance, we have merged the two PoWs (as outlined in the whitepaper) into a single PoW. We have also replaced raw transaction data sharing with state-change sharing. Oftentimes, such modifications to the protocol design required a complete re-design of certain parts of the system.

In the past few weeks, we have had extensive discussions to review the timeline in light of these enhancements. Unfortunately, we will need more time to ensure that the code gets properly tested by the core team, the community and last but not the least, established auditing firms. We will also be leveraging the additional time to:

- Conduct thorough security audits
- Prepare for and execute the token swap
- Integrate with wallets
- Develop toolchains
- Bring more dapps onboard

We will be updating the community about the mainnet timeline along the way. At this stage, we are targeting end of this year or January 2019. We apologize for the delay but we firmly believe that it is in the best interest of the long-term future of the project and would like to seek your support and understanding.

Sincere thoughts,
The Zilliqa Team

Dear all,

It’s time for biweekly update #14. In the past two weeks, we have made progress on both business development as well as technical sides. On 2 August, we announced a partnership with Infoteria, a leading enterprise software company in Japan. Both Infoteria and Zilliqa will promote the Zilliqa platform on ASTERIA — Infoteria’s middleware product that currently has more than 6,500 enterprise customers and 41% market share in Japan.

On the technical side, the team has been working on various features, e.g., merging of PoW1/PoW2, GPU-support for mining, stability improvement, refactoring of the current protocol to support our sharding-friendly smart-contract design, our own TestRPC aka Kaya among others. On the Scila interpreter side, we have finished implementing the typechecker and have open sourced the Scilla codebase.

We would also like to introduce you to our newest team member Ian who will take the role of a fullstack developer at Zilliqa.

Do give the blog post a read and let us know your thoughts.

https://blog.zilliqa.com/zilliqa-project-update-14-enterprise-partnerships-scilla-made-open-source-588e0be48618

Dear All
We will be hosting an AMA tomorrow 8 Aug from 3.30-4.30pm (UTC+8) on https://t.me/zilliqachat. Please join Zilliqa's CEO Xinshu and Head of Research Amrit on the session and we look forward to answering any questions you have on Zilliqa.

Dear All

We are pleased to announce that Yiling Ding will be joining as Chief Marketing Officer of Zilliqa.Yiling was formerly Head of APAC Regional Marketing for Google Pay where she defined marketing strategies and developed partnerships https://blog.zilliqa.com/welcoming-yiling-ding-to-join-zilliqa-as-cmo-2e262a0bae76

Dear All,
Recently, we announced our #BuildonZIL Ecosystem Grant Programme to encourage teams and developers to contribute to our new, scalable, secure, and truly decentralized blockchain application infrastructure. When we launch our mainnet, we intend to have an ecosystem of applications running on Zilliqa that will support enterprises as well as end consumers.

We are thankful for the support of our community throughout our journey so far and are heartened by the number and quality of applications we have received so far.

Today, we are happy to share the first batch of 12 Zilliqa Ecosystem Grant awardees that will also be working alongside us to build infrastructure and also new applications on Zilliqa. These include Web3 libraries, wallets, extensions, smart contract libraries, Scilla language server, games as well as a cross-chain protocol for Bitcoin issuance. A big thank you to all those who participated and we look forward to receiving more applications in future!
https://blog.zilliqa.com/announcing-the-first-zilliqa-ecosystem-grant-awardees-4ccb39ef83c9

Dear All
Zilliqa Project Update #15 is here. In this update, we have more details on our roadmap leading up to mainnet launch.

Q3 2018: Support for sharding-friendly smart contracts
Q4 2018: Large-scale tests and security auditing
Dec 2018/Jan 2019: Mainnet launch

We have announced the first 12 awardees of the Zilliqa Ecosystem Grant and hope more will join us on this journey.

We have 3 new joiners across Business Development and the Core Development team.

On the technology front, we have continued to make good progress. The team has been working on improving node recovery, new node joining, GPU mining, network and protocol-level support for sharding-friendly smart contracts, enhancement of the Scilla interpreter and adding to our developer tools such as JavaScript libraries, Scilla IDE and Kaya RPC server.

As usual, eager to hear your feedback and suggestions.

Cheers!
https://blog.zilliqa.com/zilliqa-project-update-15-updated-roadmap-ramping-up-marketing-zilliqa-infrastructure-335818c7060

Dear all,

We are happy to announce that we have published a new blog post that explains how to run smart contracts on a sharded architecture like Zilliqa: https://blog.zilliqa.com/provisioning-sharding-for-smart-contracts-a-design-for-zilliqa-cd8d012ee735.

Running smart contracts on a sharded architecture brings into picture some exciting research problems that the blockchain community has been looking into lately. In this blog post, we present our solution to the problem that we refer to as “Deterministic Transaction Assignment”. The post also presents the status of the implementation. Give it a read and let us know your thoughts.

Cheers!

Dear All,

We are going to be at a number of events in September. Do catch us if you are in any of these cities.

1. Cluj, Romania
Date: 4 Sep 2018 10am-6pm
Event: Scilla Full-day Workshop – Learning how to program in Scilla
https://medium.com/cryptoland-tech/workshop-2-diving-into-scilla-a-safe-by-design-smart-contract-language-5cb23f71222b

2. Berlin, Germany
Date: 6 Sep 2018
Event: Dezentral
https://www.dezentral.io/

3. Beijing, China
Date: 5 Sep 2018
Event: PublicChain Odaily Developer Conference
https://www.odaily.com/post/5133227

4. Beijing, China
Date: 7-9 Sep 2018
Event: BlockChain Cases Center Conference
http://bccc.msup.com.cn/

5. Hanoi, Vietnam
Date: 15-16 Sep 2018
Event: Cryptocurrencies and Digital Assets Dialogue
https://www.vietnamcryptodialogue.com/

6. Singapore
Date: 19-20 Sep 2018
Event: Consensus: Singapore 2018
https://www.coindesk.com/events/consensus-singapore-2018/

7. Singapore
Date: 19 Sep 2018 7-9pm
Event: Zilliqa x DMM.com x LayerX: Tools, Use cases and New initiatives for blockchain adoption
https://www.meetup.com/Ethereum-Singapore/events/253942745/

Cheers!

Dear All

I have just joined the team as CMO and am excited to share Zilliqa Project Update #16 with you. We have just published details on our solution to one of the most challenging and exciting problems in blockchains today - supporting smart contracts in a sharded network. In addition, we are constantly looking to grow our ecosystem - if you are interested in building a blockchain-based game or Decentralised exchange, do reach out to us!

We will be at several events across the globe this month, from Romania to Berlin to Beijing, rounding off with Singapore.

Please also welcome Han Wen, who has joined as Developer Relations.

On the technology front, we have implemented new features – events (you can now automatically retrieve data from the blockchain), transaction generator and difficulty adjustment of PoW.

As always, eager to hear your feedback and suggestions. Let us know if there is anything you want to hear more of in our updates!

https://blog.zilliqa.com/zilliqa-project-update-16-sharding-friendly-smart-contracts-and-target-dapps-8adfbd926641

Dear All,

We are happy to provide an update on Project Proton, a digital advertising initiative we have been working on in conjunction with Mindshare and the following partners:
● Mediamath: A leading digital media­ buying platform and services company based in New York, serving over 250B ad impressions a day (more than the combined volume from top 10 stock exchanges globally). Mediamath serves over 4,000 clients in its portfolio.
● Mindshare: Mindshare is a global media and marketing services company with 7,000 employees across 116 countries, and global revenue at USD34.5B annually. Clients include Unilever, PepsiCo, GSK, Yum Restaurants, Dyson, Nestle, American Express and others.
● Rubicon Project: Founded in 2007, Rubicon Project is one of the world’s largest advertising exchanges. The company helps websites and apps thrive by giving them tools and expertise to sell ads easily and safely. In addition, the world's leading agencies and brands rely on Rubicon Project’s technology to execute billions of advertising transactions each month. Rubicon Project is an independent, publicly traded company (NYSE:RUBI) headquartered in Los Angeles, California
● Integral Ad Science (IAS): A global software company, headquartered in New York, that builds verification, optimization, and analytics solutions, acting as leaders in viewability, brand safety and ad fraud.
● Underscore CLT: Underscore CLT develops cryptographic ledger technologies to power real business solutions for marketers and their partners.

More details are available in the blogpost below. https://blog.zilliqa.com/project-proton-updates-on-the-mindshare-initiative-c464b33d259f

Cheers

Dear All,

We have had an exciting two weeks and I am excited to share what we’ve been up to in Zilliqa Project Update #17. From our first-ever Scilla workshop in Cluj, Romania to our new browser-based IDE, we’ve been working hard at making Scilla easier to use for developers. We also announced our partnership with Mindshare and other leading companies to explore some of the major challenges facing the digital advertising industry.

In addition, we are seeing our ecosystem grant awardees make great progress in building wallets, tools, and libraries for Zilliqa. One of our web extension wallet grantees, Appberry extension, is already capable of sending ZILs over the Scilla testnet.

On the technology front, we have been working on implementing dual difficulty levels of Proof of Work – a relatively easier level for joining as a node in a shard, and a more difficult level to qualify as a potential member of the DS committee. We’ve also been improving the stability of DS microblocks.

As always, eager to hear your feedback and suggestions. Let us know if there is anything you want to hear more of in our updates!

https://medium.com/zilliqa/zilliqa-project-update-17-project-proton-developer-engagement-upcoming-events-b61dcd845ed4

Hi all,
I'm excited to share that we have established our new London office, and will be kicking things off in October with a series of events across Europe, including a 2-day hackathon in London.
We will also be running developer workshops at San Francisco Blockchain Week and Carnegie Mellon University, rounding off with the BlockChainJam event in Tokyo.
Looking forward to seeing you this month!

EUROPE
1. Malta
Date: 3 - 5 October
Event: The Malta DELTA summit
https://delta-summit.com/

2. London
Date: 6 - 7 October
Event: Zilliqa developer conference, workshop & hackathon
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/free-2-day-deep-dive-developer-conference-workshop-hackathon-with-zilliqa-tickets-49787317206

3. Barcelona
Date: 16 - 18 October
Event: The Blockchain Solutions Summit
https://www.blockchainsolutionsworld.com/

Date: 19 - 21 October
Event: KAIROS Europe Summit
http://kairossummit.eu/

4. Frankfurt
Date: 22 - 23 October
Event: East - West Crypto Conference
https://ewcc.io/

USA
1. San Francisco
Date: 8 October
Event: San Francisco Blockchain Week - Scilla Workshop
Apply here for a free workshop pass https://tinyurl.com/zilliqa-devs

2. Pittsburgh
Date: 12 Oct - 13 Oct
Event: Meetup and Scilla Workshop at Carnegie Mellon University

ASIA
1. Tokyo
Date: 21 October
Event: Blockchain Jam
https://blockchainjam2018.peatix.com/

Dear All,

We have had an eventful two weeks, from our partnership with DMM.com and LayerX to our new office in London, and I'm excited to share the details in Project Update #18. We are also proud to announce that we are giving back to our academic research roots through sponsoring the CRYSTAL Centre, a blockchain-focused academic think tank.

On the technology front, we have made steady progress in enabling support for multi-GPU mining, implementing the gossip protocol and the upgrading protocol, and in improving the Scilla interpreter and our dev tools. We have also kick-started a series of tutorials on how to develop for Zilliqa.

We will be in several events around the world this month – from London to San Francisco to Tokyo – and look forward to meeting you all there.

As always, we want to know what you think! Let us know if there is anything you want to hear more about in our updates!

https://blog.zilliqa.com/zilliqa-project-update-18-european-expansion-giving-back-to-research-partnerships-in-japan-e61298793363

Dear All,

I am excited to share Project Update #19 with you. We have been around the world these past two weeks at various events, including developer workshops at both London and Pittsburgh. Thank you to everyone who attended and who gave us valuable feedback to help make Zilliqa more developer-friendly. As we approach our public release, we are actively seeking feedback and encourage developers all levels and background to give us their candid thoughts.

On the technology front, we implemented several new features to improve the robustness of our network, including Tree-Based Cluster Broadcasting, MIMO DS Committee, and verification of messages from lookup nodes. We have also been improving the Scilla interpreter and updating our client library.

We will be in Barcelona, Frankfurt, Tokyo, and Jakarta over the next two weeks. Hope to see you there!

As always, we want to know what you think! Let us know if there is anything you want to hear more about in our updates!

https://blog.zilliqa.com/zilliqa-project-update-19-developer-education-technical-improvements-e83a298ea9af

Dear All,

I am excited to share Project Update #20 with you. We have been making good progress in key features for blockchain functionality as we approach mainnet launch, including gas rewards and a fallback mechanism to improve network robustness. We are also in the progress of building cashflow analysis for our Scilla interpreter – a new safety feature that help detect any leakage of funds.

On the business side, we wrapped up a busy month of events with Scilla workshops with developers from DMM.com, LayerX and Infoteria in Tokyo. We will also be conducting Scilla workshops Singapore and Beijing in November, as we proactively seek developer feedback for improvements.

We will also be holding a live AMA on Telegram on Nov 15, 3pm SGT (7am UTC) to answer your questions around the technical progress and marketing plans around mainnet launch. More details to come.

As always, we want to know what you think! Let us know if there is anything you want to hear more about in our updates!

https://blog.zilliqa.com/zilliqa-project-update-20-progress-in-core-tech-features-scilla-safety-features-36861dbde366

Dear all, as promised in our tech update yesterday, we will be holding a live AMA on our official Telegram channel (https://t.me/zilliqachat) on Nov 15, 3pm Singapore time. Xinshu, Amrit, and myself will be available for your questions around mainnet, Scilla, and marketing. Please feel free to post questions beforehand as well on our Reddit thread.

You can find more details here: https://new.reddit.com/r/zilliqa/comments/9swvn6/ask_us_anything_zilliqa_ama_15th_nov_2018/

Hello everyone,

We’ll be organizing a series of 'Townhall AMA sessions' with Zilliqa ecosystem grant awardees. For each session, we will invite representatives from some of the teams to interact with the developer community on Gitter, share project updates and answer any relevant technical questions. These sessions will also be useful for those who wish to get involved with these open-source projects or get ideas on defining their own project to build on Zilliqa.

Join us to learn more about the cool projects that the Zilliqa community is working on.

Our first townhall session will be dedicated to projects developing wallets and browser extensions. Participants for the first session will be:

1. Alex Cyon and Patryk Konopacki - A Zilliqa wallet and Swift SDK for mobile iOS devices.
2. Qaidjohar Jawadwala- Browser extensions to integrate with Zilliqa wallets.
3. Bo Hu - Developing a Chrome extension for Zilliqa.
4. Cryptoland Tech team - Developing web wallets and extensions to provide a secure and consistent user experience.

Details on date, time and venue for the first session are as follows:

*Date: * 10 November, 2018
*Time: * 0900 hrs UTC
*Format:* Text based group chat on Gitter
*Venue: * https://gitter.im/Zilliqa/ecogrant

See you on Gitter on Nov 10!