Steem Use-a-Thon by Byteball - Weekly update 2
The Use-a-Thon has now been running for 2 full weeks, and therefore it’s time for the second weekly update in which we cover some general topics as well as take a look at the past week’s blog posts of the participants.
Never too late to join the party!
We still see new participants joining, and so far the number has risen to 10 users. One very important thing to note is that participants that enter the contest late will still be judged on the use case they propose, how feasible and sustainable the project is and how well they manage to lay out a realistic plan for implementation and realization. So we expect more participants to join over the course of the next weeks too. All ideas are welcome, and we highly encourage bright minds, creative souls and innovative hearts to join the fun!
What makes Byteball unique?
Ever since the platform went live back in 2016, the number of features have grown steadily. So while the Byteball platform is of course also a cryptocurrency, it’s so much more and I often like to refer to it as a huge box of Legos. There are several “blocks” from which you can design your own beautiful models.
One of such “blocks” is Textcoins. They are textual representations of money, that allow you to send any type of asset to anyone by text or through messaging apps. If the receiver doesn’t have a wallet yet, he will be prompted to download and install the wallet and the funds will then be transferred to him. Simply go to your wallet’s “Send”-tab and click the “Share via message” tab.
One of such “blocks” is Textcoins. They are textual representations of money, that allow you to send any type of asset to anyone by text or through messaging apps. If the receiver doesn’t have a wallet yet, he will be prompted to download and install the wallet and the funds will then be transferred to him. Simply go to your wallet’s “Send”-tab and click the “Share via message” tab.
In case the receiver doesn’t claim the textcoin, don’t worry! Funds are not lost. You simply reclaim it from your wallet’s History-tab and by clicking on the transaction where you created the textcoin. This reveals the transaction and a link you can click to “claim back”.
Works with any asset
Any asset on the Byteball platform, not only Bytes, can be sent to users through the use of these textcoins, making it a brilliant way to distribute funds to new users, hand out flyers with printed textcoins of a given amount of Bytes or even distribute it through mailing-lists as airdrops. The possibilities are vast and only your own imagination will be the limit to its use.
@drsensor
@chrisaiki
@altcoinb
@malos10
Here is the 1 GB award being paid to his registered account.
And the corresponding Byteball transaction unit
Steem Use-a-Thon Wiki page where all relevant information for the contest can be found.
Byteball Slack where users can seek help, ask questions and collaborate - please state that you are a participant in the Use-a-Thon.
Byteball Wiki contains information about all features, references to external sources etc.
Developer guides for those wanting to build entirely new stuff.
Easy-to-use JavaScript library to easily integrate Byteball features on websites without the need of headless wallets.
Byteball main GitHub repository for those wanting to dig deep.
In next weeks update, we will cover another interesting feature that the platform has to offer: Tokens! We know you’re all waiting eagerly to see what Smart Media Tokens (SMT) will bring to the Steem community. But why not start exploring the possibilities now? Unlike the Ethereum platform, Byteball offers an easy and user-friendly way to issue your own tokens. The simple process doesn’t require you to program smart contracts. You issue the token on the Byteball Market website and by using the “Byteball Market” chat bot directly in your wallet.
Summary of this week’s blog posts
We were eager to see how many of the participants would find time to write an update on their progress. We know that most of the participants work on their projects in their spare time, and having to write a blog post only takes time from their work on the project. Therefore, we were thrilled to see 4 new updates. 3 of those were from new entrants this week.
@drsensor
Having worked on his use case for a week, drsensor took to the keys and wrote an update last Sunday, that really shows the complexity a use case can easily have. It is a stellar example that something that might end up as a simple solution to a problem, has often been through several iterations and a long thought process trying to determine the best solution to the problem. The post does a great job at capturing the reader and once again the quality of his blog post is super high and it is beautifully composed.
@chrisaiki
Is one of the new contenders and he managed to bring not only one, but two use cases to the contest. The first is a service that can reward other Steem users with an upvote if they write a question in the headline of their post and if he believes it to be a good question worth an answer. The post doesn’t go into too many details to explain how this will be achieved or how the Byteball platform fits in with the use case, though.
The second use case that does indeed involve the Byteball platform is a charity initiative, allowing users to donate Bytes to the great and green cause to plant trees. Again, the article is kept short and to the point. The realization of the project seems to be more or less there already, but it would be interesting to know if the concept could be further developed or if it will be left as a donation program.
The second use case that does indeed involve the Byteball platform is a charity initiative, allowing users to donate Bytes to the great and green cause to plant trees. Again, the article is kept short and to the point. The realization of the project seems to be more or less there already, but it would be interesting to know if the concept could be further developed or if it will be left as a donation program.
@altcoinb
Another interesting use case was a way to make sure trading of domain names was done in a completely trustless atomic swap by implementing smart contracts and an oracle. When a person or company wants to buy a domain name from someone else that already registered it, it often involves a risk that one of the parties won’t live up to the agreement. This use case provides a solution that eliminates the need for a middle man or escrow service.
@malos10
This week’s last blog post is about an initiative to introduce the Byteball platform as an alternative to fiat for shops and merchants in Venezuela. The article does an excellent job at describing the current situation in the country and provides great arguments why this use case could prove successful. The fact that he manages to cover the entire value chain all the way from the customer, over exchanges and to merchants shows that a great deal of thought has been put into his use case. The article is well written and well documented and does a great job at conveying the obstacles to overcome to be successful and it will be exciting to follow the progress of this work first hand over the next weeks.
This week’s winner of 1 GB
Every week, the Use-a-Thon jury votes to determine a winner for the best progress report of the week, and this week is no exception. We are therefore happy to announce that this week’s winner of the 1 GB award for best progress report is…
@drsensor
Congratulations on the win and all the best of luck to all participants. We definitely hope to see a lot more interesting and exciting articles from all participants and encourage everyone who follows this contest to show their support and help the contestants with comments and good ideas to improve on their use cases.
As always the best place to receive feedback and help on your projects is the Byteball Slack.
As always the best place to receive feedback and help on your projects is the Byteball Slack.
Get more information
With a constantly growing community, there is a vast library of available resources. Here is a list of some of relevant resources:Steem Use-a-Thon Wiki page where all relevant information for the contest can be found.
Byteball Slack where users can seek help, ask questions and collaborate - please state that you are a participant in the Use-a-Thon.
Byteball Wiki contains information about all features, references to external sources etc.
Developer guides for those wanting to build entirely new stuff.
Easy-to-use JavaScript library to easily integrate Byteball features on websites without the need of headless wallets.
Byteball main GitHub repository for those wanting to dig deep.
Much like last week's entry, this was an excellent post. I'm excited to see the usecases being proposed, and the fact that there are more of them. Were I a more technically minded person, I would try and think of one myself to get in on the fun (and ask one of my fellows in the Blog category to moderate next posts in the series, of course).
Also similarly to last week's entry, I had some issues when it comes to style and grammar. Let's cite a couple of examples.
"The Use-a-Thon has now been running for 2 full weeks, and it’s time for the second weekly update. In this update, we cover some general topics, as well as take a look at the past week’s blog posts by the participants."
"the number of features have grown steadily." While "features" are plural, the thing that has grown is "the number," which is singular. Therefore, this should have been: "the number of features has grown steadily."
"So while the Byteball platform is of course also a cryptocurrency" It's not, though. "Byteball" is a cryptocurrency. "The Byteball platform" is a platform.
Issues such as these are, on the whole, minor. Their impact on the post's overall quality and readability isn't huge. But I would still urge greater attention to such issues.
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[utopian-moderator]
Once again, thanks for your great feedback and evaluation. This week, the post had to be rushed a bit in an attempt to get translated versions in place for the launch. Yet, we need to allow all participants to post as late during the week as possible. So we operate on a rather small time window for these updates.
But seeing the amazing progress reports and new ideas entering the contest makes all the stress and hassle worth every minute of it. And while I would definitely miss your thorough feedback on the following weeks' articles, you would definitely be just as welcome to join as a participant in the contest!
Should you choose so, the best of luck :)
Thank you for your review, @didic!
So far this week you've reviewed 18 contributions. Keep up the good work!
Congrats @drsensor! Glad we crossed paths and I'm excited to see you getting recognized for your work. Great work, my friend. ⚡️👍
Thankyou 😊
Looking forward on your side 🌟
Thank you very much for promoting the project "2 million trees by 2020". The project is ongoing, we are recruiting tree ambassadors and I opened a Peerquery project :
and congratulations to the winner!
Very Good! Congratulation @drsensor
but my link not work!
I know my english is very bad ;-)
Sorry, ill get that sorted in a minute. Thanks for the contribution too :-)
Would you happen to be Danish by chance?
no problem ;-) german
Fixed it - I just noticed you used a Danish dentist website for your example and thought perhaps you were Danish. I am from Denmark myself, so I got curious :-)
lol :D after my article i read news for the new eu-dsgvo law.
i try a request for a german website, but no chance!
Denmark defend the rules :)
And EU is not the world otherwise i would deleted my articel...
Thankyou @altcoinb 🙂
very interesting,
but I'm still confused about how to exchange steem byteball to bitcoin.
How to do it
STEEM as well as Bytes (byteball is the name of the Platform, and that's not for sale) can be traded to Bitcoin on exchanges. I believe all three have trade pairs on Bittrex exchange.
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Good news that you get more participants. And congrats to this-week winner.
Thanks - yeah the competition is definitely getting on. It's super interesting to see the creativity put on display by the contestants. But also check out how different the use cases proposed are. That's one of the main reasons I love these contests of creativity and imagination. It's impressive to see what different people are able to come up with basically using the same fundamental platform :)
I must say that thanks to you I could now buy a new laptop
this is absolutely brilliant, i enjoyed this! :)