Community Debriefs

RChain Update 117: Co-op releases financials

Blog admin

Update Summary


Previously, Greg Meredith demoed the rollout of RChain’s network software. The presentation covered the functionality of the comms layer, local storage solutions (RSpace), Rholang, Kademlia, Rho execution, Casper protocol, and dApps like RSong. Ravi Srivastava introduced himself to the community. He talked about his years of experience as an engineer, his engagement with project firms like Myspace and NTT telecommunication company in Japan, and his excitement about the possibilities of RSong. Jonathan Kochmer informed the community of the ongoing MOU initiatives with the Korean government, institutions, and blockchain advocates. They aim to be self-sustained through business models that generate revenue.

This week,  the dev team has continued priority on consensus, stability, blockstore refinement, wallet, cost accounting, and feature implementation. The co-op’s financials are now publicly available. Greg Meredith expresses the importance of Ravi’s role in bringing in equity; community members are more concerned about minimizing expenses.


Announcements



Content in Brief


Technical update: consensus, stability, blockstore refinement, wallet, cost accounting, feature implementation

Sprint and Release

  • Two-week sprint ends March 4. Priorities: consensus stability, wallet and cost accounting implementation, blockstore refinement
  • RNode v0.8.4 release delayed by  RCHAIN-2909 – Fix InvalidParents error DONE . Plan to release at the end of the current sprint. RNode-0.8.4 release plan

Mercury requirements and acceptance criteria

  • Please see documentation here

Test net status

  • A public test net is not yet available
  • Work in progress to publish the public testnet rollout plan

Block storage

  • Implementation PR is in dev and work in progress to update the platform so it can work.  RCHAIN-2246 – Store the blocks in the chain IN PROGRESS

Consensus

  • InvalidParents bug resolved. Fix tested during this week’s community test.  RCHAIN-2909 – Fix InvalidParents error DONE
  • Work continues to complete the use of greatest common ancestor rather than last finalized block in the estimator
    View all issues in JIRA
  • Conversations continue this week related to Validator Incentives and Casper.

Cost accounting

  • Work in progress to implement common cost accounting across different layers of the platform: reducer, spatial matcher, and RSpace match component. View all issues in JIRA

Node

  • Work in progress to update metrics in RSpace in support of performance test work
  • Work in progress to update the communication protocol between client and node. RCHAIN-2928 – Either type for protobufs + usage in all existing API calls DONE

Test infrastructure and performance testing

  • Debugging differences in reporting observed in Prometheus and InfluxDB in the performance test harness
  • Work in progress to build out the infrastructure and support systems for the public testnet

Wallet

  • PR in review for development of the REVAddress.  RCHAIN-2967 – Implement the tools to create/parse REV Address IN REVIEW

Financial update: financial report released

Check out the financial report (password: “2018draft”). Greg mentioned organising a closed-door session for members only to discuss the best use of the available finances

Comments/QA

  • What happens to the Immersion deal if the coop dissolves?
    • Greg: “There are two possibilities. One is, if we go forward with the RSong incorporation and RChain assigns the licence to RSong, then it could remain a viable option where RSong is sort of a continuation of RChain because we have significant interest in RSong. Otherwise, the licence reverts back to the Immersion because there is no legal entity on the other end of that agreement.”
  • Do we still owe them money?
    • Greg: “We do owe them some money but it’s not due for quite some time.”
  • What’s the status with IRS negotiations?
    • Greg: “Filing of the 501C12 didn’t go through. Hunt Jackson, which was instructed to do the filing, did not. I am going forward with the filing using a different firm because once the filing is in, we get to act under the presumptive status of 501C12, which changes our tax profile entirely. We will reassess the tax obligation and then contact the IRS for a payment plan but under the presumptive status of 501C12.”
  • Rudy believes based on evaluations that the upside of RSong is tremendous and he thinks that hasn’t been communicated to the community well enough. For him, RSong is viable to save the co-op from its financial challenge. Greg follows Rudy’s comment stating that every investor has expressed confidence in the RChain tech, but are constrained by other internal issues the co-op currently faces. However, there has been interesting negotiations going on with fund partners.

Ravi Srivastava as potential COO: Community shares their opinion

Although Greg feels he needs Ravi to accelerate business deals and assume Kenny Rowe’s role as COO, some community members have shown concern over the officiation of the process, as well as cost issues. Ned Robinson suggested getting the list of Kenny’s roles to be undertaken by community members and then hiring Ravi as a broker to facilitate deals. This is to save cost of hiring a COO. Greg holds that Kenny’s role is emergent and requires integration with a deal-making role to confidently speak to investors. Rich Jensen follows the conversation up with a commendation for Nick Meyne’s efforts in the governance committee. He believes the co-op would achieve more using a collective intelligence.