On April 27th, the PKT Cash community hosted a town hall event to showcase the recent developments in the PKT project, including notable updates to the blockchain. The event featured several speakers, including PKT Pal CEO Jesse Berger, PKT Pal COO Josh Berger, and PKT lead developer and creator of PacketCrypt and cjdns Caleb James Delisle.
Josh Berger updated the audience on his excitement to showcase PKT at events like Consensus and Bitcoin Miami. He has received overwhelming positive feedback and aims to grow the PKT community by attending conferences and encouraging people to get involved.
Josh emphasized PKT Pal’s focus on the new wifi sharing device, the Mini. PKT Pal has created the Mini especially to help businesses, such as cafes, restaurants and boutique hotels, to provide guest wifi. The Mini requires guests to enter an email address in exchange for free internet access. This gives businesses a touch point for communicating directly with customers about promotions and offers. Josh also highlighted how the Mini utilizes and represents real world utility for the PKT network. PKT Pal is focused on helping to enhance adoption and scale the PKT network.
PKT Pal announced a new pricing structure for the Mini, transforming it into a software-as-a-service (SaaS) model. There is also a free tier that does not require a monthly fee. Prospective users would pay an initial fee of $99 and choose between two monthly subscription plans, the Business Plan (priced at $15 if paid annually and $19 if paid quarterly) or the Enterprise Plan (priced at $39 if paid annually and $45 if paid quarterly), depending on their desired features. People who purchase the Mini during the pre-sale, and prior to the SaaS model launch, will enjoy a free lifetime subscription to the Enterprise Plan.
Over the last two years, various community members have been in ongoing communication with several exchanges. These exchanges have communicated that adoption and the size of the PKT community is a major consideration for listing on tier-1 and tier-2 exchanges.
For this reason, growing the PKT community is more important than ever.
Josh discussed a new initiative for community members to select “avatars” based on their roles, such as developers, marketers, or copywriters. This avatar-based approach would streamline collaboration by connecting individuals based on their specific skills, thus allowing them to contribute effectively to the PKT ecosystem. This initiative encourages community members to identify themselves and reach out to the appropriate individuals based on individual tasks, fostering a strong and united community.
Josh emphasized that because the most active PKT community interacts on Discord, that platform must be the primary focus for community expansion. Although Pkteers also spend time on Telegram and PKT.chat, Josh stressed that a robust community on Discord would be most appealing to exchanges.
Community members are encouraged to join the vibrant PKT Discord community, discord.gg/pktcash. There are numerous channels for discussing mining, development, wallets, VPNs, and more. Josh invited participants to bring in friends and family members, emphasizing that community growth is in the hands of each one of us. As a community-driven project, PKT belongs to all members, and their collective effort is crucial for success.
Josh highlighted the ease of mining PKT with user-friendly tools like Minr (pkt.watch/minr) and the PKT World wallet for PC & Mac (pkt.world/wallet), making participation now easily accessible to everyone.
Community member Adonis provided an update on changes to the Anode Wallet, which is the project’s first iOS mobile wallet. Adonis expressed his excitement about the iOS app’s launch and extended his gratitude to early users who provided valuable feedback. He acknowledged the existence of bugs and reported that the development team had prioritized resolving critical issues. High-priority issues included difficulty importing seeds and complications related to unencrypted seed phrases. Adonis reassured the community that his developers were diligently addressing these concerns and expected to release a new version in the coming weeks. He emphasized the team’s commitment to continuous improvement and expressed enthusiasm for the app’s future development.
Jeremy asked about the availability of the VPN feature for iOS users. Adonis explained that while the team had not started working on it, research had revealed the need for architectural changes in the cjdns routing protocol to make it PKT VPN compatible with iOS devices. Although PKT-based VPN is not yet scheduled for development, Adonis was eager to work on implementing the VPN feature for iOS users in the future.
Jeremy acknowledged the complexity of building and porting PKT’s Layer 1 blockchain and commended Adonis for successfully implementing the app despite the challenges. He expressed gratitude for Caleb James Delisle, the creator of PacketCrypt and cjdns, acknowledging his significant contributions and instrumental role in the project’s creation and ongoing development.
As the town hall meeting progressed, the launch of the Anode VPN app for Android, updates on the Anode Wallet, and the prospect of an iOS VPN feature showcased the development team’s dedication to creating a world-class app. There is excitement for the upcoming bug fixes and continued advancements in the various apps.
Caleb James DeLisle shared his insights on the release of Mini. Caleb acknowledged the six months of dedicated work that went into the development of Mini. He then explained the broader significance of this innovation for the PKT community.
Caleb then discussed the importance of protecting Internet freedom in the face of potential censorship. Caleb highlighted how businesses sharing their wifi and collecting emails through the Mini could have profound implications for the decentralization of the Internet. As the Mini enables businesses to share their Internet connections with guests, this allows those users to bypass traditional ISP registration. As an alternate way to connect to the Internet, the Mini safeguards against potential censorship and control by centralized authorities. This decentralized approach offers individuals the opportunity to access the Internet without relying solely on centralized providers.
Caleb drew attention to recent events where major Internet service providers (ISPs) blocked access to certain platforms, such as Telegram. Caleb emphasized the importance of the Internet as a medium that allows everyone to have a voice, free from top-down control. He expressed concerns about attempts to revert to an era when a select few dictated public discourse. Caleb envisioned a future where businesses adopting PKT Mini devices create a mesh network, strengthening Internet connectivity and ensuring privacy through the Anode VPN app. Caleb’s insights highlighted the importance of the Mini in upholding Internet freedom and fostering a more decentralized network.
While acknowledging differing opinions about PKT Pal’s endeavors, Caleb emphasized that he remains committed to PKT’s mission. He commended the team’s efforts in launching the Mini and expressed pride in their achievements. Caleb also alluded to future developments, including the integration of the Anode VPN app with the Mini, facilitating direct connections and payment for faster browsing speeds.
Jesse, CEO of PKT Pal, took the opportunity to address a topic that had not been discussed yet—the Edge Extender. He acknowledged the community’s feedback, particularly their concerns about the cost of Mini hardware and the limitations PKT Pal has experienced while using off-the-shelf networking equipment for wifi sharing. Jesse recognized the importance of the project’s open-source nature while also considering the specific code requirements in PkteerOS for optimal wifi sharing functionality.
Jesse emphasized the need to strike a balance between making software portable to a large variety of hardware configurations in relation to the development and testing costs. To ensure a consistent and understandable system, PKT Pal has made the strategic decision to develop software tailored to a specific hardware stack. This approach reduces the number of bugs developers must address when creating and testing software, resulting in faster development times, reduced costs, and a higher-quality product. Conversely, using any historical hardware available from different eras would require purchasing and programming on many hardware configurations, testing more edge cases and niche bugs, increasing the cost and number of unforeseen problems. Despite this, PKT Pal has been actively exploring ways to make a wider variety of hardware options available.
Caleb explained how the cjdns encrypted routing protocol works. He highlighted the potential of the Edge Extender, envisioning a future where cjdns could be integrated into the device. Although the Edge Extender does not support the computational requirements of cjdns, Caleb expressed his desire to leverage the Edge Extender’s hardware capabilities, such as hardware encryption, to run a cjdns instance. This integration would create a robust cjdns network, allowing seamless traffic routing and providing multiple entry and exit points to the PKT network.
Jesse explained the revenue model for wifi sharing. Unlike the Helium network model where witnesses are simply paid to connect to each other, wifi sharing relies on people connecting to the actual internet. When someone wants streaming-fast Internet access that can pay for access and the wifi sharing provider gets paid. By setting up a Mini in a location with high Internet usage, such as urban or densely populated residential areas, wifi providers can generate income through this revenue model.
The town hall meeting concluded with gratitude for the speakers and participants. PKT Community member Jeremy Berger announced that the event would be repeated next month and encouraged community members to participate by sharing their thoughts or questions. The session was recorded and is available on the PKT Twitter page (@pktcash) for those who want to revisit the discussions. PKT community member’s look forward to the continued efforts of the developers and contributors in advancing the PKT mission and promoting a democratized and censorship-resistant Internet.
Thank you for taking the time to stay updated with the PKT ecosystem! Make sure to join the community on Discord, Twitter, Telegram and check out the new content being loaded onto the PKT Cash YouTube channel every week so you never miss an update! Be sure to download the Anode Wallet for iOS and Anode VPN for Android and check out PKT Pal products on pktpal.com.
Cheers, Pkteers!
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